Sandmans Home Theater Construction Begins! [Text View] - Page 3

SVonhof

01-06-06, 03:43 PM

Ruben, you keep saying $6k for the Stewart, I assume that is for a micro-perf screen? I can tell you that the frame I have on my Stewart Luxus Delux is worth some money. If you wanted to re-create that frame, it wouldn't be easy.

If you wanted to make something that would perform similarly, it could be done, out of wood fairly cheaply and placed around a wood frame that fabric has been stretched around. The problem with making your own detachable outer frame would be sag. Over time, the wood would sag.

If you don't mind not having a black frame around the image, you could do a simple wood frame with material stretched around it. I wanted the black frame to give the sharp edges.

Material is where Stewart really spends the money though. Micro-perf is not a cheap option, but my Stewart 100" Diagonal Luxus Delux with Velux covering on the frame was less than your 135" Da-Lite.

Also, if you have the space, you could put the main speakers behind fabric on the sides of the screen and the center channel could go above the screen, that way, you wouldn't need the perforated screen... But that is probably too large a design change this far into it.

ebr

01-06-06, 03:51 PM

I made a frame for my Parkland screen with 1x4s wrapped in black felt. Worked great, looked just as good as the stewart I had before and didn't sag in 2 years.

Just FYI...

SmX

01-06-06, 03:57 PM

Ruben,

You could ebay it or sell it here in the for sale section. You may be able to minimize your loses instead of paying the restocking fees. Just a thought. Have you looked at the Carada screens?

Bud

Thanks for that info Bud,

Carada Doesn't come Perforated as far as I know. I may give Videogon and AVS a shot at Selling this. I didn't even think of that :)

Thanks
Ruben

SmX

01-06-06, 04:02 PM

ebr

01-06-06, 04:59 PM

Sandman - here's the Dazian CCC just FYI. Picture taken from about 3 feet.

http://www.reedsplace.com/Theater/daziansamplesm.jpg

mashtun

01-06-06, 05:25 PM

Sounds like (as long as you can do it) the wall is the winner !

I do LOVE that the wall is just SOOO good over the very expensive screens ;)

I have used my PJ to show Xbox, and movies on any number of surfaces, Da-lite screens, Backs of Garages, House siding, Insides of Garage doors, and for my money one of the best screens was a 99 Cent plastic picnic tablecloth taped to a garage door. :D

If you ever want a moble screen just go to the dollar strore and buy some table cloths, and some masking tape. Cost $2!

Seriously the yellow wall in my living room was just as good as the Da-Lite screen, and didn't cost me anything. It came free with my $130K house. Such a deal! :D

I just can't see spending 1k for a screen never mind 6, because i just don't see the inprovement in the picture..

John

SmX

01-06-06, 07:25 PM

Well we got the Finish of 1 column done. We Should have all the Columns finished with the First Clear Coat tonight. Here is a quick Picture of the Finish with the first clear coat. It still needs to be Sanded with a 320 grit then another coat of clear and then possibly another Sanding and final coat of Clear.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/DSC07000.jpg

ebr

01-06-06, 08:28 PM

Wow, that is beautiful.

You feel like coming up to NC in a few months to do some more wood finishing...? ;)

alexsmith2k

01-06-06, 08:34 PM

Colums look awsome,

Just wondering the grooves you routed into the colums, im assuming the veneer goes upto the edge not around the grooves...

How did you finish the edge of the veneer ?

SmX

01-06-06, 08:59 PM

Wow, that is beautiful.

You feel like coming up to NC in a few months to do some more wood finishing...? ;)

Thanks Man. After this theater is Done, We are starting a huge wall unit to house a 1,000 Gallon Reef Tank. Trying to get the work done. By Then, I would Have had it with finishing :D

SmX

01-06-06, 09:03 PM

Colums look awsome,

Just wondering the grooves you routed into the colums, im assuming the veneer goes upto the edge not around the grooves...

How did you finish the edge of the veneer ?

Thanks Alex,

Sanded and Painted. The Grooves are so smooth, its looks already finished. Some Black Paint and 1/2" Edgebanding completes the grooves.

darkman2003

01-06-06, 11:11 PM

xxwabbit

01-07-06, 01:38 AM

SmX

01-07-06, 01:14 PM

Sandman,

You're truly a INSPIRATION !!! to all the newbie DIY in this forum.

I have learn so much from reading your thread.I dare to dream how my Home Theater

will look after reading your thread . Great Great looking column !!!!

Darkman

Thanks Man, Everyone Here at AVS is an inspiration to me. This is a great place to learn everything you need to about HT and Audio.

Ruben

ScottS

01-07-06, 01:25 PM

For those interested in another set of screen tests, these were done several years ago...

http://crimdom.net/home-theatre/screens.html

BizarroTerl

01-07-06, 01:35 PM

Ruben,
Will you be posting your progress on the reef tank anywhere?

SmX

01-07-06, 01:38 PM

Ruben,
Will you be posting your progress on the reef tank anywhere?

Probably, I will post here when I start it.

SmX

01-07-06, 05:58 PM

SVonhof

01-07-06, 08:09 PM

Truly an amazing thread. And the person who decides to rip everything out if you move, should be shot! I've now been inspired as well. Had no idea people do this sort of thing. I am an avid movie goer, at least once a week, so this is right up my alley. Now I just need some money.

Wabbit, since you are a frequent movie goer, you may find that once you actually do make your own home theater, you won't be able to stand going to the local cineplex since the home experience can be so much better. The last time I was at a commercial movie theater was when I was doing some travelling for work and had nothing better to do.

Gerry S

01-07-06, 11:07 PM

Just An Update.

We are going to build a HTPC to Play Movie Files (VOB Files), Music, Tuner, Etc.
I have a 16 Bay Infostation with 16 400 Gig drives already so that gives me 6 terabytes of storage for DVDs. 800 Gigs for Every 100 Movies I archive. I will Keep the Newest Stuff and the Classics on this system.

I posted for some tips in the HTPC Forum Yesterday and got 1 response so Far.

If anyone has done this, let me know.

Ruben
Sweet hardware. Can't comment on any front end software to catalog your music/movies. Just thought I would give you something to think about concerning managing your drive space (and forgive me if you already know this). If losing a hard drive, and the data it contains concerns you, you might want to consider setting up that drive array with a RAID 1 configuration. What this does is mirror the data across two drives. Therefore if one fails, you have redundancy and don't skip a beat. The downside is that you cut your data storage in half, so you will only have 3 terabytes of storage if you go RAID 1.

-Gerry

SmX

01-07-06, 11:30 PM

Sweet hardware. Can't comment on any front end software to catalog your music/movies. Just thought I would give you something to think about concerning managing your drive space (and forgive me if you already know this). If losing a hard drive, and the data it contains concerns you, you might want to consider setting up that drive array with a RAID 1 configuration. What this does is mirror the data across two drives. Therefore if one fails, you have redundancy and don't skip a beat. The downside is that you cut your data storage in half, so you will only have 3 terabytes of storage if you go RAID 1.

-Gerry

Raid 5 is the way to go. It doesn't Waste as Much Space as a Raid 1. The "wasted" disk space in our case would be about 15 - 20%.

RAID-5 stripes data at the block level and also utilizes parity. With the RAID-5 technology, user information and parity are combined on every disk in the array. Independent and/or parallel data read and write operations are performed. This RAID is the most popular of all RAIDS. RAID-5 is not as fast as RAID-0 and does not provide as much protection as RAID-1 mirroring. RAID-5 provides good-speed and good protection. This is why it is often the RAID level of choice especially for HT archiving.

Ruben

darkman2003

01-08-06, 12:51 AM

Holy Smoke that's a lot of storage !!!

SmX

01-08-06, 07:23 PM

Sandman - here's the Dazian CCC just FYI. Picture taken from about 3 feet.

http://www.reedsplace.com/Theater/daziansamplesm.jpg

You mind as well Send it out to me, doesn't look like I'm ever gonna get it from Dazian :D Maybe I should just order the amount I would need, It's only $40 after all.

To my Suprise, A friend of Mine is a Screen Research dealer here in Fl. and said he would give me dealer prices if I was interested. He Sent Me over some Prices and they Were a little bit more than the Da-Lite I got.

From what a few people told me here, Screen Research Clear Pix Movie Screens are Suppose to be the Best Screens on the market. He is getting me a Sample to Look at.

Ruben

jay07059

01-08-06, 07:30 PM

Raid 5 is the way to go. It doesn't Waste as Much Space as a Raid 1. The "wasted" disk space in our case would be about 15 - 20%.

RAID-5 stripes data at the block level and also utilizes parity. With the RAID-5 technology, user information and parity are combined on every disk in the array. Independent and/or parallel data read and write operations are performed. This RAID is the most popular of all RAIDS. RAID-5 is not as fast as RAID-0 and does not provide as much protection as RAID-1 mirroring. RAID-5 provides good-speed and good protection. This is why it is often the RAID level of choice especially for HT archiving.

Ruben

I can vouch for RAID 5. It is an excellent solution. I would however, in this situation, push for RAID 10. You would probably need a newer SATA card (Assuming they are SATA drives). I don't think you can use RAID 10 on PATA. Also, if you go with RAID 5, make sure you use the controller to do it, do not use software RAID, as you will lose a lot of performance, and can be a pain to rebuild the arrays if you lose the OS.

I do this stuff for a living with servers at work. Ideally, we use a RAID 1 for the OS array, and RAID 10 for data. You will lose one or two drives using RAID 10 over RAID 5, but the performance improvement is pretty high. RAID 5 and 10 are excellent for reads, which is most of what you would be doing. Not too many writes, so I would skip RAID 0.

Jay

SmX

01-08-06, 09:18 PM

I can vouch for RAID 5. It is an excellent solution. I would however, in this situation, push for RAID 10. You would probably need a newer SATA card (Assuming they are SATA drives). I don't think you can use RAID 10 on PATA. Also, if you go with RAID 5, make sure you use the controller to do it, do not use software RAID, as you will lose a lot of performance, and can be a pain to rebuild the arrays if you lose the OS.

I do this stuff for a living with servers at work. Ideally, we use a RAID 1 for the OS array, and RAID 10 for data. You will lose one or two drives using RAID 10 over RAID 5, but the performance improvement is pretty high. RAID 5 and 10 are excellent for reads, which is most of what you would be doing. Not too many writes, so I would skip RAID 0.

Jay

Yeah, they are SATA Serial ATA Drives. Im using an Atto Celerity Dual Fibre Card with the info Station. But today I tried to Rip "The Cave" with MacTheRipper on a Apple G5 and I got a "Intentional Bad Sector" Error. I think they are encoding DVD's with newer Methods.

So who knows if Doing a Storage Solution for Movies is Gonna work in the Future? Maybe a DVD Jukebox would be a slower but better solution?

SmX

01-09-06, 01:16 AM

Update:

We cut up all our Cotton for the Bass Traps that's going on the Stage. This is the Hardest Stuff to Cut. First I tried a Regular Utility Knife to Cut it and it did not work. I even tried to compress the Cotton and Cut it and still no Dice. So I picked up a carpet Cutting Blade (Double Sided) and that didn't work. I also tried to use a large pair of snippers almost like Giantic Scissors and nothing. It could be cut with a Blade, but it would take about 20 cuts in multiple angles to get through this stuff with a uneven Sloppy finish, plus it dulls the blades in 5 cuts.

So I tried calling a few furniture makers to See if they had a Large Shear to cut this, and nobody had one. So my crazy friend grabbed the table Saw put the Blade all the way up and Cut it. What do you know, it cut like a charm. I figured the cotton would get caught on the blade and cut his hand off :( but it didn't. So we cut up all our triangle pieces of the Blue Cotton for the 2 bass traps going on the Stage. These basically get Stacked from the floor to the Soffit in the Corners on the Stage.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/cotton-bass-traps.jpg

The 2" Black Cotton in the Picture below is what we are using for our First reflection points.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/cotton.jpg

Here is the Da-Lite 133" High Contrast Cinema Vision with a Cinema Contour Frame and Pro Trim that I will Be Listing for Sale Shortly.

This is one Long ass Box :D

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/da-lite.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/da-lite-2.jpg

Test_Engineer

01-09-06, 01:36 AM

Update:

We cut up all our Cotton for the Bass Traps that's going on the Stage. This is the Hardest Stuff to Cut.
We use a very similar material at work when dealing with noise in vehicles. The best thing we found was an electric bread/carving knife(I'm sure you got one as a wedding gift...just don't tell the wife :D ).

SmX

01-09-06, 02:12 PM

How Do I become an AVS Club Member so I can List My Screen on this Site? I looked High and Low for where you sign up with no luck.

jrfuda

01-09-06, 02:13 PM

Sandman: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/subscriptions.php?

SmX

01-09-06, 02:22 PM

Sandman: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/subscriptions.php?

Thanks!

SmX

01-09-06, 04:44 PM

Ok I Listed My 133" Screen For Sale in the AVS Market Place...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=628640

I Have For Sale, a Brand new 133" Diagonal (122" x 71") Da-Lite 16:9 High Contrast Cinema Perf Fixed Screen with the Cinema Contour Frame and Pro Trim. This is Brand New in the Box, we didn't even open it. We Changed our minds about doing a 16:9 screen and we are now going to do a 2.35:1 Constant height.

So instead of Returning it and paying a 15% restocking fee, I am going to try and Sell it. I paid $1,697.48 for it and the Pro-Trim on 12/15/05.

I will take best offers by PM or Email (info@loutrixrecords.com)

The Box is 8" x 9" x 130" and Weighs 45 lbs.
I can Ship or you can Pick Up Locally in Boca Raton, Florida.
I have a Pay Pal account.

Thanks
Ruben

SRH1

01-09-06, 07:37 PM

A DVD jukebox is the way to go. I work for a company that makes these, mostly for business data storage but we had a guy buy one for his home. It was our largest unit that held just over 2000 DVD's and had 12 drives. He had a very large house with monitors in every room, he could watch a different movie in 12 different rooms at the same time.

davidr2340

01-09-06, 09:49 PM

Ruben,
Will you be posting your progress on the reef tank anywhere?

I would love to see that also!!!

Amazing work Sandman!!!
Thanks for this thread!!!

David

SmX

01-11-06, 12:58 AM

Update:

Well Today all the Staining and 2 Coats of Clear got Finished on the Columns, Light Tray and Equipment Rack Trim. What a Long Ass Process to get the Staining done, I think it delayed things like 2 weeks between getting the Color Right and Shooting tons of Samples with finishes. But we finally Got There!

So Finally, we can now begin the Wall treatments in the next Day or 2.

No matter how hard I try to take pictures of These columns, the Color keeps coming out way off with my Camera. The real Color is a Deep Cherry/Cranberry Color. When I take pictures, it comes out Fire Engine Red, which its far from.

The Columns now look like real Expensive Furniture.

Ruben

Test_Engineer

01-11-06, 01:42 AM

No matter how hard I try to take pictures of These columns, the Color keeps coming out way off with my Camera. The real Color is a Deep Cherry/Cranberry Color. When I take pictures, it comes out Fire Engine Red, which its far from.

The Columns now look like real Expensive Furniture.

Ruben

Photoshop is your friend! You can use it to adjust the levels to make it look correct. I do this when trying to show a very bright color, like day glo orange. Florescent colors don't photograph well, and most reds are difficult to reproduce also. If your not good at photoshop, I bet if you post a link, someone would fix the color for you.

