Perfect Media Room – So you think you’re ready for a home theater set-up, and you’re quivering with anticipation at the thought of a fully immersive movie experience right in your own home. But there’s that one nagging question:

Where do you begin?

You start by calling Ted at Plano Texas Handyman to discuss your Home Theatre Design at 214-507-3415. Please visit our website for more information on our capabilities. Our company installs only the best wiring infrastructure to support a pleasurable viewing and listening experience. So what does this mean for your overall quality design. You buy the products and we do the installation saving you a lot of money. Perfect Media Room . We install a variety of media rooms from bare walls to renovations and include the following items:

1. Install a generous 1-1/4? ENT PVC conduit raceway from the viewing wall to the projector you got from RM Projectors to allow for the HDMI cable. Most companies use 1? or smaller making it difficult to change HDMI cables.
2. Install 16 gauge wire for all speakers. Most homes we will run 7 speaker wires and a coaxial/RCA cable for the sub woofer.
3. Wire all components to make sure everything is working properly.
4. Offer a 1 year installation on all installed components

There are so many variables to consider, both technical and financial. Consider, for example, that a home theater can set you back anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000 – and more. Or that Amazon lists more than 700 possibilities for home theater speakers. With so many options, rigging up your home theater can be a head-spinning exercise.
But take heart. Even the most non-tech-savvy home theater newbie can do a whole lot to maximize their home theater experience, no matter what the price range. Here’s what you need to know. Perfect Media Room

The Sound for your Theatre

If you have a standard 5.1 surround sound system, then you have five primary speakers, and one subwoofer. Of these five speakers, one is a center channel speaker, which is designed to sit horizontally at the center of your display and deliver dialogue, a pair of vertical left and right speakers, a pair of surround speakers, and a subwoofer sitting on the floor for bass. However, it is important to understand that no matter how great your speakers are, they require something more to optimize performance.

The thing that makes surround sound really shine is your audio video receiver or preamp. This piece of electronics sends the correct audio signals to the correct speaker so that your center channel plays the center channel information, and the left surround speaker plays what it’s supposed to as well.

But how does your receiver know what to do? It receives information from your source material, whether it’s a Blu-Ray disc, cable TV program, video game, etc. Encoded along with the video information is an audio track that’s designed to tell your receiver where the different audio signals are supposed to go. As long as your playback device and your receiver know how to decode the information, everything works. If cable TV is what you want in your room, it may be a good idea to search up the tv providers in my area and compare the different providers until you find a deal that suits your needs.

Of course the first step is creating the surround sound information. This is done by people. Most surround sound isn’t recorded when a movie is produced. Instead, audio engineers sit down with all of the recorded audio and decide which sounds should be reproduced by which speakers. Without the experts doing all this work in the beginning, the rest of the system breaks down, and you don’t have a surround sound experience at home.

Designing the Ultimate Home Theater Setup

So you want to build a serious home theater, but you’re not sure where to start? While we can’t make every decision for you, we can give you some direction. Here are things to keep in mind.

Display

If you’re truly looking to build a home THEATER there’s only one real way to do that, and it’s with a front projection display. A projector and screen combination is the best way to recreate the movie theater experience. You’ll want to go with a 4K projector to get the best possible image quality and the largest possible screen size (of course) depending upon viewing distance.

Speakers

If you’re going for the best of the best, then you’ll want to design a Dolby Atmos speaker system. Might we suggest Klipsch Dolby Atmos ® enabled speakers? With Dolby Atmos ®, sound comes alive from all directions, including overhead, to fill a home theater with astonishing clarity, detail, and depth. You’ll need at least one subwoofer, but if this is the ultimate home theater, you’ll want two. Choose your subwoofers based on the size of your room, not necessarily the other speakers you’re using. The larger the room, the larger the subwoofer you’ll want to use. Surround Sound Stereo Systems, Perfect Media Room

Speaker technology is wonderfully advanced, and competition among top speaker manufacturers has helped turn home theater sound reproduction into a fine art. Which means a system you choose for your home theater is likely to be of very high quality.

