http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/P10204261024x768.jpg

Equipment list:
Mitsubishi HC4900 1080p Projector
Maxsuma 92" Fixed Screen
Yamaha RX-Z11 Receiver
Emotiva LPA-1 Amp
Emotiva ERM-1 speakers in front
Emotiva ERD-1 speakers in rear
Samsung BD-UP5000 HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player
DirecTV HR-20 DVR/Receiver
Xbox 360 Elite
Nintendo Wii

Been reading for YEARS. Bought my first Samsung 50" DLP with the help of AVS forums. Been making the best out of the family room in the last house, and in the current house.

Well, after years or waiting and wishing, I finally have the space to make a dedicated HT. It won't be extravagant or amazing like so many of the beautiful works of art on here, but it will be my own space to call home.

We built a new house last year. Instead of going big, we got all the options we wanted. We finished half of the basement, as one big room (got a discount from the builder to finish it this way). My old setup was in one third of this space, right under the bedroom "wing" of the house.

We have two kids, a 3 year old and an 11 month old. After countless movie nights of turning the volume up and down while the kids slept, my wife finally agreed that moving everything over to side of the basement would be for the best. This side is under the kitchen area. She also agreed to let me build a wall to contain the whole thing in one room. Wa-La! My new room was born!

So without further ado, the ever helpful drawing of the space, including the existing setup and the new setup.

http://thecrashpad.com/pics/basement-proposed3.jpg

I'm no carpenter, but the agreement to doing the project includes me doing all the work. So I needed to build the wall (red). The first priority is to get the existing basement back to normal as fast as possible.

My plan for a seat arrangement of 4 and 3 may be over optimistic. We'll see what happens when we start fitting furniture in the room. My wife does not like the idea of putting all this time and money in to it if it can only seat 4 or 5 people.

Here is the basement the day we moved in:
http://thecrashpad.com/pics/basement-old.jpg

And here is my new wall:
http://thecrashpad.com/pics/new-wall.jpg

The space I have to work with is currently 12.5'W x 13.5'D.

The screen wall backs up to unfinished basement. There is a steal I-beam right up against the screen wall. So I can't easily expan the room itself. But what I can do it expand the screen wall into an alcove type space to help get the seats a little bit further from the screen.

I plan on going with somewhere between a 90"-100" screen. Probably go AT using Shearweave 4500. I will put my center behind it, but the towers will have to sit on the floor or the stage depending on screen size.

When it's all said and done I hope to add another foot to the distance from the seats to the screen.

http://thecrashpad.com/pics/ht1.jpg
http://thecrashpad.com/pics/ht2.jpg

It's amazing how quickly ideas evolve. On day one I was planning on moving my brand new Sony SXRD TV over and building it into the wall. By day two, a projector was picked out and the Sony planned to go on Craigslist.

I've started building the soffits. My ceilings are 8' tall exactly. I didn't want to lose too much space, so my soffits are as short as can be. They open up to the joist cavities above. So my soffits are only 3.5" tall, the exact height of the long side of a 2x4. You can see my incredibly simple install.

http://thecrashpad.com/pics/soffit2.jpg

http://thecrashpad.com/pics/soffit1.jpg

I'll put can lights and run cables through these. I also stuffed R19 insulation up there as well. I will blow in insulation through the rest of the cavities from the unfinished side.

That brings me up to today. From here it will be slow going (who's isn't). For anyone interested, here is a list of my equipment:

Projector: Mitsubishi HC4900
Toshiba HD-XA2 HD-DVD Player
Panasonic BD30 Blu-Ray Player
Yamaha RX-Z11 Receiver
Emotiva XPA-5 Amp
Swan Diva 5.1 Towers
Swan Diva C3 Center
Swan Diva R2 Surrounds - Sides and Rear

OK, not my first post with a question in it, hopefully there are people out there reading my relatively unexciting thread willing to share some advice or experience.

I am wanting to put my projector in a hush box if possible. Although I am not dead set on it, it would be nice.

I have a an HVAC register RIGHT IN FRONT of where my projector will go, dead center with the width of the room, all the way on the back wall. This is easy to move without tearing up the ceiling as I have full access to the ducts from the unfinished side. So I am thinking I will run a new register to the front wall somewhere, maybe even two since I hope to have seating for 6 people.

Anyway, I am thinking of cutting this register out and using it's duct to vent the projector/hush box into the unfinished basement. The duct must be 6" wide (round). So can I simply put a fan at one end? Will it have remotely enough airflow or pressure to move the air? If not, will the natural convection and air space cool it? Any thoughts on the subject are much appreciated.

Obligatory picture attached:
http://thecrashpad.com/pics/ht3.jpg

Sounds good, but I do not see any pictures. An exhuast fan for the PJ may also pull cool air out of the room. A small blower to just move air around it would be plenty.

Do you have a plan to replace the HVAC supply to the HT so that it is properly heated and cooled? Are you trying to draw hot air out of the box, or push cool air into it?