SVonhof

01-11-06, 09:17 AM

Sandman (Ruben), get used to the colors not showing up right. I can't get a single picture of my theater that correctly shows the colors. Once you get fabric in the theater, the camera will start to choke because the light gets sucked up by the fabric and everything shows up dark. If you have a digital SLR (I assume you do) you can open the aperture all the way up and bring in more lights and it will be close, but never match.

i70x7

01-11-06, 12:53 PM

SmX

01-11-06, 01:04 PM

I've got one of the 400 disc Sony changers and will be buying a second one next month. I agree though, I can't go back to pre-jukebox days.

Here goes the Thousand Questions...

How does the Video Quality compare to the Pioneer Elite av59 or Marantz DVD Player?

Is there any macroblocking issues like the Denons had?

How fast do they change discs?

Can you scroll through covers pretty fast on the screen and pick a title?

How Do You organize movies in the Jukebox? By Software?

What are some Good Hi end jukeboxes for me to look into?
I have about 1,000 DVDs

ebr

01-11-06, 01:33 PM

You are probably going to want to look into something like the Escient stuff http://www.escient.com/products/dvdm552.html

I don't think the standard changers like I have (Pio Elite DVF-09) will make you happy.

i70x7

01-11-06, 03:15 PM

Here goes the Thousand Questions...

How does the Video Quality compare to the Pioneer Elite av59 or Marantz DVD Player?

Is there any macroblocking issues like the Denons had?

How fast do they change discs?

Can you scroll through covers pretty fast on the screen and pick a title?

How Do You organize movies in the Jukebox? By Software?

What are some Good Hi end jukeboxes for me to look into?
I have about 1,000 DVDs

I will be honest, the changer is not the best. Changing movies is pretty quick, there are no macroblocking issues, but the on-screen management sucks massively. It has built in software to organize the DVDs, but I ended up building my own complete management/control system. You can see some details here: http://theater.joshmeier.com/MovieMarquee.htm

swithey

01-11-06, 03:39 PM

I will be honest, the changer is not the best. Changing movies is pretty quick, there are no macroblocking issues, but the on-screen management sucks massively. It has built in software to organize the DVDs, but I ended up building my own complete management/control system. You can see some details here: http://theater.joshmeier.com/MovieMarquee.htm
i70x7,

Now you've done it and opened a can of worms ;) I do programming myself and really like the look of you app. Well done!! So, have you decided to distribute it yet?

SmX

01-11-06, 03:42 PM

i70x7,

Now you've done it and opened a can of worms ;) I do programming myself and really like the look of you app. Well done!! So, have you decided to distribute it yet?

Swithey, Can you hook me up with those HT Demo Tree's you Got?
Can you PM me a Link to get them?

Thanks
Ruben

jrfuda

01-11-06, 03:49 PM

swithey

01-11-06, 03:53 PM

Swithey, Can you hook me up with those HT Demo Tree's you Got?
Can you PM me a Link to get them?

Thanks
Ruben
Ruben,

You have PM.

i70x7

01-11-06, 04:39 PM

i70x7,

Now you've done it and opened a can of worms ;) I do programming myself and really like the look of you app. Well done!! So, have you decided to distribute it yet?

Thanks! I haven't decided to distribute it yet simply because I am still cleaning some things up and trying to make it more flexible. At the moment it's hard coded for my needs, but I am adding support for changing IR codes and the like.

If you are really interested I could send you the code and SQL schema and you could take a look at it. It's done in C# 2.0.

swithey

01-11-06, 05:11 PM

Thanks! I haven't decided to distribute it yet simply because I am still cleaning some things up and trying to make it more flexible. At the moment it's hard coded for my needs, but I am adding support for changing IR codes and the like.

If you are really interested I could send you the code and SQL schema and you could take a look at it. It's done in C# 2.0.
I'll take this off-line so not to hijack Sandman's thread. You have a PM waiting.

SmX

01-11-06, 06:10 PM

Figured I'd post some Pictures. I got the lighting a Little better today with the Camera and the colors are allot closer now to what they really are. Still they are off quite a bit, but at least everything doesn't look Fire Engine Red in these Pictures.

Today We got the last coat of the Finish on the Light Trays, Columns and Rack Trim. We paper Faced the Bottoms of all the Soffits, we made our bass traps for the Corners of the Stage (I will post pictures of this Later). And we Started putting fabric up.

Here are some Close ups of the Light trays finished, these shots are pretty accurate to the actual color (on my monitor anyway). The Columns, Light Trays and Rack Trim will all get a wax job as soon as the theater is near done to finish it and make the finish complete.

Another last note: The Web Compression and Lighting is making the Finish look a bit blotchy in the Pictures. The Finish is Just as good and even better than my $7k B&W 802's but just a different staining and Grain filling technique to accent the Grains better.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07194.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07175.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07126.jpg

The Columns, still the color is real off on these pictures of them, but they are the same color as the Light trays above. Notice how the color in the photos greatly vary below.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07138.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07142.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07146.jpg

Paper Facing the Soffits. Well Here we are paper facing the Soffits, I never thought I would get to this Point. The Soffits are filled with cotton to absorb the Bass. The Paper Facing keeps the room from getting overly dead due to cotton absorbing the reflections.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07156.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07171.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07172.jpg

This is a side Shot showing the Cotton, Soffit Framing and Paper. This side will get Enclosed.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/stained/DSC07154.jpg

swithey

01-11-06, 06:32 PM

Ruben,

Looking really nice. You are making me move that much faster.

Can you post a pic of the columns next to your B&Ws? Would love to see those beauties together :)

SmX

01-11-06, 06:41 PM

Ruben,

Looking really nice. You are making me move that much faster.

Can you post a pic of the columns next to your B&Ws? Would love to see those beauties together :)

LOL, That ain't gonna happen :D The 802s weigh like 90 lbs each and they are in another part of my house. The columns are too big and bulky to risk scratching carrying through my house.

I'm a perfectionist. Take my word for it, the finish is incredibly nice :)

When the theater is Finished, I will have my friend who is a Professional Photographer come shoot the theater to the fullest.

SmX

01-11-06, 07:05 PM

I use a Sony DVP-CX777ES 400 Disc Changer to store my DVDs and control/manage it via Cinemar's DVDLobby program. I use it in conjunction with an HTPC/Automation PC to play genre and soundtrack appropriate trailers while the changer loads (about 60-seconds) and can even have trivia and such play while people find there seats. I've just about reached capacity on my first changer and will likely buy a second this spring. The PC also slowly dims the lights as the trailers play with the appropriate light level set by the time the movie starts. The key feature of the CX777ES is its reliable serial control . The bad thing about using a changer is if you want to distribute video throughout the house - all monitors except for your theater will have to view modulated "TV quality stereo" video, and all watch the same thing.

I watch movies on a 50" RPLCD, so I can't really attest to how well movies output fromthe CX777ES will look on you big honkin screen, but the look awesome on my set.

If you shop around, you can get a CX777ES for around $500.
Get a low-end PC to control it for less than $600
Spend about $200 for Cinemar's MainLobby and DVDLobby software.
Probably Spend another $200 for cables (unless you like high-end stuff)
- So for about $1500 you can have a rather elegant solution to store and automate the showing of movies in your theater - selecting movies stored on the changer via the HTPC projected on your screen via remote control.
- For a bit more you can add an LCD touchscreen to your favorite theater chair to control everything, and for even more a wireless tablet PC.

Another option is to get a high-end HTPC and tons of storage (2+ Terabytes in RAID-5 configuration) and rip all your movies to HDD. You can still use DVDLobby to pick movies and control playback, and the beauty is - with your movies centrally stored - you can access them from any PC in the house in their original quality level (with a gigabit network). And the other beauty is the PC can do all your scaling for you and output DVI (wheras the CX777ES is component-out at its best).

Both of these are DIY-equivelants to the commercial/professional installer DVD Jukeboxes that exist, but go for much less (maybe as much as 10% of the cost of the pro systems.. $2,000 versus $20,000) and the end-results are largely the same. Checkout the offerings here: http://www.cinemaronline.com/ and check their forum as well: http://www.htpcservers.com/phpbb/ ...

BTW I have no affiliation with Cinemar other than being a happy customer and message board moderator :)

Awesome post jrfuda, a few pages back in my thread, I talked about building my Own HTPC. I have the Storage already (Storcase 16 Bay Fibre Infostation with 16 400 Gig SATA Drives).

For the HTPC I been Researching the Parts I'm gonna Use and this is what I'm gonna put together...

For the Case, I'm thinking of Going with a Siverstone with a 7" touchscreen on it. http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Cases/sstlc18.asp
or the D.Vine D5 Case or the mCubed. I was looking at Atech Stuff but it takes too long to get.

For the Mother Board I'm looking at the Abit AN8 ULTRA. It has 8 Channel Audio Built in via SPDIF/Optical and it is quieter than the SLI boards http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=278

For the Processor is either a Dual Core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Processor or the AMD 4400+. But I am still reading up on the P4 processors and Multitasking.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80728-R

The Video Card is gonna be an nVidia 7800 GTX

80 Gig internal Sata Drive

DVD Playback/Record Plextor DVD-R - Dual Layer possibbly?

For the main Chair Remote a Xenarc 700TS 7" Touch Screen
http://www.xenarc.com/product/700ts.html

What do you think.

bpape

01-11-06, 09:13 PM

HTScotty

01-11-06, 09:20 PM

You have a PM :D

Oh, and so you know.... 1 hour of DVD-quality video will take around 4.2gb of space. Unless you watch and delete your shows, I'd opt for something larger for the hard drive.

Kevin Lowe

01-11-06, 10:25 PM

Awesome post jrfuda, a few pages back in my thread, I talked about building my Own HTPC. I have the Storage already (Storcase 16 Bay Fibre Infostation with 16 400 Gig SATA Drives).

For the HTPC I been Researching the Parts I'm gonna Use and this is what I'm gonna put together...

For the Case, I'm thinking of Going with a Siverstone with a 7" touchscreen on it. http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Cases/sstlc18.asp
or the D.Vine D8 Case or the mCubed. I was looking at Atech Stuff but it takes too long to get.

For the Mother Board I'm looking at the Abit AN8 ULTRA. It has 8 Channel Audio Built in via SPDIF/Optical and it is quieter than the SLI boards http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=278

For the Processor is either a Dual Core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Processor or the AMD 4400+. But I am still reading up on the P4 processors and Multitasking.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80728-R

The Video Card is gonna be an nVidia 7800 GTX

80 Gig internal Sata Drive

DVD Playback/Record Plextor DVD-R - Dual Layer possibbly?

For the main Chair Remote a Xenarc 700TS 7" Touch Screen
http://www.xenarc.com/product/700ts.html

What do you think.

Sounds like a literal ton of power. However, a ton of power means a ton of noise - my PC's much more modest than that, and even after careful cable routing, new fans, a fan-throttling power supply, and all the effort I can put into making it quieter, it only seems quieter for a week or two before the noise starts to annoy me again. Consider using lower-power components (leaving yourself some headroom for more demanding codecs in the future, of course) and looking into some of the hardcore Silent PC enthusiast forums to build a HTPC that'll keep the noise down.

Or, there's always watercooling. :D

James Mos

01-11-06, 10:43 PM

For the audio section of your HTPC, may I make a suggestion for this card coming out in March http://bluegears.com/xraider.html On board 5.1 & 7.1 Dolby Digital & DTS encoding and will upconvert 2 channel audio to 5.1 or 7.1 in either format!!!

I know once my new home is completed and I re-build my HT, I'll be putting one of them bad boys into my htpc.

Test_Engineer

01-11-06, 11:30 PM

You have a PM :D

Oh, and so you know.... 1 hour of DVD-quality video will take around 4.2gb of space. Unless you watch and delete your shows, I'd opt for something larger for the hard drive.

I think 6.4 TERABYTES of storage is big enough :eek: That is roughly 750 Hours of DVD quality video by your calculations.

Read it one more time, the 80 G is just the application HD, the storage is 16 X 400GB.

HTScotty

01-11-06, 11:48 PM

Doh!!..

Ya.. I see that now...

SmX

01-12-06, 01:08 AM

I'd be very wary of any of the on-board audio solutions for your situation. You're building a showplace and have some nice equipment. Don't compromise it on a $4 chip.

You might also want to check out www.mwave.com - good service, good selection, good prices.

Ahh Man, I thought that would be the Best Sound :D Thats why I was buying the Mother Board :D

I don't even know why I even mentioned the audio output on that card.
That would Be Funny, running a $20k System off a $8 chip.
How about some Apogee Converters?

exipnos

01-12-06, 10:04 AM

SmX

01-12-06, 12:17 PM

Hurry up and finish! I can't wait to see the end result of this with those beutiful columns. Are all the columns identical? The photo make some appear differnt size, is that to work with the raiser, or is it the angle of the photo making it appear so?

By the way what would you estimate material cost for columns?

Top notch results so far.

Cheers,

Exipnos

We Started the Fabric today, so hopefully we finish up Shortly. The Columns Are Identical but every pair is cut Different to accomodate the Stairs and the Platform.

As for the cost, The Half Rounds cost $90 in Material and the Boxes for the Back of the Columns cost $14 in Material. The Veneer was $35 a Sheet. So In end, $140.00 a Column before Stain. That obviously does not include Labor if You Need to pay someone.

Thanks
Ruben

mmmkam

01-12-06, 01:14 PM

SmX

01-12-06, 01:57 PM

Well I figured I'd keep you guys happy and Post some pictures of the first Fabric Going up.

After speaking to BPape yesterday, he informed me we did the paper wrong on the Soffits undersides. It was suppose to be inside the soffit framing, not on the outside of the framing. So that was the first thing we took care of this morning. As you will see below, the Paper is now inside the Soffit framing. Also notice the Black 1" x 2" furring strips on the right side of the Soffit, this is wher we will Staple the fabric to.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07202.jpg

We Stapled the Fabric to the 1" x 2"s for the Light tray side first to hide the Staples, here is the Big piece as we bring it in.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07206.jpg

Fabric attached on the Light tray side.

For some of you web Surfers, you may recognize my helping hand :) I'll give You a Hint... Sometimes his job Sucks, but most of the time it's banging. No Clue? See The Last picture of this post.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/steve-1.jpg

Tightening the Fabric by Tucking it in the crack..

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07223.jpg

Stapling it in place...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07221.jpg

Tight as a conga...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07237.jpg

A Shot of the run...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07229.jpg

SmX

01-12-06, 01:57 PM

We Can't just do a straight butt joint where it ends, so the butt joints of the Fabric matches the Veneer butt Joints.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07247.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07248.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07252.jpg

Here is that Last Picture I promised. :)

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/DSC07254.jpg

SmX

01-12-06, 03:37 PM

Looks GREAT!

I saw the post with the staining process a few pages back, but would you mind sharing the products (brands/colors/etc) that you used to achieve that color and finish?

Keep up the great work.

The Staining process was quite a few Steps. We used ML Cambell WoodSong II Microton Toners

The Staining process required 2 colors.