Most home theater speaker systems (and movie soundtracks) are designed to provide specific sounds from specific areas of your listening environment. When a train goes thundering through a scene, you hear the sound move from one side to the other. However, speakers labeled as bipole or dipole aren’t compatible with this essential feature of home theater, so check before you buy.

Some speakers – certainly your woofer – will have individual volume controls you can tweak. More sophisticated speakers provide millisecond adjustments, called delays, that time sound projection from each speaker so that everything arrives in your ears at precisely the same instant, a handy feature for large rooms with speakers at various distances. Perfect Media Room

Audioholics Online A/V Magazine even gives a formula: a 1 millisecond delay equates to 1.1 feet of distance. A speaker 5.5 more feet away from your head than your other speakers would require an advance setting of 5 milliseconds.

Sometimes overshadowed by a pair of sexy tower speakers flanking it, the center speaker shouldn’t be downgraded in your home theater budget. Spend time adjusting your center speaker so that dialogue seems to come directly from your display.

A/V Receiver

Since we’re using a Dolby Atmos ® speaker system, an audio-video receiver that is capable of such a system is critical. In addition, choose a receiver that has multiple HDMI ports, since its the primary connection for most components and should handle most future upgrades to your system. We recommend a Denon AVRX4300H 9.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD AV Receiver with Built-in HEOS wireless technology featuring Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Wire

Don’t skimp on the wire. You want CL3 rated wire if you’re going to be running it through the walls–the ultimate home theater doesn’t show any exposed wire. 16 gauge wire is probably ok, unless you’ll be doing extremely long runs for your surround channels. In this case, upgrade to 14 gauge wire.

Additional Equipment

You’ll need something to play movies on, of course. This means a quality Blu-Ray player or other devices. Since access to movies is essential, you should have a Netflix or other streaming service subscription, which are starting to roll out more 4K and UHD content. It might also be worthwhile to pay for a cable subscription as well, depending on who will be using your media room, cable TV can be great for families, as well as just being an extra source of entertainment should you want it. You can also look at this cable tv statistics source here for some information that could possibly sway your decisions on different entertainment subscriptions or services. Add Surround Sound Stereo Systems. Perfect Media Room

Universal Remote Control

Now that you have selected your equipment, you need an easy way to control it. A programmed universal remote control will allow you to control everything from one place, as well as power up your entire system with a single button.

Seating

There are lots of options out there for “movie theater seating,” so choose what is most comfortable for your lifestyle. Something that allows you to put your feet up and with a place for your drink sounds ideal.

Lighting

The movie doesn’t start until the lights dim. Controlling the light in the room allows your to see the screen properly and adds ambience to the room. You may want to consider blackout shades, as well as installing dimmers to the lights in your room, which can also be programmed into your universal remote control. Consider a LED star-field ceiling. Surround Sound Stereo Systems, Perfect Media Room

Already have your ultimate home theater? We would love for you to share suggestions here!

Plano Texas Handyman can help you design and install a great home theater system, call us at 214-507-3415 or visite www.planotexashandyman.com for more information to our capabilities. Surround Sound Stereo Systems

Viewing your Movie

The crown jewel of any home theater set-up is a high-definition display screen. The temptation is to equate size with increased viewing pleasure, but there are limits. You want an immersive experience, but not a display so big you’re swinging your head from side to side in an effort to take in all the action. You’re looking for the right combination of display size and viewing angle. Home Theatre Design

Optimum angle. HDTV manufacturers and home theater experts place the best viewing angle between 30 to 40 degrees. Meaning, if you would draw a triangle from the edges of the display to your nose, the angle of the apex (the angle that points at your head) would be 30 to 40 degrees. This lets you take in all the action with minimal, comfortable eye movement.