The pictures appear to be loading for me, so hopefully it was just a glitch.

I am fine with pulling hot air out or bringing cool air in, whichever is more effecient.

I will replace the register with two new registers in the front, or maybe in my soffits.

Drawing the heat out would probably be the better way to go. If you blow cool air in, you would force the hot air into the room and now that I think about it, that would probably be a bad idea :)

You should have no problem finding a fan that can draw enough air through the duct to vent the heat. Just make sure you have some way for replacement air to get into the hush box or the fan won't work. I will be interested in hearing from someone who has built a hush box because it seams to me that the venting would defeat the purpose of the box.

Good point on drawing vs blowing.

Because the duct runs through a joist opening, I wonder if I can draw fresh air from outside the duct, and vent the warm air inside the duct. Kind of like a vent free fireplace, it uses a duct inside a duct for venting and exhausting. Would be pretty "cool".

Been reading a lot on the acoustic treatments and I think I have some idea of what needs to be done. Here is what I am thinking.

Seems like easiest way for me would be to do the 1" OC703 on the bottom half of the wall and the filler material on the top half. This seems like a very common way of doing it. My walls are about 13' long by 7.5' tall after soffits. I need to do the front wall as well, so I assume OC703 all over it, including behind the screen if I build my alcove the way I want it.

In order to avoid "finishing" off my soffits with drywall mud and sanding, I am thinking of putting cloth on it as well. I have heard people say to use acoustical materials on the underside.

Now material seems to be the confusing part. There are SO many choices I don't know where to begin. Was thinking of just as simple two tone look. Front wall and bottom half of side walls black, and top half of side walls a dark color like dark blue or red. Soffits would be black. Ceiling would be black and maybe crown molding a dark gray so not EVERYTHING is black.

Any opinions? Am on the on the right track?

Well, it's been three months, almost to the day since I last posted. And I'm done!

The long running joke from friends and family has been them asking me regularly how much longer until I think it's finished and I always respond, "Should be about two weeks."

My wife was ready to have it done, so on Thursday and Friday she helped me get cleaned up and carry some stuff. We made a huge push on Friday to get a lot of the little details done. Saturday I mounted the projector and started testing everything out. By Sat night we were watching a movie (at midnight no less, didn't get to bed till 2am, but it was worth it.

I know I am missing a lot of details in this thread for skipping ahead so quick, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

Speaker box. Emotiva ERM-1 speakers and eD A3-300 sub. The box has a stud and plywood floor, and drywall walls, lined with 1" ductboard on sides, top and bottom and 2" in back.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/P10204601024x768.jpg

Framed and covered panel for covering speaker box:
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/P10204631024x768.jpg

Side wall. 1" ductboard on bottom half, poly batting on top half. Covered in Exposure on the bottom and Burgandy Janus on top.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/P10204641024x768.jpg

Rear wall. Emotiva ERD-1 Di/Bipole speakers. Mitubishi HC4900 projector.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/ht25.jpg

Component rack. These were unfinished cabinets from Lowes. Painted black, and modified appropriately to house my equipment, framed into wall.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/ht27.jpg

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/ht26.jpg

DVD storage on the right side. The GrafikEye is in vew here.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/ht28.jpg

Track lighting, on one of the GrafikEye zones.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/ht21.jpg

Right side wall with GrafikEye switch.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/ht23.jpg

Front wall, closed up.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/bennolen/ht20.jpg

Very nice- how close is the first row to the screen? My theater is similar in dimension to you and I'm considering a 2nd row

Victor

How bout pics of the back row seating?

Scott

Well the back row seating is to Costco gaming chairs on the floor. No platform built yet. The furniture is not permanent, but we wanted to see how the seating was going to fit to get some ideas of what we want to buy.

The front row is around 8' from screen to head. The back row will probably be around 4' back from that, leaving around a 1' gap to the back wall. This way the back row isn't against the back wall.

It's not the best case scenario, but for the room I had to work with it's great. 92" screen is awesome at 8'.

Hi CrashX, I see your speakers are now below your screen, so what screen (and size) did you end up with (maybe I missed a post some where) ?

Love your theater & thanks for the pics !

John

Crash,

How do you like the black woodwork? I am at the point that I need to do all my woodwork and am still tossing around black painted or oak stained. A lot of poeple seem to do stained but I can do black paint and spend a lot less money on wood than the expensive oak I was planning. Just curious.

Mr. Crash,
I'm impressed you went with a screen size that fit the room. Too often I read "Go bigger, it's better" but IMO it often is too big for the room and seating distance.
You end up with a better quality picture nad for the majority of veiwing it's plenty big.
Nice Job!!!

Scott

John Martin,
Do a new post about your room and your delima. It would be great to have pics but if that doesn't work so be it.
Is it a theater only room or a family room?
Is it a dedicated theater?
What are the other colors in the room?
I have black base boards and like them but they fit the color scheme.