1) First We Sanded the Veneer with a 120 Grit Sand Paper
2) Then we Sanded with a 220 Grit Sandpaper
3) Blow and Wipe the Saw Dust off
4) Then we Shot a 50% - 50% Mix of WoodSong II Microton Spray Stain and a Achohol Thinner. 3 Coats of this 50 - 50 went on. The Color we used at this Step was Cordovan, which is a dark Copper/Penny color.
5) Then we used a Mahogany Grain/Pore Filler that got rubbed on with a Burlap cloth and then Dried over night.
6) Next Day we removed the Grain Filler with a Turpentine and Steel Wool. Leaving the filler in all the Grains/open pores of the veneer. This Step accents the Grains and Fills them up. It also darkens the veneer a bit.
7) Then a Light Sanding with a 220 Grit.
8) Blow off Saw Dust and wipe with a Tack Cloth
9) The we used a ML Campbell Magnalac Satin Clear. We Mixed this with 25% of the ML Cambell WoodSOng II Red Spray Stain I posted a few pages back.
10) We Shot our First Coat of the Magnalac and Red Mix, let Dry an Hour.
11) Sand with a 320 Grit, Blow off Dust and use a Tack Cloth to wipe again
12) Then we Shot our Second Coat of the Magnalac and Red Mix, let Dry an Hour.
13) Rub with a Steel Wool, Blow off Dust and use a Tack Cloth to wipe again
14) Shoot your Final Coat of the Clear and Red Mix

Ruben

SVonhof

01-12-06, 04:07 PM

SmX

01-12-06, 04:45 PM

Ruben, as I was looking at the pics, the first thing I noticed that seemed out of place was that no safety glasses were being used! Oops. Even though the staple guns don't misfire often, it would be a good practice to wear them, since they are air driven...

Other than that, keep up the good work!

BTW, you have seen "A Christmas Story" right? "You'll shoot your eye out!"

Cmon, we all know Safety glasses are only for people who value their eyes :)
Yes folks, SVonhof is right, Don't try this at home. Nothing wrong with a little misfired nail hitting you in the eye :eek: Ouch!

We usually have glasses around but they occasionally dissapear.

YldeSyde

01-12-06, 05:59 PM

I'm envious of all the fun I am missing out by not being there to help you out :-P I could have learned all of your tricks first-hand and brought them back to help swithey lol. Great work Sandman! As good as or more likely better than the pros could do. Next time I'm in Boca visiing my brother I'd love to see it.

SmX

01-12-06, 06:15 PM

Got My Dazian Coated Celtic Cloth Sample Today. Will test it out tonight and let you know what I thought.

Ruben

SmX

01-12-06, 10:21 PM

As Ice Cube Said, "Today was a Good Day"

All the pictures below came out Fire Engine Red Again, But you now know what the color is suppose to be.

We got all the Under Soffit GoM done, got 4 Columns installed. Everything else from here should move pretty fast. I got to thank BPape for recommending the alternation of colors. The contrast of colors is awesome.

These are Some shots of the Under Soffits corners where they Butt up against each other. When your Butt Joints are this Tight, you need to pat yourself on the back :)

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/butt-joint-3.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/butt-joint-2.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/butt-joint.jpg

Here is a wider Shot.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/under-soffits.jpg

Here is the top of a Column under the Soffit shot

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/fabric-1/column-top.jpg

Milt99

01-12-06, 10:40 PM

SmX

01-12-06, 10:56 PM

SandmanX,
Beautiful work. Redefines DIY.
Your attention to detail is mindblowing.
I've read through your thread and I looked for the details on your round columns but I must've missed it.
Would you minds giving me some details, please?
Where did you get them and what are they made of?
Thanks much.
Doug

Thank You For the Compliments. The Columns were all pretty much built from scratch by hand. Here is a link to the building of them http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6775081&&#post6775081

Thanks
Ruben

HeyNow^

01-13-06, 08:11 AM

Absolutely breathtaking.....I honestly believe that Sandman and Chinadog's threads should be stickys....They are the quintessential DIY theater step-by-step threads. I never miss a day checking your progress. Thanks to the both of you.

chinadog

01-13-06, 08:35 AM

SmX

01-13-06, 10:52 AM

Ruben,

Nice work! Puts my cove to shame! What did you do for furring strips under the GOM, did you rip your own or did you buy 1x2s (might have missed it). Are you planning on crown or are you going to use the same technique for the walls? (attached GOM to the furring strip and then secure furring strip).

Bud

Hi Bud,

LOL, Your Place is far from cove. I envy the fact you got a whole consession area before you walk in the theater. No space for me to do that here :( Oh well, maybe in my next Life. Once your treatments start going up, thats when the room starts taking shape. I was so sick of looking at Drywall at framing I wanted to hang myself :) At least the room is starting to come together now.

As far as furring, we used regular hand picked Straight 1 x 2's painted Black for under the Soffits. The Wall treatments come out 2-1/4" off the Drywall, so they will cover the Staples. The wall panel frames will be made out of 1" x 3'"s ripped down to 1" x 2.25" with a 45 dregree Bevel. The wall panels will be made off the wall then attached with mounting Blocks and Industrial Velcro.

Thanks
Ruben

SmX

01-13-06, 10:54 AM

BIGmouthinDC

01-13-06, 12:02 PM

SmX

01-13-06, 12:19 PM

Sandman you make me want to rip out and start again and I'm not even done yet.

Anyway I'm kind of curious about that kraft paper in the soffits. I would of thought that one should use something acousticly transparent with an open weave like landscape fabric or something "breathable".

any clues on the science ot the paper?

Are You Crazy? You have one of the Best looking Theaters here on AVS.

The paper is just Regular craft paper from home depot. We cut the roll down to size on a table saw.

The Purpose of the Paper is to not over deaden the room by having absorbtion all under the soffits. The primary use of the Cotton in the Soffits is to absorb Bass but not absorb STCs. (Correct me if I'm wrong BPape)

Due to the type of Speakers I have, the treatments for the room are designed differently from the standard DE design allot of people use here. The treatment design is more concentrated on the type of speakers I use and is designed by a guy that takes huge pride in getting the best sound out of a room, BPape. Also meaning, the whole bottom half/below Ear level isn't treated all around the room, it is only treated at reflection points.

Ruben

jrfuda

01-13-06, 12:25 PM

Ruben, I'm blown away everytime I visit this thread... That's gonna be one awesom picture.

As far as the HTPC setup... I agree that that is going to be a nice, powerful solution. I think if you place the HTPC in your equipment rack (I can't remember if there's a door on your rack or not) that should help with some of the fan noise - and as long as your rack is adequately cooled - you shouldn't have any heat issues.

What "front end" are you going to use to pick movies and control stuff on the Xenarc screen? Do you have a home-brew solution in mind?

Another low-cost option for a front-end is NetRemote, which is Girder's front end. Girder works well with both ZoomPlaye and TheaterTek - but is not quite as pretty and a littler harder to setup than Cinemar/MainLobby/DVDLobby - but I think it's a little less expensive. I actually use Girder in my setup to fill some gaps that the Cinemar and HomeSeer software has.

Without hijacking the thread, what are some other alternatives Sandman can use as a front-end to his HTPC system?

Ya'll can visit my website and look in both my Automation Section (http://fudaserve.net/content/blogsection/4/96/) and my Gallery (http://fudaserve.net/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=28&g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=64) to see some examples of my Home Theater and Automation front ends. You can even get limited access to my live automation server (view only) from within the automation pages using username: AVS-User and password: AVS-User in the password pop-up.

My webhost seems to be having some server issues today, so everything's running a bit slow.

SmX

01-13-06, 12:28 PM

SmX

01-13-06, 12:42 PM

jrfuda

01-13-06, 01:25 PM

SmX

01-13-06, 02:04 PM

Sandman, you can look at this case: http://www.atechfabrication.com/products/heatsync_6000.htm for your HTPC. The whole thing is a big hunk of aluminum and serves as the heatsink for your CPU and graphics card - require little or no fans thereby reducing noise.

However, It's incredibly expensive and I heard the wait for them is rather long since they're all custom made.

Just checked.. $645 base price and 4-6 weeks for themto ship the case.

I bet it'd easily be $1000+ by the time you throw in a few options (heatsink block for CPU, northbridge, and GPU, plus a few others items). Heck, that's probably more than you're going to spend on your hardware!

It's a very purdy case, though!

Thanks, Atech cases were the First I looked at. After Seeing the Wait time I said No Thanks. I'm considering doing the Same Case as the S1 Digital which is a Ahanix MCE601 http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/pName/ahanix-mce601-htpc-case-black-no-psu?osCsid=14810d633cd090ae6254a3f76f70412d

or the OrigenAE X11
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/pName/origenae-x11-htpc-case-with-vfdir-module-and-mce-remote-black/cName/htpc-cases

bpape

01-13-06, 02:38 PM

We had a bit of a communication problem. It's supposed to be on the absorbant material instead of on the bottom of the frame - easily fixable. The paper is a cheap way to somewhat replicate the performance of an FRK faced product.

If that whole soffit were left unfaced and open, the amount of HF absorbtion in the room in comparison to the rest would have been out of balance. The paper helps to reflect a good amount of the upper mids and highs while still allowing for good bass and lower midrange absorbtion.

The targeted absorbtion vs. the treating all around are just 2 different methodologies. I prefer the rear of the room a bit more lively as I know Terry does too. It also allows IMO for a better 2 channel listening environment if the room is also used for that. You can get excellent results either way - I just prefer this way. Based on discussions with Ruben when we first started this journey, it was decided that this solution would be preferable for his situation.

ebr

01-13-06, 03:16 PM

I wanted to Add, that I tried out the Dazian Coated Celtic Cloth (CCC) last night with the Optoma H-79 and the Picture was just plain Horrible.

All the Colors got Washed out, everything looked Grey, Muddy and Blurry. The wall looked 100 times better than that Cloth. So I don't know how the hell you guys are using It. I even tried flipping it over cause I thought I was using the wrong side that's how bad it was.

Maybe CCC doesn't work with Optoma-H79 Projectors? :D

Ruben

Oh my. I was planning on using this stuff so that is very disappointing to hear...

Did you get the "coated" or the regular Celtic Cloth? I got a sample of both and the uncoated one had a lot more weave or texture to it. The coated one would be better I would think.

BIGmouthinDC

01-13-06, 04:28 PM

bpape:

I thought that might be the case but was unsure.
I noticed that he had to redo the paper but didn't want to rub salt in a wound.

Anyway Sandman may certainly have one of the best DIY theaters when he is done with all the advice from you and the others along the way.

He will also probably win an award for the number of "mid course corrections" taken along his journey. Not that I'm counting, but the wall height and staggered studs, Ceiling construction, square versus round columns, and I'm sure he could provide a more detailed list.

Sandman we salute you! DIY home theater God, a real american hero. Maybe he could get that bud light beer commercial music and have him mix us a version with the appropriate music.

Sandman if you could get that music and someone to imitate that announcer, then put some slides together including the shots of all the piles of materials you ripped out as you went along. Put it on a video and you would have a great trailer to show for your friends

bpape

01-13-06, 04:58 PM

ROTFL! That would be a great intro theme. "We salute you Mr. DIY Home Theater Builder Guy!"

I agree - there have been some corrections/changes along the way. When you move at the speed that Ruben does, it's somewhat inevitible. But, I think the results speak for themself. This is going to be a beautiful place when it's finished. I think all of the changes were for the better. I'm still just stunned at how the columns came out.

I wish I had the time to undertake a project of that magnitude for myself. When I built mine, it took me over a year and it's nowhere near as ornate or detailed.

larryep

01-13-06, 06:26 PM

my gosh Ruben that is beautiful work!!!!!!!

Larry

larryep

01-13-06, 06:30 PM

SoapySmith

01-13-06, 07:07 PM

Sandman - did you try the CCC with black speaker grill material behind it? I think some people on the DIY forum were saying that works wonders, but I've not tried it myself.

SmX

01-13-06, 07:15 PM

Guys Thanks for all your Cool and funny Responses. Your Support is what has driven me to get this far. Your ideas on your theaters is what made mine become what it's becoming. Basically, You guys have become a second family to me throughout this whole process. and everyday (Multiple times) I check in to read this thread and others.

BUT LETS SET ONE THING STRAIGHT. I admitted my mess up on the paper facing on the previous Page in THIS POST (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6906566&&#post6906566) with the picture of the new paper facing. You guys don't read to good do ya? :p Your Like me, just look at all the pretty pictures and forget to read. :D

Thanks
Ruben

SmX

01-13-06, 07:21 PM

Oh my. I was planning on using this stuff so that is very disappointing to hear...

Did you get the "coated" or the regular Celtic Cloth? I got a sample of both and the uncoated one had a lot more weave or texture to it. The coated one would be better I would think.

Yep, it was too good to be true. :(

It was the Coated Celtic Cloth I received, I even tried both sides. It was total Garbage.

I'm just wondering if it perhaps works better with LCD projectors opposed to DLP? Bottom Line, for Me is it's not happening in my Room.

Ruben

HeyNow^

01-13-06, 07:23 PM

I finally figured it out. Sandman is Santa Claus.... because there is no way, he can accomplish this project at this speed without a bunch of pointy eared elves.... :)

Mark P

01-13-06, 07:25 PM

SmX

01-13-06, 07:44 PM

jmorris644

01-13-06, 08:55 PM

SmX

01-13-06, 09:22 PM

my gosh Ruben that is beautiful work!!!!!!!

Larry

Thanks Larry,

Your Theater is coming along quite lovely as well.. Love that entrance!

Ruben

SmX

01-13-06, 09:25 PM

Sandman - did you try the CCC with black speaker grill material behind it? I think some people on the DIY forum were saying that works wonders, but I've not tried it myself.

I think people put the black Cloth behind it so it's not so transparent on the framed screen wall and you see all the framing. There is No way in the World that black GoM behind it is gonna make it clearer or bring out the colors, but I will give it try anywell, what the hell its still taped to my wall.

Ruben

SmX

01-13-06, 09:26 PM

I finally figured it out. Sandman is Santa Claus.... because there is no way, he can accomplish this project at this speed without a bunch of pointy eared elves.... :)

Ho, Ho, Ho :D

SmX

01-13-06, 09:32 PM

WOW simply amazing, cant believe I didnt see this thread earlier.

Time to rip everything out and start over, just when I was seeing a fiberoptic light at the end of the vast tunnel.

Having good help is priceless as well.

Nice stuff there, cant wait to see the finish

Thanks, Good Reliable help is the key to Success in a timely fashion. If it wasn't for this guy coming through, I would of took the next 3 years finishing this.

I got so Damn busy right before December. This kid has real good skills and is a perfectionist like myself, so he knows how we need this to be finished.

Ruben

SmX

01-13-06, 09:34 PM

I ran into this thread for the first time today. Absolutely Fantastic!! I read each and every post. I was sitting so long that not only did my ass fall asleep but my hard drives even powered down on me :)

Great thread!! Great reading!! Great source of knowledge!! Great Guy for all his sharing!!!

Thanks! I spend Many nights falling asleep at the computer reading threads and educating myself as well. We take for granted the power of the Internet, it has the most incredible info in the world.

Ruben

SmX

01-13-06, 09:43 PM

Today I ordered all my HTPC Stuff to build my Home Theater PC, it will arrive Saturday.
I still need to Pick up an Audio Card and an OTA HD Card, I will get that locally.

This is a List of what I ordered...