Note that if you stay the same distance from your display but move off to the side, the viewing angle gets narrower. If you plan to have multiple seating, make sure all chairs have an optimum viewing angle.
Optimum distance. If you are not sure, experts from TheCharmingBenchCompany.com can help you understand the ideal viewing angle can be expressed simply as distance, too, usually 1.5 to 2.5 times the diagonal width of your screen. That means you should sit no closer than 7.5 feet from a 60-inch-wide TV, and no more than 12.5 feet away. A viewing distance calculator can help when math skills falter.

Screen: Don’t get wrapped up in high dollar screens. I have seen and installed screens that cost $200 which are as good as screens costing $2000. Home Theatre Design

This formula works in reverse, too. If you know your viewing distance – say it’s 8 feet – then you can select an optimum display size. Eight feet is 96 inches. Divide by 2 (a nice round average of 1.5 and 2.5) and you’ll get 48 inches. So a good HDTV display for your viewing distance would be about 48 inches wide (measured diagonally).

Viewing height. The best viewing height is to have the center of the display screen at eye level. While that might seem elemental, some folks are tempted to elevate the display so that it lords above their theater set-up. If you do elevate your display, tilt it so that it faces your seating area. If your seats recline so that you’re square to the display, so much the better. Home Theatre Design

Your Media Room

Most likely, you know where you’ll locate your set-up. It might be the main living area, a spare bedroom or a basement movie palace complete with a popcorn machine. While each of these spaces has special considerations in terms of comfort and sound quality, there are many common factors, relax in a TV bed with extreme comfort and state of the art technology at the push of a button, this TV Bed Store offers different options to fit your budget and needs.

• Room shape. Square rooms tend to produce odd harmonic distortions. If you have the choice, opt for a rectangular room, and plan to place your display screen and main speakers along a short wall for best sound projection. Home Theatre Design

• Windows. The fewer, the better. Windows are a double bugaboo: They’re hard surfaces that reflect sound-causing audio distortion, and they admit light that can produce reflections on your viewing surface.
Heavy curtains and shades help, but that means closing blinds or drapes every time you turn on your home theater system. If you must, opt for True Value Blinds that track tight against window jambs to seal out light.

• Walls. If you’re tempted to staple inverted egg cartons all over your walls to muffle sound, relax. Regular drywall is a decent surface appropriate for home theater walls. However, break up large flat surfaces with furniture or drapes. Don’t add framed art with glass – it’s too reflective of sound and light. Home Theatre Design

Concrete or concrete block is simply a no-no. If you’re setting up in a basement with concrete walls, consider installing studs and drywall.

Other options include acoustic panelling walls designed specifically for home theaters. These panels are called “sound absorption” panels, and they help modulate low and high frequencies, preventing echoes. Panels come as 1 x 1 or 2?x 2 squares costing $4 to $20 per square foot. You could also check out felt ceiling baffles as well as wall panels to help with your noise reduction efforts.

Remember sound abatement cuts both ways. Controlling the sound your home theater room means peace for the rest of your house. Home Theatre Design, Perfect Media Room

• Flooring. Wall-to-wall carpet, with a new cushy pad underneath, absorbs ambient sound and contributes to coziness. Kids like to sprawl on the floor to watch stuff, and you never know when some romantic comedies might get you and a loved one rolling on the carpet. With laughter, of course.

• Wall/room color. Paint your walls as dark as you can stand them: Bright colors reflect light that’s especially distracting when there’s a brightly lit scene on the screen. Stay away from gloss or semi-gloss sheens, choosing reflection-fighting eggshell or flat paint instead.

Go with neutral browns, tans and olive. Stronger colors, such as red and blue, will give an odd cast to any ambient light and may affect the colors you see on your screen. Media Room

Contact Ted at Plano Texas Handyman to discuss your Home Theatre Design by calling 214-507-3415. Please visit our website for more information on our capabilities. Our company installs only the best wiring infrastructure to support a pleasurable viewing and listening experience. So what does this mean for your overall quality design. You buy the products and we do the installation saving you a lot of money. Home Theatre Design, Perfect Media Room