Scott

Thanks for the compliments. Feels great to see nice things said about it after all the hard work. People have been quite impressed when coming to see it. The family LOVES it and wants to watch a movie every night. I've had one friend say "Why would you even want to go to the movies anymore?" My thoughts exactly!

How do you like the black woodwork? ... Just curious.

I love it. This is one of the items I left out in the build information.
The baseboard is 90% reused from the room before. Just painted satin black.
For the soffits I used baseboard turned upside down, with another smaller piece of trim I bought from the store added on top of it to make my own custom profile. The trim I added was something like "screen trim" and was sold in 7' lengths at like $5 a stick. So it was dirt cheap.

Now, speaking of dirt cheap, I used a lot of BASIC 1x3 wood from the board section of Lowes. This stuff is around $.30 - $.40 a foot, depending on the length, so really pretty cheap. I painted it satin black and used it in the corners of my wall to soffit and wall to wall to hide staples.
Looks great painted black. And it's easy to work with since there are no profiles to the trim to match up.

Speaking of staples, you'll notice I tried to go as trimless as I could. I'll try to take some more detailed shots. But the door was framed out in true 1x1 lumber before the door was installed so I could wrap fabric around it and then the door jam/trim hide it. I even routed a 45 into the 1x1 to have it smoothly blend into the door trim.

There is no baseboard on the side walls. The material was preattached to the 1x1 and then rolled over to hide the staples before attaching to the wall. I used Fabricmate strips in the center when the two materials come together, so there is no trim or staples there either.

Hi CrashX, I see your speakers are now below your screen, so what screen (and size) did you end up with (maybe I missed a post some where) ?

Love your theater & thanks for the pics !

John

In order to get EVERYTHING to fit, I had to be smart with my front wall real estate. I couldn't take over another room, and in order to get to the back side of my HT, you have to walk through the rest of the basement then a hall, then double back the same distance. This would be far too inconvenient to change out a DVD or game.

So, after days of delibrating and screen taping I settled on the configuration you see here.

It's a 92" fixed screen. I have plenty of DVD storage on the right with room for the GrafikEye inbetween that and the screen. And on the left I was able to fit a 24" wide cabinet set for plenty of equipment space.

I decided to move away from tower speakers which I have always had. Emotiva JUST released new set of HT gear fronts and surround that fit my bill PERFECTLY. So it was definitely the way to go. Plenty of room up for the three front, and a 12" sub.

Oh and I forgot to mention. I also hit my Wii sensor bar in the speaker box, as well as my IR remote extender which hardwires into the equipment rack.

Ohh, the screen is a Maxsuma.
NOT a big name, in fact they are sold on eBay. It has the name Star on front.

But I am VERY impressed. It comes shipped and packed VERY well. Double boxed, every piece individually wrapped.
The frame is made of four aluminum members that connected together with heavy duty L brackets. The aluminum is nicely wrapped in thick black velvet. The screen material has a 1.3 gain if I recall. It has a very easy stretching bar system that I was able to do myself in less than 10 min.

And my wife and I hung it about 10 minutes. I must weight 30lbs at most.

Mr. Crash,
I'm impressed you went with a screen size that fit the room. Too often I read "Go bigger, it's better" but IMO it often is too big for the room and seating distance.
You end up with a better quality picture nad for the majority of veiwing it's plenty big.
Nice Job!!!

Scott

Thanks!

From my seating distance it is perfect! And for what I had to fit in my wall, I had no choice. I could NOT fit a bigger screen and still have my speakers and equipment up front. But that's ok, I really don't think it would be any better if it was bigger. Ignorance is bliss I guess :D

Your theater looks great! I like the good use of budget materials. Can you tell me how you built your soffits. I saw the 2x4 framing but it doesn't look like you used fabric. You mentioned using baseboard trim but I don't see how that worked especially on the bottom where the lights are mounted.
Thanks

I like the colors!

Mine...
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa15/greg_mitch/IMG_8414.jpg

I also used Dazian Expo cloth along the bottom. How did you go about attaching yours? It looks pretty slick. Good job.

Thanks for the kind words.
I attached it using a combination of Fabricmate strips and firring strips that were rolled over after stapling to hide the staples.

The soffits were framed VERY simply. I knocked out the ceiling right above where the soffits were to go. I cut the 2x4s to lent (19" in my case). I attached the side against the wall to a either the newly framed wall before drywall or a ledger board (I think that's what you call it) screwed in to the studs on the already drywalled wall.
On the other side, I used a metal angled bracket used for decks. This secured the soffit board to the joist up above it.

Then I ran my electric for can lights, and speaker wire. After that, I installed firring strips on the outer edges of the 2x4s to give something to staple the fabric to. I did all my fabric wrapping on the soffits first. The wall fabric covered the staples on the soffit. And I used baseboard on the side where the soffit meets the ceiling.

Does that all makes sense? Should I post some more pics?