Mother Board
1 Abit KN8 SLI Socket 939/NF4 SLI/1394/ATX Motherboard

Processor (CPU)
1 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 4400+* (2.2GHz)

Processor Cooling
1 Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu Copper CPU Fan Intel 478, AMD 754/939/940

Memory (2 Gigs)
2 DDR400 1GB Kingston Original Memory

Internal Hard Drives
1 Seagate ST380817AS 80GB Serial ATA 7200rpm NCQ Hard Drive
1 Seagate ST3400832AS 400GB Serial ATA 7200rpm NCQ Hard Drive

HTPC Case
1 Origen AE X15e HTPC Case with 7" TFT Touchscreen and IR Module, Black

Card Reader
1 Card Reader: Black Internal 17-in-1 USB 2.0

Power Supply (PSU)
1 Seasonic S12-500, 500W Silent PS

VIdeo Card
1 nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 256MB 2DVI/HDTV PCI-Express Video Card

TV Tuner Card
1 Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE TV Tuner

This is the HTPC Case I got, except it will be rack mountable.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/shot5.jpg

theirishgonzo

01-14-06, 01:43 AM

SmX

01-14-06, 01:52 AM

nice choice for pc. o have the super alumni boy antec with a 3800 amd. i did get the 7800 series vid card but i went with dual gt instead of a single gtx msi and a antec sli bord. i have a 120 gig hd in my case and a file server in the office.

i will never buy top of the line any more for computers. i will buy best bang for buck at the level i need.

i think with my curent sub setup i would need alot more bass traps sence i can move the wall that i bult my sub into and it is barced and laged to the floor. 4 18 in a ib with 3400 wats.

on your surounds are your sider direct or they a bi/di polar?

Thanks,

I figured this Set up should be pretty much up to date for the next 2 months until the next best thing comes. :rolleyes:

I'm pretty much a do it right the first time and it will last a long time type of guy. As long as this system plays back Video with no Flaws and is Stable, it may last me the Life of my theater. Obviously better video/audio/tuner Cards will come out, but this set up should be pretty upgradable for a while. After all, the power is there.

Ruben

SmX

01-14-06, 01:56 AM

Hey, Do I win an award or Something for having the DIY HT thread with the Most Views?

51,000 Views and encounting. Wow!

A free DVD or Something? :D

Ruben

SmX

01-14-06, 02:47 AM

Update For Friday:

Well Besides getting all my HTPC stuff ordered. We managed to get the last 2 columns in place. We Started the wall panels today, we will make a couple dummy panels just so I can see what configuration of Colors/Panels I like.

We also got the Bass Traps on the Stage Completed and the GoM above the Stage (Where you won't see it when the Screen wall goes up). We just put fabric up there so I will always know that behind the Screen is finished like the Rest of the theater.

THe Best Part...

Here are the Bass Traps on the Stage. These will be behind the Screen wall and will never be Seen by a human except for me if I ever change the Speakers or Something back there. They started off as 24" x 96" 5.5" Cotton Batts. They all got cut down to Triangles and got compressed in the left and right corners of the Stage.

Now you see them...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/Bass-Traps/bass-trap-1.jpg

Now You Don't

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/Bass-Traps/bass-trap-2.jpg

Here is a shot of my HVAC Supply for the Room. It will get a 4" x 36" Linear Grill.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/Bass-Traps/DSC07330.jpg

The Paneling Begins!!!

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/Bass-Traps/DSC07305.jpg

I will Spend this Weekend assembling and configuring my HTPC.

Ruben

exipnos

01-14-06, 04:52 AM

I will Spend this Weekend assembling and configuring my HTPC.

Ruben

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Forget about electronics. Get back to building so that you can finish this thing and we can se the final results :)

dc_pilgrim

01-14-06, 08:22 AM

Hey, Do I win an award or Something for having the DIY HT thread with the Most Views?

51,000 Views and encounting. Wow!

A free DVD or Something? :D

Ruben

I was going to refer you to Clarence's thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=386696) (hidden on the CRT forum), but his is at 49k.

I think the prize is you get to host a meet when its done.

KWhite

01-14-06, 09:17 AM

Is that HVAC duct right above the screen?

jmorris644

01-14-06, 09:25 AM

Ruben,

I was thinking about the screen material issues. It seemed improbable to me that the perforated screens would look so bad. I am in the design of my HT and am beginning to work with one of Erskins'(sp) guys to help. We have been talking about perfed screens as I wish to put at least the center channel speaker behind the screen. (also a DE recommendation)

Anyways, I ramble... My thought was that with the screen samples directly taped to a serface that also reflects 2 things are happening 1) you are getting a 2nd reflection through the perfs which is not how it will be in a complete installation and 2) I would guess that these reflections also have a half-moon shadow in them. Something also that might cause some of what you are seeing. I think it would be a good excercise for you to put all of the samples on a large black background. If you use a black cloth you could even cut out a 6"x6" hole so that you could compare the bare wall to the samples.

If you decide to do this I would, as I am sure many others would be too, be interested in your findings.

Also, I was very disappointed in the appearance of the Dazian Coated Celtic Cloth. I too had high hopes when I first read about in this thread. If people are actually using it and liking it then here too something must be amiss. Might it too look better with no reflections coming from behind it? (your thoughts in an earlier post)

Joe

bpape

01-14-06, 09:54 AM

You're getting close. Don't get sidetracked with the computer.

Bryan

Angelo M

01-14-06, 10:38 AM

Sandmanx,

This is got to be the most detailed thread of any on the AVS forum.

Your quality of work is unbelievable, not to mention the pace you are going at, and still finding time to post about it in great detail here. WOW! It is truly inspiring to me.

It might be to much to ask but could you share your estimated time so far working on this project and an up to date total cost?

I think you could make a fine career doing this kind of work with the area that you live in. (if you aren't already)

Keep it coming!

Frank D

01-14-06, 11:15 AM

Your theatre is coming together fantastically!

The corners where your GOM meets looks great. How did you manage to get a straight GOM edge in the corners (putting on the first edge appeared easy so I am actually referring to the second edge which seams impossible)? From your pictures you first put the GOM up (for under the soffits) on a free standing furring strip and then proceeded to attach that strip so you used up your one clean edge per GOM section - I thought one is the maximum number of clean edges (ie. clean edge = where you do not see any staple lines) one could get. You did two clean edges and did a great job . How did you do it?

Post #568 referred to is found on this page:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6906566&&#post6906566

Thanks
Frank

SmX

01-14-06, 12:35 PM

Is that HVAC duct right above the screen?

No, its on the side in the Center of the Room.

SmX

01-14-06, 12:36 PM

SmX

01-14-06, 12:40 PM

You're getting close. Don't get sidetracked with the computer.

Bryan

I won't. My workers are off till Monday, so I figured I'd focus on doing this.

The best part about finishing this theater is seeing all the materials dissapear out of our Great Room. :D There was Piles of Cotton, Boxes, Wood, Drywall, Etc. It's now emptying out.

Ruben

SmX

01-14-06, 12:43 PM

SmX

01-14-06, 12:52 PM

FusionRx

01-14-06, 02:59 PM

I bet that this theatre will be the new "Great Room" in the house, due to all the guests entering it and saying, "Wow, what a great room!". :D

Seriously though... fantastic progress, amazing detail and great write up.

Are you by any chance in the construction business? You seem to have more than a passing knowledge of construction here...

SmX

01-14-06, 03:07 PM

FusionRx

01-14-06, 03:13 PM

I'd encourage you to put your theatre progress up in the $20 000+ forum as they have all very nice theatres there and could offer you suggestions for screens, base management etc., a great group there that would really appreciate the beautiful place you are building there.

SmX

01-15-06, 02:00 AM

bpape

01-15-06, 10:17 AM

Just be careful - before you know it you'll be buying a Kaleidescope, a pair of Wilson X-1's, LAMM amps, a CBIII, etc.

FusionRx

01-15-06, 10:35 AM

I think his 6Tb solution could even give the Kaliedescape a run for its money. :D

jpa3d

01-15-06, 09:33 PM

Ruben, I was just in an av specialty store and listened to a new subwoofer electronic bass management system by velodyne which allows the subwoofer to be placed anywhere in the room. You can make adjustments to create a fairly flat sine wave response no matter what the room configuration or furnishings. I didn't understand it that much but it sounded like an improvement. I also don't remember the name of it, but is was about $600.00 retail. You might want to check this out as a possible solution for bass response. Does anyone else know about this to explain it better?

Just some added information,

Jim

Frank D

01-15-06, 10:11 PM

Jim, the EQ system from Velodyne is the SMS-1. There are several posts in the subwoofer section of this forum. If does appear to have great reviews from many purchasers.

Here is one post related to the SMS-1:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=495331

theirishgonzo

01-16-06, 01:08 AM

i love my sub i think it is better than any store bought one. what sub are you going to use? what output are you looking to get?

SmX

01-16-06, 02:41 AM

By The Way Folks,

I added the Black GoM Behind the Dazian Coated Celtic Cloth and it did nothing for the quality or colors of the material. I also added the black cloth behind the Da-Lite Perforated Material and the perf did appear less noticable. Meaning the Da-Lite perfs may be less noticable once up on the frame,

Ruben

SmX

01-16-06, 03:08 AM

Well, As for my HTPC, this Weekend I got everything in except for the Case (Figures). UPS left that out in Cali but brought me everything else for Saturday Delivery.

For allot of you guys here, this is gonna be a bunch of Mumbo jumo, so you may want to skip this post :D

So I assembled what I could until the Case arrives (Hopefully Moday)

Here are Some Pictures...

Here is the Abit KN8 SLI Quiet and Cool Motherboard

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC/ABIT-1.jpg

This is the AMD CPU I Got.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC/AMD.jpg

Here is the MotherBoard with the Zalman cooler, AMD CPU and 2 Gigs of Ram installed
For those that don't know, That big Fan is on top of the Processor to keep it cool. This fan runs extremely quiet and disperses the heat much better and quieter than the Cooler that comes with the AMD processor.

You may also notice, the Motherboard uses a heatsink transfer technology which is the Quiet and Cool set up. This eliminates a noisy fan on the Mother Board as well and distributes the heat in a noiseless fashion.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC/ABIT-2.jpg

Here is the nVidia GeForce 7800GTX PCI-Express Video Card

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC/7800GTX.jpg

As Soon as the Case Arrives, I will take Some more Pictures as I assemble it.

Ruben

Del Piero

01-16-06, 03:39 AM

Del Piero

01-16-06, 03:44 AM

oh ya forgot to mention, nice kitchen.

SmX

01-16-06, 03:55 AM

i just joined right now so i can reply to this thread.

was going through this thread thinking it was really old, and to my HORROR, the theatre is not done!!!!!!!!! was really hoping to see a finished project.

anyways, why is your HTPC so damn powerful? will you be using it for gaming? or strictly HTPC? (sorry if you've already answered this.. its a 21 page thread and i mainly looked at the pictures :D)

sli mobo: why?
dual core processor: why?
2gb ram: why?
7800 gtx: WHY?
total 480 gb HD: ...by your standards, thats low, lol.

You're probably some sort of millionaire (or heavily in debt.. :p), so buying the very best isn't really an issue.. althought i can't possibly think of a reason to get a 7800gtx for an HTPC. Definitely buy more HD space since you'll prolly gonna want to save a lot of stuff.

Hurry up and finish up your theatre.

peace.

Thanks,

I wanted to build a HTPC that can have the extra power if I need it in the Future.
The way Technology grows every few months, I figured this would hold me over for a while. Plus I will occaisionally game with it and it will make one of my best friends mad because it's faster than his machine :D

As far as Hard Drive Space, I have a Storcase InfoStation with 16 400 Gig Hard Drives. Will I ever Get around to archiving my 1,000 DVD's this Life? Most Likely Not.

Thats why I'm going to Buy a couple Sony DVP-CX777ES 400 Disc DVD/SACD/CD Changers to run with this system. I figure I will put all my older titles in these and as I buy new titles, I will Archive them.

As far as the theater not being done, it's all about quality and not quantity.

Ruben

Tedd

01-16-06, 06:25 AM

For those comtemplating the Velodyne SMS-1, you might want to also look into the QSC DSP-4. It will require a computer to set up, but is alot more flexible then the SMS-1 and the Behringer.

chirpie

01-16-06, 09:52 AM

As far as the theater not being done, it's all about quality and not quantity.

Ruben

Shoot, I'd say most of the theaters around the forum here have a build time between 6 months and 2 years. Even then, throw in the detail you're putting into the theater, and I thought you were going pretty fast. :-)

BIGmouthinDC

01-16-06, 10:04 AM

jmorris644

01-16-06, 10:56 AM

Ruben:

I have been starting to do research on HT PCs and hope to be able to learn from your experiences. Keep the details coming. When you finish a final version of the shopping list and sources would help a lot of us.

Also any hints on what it took to get everything working correctly would be fantastic.

I have begun to research the htPC area myself. Needless to say I am a comptuer geek. We have 4 computers in our house and a central server managing everything. And it is only my wife and me :)

Anyway, IMHO the software is really going to be the key. Ruben bought some really nice hardware but it is going to take a while to research and assemble all of the software that will make it work seemlessly. Knowing Ruben he has probably already decided on the software. He surprised me when he so rapidly came up with the hardware specs for the htPC. He is an amazing individual with an ubelievable breadth of knowledge.

I have recently downloaded the Cinemar products. They look very promising because they utilize a client/server paradigm. This means you can have multiple clients controlling multiple servers. You can have a server for home lighting and security control, another for DVD management, and yet another for MP3 management. I am not promoting this software yet as I need to spend more time with it, but it does look promising.

If Ruben is interested I can share what I find out about the software. I definately don't want to invade on his thread.

Joe

SmX

01-16-06, 01:13 PM

II have recently downloaded the Cinemar products. They look very promising because they utilize a client/server paradigm. This means you can have multiple clients controlling multiple servers. You can have a server for home lighting and security control, another for DVD management, and yet another for MP3 management. I am not promoting this software yet as I need to spend more time with it, but it does look promising.

If Ruben is interested I can share what I find out about the software. I definately don't want to invade on his thread.

Joe

Yes, for software I'm using the Cinemar Main Lobby/DVD Lobby/Music Lobby Package. To me, they by far have the best looking front end software and I like the organization of everything. Plus it can control up to 12 Sony 400 Disk DVD Jukeboxs.
I'm also using TheaterTek for the archived Video Playback. I already started adding titles to the Database. I'm also gonna experiment with the Charmed Quark and See how that goes.

Ruben

SVonhof

01-16-06, 03:45 PM

Yes, for software I'm using the Cinemar Main Lobby/DVD Lobby/Music Lobby Package. To me, they by far have the best looking front end software and I like the organization of everything. Plus it can control up to 12 Sony 400 Disk DVD Jukeboxs.
Ruben

I assume Cinemar is the program created by Mario here on the forum? If so, I am sure it would be a good program based off of what he had done early on with just his home theater web site! Also, it would be good to have that kind of "local"(if you want to call the forum local) contact for things such as upgrading from the sony 400 disc jukeboxes to the new 400 disc Blu-ray players whenever they come out.... :D

jrfuda

01-16-06, 04:28 PM

Y'all are correct Cinemar=MainLobby=Mario's creation...

And Sandman, once you start playing with FFDShow and applygin some processing to get the most out of your projector, you'll see that you may not have so much power to spare :)

I'm personnally a ZoomPlayer guy (vs. TheaterTek) but I've heard great things about TT as well.

radm1f

01-16-06, 05:16 PM

Amazing work sandman. :)

Some questions for you.

To decrease the HTPC sound is it possible to use liquid cooling? I know that there are adapters for most AMD CPUs and the Nvidia and ATI SLI and non SLI boards. Also, I changed my 8" fans to a 12" fans and lowered the RPM to decrease the noise. It seemed to work.

I am also a bit of a Mac fan and have networked my PC/Tivo/dual G5mac together. Have you thought about using something like FrontRow to preview your pics, music, and be able to play back 720p and 1080i content from a cable box stored via the mac (through the firewire port)?

I love the grain of the veneers with the filler. I used fillers for a red Oak jewelery box I made. The filler did an amazing job of bringing out the grain. Great Job!

Mehran

alexsmith2k

01-16-06, 06:47 PM

Well it would be possible...but would you risk having a liquid cooled system in your Equipment rack with all your amps, decoders and video equip....

Let alone having water anywhere near your stuff?

theirishgonzo

01-16-06, 10:38 PM

i like zoom player i used it to play the ogm and the mp4 files. in order to play anime they like to use all the new stuff to keep files small and good. i needed to install about 12 codeds to get everthing running. ac3 ffshow. the olny thing i dont like is wireless some times drops out when serving files.

also what sub do you use and what output do you expect to get @20hz

i have 4 avalanch 18 with the xbl motor in a ib with 3400 wats and i can hit 120db@12hz

mcascio

01-17-06, 01:31 AM

Yes, for software I'm using the Cinemar Main Lobby/DVD Lobby/Music Lobby Package. To me, they by far have the best looking front end software and I like the organization of everything. Plus it can control up to 12 Sony 400 Disk DVD Jukeboxs.

Ruben

Ruben,

Great thread and a fantastic looking theater. Reminds me of when I did my first theater with all the 3D renderings. (they look fantastic - as a Lightwave3D user for over a decade, I can appreciate the time and energy that goes into them - they proved invaluable to not making costly mistakes down the road). I never thought I'd find another person as detailed as me. :) Attention to detail pays off and really shows in your theater.

Let me know if you need any assistance with DVDLobby or any other modules in our Suite. I'm not only a hair care club member, but I'm also the president. :)

You can also use the Cinemar software to control all other components in your theater. You could taylor your interface to blend seamlessly into the color scheme you've chosen for the entire theater.

Check out the TechTalker theater intros on our website if you haven't already. They make a great audio bit while your visitors are taking their seats and after you've made a movie selection from DVDLobby and your changer is cueing up.

Also a shout out to all my "peeps" on the forum. I see some old names in this thread I remember well. I don't get a chance to frequent the forums as much as I used to but coming back to this particular one really makes me miss 'em. :(

Keep up the great work. Looking forward to seeing this one in the magazines.

SmX

01-17-06, 02:13 AM

Well Folks, Got allot done today. We finished Ripping and Routing all the wood for the Panels. While the guys were ripping and routing, I was building the HTPC. Got it all finished and got Windows XP 64 bit installed. Don't know If I'm gonna keep Windows XP 64 bit on it because I'm not sure how many apps are going to work with it.

However, I am happy to say the HTPC is running extremely Quiet and Extremely Cool. I even got the Fans running at 12 Volts right now and I'm gonna cut them all down to 5 Volts Which should Pretty much make the HTPC completely dead quiet. That Zalman Cooler id Incredibly Quiet and So isn't the Seasonic 500 Watt PSU.

Thanks mcascio for Chiming in.

I had Windows XP Media Center on my other PC (Sony Vaio) and it seemed like every 3rd or 4th launch of the Main Lobby would not open up. I would have to re-install Main Lobby again to get it to run for another 3 or 4 launches. However, the Main Lobby Server always opened with no Problem. Is there conflicts between the two? Or was it something to do with running a Trial version?

Will Main Lobby/DVD/Music run on Windows XP 64 bit with No issues?

Let Me Know, I'm ready to Purchase.

Now to the Best part we all love, the Pictures :)

Here is a shot of the Empty Case. This is from the Back. On the Rear right you will see the back of the 7" Touch Screen and to the Left of it is where the DVD Drive and Card Reader goes.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC-Finished/DSC07377.jpg

Fast Forward to Everything installed... One thing about PCs, they sure have enough Damn wires to Drive you Nuts. The Hardest part about building these is routing the wires to look neat and not restrict any needed airflow inside the case. I just plugged everything in first to make sure everything is working, Next, I have to make it neat after I confirm everything is fine.

Yikes! :eek: What a Mess!!!!

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC-Finished/DSC07388.jpg

About a Half Hour of routing the wires around makes things look much nicer. I will pick up some wire tubes tomorrow at Tiger Direct to make the inside even cleaner.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC-Finished/DSC07395.jpg

It's Alive!!!

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC-Finished/DSC07406.jpg

miltimj

01-17-06, 02:36 AM

Oh my. I finally got around to checking your thread, Ruben, as I've heard so much about it, and I have to say that I consistently caught myself saying, "That's what I want to do!" :)

The only differences I'm thinking of are a few more feet behind the 2nd row of seating, two different height risers, and no round columns (besides, I know I'd never be able to do them justice like you have). Thanks especially for the details on the star ceiling -- that's seeming much more plausible to me now, though I still wonder about the seems between panels, and if perhaps a 4'x8' panel would work better?

That HTPC is unbelievable. Awesome choice of components and very well thought out. I love the LCD display (I was considering a separate LCD, but that's a much more elegant solution for probably the same or less cost).

I'm looking forward to continuing to follow your progress, and going back to read the other 70% that I didn't get around to..

Keep up the phenomenal work! You're a benchmark for my future theater, that's for sure!

jrfuda

01-17-06, 02:55 AM

Ruben. that PC's a beauty! I'm glad she's running quiet for you too!

I've never run MainLobby on MCE, but it runs flawlessly on four different XP machines I run it on, as does MLServer. It's a very non-obtrusive program, it barely touches the registry (I actually run it off of a flash drive during slow days at the office when I want to edit a scene or something, and it runs on my completely locked-down work computer). MLServer is a very registry intense program, and many issues you'll ever have with MLServer can be solved by simply registering the proper plugin - and there's a plugin author over at the cinemar forum that's written a script that will register all your plugins automatically! By registering I mean registering the program within the Windows registery using Regsvr32, not registering the program with Cinemar :)

Make sure you have the latest version of Macromedia Flash and DirectX installed on whatever machines you run MainLobby on and that should fix your problems.

bpape

01-17-06, 08:03 AM

Purdy! It's always nice to see a new beast come to life. Nice job with cleaning things up.

Test_Engineer

01-17-06, 11:04 AM

Ruben,
How is that HT case to work in? I was considering the same one. Looks like you got it together ok, BUT how much swearing went on during the routing of cables. Sometimes, things just are not spaced right or they interfere with other stuff, especially powerful graphics cards.

Keep up the good work,
Cory

jmorris644

01-17-06, 12:51 PM

Ruben,

I would be surprised if you end up keeping windows64. I don't think you will have any problems with software but I believe you will find that you will want to install drivers for peripherals that are simply not available for the 64bit machines yet.

I have been running a triple-boot machine with XP-pro, XP-64, and MCE. I would love to stay with the 64bit as my main boot but I keep running into driver unavailability issues. Currently there are no drivers for my: webcam, scanner, digitizer, dell printer.

Now having said that, you might be ok with the htPC as you won't probably ahve such a need for peripherals.

Just some thoughts...

Joe

mcascio

01-17-06, 01:58 PM

Ruben,

How are you launching MainLobby?
From a shortcut? Start menu? Desktop icon?

The software has not been tested or developed for XP 64bit - so you may get unexpected results. I'd expect them to come from MLServer before MainLobby though because of all the drivers.

For kicks, try uninstalling first, then reinstall. What are you seeing happen with MainLobby? Is there a quick flash of some sort or nothing happens? Anything in your task manager? If you prefer, we can take the discussion to the Cinemar forum or via email so we don't sidetrack your thread here.

Joe - have you had any issues running MainLobby on your 64 bit system?

SmX

01-17-06, 04:01 PM

SmX

01-17-06, 05:08 PM

Here is a couple Shots with an accent light on the Columns and with some panels up. Again, the Red in the pictures is way off, it's not Fire Engine Red like that....

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/accent-test/DSC07459.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/accent-test/DSC07461.jpg

Ruben

SmX

01-17-06, 06:07 PM

Well Last Night I let the PC Idle all night with no Air Conditioning on in our house to see if anything Wierd would happened and the Tempature remained stable. It is running at 29 Celcius / 89 Degrees which is below what normal is. The Normal idle Tempature for an AMD chip is 45 - 50 Celcius. So I think we got ourself a winner.

BigMouthInDC wanted a Breakdown of where I bought everything and What it cost so here it is...

This is a List of what I ordered...

I got the Following stuff from www.eWiz.com

Video Card
EVGA nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 256MB 2DVI/HDTV PCI-Express Video Card
Part # EV-7800GTX
Price: $467.50

CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 4400+* (2.2GHz) Retail
Part # A64-44CDBX
Price: $498.52

Hard Drive
Seagate ST3400832AS 400GB Serial ATA 7200rpm NCQ Hard Drive
Part # HD-ST400BS
Price: $219.39

Hard Drive
Seagate ST380817AS 80GB Serial ATA 7200rpm NCQ Hard Drive
Part # HD-ST80SB7
Price: $59.48

Memory/Ram
2 DDR400 1GB Kingston Original Memory
Part # DDR4001GKI
Price: $87.03 Price Each

Mother Board
Abit KN8 SLI Socket 939/NF4 SLI/1394/ATX Motherboard
Part # MB-KN8-SLI
Price: $117.95

Total For eWiz $1,536.90

The Following Stuff was ordered from www.pcalchemy.com

Case
OrigenAE X15e HTPC Case w/TFT Touchscreen and IR Module, Black
PSU: Seasonic S12-500, 500W Silent PS
Card Reader: Black Internal 17-in-1 USB 2.0
Part # X15E-B
Price: $726.90

TV Tuner Card
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE
Part # 1081
Price: $139.95

CPU Cooler
Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu Copper CPU Fan Intel 478, AMD 754/939/940
Part # CNPS7000B-Cu
Price: $36.95

Total for www.PcAlchemy.com: $903.80

Total Cost for Building this PC: $2,440.70 plus shipping of Parts

SVonhof

01-17-06, 08:21 PM

Ruben, the speaker grilles look like they came out nice, did you back them with anything like we were talking about (mesh or perforated metal)?

SmX

01-17-06, 10:24 PM

Ruben, the speaker grilles look like they came out nice, did you back them with anything like we were talking about (mesh or perforated metal)?

Nah, that was just for show. The Speaker grills are Still not done yet. It's just GoM wrapped around the Speaker grill frame. One thing I can tell you for sure, is the Accent Lighting on the Columns is gonna be Awesome.

Ruben

SmX

01-18-06, 01:03 AM

Folks. Need your Help here.

As you may know we already Started Building the Panels and Temporarly put them up on the wall. After Seeing how the Red Panels on top were lining up with the grills, I decided to bring them down to make everything a little more lined up. I will be having a Black carpet with a pattern. The Sconces below are not what I'm using, they are only for placement.

Please give me your opinion from the 4 Choices Below or a variation of 2 choices below, these drawings are all 100% to scale...

This is what we were doing before I changed My Mind...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/wall-panels/Wall-Now.jpg

These are some other Variations I came up with, using the Red Panels that are already Made. Notice the Red Panels are now lined up with the column grills...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/wall-panels/Wall-2.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/wall-panels/Wall-3.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/wall-panels/Wall-4.jpg

Please help a Brother out :)

Test_Engineer

01-18-06, 01:39 AM

I like the red centered with the speaker grills better. Not so sure about the "chair rail" though. I makes it look a bit busy. IF you really want to use that wood trim, I would use it for a crown molding, or a baseboard. I think when the wood is running across the panel sections, it takes away from the columns.

Like this:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/Test_Engineer/rubenpanel.jpg

chinadog

01-18-06, 06:45 AM

I vote number two (assuming those are two wood accents), but it looks like addtional veneering and more work. You're used to that though!

Bud

jmorris644

01-18-06, 09:19 AM

Joe - have you had any issues running MainLobby on your 64 bit system?

Hi Mario,

I will be doing more testing. I have not tried MLsever on the 64bit yet. My main server in the house is running windows2003 advanced server. When I tried to run MLserver on it it would not run. The MLserver window would pop open but it would lock up after that. So with that initial experience I did not even try any of the software on the 64bit.

I would be more than happy to if you wish. We can take a conversation offline.

Because of the problem and my wish to not change from server2003 I started to test CQC. sorry. So far CQC is working great on 2003server.

Again, not wanting to steal Ruben's thread I responded here only so that he and others could see the 2003server issue.

But I agree with your thoughts, I would assume that MLServer would have a very difficult time on 64bit windows. Not necessarily because of the code but more so because of unavailabilty of 3rd party drivers.

Joe

jmorris644

01-18-06, 09:39 AM

Please help a Brother out :)

Sorry Ruben,

JMVHO but I don't like any of them. The horizontal lines in the black is what is bugging me.

My vote would be for variation #1 (centered with 2 wood rails) but with the lower black sections having vertical seams like the red panels. On the top I would again either 1) put the vertical black seams in or 2) have it all wood or 3) take the red up to the full height. It seems to me by the drawing that the sconces are too low in the centered version. If you take the red to the top you would be able to raise the sconces. It could be that just the drawings make them seem low. I don't think it looks good to have the sconce dead even with the middle of the speaker grills.

Here's a wild-ass idea that just came to me. It may not work because I think your complete theater is built using 90degree angles but I think it would look really nice and break up the red panels a little. If you want the top section to be black it would also tie that in a little better. Take the middle red panel, modify it to put in a black triangle from the top of it so that the bottom of the triangle ends up behind the sconce. Oh well, just a thought. :)

Joe

bpape

01-18-06, 09:47 AM

IMO, if you're considering changing the horizontal black on the bottom (personally I like it this way), I'd just make it all one panel with no seams.

I also kind of like the one Test Engineer came up with. I know we discussed several options last night and it's really hard to say without seeing it personally. Any of the centered designs will work nicely. Which variation is a lot of personal taste.

mcascio

01-18-06, 10:45 AM

Hi Mario,

I will be doing more testing. I have not tried MLsever on the 64bit yet. My main server in the house is running windows2003 advanced server. When I tried to run MLserver on it it would not run. The MLserver window would pop open but it would lock up after that. So with that initial experience I did not even try any of the software on the 64bit.

Joe

Joe,

An updated file is required to work on Windows2003 Server. This will come standard in the next version. Until then, the file can be found in this thread:
http://www.htpcservers.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4370&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=2003&start=15

I had a chance to talk with Ruben via phone yesterday (the guys a wealth of knowledge) and we'll work on "Cinemarizing" his theater. :)

jmorris644

01-18-06, 12:03 PM

Joe,

An updated file is required to work on Windows2003 Server. This will come standard in the next version. Until then, the file can be found in this thread:
http://www.htpcservers.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4370&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=2003&start=15

Thanks mario. That plus a few "Dart" registrations and it seems to be working now. Now on to some more testing :)

I had a chance to talk with Ruben via phone yesterday (the guys a wealth of knowledge) and we'll work on "Cinemarizing" his theater. :)

I agree. I think it is amazing the depth of Ruben's knowledge in so many areas.

Joe

rm1759

01-18-06, 02:31 PM

chirpie

01-18-06, 02:36 PM

It takes some time to get through this entire thread! If I ever get around to rebuilding my theater, I hope you don't mind if I steal some of your design!

have you considered putting those panels horizontal between the columns?

Not a bad thought, they might stand out better against the column. (interuption of vertical lines) There would need to be some reworking of sizes for everything though. More effort. (ugh! ^_^ )

SmX

01-18-06, 05:02 PM

Thanks for all the Responses guys. I think I'm going with Option #2 with a 5" Oak Base Board to match the Columns.

Also, we got our Screen Research ClearPix 2 Screen Sample today along with a Black backing. It looks like a vinyl Weave and is very transparent for sound. I will throw it up on the Wall tonight and check it out.

Ruben

SmX

01-18-06, 05:45 PM

I think his 6Tb solution could even give the Kaliedescape a run for its money. :D

Yeah I was Reading over the Specs on those Kaliedescapes, and the 3 terrabyte Solution was like $30k plus another $10k for this and $12k for that. That's just plain Ripping people off. The only nice thing about it is the cool case and software. I think I will get the results I want with Cinemar and some programming.

Besides, with over 1,000 people a day reading this thread, I think Mario want's to help me out so this Cinemar solution will work for me. ;)

Ruben

SmX

01-18-06, 05:46 PM

For those comtemplating the Velodyne SMS-1, you might want to also look into the QSC DSP-4. It will require a computer to set up, but is alot more flexible then the SMS-1 and the Behringer.

I'm thinking about doing a couple of Danley's. Right now I have the Velodyne HGS-18.

Ruben

SmX

01-18-06, 05:52 PM

Shoot, I'd say most of the theaters around the forum here have a build time between 6 months and 2 years. Even then, throw in the detail you're putting into the theater, and I thought you were going pretty fast. :-)

True! Yes I would of been done months ago if I didn't change my design 17 Times throughout the process.

I'm a very Autistic ...I mean Artistic person :) and I see so many alternative visions as something Starts to take place.

But I am So far 100% happy with all the changes I made, meaning I will enjoy the Room to the fullest while I'm Sleeping in those Big Comfortable Chairs gazing at the Stars. :)

SmX

01-18-06, 05:55 PM

I'm personnally a ZoomPlayer guy (vs. TheaterTek) but I've heard great things about TT as well.

I have to Start Looking into Zoomplayer and FFDshow as well.

KWhite

01-18-06, 10:03 PM

Definitely setting a new level on DIY, great job, even your HTPC is bitchin.

jmorris644

01-18-06, 11:07 PM

SmX

01-19-06, 12:05 AM

On no!!! Not the screen of doom wall!!! :eek:

Was this a Bad or Good Oh No?

chirpie

01-19-06, 01:16 AM

Was this a Bad or Good Oh No?

Maybe just humor for the sake of how well the other "professional" products have faired.

You know, like the chop block or sumthin'.

^_^

FusionRx

01-19-06, 01:19 AM

Yeah.. Kaliedescape machines are very good solutions to the problem of non-computer person wanting a stable robust system. Now whether they are worth the money is a different questions. I see your 6tb system and then there's this 4.6Tb array (in a ATX chassis). http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=714871&page=10 (go about halfway down page to see buildlog for this computer). Two very nice homebrew alternatives to the Kaliedescape....

Damn I wish I could afford all those hard drives... :)

SmX

01-19-06, 02:11 AM

Thats Cool. This is my storage solution Right Here (http://www.storcase.com/infostation/16bay3u_fibresata.asp#) It has 16 400 Gig WD 7200 SATA Drives.

Problem with this is it cannot be put in the Theater due to how loud it is. It will be put inside my house in a ACed Closet. It is a Dual Fibre Channel Set up Using an Atto Dual Channel Celerity Fibre Card.

SmX

01-19-06, 03:21 AM

Coming soon...

FusionRx

01-19-06, 07:32 AM

So of the two, you prefer the one with no perfs? (Dazian CCC) or the one with the tiny holes (Clearpix)???

exipnos

01-19-06, 08:15 AM

Not sure what Sandman thinks of the clearpix yet, but its pretty clear that the CCC did not work for him.

Yep, it was too good to be true. :(

It was the Coated Celtic Cloth I received, I even tried both sides. It was total Garbage.

I'm just wondering if it perhaps works better with LCD projectors opposed to DLP? Bottom Line, for Me is it's not happening in my Room.

Ruben

exipnos

01-19-06, 11:13 AM

Update For Friday:

Here are the Bass Traps on the Stage. These will be behind the Screen wall and will never be Seen by a human except for me if I ever change the Speakers or Something back there. They started off as 24" x 96" 5.5" Cotton Batts. They all got cut down to Triangles and got compressed in the left and right corners of the Stage.

Ruben

Hi Ruben,

I'm was planning on doing some corner bass traps in the back of my HT. Now when my house is in being constructed I can see that my HT side wall interfers with light entering the living room (window is in a corridoor leading to the HT). I therefore plan on removing one back 90degree corner and replacing it with an angled wall. l'll loose one bass trap but the HT will look the same on the inside but on the outside I will gains some space. I'm now trying to figure out the dimension of my angled corner.

What are the dimensions of your corner triangles? Are you only installing corner bass traps in the front or in the back corners also? If so what are those dimensions?

Thanks and sorry for the little thread jacking.
Exipnos

SmX

01-19-06, 11:26 AM

So of the two, you prefer the one with no perfs? (Dazian CCC) or the one with the tiny holes (Clearpix)???

The Dazian is Pure Crap IMO. It Blurs and Muds the picture Big Time.

The ClearPix 2 Material looks the best so far for all the perforated material (Besides the Stewart Micro Perf). But the Steawart MicroPerf isn't as Audio Transparent as the ClearPix2.

If I have to go with a perforated screen material at this point in my testing stages, it will be the ClearPix 2.

Ruben

CaspianM

01-19-06, 11:33 AM

What is the effective gain of clearpix 2?
Good work all the way.

jikkjack

01-19-06, 11:40 AM

Just out of curiosity...did you by any chance try to project on White GOM??

It is acoustically transparent and honestly may be able to pull off a better picture quality than any of the perf screens you have tested so far...and it comes in a 66" width.

jmorris644

01-19-06, 12:38 PM

Was this a Bad or Good Oh No?

It was definately meant as humorous like Chirpie thought. :)

jmorris644

01-19-06, 12:46 PM

I checked out the Screen Research ClearPix2 Material and I think it's pretty Damn good. There are no noticable Perfs on it and it seems 100% accoustically transparent (unlike the Stewart Microperf). The color looks great, the Clearity looks awesome, wall still looks a tad bit clearer but the wall is not perforated either.

Extreme close up of the ClearPix2 Material

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-research/DSC07570.jpg

I hate to ask but are you sure this is not a picture of the back of the Pix2? What I can see through the weave loks like a more solid face. Which, to me, would make more sense facing the projector.

Joe

SmX

01-19-06, 12:58 PM

I hate to ask but are you sure this is not a picture of the back of the Pix2? What I can see through the weave loks like a more solid face. Which, to me, would make more sense facing the projector.

Joe

I believe it's the Front, unless screen Research put the material in Backwards on the sample Card. Keep in Mind, that these are extremley close up, zoomed in shots of the Material.

The back side has the same perfs but just a different pattern.

Ruben

jmorris644

01-19-06, 01:13 PM

I believe it's the Front, unless screen Research put the material in Backwards on the sample Card. Keep in Mind, that these are extremley close up, zoomed in shots of the Material.

The back side has the same perfs but just a different pattern.

Ruben

That is amazing. So do you believe you have found your screen material?

Joe

SmX

01-19-06, 02:01 PM

That is amazing. So do you believe you have found your screen material?

Joe

I believe I found it. Now the question is the Screen Ratio.
I really love the look of a 2:35:1 Format instead of the 16:9 Format

Thanks

exipnos

01-19-06, 02:20 PM

Any idea about those corner trap dimensions?

SmX

01-19-06, 02:26 PM

Any idea about those corner trap dimensions?

The Corner Traps were 24" x 24" squares cut into 2 halves as triangles.

Ruben

bpape

01-19-06, 02:55 PM

Each 24x24 piece yields 4 triangles that are 1.4' x 1.4' x 2' (2' face). You simply cut an 'X' into the material and stack them up. You can easily make slats to hold them in place.

Just take a 1x2 or 1x3 and rip a 45 degree angle on each side. When you mount them on the wall, they'll form a channel to hold the triangles in place. The other side at 45 degrees leaves you a nice surface to staple cloth to and then just trim the edges as you please.

If you don't want to staple, just make a frame with the grille cloth stretched over it and attach to the stirips via Velcro, magnets, etc.

SmX

01-19-06, 02:59 PM

Question:

I have the Optoma H-79 DLP Projector, I am making a hush box for it (for cosmetics not noise).

I need to know if the the Lens has to be in the center of the screen (Left to Right). This Projector has the Lens on the Side, so that means the hush box would have to be off centered with the room or made wider so its centered with the room.

I know the Lens should be lined up with the top of the screen.

Thanks

rm1759

01-19-06, 03:46 PM

I have a couple of questions on the cotton used in the treatments. I did not see the answers in the thread...

first, did y ou fill all of the panels on the wall with the 2" black cotton batts?

second, exactly what is this material, where did you get it, and how much does it cost?

thanks so much for the help...

jmorris644

01-19-06, 03:51 PM

I believe I found it. Now the question is the Screen Ratio.
I really love the look of a 2:35:1 Format instead of the 16:9 Format

Thanks

Do you have pricing yet? I have sent a request into The St. John group but no response yet.

Joe

SVonhof

01-19-06, 04:45 PM

Ruben, I don't know if your projector has side keystone adjustment on the lens, but typically you want the lens to be dead center and aligned with the top of the screen so that you don't need to use any keystone adjustment.

Video purists will tell you that whenever you can avoid the digital keystone adjustment, avoid it.

On a side note, one reason I am not sure of the Magnolia Home Theater people that are now in some of the Best Buy stores is because I have seen them mount projectors too low and then angled up and keystone adjusted to get the image square. Why?

mashtun

01-19-06, 05:17 PM

I though most projectors had an offset to the bottom of the image. In other words if the projector is sitting perfectly level on a table and pointing at a wall the the bottom of the image would be some distance below the center of the lens.

My Screenplay 4805 maual has a formula for calculating the offset, depending on the distance away from the screen.

So if the projector were hanging, then you would calulate how far up from the center of the lens the top of the image would be.

I also read in the 4805 FAQ here that if you can aim the projector squarely onto the wall, and not at an angle, then you shouldn't have to use the keystone adjustment. This is supposed to be better, because the keystoning, is done digitally, and distorts the picture.

Don't know if any of this applies to the H71, but if it is, then I would say make a larger box, that makes the PJ look centered.

John

bpape

01-19-06, 06:42 PM

Ruben,

I'd agree that the less electronic image manipulation you make the projector do the better. I'd build the box bigger and center the lens.

SmX

01-19-06, 06:49 PM

Thanks Guys for all the answers.

BPape answered this question for me on the phone right after I posted it and I forgot to delete it. So I am making a wide Hush Box so the Lens can be centered with the top of the screen and the hush box centered with the Room.

Thanks Again!
Ruben

Steve Goff

01-19-06, 07:21 PM

theirishgonzo

01-19-06, 10:43 PM

actuley it is also in your projector design. my projector is 10 in above my screen and i dont have to use keystine for it. it is a 8700+

miltimj

01-19-06, 11:30 PM

Are you planning a built-in cooling solution for the hushbox?

John (mashtun), the vertical offset depends on the projector. The 4805 is an example of one that does have some offset, whereas the H79 (and my 7700, for example) are zero offset, so the center of the lens should ideally be at the same heigh as the top of the screen.

SmX

01-19-06, 11:35 PM

Are you planning a built-in cooling solution for the hushbox?

Nah, I figured I would let the projector Fry :D

It's going to be open on the back and the A/C Return is right above the projector. It will also have plenty of breething room. I may also cut a hole in the Bottom of the Soffit with the return to suck the hot air up and Out.

Thanks
Ruben

GPowers

01-19-06, 11:44 PM

You east cost guys stay up late.

chinadog

01-20-06, 12:56 AM

You east cost guys stay up late.

Must be something in the water ....

BUd

BIGmouthinDC

01-20-06, 01:51 PM

The center of the the lens can be anywhere vertically between the top and bottom edge with the 79's lens shift. It needs to be dead on center horizontally.

I've read that's it's not a great idea to have it right at the max. I gave myself a couple of extra inches to be safe.

Note the location of the intake (bottom) and exhaust (side) give those areas plenty of area to breathe. It does throw off some heat.

The way that thing is designed if you plan on sitting it on a shelf inside the hush box I would build a little extra height for the feet (like putting your car up on a ramp) so that the air intake gets as much air as it wants.

jmorris644

01-20-06, 03:56 PM

Nah, I figured I would let the projector Fry :D

It's going to be open on the back and the A/C Return is right above the projector. It will also have plenty of breething room. I may also cut a hole in the Bottom of the Soffit with the return to suck the hot air up and Out.

Thanks
Ruben

Hmmm. I think you might need to open up more than just the back. Even though the return is sucking it is going to need a flow of air to suck.

Joe

SmX

01-20-06, 04:00 PM

Hmmm. I think you might need to open up more than just the back. Even though the return is sucking it is going to need a flow of air to suck.

Joe

Thanks for the Tip. It will be fine buddy, don't worry ;) There is also a 4" hole in front for the Lens which wont be covered with glass.

Ruben

chinadog

01-20-06, 04:06 PM

miltimj

01-20-06, 09:35 PM

I think Ruben has a fine cooling plan -- I just thought I'd mention it to ensure it's not accidentally overlooked. The fact that there is an intake vent on the bottom, and the top of it will be sucking warm air out. That should be plenty in itself, provided the A/C is always on while the projector is on. If that's not the case, then maybe a thermal sensing fan in the A/C return would be wise (probably in either case). The opening in the back is just a bonus.

SmX

01-21-06, 12:53 AM

Some Pictures and Updates.

Here is a picture of the wood trim that will wrap around the room. It is 3 3/4" MDF Sandwiched together and wrapped with the Red oak Veneer. This will be stained to match the light trays and Columns...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07575.jpg

Here is the Hush box beginning Stages. It will get Stained as well to match the columns. It is also Red Oak veneer.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07579.jpg

here is the projector mounted to the board that will get mounted to the soffit with Rubber Bushings.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07577.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07578.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07580.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07581.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07582.jpg

The Back of the Hush Box, It will be covered with a GoM or just left open.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07585.jpg

SmX

01-21-06, 12:53 AM

Treatments going up...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07586.jpg

Lights installed in light trays..

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07591.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07590.jpg

Masked of the columns for the black Paint inside the grooves.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07595.jpg

SmX

01-21-06, 01:05 AM

Well Folks,

Tonight we pulled the Da-Lite screen out the Box to check it out.
Just Like BPape said, the Perfs were not noticable from 8 - 10 Feet away from the Screen.

We then did some more comparisons with the Screen Research ClearPix2 Material and Realized it was also Distorting the Image like the Dazian CCC but just not as bad. When the image would be shooting on the CP2 Material, it would lose detail in the clearity of the Picture opposed to being really clear on the Da-Lite material.

So I made a Final Decision to stick with my Original Screen I bought. So we assembled the whole Da-Lite frame and screen in under 5 minutes.

This is one of my guard dogs named Killer Spike...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07637.jpg

This shows the Pro Trim, The Material Corners are not Snapped in place yet...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/screen-frame/DSC07634.jpg

SmX

01-21-06, 01:13 AM

Hey Ruben,

I'm thinking about using a 1 or 2 space Middle Atantic rank vent for the back of mine for intake. Something like this:

http://www.middleatlantic.com/images/iracacc/evt2.gif

Probably cover the whole think in matching GOM (with the soffit GOM) to blend it better.

Bud

Hey Bud,

Not a Bad Idea. Its funny, I just picked up that same exact panel last night for my Rack. I think GoM alone will do just as well.

Ruben

Spaceman Spiff

01-21-06, 01:16 AM

SmX

01-21-06, 01:46 AM

I have been reading through this thread and I have to tell you it is a great tool that I will definately be using if I ever get a room big enough to build a real Home theatre.

One thing has been bothering me, why did you decide to use MDF with oak veneer instead of solid red oak?

The Light trays were originally going to be wrapped with GoM Fabric until I decided to do a wood finish after they were installed. It wouldn't of made sense to rip down all the light trays to redo them in solid Oak. Plus around here, Solid Red oak is $8 a Square Foot and only comes in 12" wide Planks.

There is no way to make half rounds out of solid red oak either. So the next best thing is Veneer. If High end speaker companies like B & W get away with using Veneer on their $8,000 speakers, I'm pretty sure I can too :)

Ruben

sk8conz

01-21-06, 05:25 AM

jmorris644

01-21-06, 08:58 AM

I know when I first ran across this thread I told Ruben how amazing his work was. I have been actively (every day) watching this thread for the last 6 weeks now.

Prompted by many of the comments that people have left in this thread I wanted to say two more things.

First I wanted to thank Ruben for taking the great amount of time to keep this thread going. Taking the pictures, answering questions from all of us, etc. He would possibly have his theater finished by now if not for the 24+ pages on this thread ;)

The second thank you is for those of us that are about to build a HT and for those that are going to take some of Ruben's ideas and incorporate them in out current HTs. I hope Ruben doesn't mind but many of his thoughts and ideas are very incorporatable in other designs.

We just finished remodeling our kitchen and dining room and installing new windows throughout the whole house. During this whole process I have been educating my builder on all of the underlying thoughts regarding a HT installation. Many of these coming from this thread. He is becoming very excited and is starting to come up with ideas of his own! Our next project is the laundry room (yuck, gotta appease the wife) and then the HT (yeah!!) and then the sauna/steambath and then the pool table room and wet bar. And with my builder we should be able to finish the HT in about 3 months from the start. The planning stage is extremely critical for me. I probably won't have the opportunity, from a timing standpoint, to make as many modifications as Rubin has been able to do during the construction phase.

Ruben, thanks for making this thread a one-stop-place for rock solid information on everything from GoM to screen material to acoustic treatments, to etc... It is invaluable!!

Joe

SmX

01-21-06, 11:49 AM

I hadn't checked the Theatre design forum for several months. BIG mistake :rolleyes: I saw this excellent thread and now have the upgrade itch :o

I have a room of 19' X 15' with a 12' ceiling, so some of the stuff covered here such as the star ceiling and soffits are of much interest.

I have read the thread start to finish and have a few questions :-

1) Did you use bolts / screws or nails to anchor the soffit frames to the wall and ceilings ?

2) Do you plan to use wall sconces for lighting as well as the halogen downlights ?

3) Do you plan to use rope light in the soffit light tray ? If yes, what color ?

4) I assume that you veneered the light tray after it was up ? How did you get the veneer to behave around the curved front ? Folding it over to do the bottom of the tray would have needed some cuts to allow it to follow the curve ?

5) See the attached picture. From reading the thread, this is how I think the soffit was constructed. If you could add a few dimensions / corrections it would be appreciated.

Thanks

Darrin

1) Did you use bolts / screws or nails to anchor the soffit frames to the wall and ceilings ?

Screws

2) Do you plan to use wall sconces for lighting as well as the halogen downlights ?

The Downlights is More than enough Lighting in that room. I still may do some sconces to fill up the walls.

3) Do you plan to use rope light in the soffit light tray ? If yes, what color ?
I may use Side Lit Fiber Cable. That way I can change the Color anytime I feel like it.

Prob a regular white rope is what would work best in my case.

4) I assume that you veneered the light tray after it was up ? How did you get the veneer to behave around the curved front ? Folding it over to do the bottom of the tray would have needed some cuts to allow it to follow the curve ?

Yes we veneered It after it was up. We used a paper back veneer because it is very bendable. The wrap araound corners were rounded out a little so the veener could form easily around them.

5) See the attached picture. From reading the thread, this is how I think the soffit was constructed. If you could add a few dimensions / corrections it would be appreciated.

The Soffit started out with a 2" x 2" on the ceiling and then 12" tall MDF got screwed into the 2 x 2. The Bottom of the Soffit was framed out on the floor then put into position with Liquid nails and Screws. Your drawing is close, except their was no framing on the Soffit face where you show the MDF.

Mark P

01-21-06, 11:51 AM

I was wondering if your concerned about the reflections off the woodwork being distracting during a movie or do the microperf screens not reflect much light? We really wanted to do some things with wood but after we got the PJ and fired it up and found just how powerful the light is that reflects back into the room it made me curious enough to grab some satin finished table leaves and place them about in the room to see the effect and it was extremely reflective and distracting even on lowest bulb settings.

Just curious if you did any testing ? If you go up 7-8 posts and look at your picture right below " treatments going up......." and look at the soffit you see the white of the walls and wires reflecting with ambient lighting . If you do some testing with this please give your results because we can still opt for wood on stages and things if others are having good results.
Thanks!

SmX

01-21-06, 09:57 PM

SmX

01-22-06, 05:07 AM

I Started backing up my DVD collection Yesterday. So Far I managed to get 40 titles in the Back-Up Drives. Takes about 12 minutes to Rip a DVD. I am waiting for the Sony 777 Jukebox to get here so I can compare quality. I may keep older titles in the Jukebox and archive all the newer releases.

I also Got TheaterTek 2.2.1 with FFDShow and dScaler rocking with the Pre-Settings from Vern. The pre-settings that Vern put together for FFdshow and dScaler worked out perfectly for me. Thanks Vern! The Image quality with this set up playing DVD files off the hard drive is insane! It completely blows my Pioneer Elite dv59avi out the box! I was so worried that using a HTPC would suffice one way or another, boy I was dead wrong. Plus this set up does 1080 which is the first DVD player to do it.

Also, by archiving titles on a hard drive, means no more having to go through all the Previews and Menu to watch a movie. Just hit play and the movie is playing all running through FFDshow and dScaler post processing. I think anyone here who is Serious about HT has to Look into doing a High Quality HTPC, it's just the way of the future. And to be honest, setting up the software is really not hard at all. If you know how to read and can follow instructions, you should have no problem. I, myself am not anywhat considered a Software programmer and I made it all work.

A word of wise, If your going to build your own HTPC, Use a nVidia 7800GTX video card. Do not use ATI. I been doing some serious reading after the fact and learned that the 7800GTX is the best card right now for HTPC. I originally made this decision myself based on specs and a few quick readings here and there. I'm glad I made the right choice.

Also, with the Set up I put together, I can Watch a Full Screen Movie through TheaterTek with ffdshow and dscaler post processing and also Rip DVDs in the Backround. Doing all that only uses 35% of my CPU while also running 22 other Processes in the normal windows enviroment. The Tempature during all this amazingly stays below 40 celcius as well. So other words, I have allot of Headroom to do other Stuff as well at the Same time.

So if your planning on building a Serious HTPC, follow my parts list above (case is variable) and you should be golden.

Ruben

G-force

01-22-06, 05:28 AM

DenW

01-22-06, 09:46 AM

Hi Ruben,

Been following this thread for quite a while now. Utterly amazing!!
Can't wait to see the finished theater.

The HTPC looks cool also. You commented on processor load when using ffdshow and theatertek. Out of curiosity, could you see what the load is when playing a HD-WMV 1080 file? (the ones you can find on http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx)

Thanks,
Den

ChiTown_Jerry

01-22-06, 09:51 AM

I Started backing up my DVD collection Yesterday. So Far I managed to get 40 titles in the Back-Up Drives. Takes about 12 minutes to Rip a DVD.

Sandman,

12 minutes? What are you using? Could you give us some specifics on what set of software you're using?

I am just finishing my own HTPC and want to start archiving my DVD's as well, but the array of software seemingly required, and the steps to do it properly is dizzying.

thanks for your help in advance,

Jerry

P.S. awesome theatre!

Rahl

01-22-06, 10:47 AM

Really cool step by step of the build but personally from an investor's standpoint I think I would have added this onto the structure rather than eliminating the possibility of future owners having a garage. I'm sure there's a guy out there looking for a house with a HT, but I'd bet the majority of potential buyers would rather have the option of automobile storage. Unless of course you have another set of detatched garages on the property.

Either way Awesome planning and execution. The finished product will be remarkable.

I think that he said earlier that he was planning on building some sort of new vehicle storage afterwards.

But, I do agree with you, a garage is a must.

chirpie

01-22-06, 11:04 AM

Could you give us some specifics on what set of software you're using?

I believe the software was discussed a page or two back. It was even concieved by one of the forum goers of this site.

Now if Ruben wanted to add some more details as to the actual process of adding the dvds (and whether or not he took out extra features or audio tracks... really, what are you going to do with that Dolby track on the War of the Worlds DVD? ^_^ ) then I'd be all for it.

At his disgression and leisure of course...

Mark P

01-22-06, 11:07 AM

Sandman,

12 minutes? What are you using? Could you give us some specifics on what set of software you're using?

I am just finishing my own HTPC and want to start archiving my DVD's as well, but the array of software seemingly required, and the steps to do it properly is dizzying.

thanks for your help in advance,

Jerry

P.S. awesome theatre!

one method is

Get AnyDVD, install and setup to go straight to movie to avoid all the rubbish

Open windows explorer and copy Video TS file (from DVD drive) to where ever movies are stored and when finished rename the new file with the movies name.

If you use TheaterTek to play the movies you can have it auto aspect ratio by playing 1 second of the movie and choosing proper aspect ratio as well as choose auto DTS or DD.

The speed at which it rips to the HD must depend on several variables like DVD drive, Processor and memory since I can rip 3 movies at one time and my fastest ripping drive is on 32' of USB cable , go figure? My server takes 20 minutes and the HTPC take 10-15 on a 7 gig movie.

Mark P

01-22-06, 11:22 AM

I also Got TheaterTek 2.2.1 with FFDShow and dScaler rocking with the Pre-Settings from Vern. The pre-settings that Vern put together for FFdshow and dScaler worked out perfectly for me. Thanks Vern!

A word of wise, If your going to build your own HTPC, Use a nVidia 7800GTX video card. Do not use ATI. I been doing some serious reading after the fact and learned that the 7800GTX is the best card right now for HTPC. I originally made this decision myself based on specs and a few quick readings here and there. I'm glad I made the right choice.

So if your planning on building a Serious HTPC, follow my parts list above (case is variable) and you should be golden.

Ruben What does Dscaler do that theatertek doesnt? I have not checked into it .

Have you tried the ATI cards to see the difference between them and the 7800? I have heard the new ATI X1x00 Sapphires with AVIVO are comperable to $3000 scalers and supposedly outshine the NVidia Pure video Drivers. I really wish there was hard fact on all this

Whats the audio end of your HTPC? SPDIF passthrough off motherboard?

ChiTown_Jerry

01-22-06, 12:57 PM

I believe the software was discussed a page or two back. It was even concieved by one of the forum goers of this site.

I looked but only saw hardware parts list.. I'll look again..

thanks!

Jerry

chirpie

01-22-06, 01:18 PM

I looked but only saw hardware parts list.. I'll look again..

thanks!

Jerry
Somewhere around post 635 sandman said this:

"Yes, for software I'm using the Cinemar Main Lobby/DVD Lobby/Music Lobby Package. To me, they by far have the best looking front end software and I like the organization of everything. Plus it can control up to 12 Sony 400 Disk DVD Jukeboxs.
I'm also using TheaterTek for the archived Video Playback. I already started adding titles to the Database. I'm also gonna experiment with the Charmed Quark and See how that goes."

They talked a bit about it after that...

ebr

01-22-06, 02:01 PM

Sandman, I know you've settled on your screen but I'm really puzzled by your description of the CCC since I haven't seen anyone else who'd used it be dissatisfied. Did you try both sides of it? I noticed on mine that there is definitely a "coated" side (more uniform and brighter) and a non-coated side...

SmX

01-22-06, 02:43 PM

Really cool step by step of the build but personally from an investor's standpoint I think I would have added this onto the structure rather than eliminating the possibility of future owners having a garage. I'm sure there's a guy out there looking for a house with a HT, but I'd bet the majority of potential buyers would rather have the option of automobile storage. Unless of course you have another set of detatched garages on the property.

Either way Awesome planning and execution. The finished product will be remarkable.

Where I live, you don't have much property to do anything with. Also, out of my neighborhood about 5 people put their cars in there garage. Everyone else just uses them to store unused junk like I use to.

I have no intention on selling my home within at least the next 10 years. So even if I sell the house and have to rip the theater down, I would of gotten well more than my moneys worth. We also have a 4 Car Driveway for parking.

Ruben

SmX

01-22-06, 03:13 PM

Sandman,

12 minutes? What are you using? Could you give us some specifics on what set of software you're using?

I am just finishing my own HTPC and want to start archiving my DVD's as well, but the array of software seemingly required, and the steps to do it properly is dizzying.

thanks for your help in advance,

Jerry

P.S. awesome theatre!

I'm Using CloneDVD. The process is rather simple, Load CloneDVD up set your settings 1 time to Last forever (ie. what Folder, Main Feature or whole DVD) and then hit the Start button. Clove DVD even names the Movie Title folder for you.
Since I have a built in 7" Touch Screen on my HTPC, I can do everything self contained. So as I'm working throughout the Day I rip DVDs. Once the dvd is ripped, an alarm sounds, I eject, put a new DVD in and hit the start button again. This repeats like this all day without having to keep changing settings or naming folders.

As far as what I'm ripping, I'm only ripping the main Feature of the DVD and all the Audio formats. It takes between 9 - 13 minutes to Rip the main feature and Audio. I leave out all the other junk (Menus, Previews, extra Features, etc.) This makes it so when I run DVD lobby I select a Movie by the cover click On it and the movie strts to play right away. You can even have your animated theater Logo play on the big screen between Hitting play and the Movie Playing.

Here is a screen Shot of the HTPC Screen with CloneDVD...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/dvd-clone.jpg

mashtun

01-22-06, 04:37 PM

[QUOTE=Mark P]Have you tried the ATI cards to see the difference between them and the 7800? I have heard the new ATI X1x00 Sapphires with AVIVO are comperable to $3000 scalers and supposedly outshine the NVidia Pure video Drivers. I really wish there was hard fact on all this

Ok first let me say I just got back from the Case Western Reserve University Science Fiction film festival. First movie started a 8 PM Friday, Last movie ended 5:30 Am this morning then car trouble, fixing car trouble, ETC. So am going on about 6 hours sleep since 9 AM Friday morning, so bear with me on any mistakes.

I don't have any experience with the new ATI cards, but a friend has one of the older RADON all in wonder cards, and I would never buy it.

It is so complicated that everytime he tries to set it up with a PJ, that is usually takes him about 20 to 40 minutes to get it working. It never seems to work the same way twice. :(

He has been through 4 different cards. First one died, the next three did not work, until he at ATI's insistence changed out his power supply. :(

When using it as a Tivo like device, and he fast forwards to avoid commercials the card us just as likely to fast reverse, or just plain crash the PC. :mad:

All in all, mixed with all the other bad experiences i have has with ATIs I just can't see buying one.

John

SmX

01-22-06, 07:07 PM

I did Some Very Interesting Tests today Thanks to the Comment from DenW above. Today I learned exactly how powerfull the HTPC I put together was.

First, I went to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/wi...ntShowcase.aspx and downloaded the 1080p HD trailer of The Living Sea (IMAX)

Then I went to http://www.apple.com/trailers/ and downloaded the 1080 HD trailer of "King Kong" and the 1080 HD trailer of "The Hills Have Eyes".

I have 3 Computers handy next to each other
one is the AMD Dual Core HTPC I built, See The Specs Here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6941393&&#post6941393)
one is a SONY VAIO PCV RS 410 P4 2.6 with 1 gig of Ram
the other is a Apple G5 Dual 2.7 with 4 Gigs of Ram.

I ran these 1080p trailers on all 3 machines and this is what I found out...

First Lets Start with the Sony Vaio.

I ran the 1080p The Living Sea (IMAX) trailer on it in WMP and it kept dropping massive frames. The Movie kept freezing up and was unbearable so I stopped it. I had the Task manager opened during the Playback and the CPU was running at 100% (Probably alot more than that)

I also tried to run the 1080 King Kong trailer on the Sony Vaio with Quicktime and that was not happening.

Here is a Screen Shot from the Sony Vaio Task Manager while the 1080p Trailer in WMP was trying really hard to play.

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/1080-tests/1080-WMP-SV.jpg

So Next Let's Move onto the Apple G5 Dual 2.7

I ran the King Kong 1080 Trailer on this Machine and launched the Activity Monitor and the CPU was at 52 - 60% usage, the trailer played straight through smoothly. Then I ran Both of the 1080 Trailers and the CPU usage was 85% - 90% and after playing smoothly for about 30 Seconds Quicktime would crash.

So Now Lets move onto the HTPC I built.

First I ran the HD 1080p trailer of The Living Sea (IMAX) with WMP and the CPU was at 19% Usage and it played through smoothly.

Then I played the Same file in TheaterTek 2.2 with ffdshow and dScaler with Verns Settings. The CPU then Jumped up to 29 - 33% Usage.

So Then I went for Broke...

I played the Same 1080 file in TheaterTek 2.2 with ffdshow and dScaler with Verns Settings. I also Played a HD 1080 WMP Trailer, A Quicktime 1080 Trailer of King Kong while Ripping a DVD in CloneDVD. All this running at the Same time Smoothly with no dropped frames and the CPU Usage was at 84% Still enough room to run alot more stuff :D

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC-Finished/DSC07395.jpg

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/HTPC-Finished/DSC07406.jpg

Here are some screen Shots...

This is the 1080 HD Footage of The Living Sea (IMAX)

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/1080-tests/1080-FOOTAGE.jpg

Here is My AMD HTPC Not running any Video..

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/1080-tests/no-processes.jpg

Here is the 1080 HD Footage of The Living Sea (IMAX) running on WMP...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/1080-tests/1080-WMP.jpg

Here is the CPU usage orf TheaterTek with ffdshow and dscaler and Verns Settings...

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/1080-tests/1080-TT.jpg

Here is the CPU Usage of the 3 1080 HD Trailers playing at the Same Time while CloneDVD is Ripping a DVD..

http://loutrixrecords.com/images/theater-pix/1080-tests/1080-WMP-QT-TT-CD.jpg

Pretty Interesting.

Ruben

BIGmouthinDC

01-22-06, 08:41 PM

This has got to stop.

First we were AMUSED when you built a staggered stud wall but didn't put any drywall on the outside . And then of course it wasn't high enough.

Then we were in AWE when we saw all that Woodworking detail.

Now we are just plain GREEN with envy.

Will you build one for me?

I like that Hush Box but I have some concerns. I really think the air intake on the bottom needs a little more breathing room. If you are covering it with GOM I'd cut out a section.

I'm not sure how you are going to hang that thing but be sure to plan to be able to take it down every 6 months or so for a bulb replacement.

You will need to set up your lens shift in advance of closing it in since it is a manual adjustment, then fine tune the placement of screen after. Also if you plan on having someone calibrate the beast in the service menu, I'm pretty sure you have to access all the buttons manually to get to the service menus.

SmX

01-22-06, 08:55 PM

This has got to stop.

First we were AMUSED when you built a staggered stud wall but didn't put any drywall on the outside . And then of course it wasn't high enough.

Then we were in AWE when we saw all that Woodworking detail.

Now we are just plain GREEN with envy.

Will you build one for me?

You Got Jokes, huh? :D To Clarify the Staggered Studded wall with no Drywall on the outside, that was just me building walls too fast :) If I would of just done a regular 2 x 4 wall I would of saved a whopping $50 :) Hey, at least all my walls are framed the same way now. ;)

As far as making the ceilings higher, it was one of those things you had to be there to witness. I am so damn Happy I didn't do 8' ceilings now, that extra foot is like a mile in the room now. With the 8 Foot ceilings I would of been banging my head on the Soffits on the Platform (I'm 6'-3" Tall).

As far as Making a HTPC for you, Lets Do it!

Fun, Fun, Fun, that's what this is all about!

Ruben

theirishgonzo

01-22-06, 09:04 PM

alot of the power is in the vid card you have a 500 dollar card there. i my self witnt with dual msi 7800gt the olny thing i notice is i did install xp pro and not xp pro 64 and i do have some problems with some of my drivers.

that is a sweet setup and i love the case.

well off to watch lord of war

SmX

01-22-06, 11:50 PM

I like that Hush Box but I have some concerns. I really think the air intake on the bottom needs a little more breathing room. If you are covering it with GOM I'd cut out a section.

I'm not sure how you are going to hang that thing but be sure to plan to be able to take it down every 6 months or so for a bulb replacement.

You will need to set up your lens shift in advance of closing it in since it is a manual adjustment, then fine tune the placement of screen after. Also if you plan on having someone calibrate the beast in the service menu, I'm pretty sure you have to access all the buttons manually to get to the service menus.

Thanks for your concerns,

All the spots on the Projector that has grills or vents are open with plenty of Airflow in the Box. Plus the Grills on the Bottom are accessable without having to take the projector off the mounting plate. The Hush box will get finished as well like the columns. Also, the projector has a Tempature cut off if it starts getting too hot.

As far as changing bulbs, the hush box cover is held in place by 8 screws.
This was all thought out ahead of time.

The projector mounts to the Soffit without having the hush box cover in Place. So all manual adjustments can be made before putting the Hush Box Cover on.

Thanks
Ruben

ronnie_jackson

01-23-06, 12:50 AM

This thread is amazing. Superb work and attention to detail in everything.

We are going to have to ask the mods to create a special search index just for this thread alone. Its that big and has all the information you need. Its hard traversing 25 pages to remember where you saw a particular item.

Im about to start my theater build thread, but I think I will wait until this one is finished so I can get some views LOL...

Great job man.

Ronnie

SmX

01-23-06, 01:27 AM

radm1f

01-23-06, 02:10 AM

So Next Let's Move onto the Apple G5 Dual 2.7

I ran the King Kong 1080 Trailer on this Machine and launched the Activity Monitor and the CPU was at 52 - 60% usage, the trailer played straight through smoothly. Then I ran Both of the 1080 Trailers and the CPU usage was 85% - 90% and after playing smoothly for about 30 Seconds Quicktime would crash.

Your HTPC is truly amazing, I wonder if there would be much difference now with the dual core intel macs.

Couple of questions, the SATA array which you mentioned would be outside of the room is that connected to an APC power and does it have its own fuse box or running on the same panel as the rest of the equipment? And does your HTPC accept the fiber straight from the SATA array?

Thanks,

Mehran

DenW

01-23-06, 07:21 AM

Hi Ruben,

Glad i asked the question :) That's some PC you've built there! Amazing you can run 3 HD streams and still rip a DVD on the background.

Thanks very much for taking the time to try it and take the screenshots.

bembol

01-23-06, 07:30 AM

This is just sick...!!! I only clicked on a few pages and I'm amazed already...can't wait.

jrfuda

01-23-06, 08:26 AM

Also, by archiving titles on a hard drive, means no more having to go through all the Previews and Menu to watch a movie. Just hit play and the movie is playing...Ruben, one great feature of the 777 is that, using the disc direct command, you can skip all the previews and go right tom the movie as well. On 99% of all DVDs the feature is title #1. The big violator of this rule is Dreamworks, who always put "forced previews" as title #1 and usually hide the feature as the #15 or something.

To overcome this, I use one of DVDLobby's custom fields to specify "prefered title" so that, as long as I know the feature's title, will always start the DVD on the feature (requires some extra MLServer Commands, though). It works very well.

However, I cannot agree with you more about the value of being able to remove extras sometimes. Yesterday I was trying to play a Baby Einstein DVD for my son in the car, and it took a good 3 minutes to get through the menues and get the mvoies going on my cheapo portable player. I've already ripped all of these DVDs to my HTPC once already (I usually rip things less than 1 hour long to HTPC and things over 1 hour long I put in the 777 - did a cost per gigabyte analysis, based on what paid for the 777 and what I paid for my HDDs and determined that 60 minutes was the "breaking point" where - say - 2.5GB of HDD space for 1 hour of DVD quality video costs less than one "slot" in my changer - which is worth up to 9.4 GBs for a DL DVD.) Anyway, I decided yesterday that I was going to rip all of my Boy's Baby Einstein DVDs to DVD-Rs and put them in a portbale carrier in the car so we'll have menu-free instant acess to these while we're on the road. Probably a good idea to do for some other DVDs as well that we may want to view on the road - so we won't have to remove them from the changer when we travel.

FusionRx

01-23-06, 09:11 AM

Ruben,

Question is, how does your quad G5 with 10gb of ram play the HD trailers/previews? What kind of performance can you get out of that? :)

Jrfuda: Baby Einstein DVD's are great, but I agree all the menus are a pain. How did you shrink the big 8.5Gb dvd master to fit onto the 4.5 dvd-r?

jrfuda

01-23-06, 09:35 AM

...How did you shrink the big 8.5Gb dvd master to fit onto the 4.5 dvd-r?After you play with DVDShrink for a while and beginto really look at DVDs, you'll realize that most DVDs do not use the full capacity of the DVD format.

Most Baby Einstein DVDs are only 30 minutes in length, and even with menues intact, rarely exceed 3GB - they're usually more like 2.2GBs. This is (I imagine) becuase they're 4:3 material that is really VHS quality on a DVD, so it's a low bit rate.

I have even thought about reauthoring the 12-odd disc collection into maybe 3 or 4 discs with my own custom menus, or no menus with each title just playing in order - given the source material it could be compressed rather aggressively (maybe 50%) without much quality loss.

Our Holiday DVDs - Frosty, Rudolph, and the rest - are in the same boat. Barely takeup 2 GBs on the original DVD with complete menus.

What's funny, is many feature length films are like this too. When I first started using DVDShrink, I backed-up a couple of my discs just to see how it worked and to tweak my settings. Several discs - especially older comedies, are single-layer discs and don't even fill up the entire layer... we're talking ~3GB full length features with menus and everything... I think Happy Gilmore was one of them, if I remember correctly. I've also tried DVDshrinking a few of my REALLY full DVDs. On some of these discs, the feature alone is like 7.7 GBs. With these you have to use DVDShrinks compression settings and leave out all extra features and audio tracks in order to get it to fit on a 4.5 GB single-layer disc. I played the disc on my 50" TV along side the original (I put one in my changer and the other in my old single disc player - that I still use for rentals) and switched my recevier back-and-forth between them and could not see or hear a diffference in quality. However, the quality diff may become noticeable on something the scale of what Sandman's doing.

Look here for some good information on backing-up your DVD collection to both HDD's and additional DVD: http://forum.digital-digest.com/forumdisplay.php?f=43

ChiTown_Jerry

01-23-06, 09:48 AM

I'm Using CloneDVD. The process is rather simple, Load CloneDVD up set your settings 1 time to Last forever (ie. what Folder, Main Feature or whole DVD) and then hit the Start button. Clove DVD even names the Movie Title folder for you.

Ruben,
Thanks! I had discovered AnyDVD which someone mentioned earlier and I can copy most DVD's to HDD.. there are some it won't do and of course, I get all the extras.. I'll try CloneDVD from the same company!

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many players support the _TS format.. MCE does and even freebie Media Player Classic.. so does Sage TV..

I don't have anywhere near the storage you have, however. So, I will begin to experiment with some compression (I'll probably start with Divx and maybe DVDShrink as jrfuda recommends above.), but I'm sure that will limit the players/UI I'll be able to use.

My aim is to have a wife-acceptable UI for music/movies/stored video.. i'm going to leave live video from my Moto cable STB for now as the quality is untouchable..

Thanks again!

Jerry

SmX

01-23-06, 12:01 PM

To overcome this, I use one of DVDLobby's custom fields to specify "prefered title" so that, as long as I know the feature's title, will always start the DVD on the feature (requires some extra MLServer Commands, though). It works very well.

Hey JrFuda,

Do You use ffdshow with TheaterTek or Zoom Player? I was talking to Vern Dias yesterday and he said that when you run 720 or 1080 HD content to TheaterTek, TheaterTek disables the post processing for ffdshow and dScaler if you use his settings.

This is what he said...

"If you click on the .ifo file, then it's just like playing a DVD.

If you used my latest version, there is a limit that says don't resize if the source is over 600 pixels high or 800 pixels wide. I believe Dscaler is still applied, though.

However TT also has a switch and the default is only to use the video PP if the file types are .ifo or .vob. File types must match the selected file types in the Files dialog to be eligible for ffdshow processing.

Vern"

Mark P

01-23-06, 12:21 PM

Ruben,
Thanks! I had discovered AnyDVD which someone mentioned earlier and I can copy most DVD's to HDD.. there are some it won't do and of course, I get all the extras.. I'll try CloneDVD from the same company!

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many players support the _TS format.. MCE does and even freebie Media Player Classic.. so does Sage TV..

I don't have anywhere near the storage you have, however. So, I will begin to experiment with some compression (I'll probably start with Divx and maybe DVDShrink as jrfuda recommends above.), but I'm sure that will limit the players/UI I'll be able to use.

My aim is to have a wife-acceptable UI for music/movies/stored video.. i'm going to leave live video from my Moto cable STB for now as the quality is untouchable..

Thanks again!

Jerry
that was me that suggested AnyDVD and I have never found a DVD it wont copy out of hundreds , I take that back .....when I had an older DVD drive (couple years old) I used to get some cyclic redundancy error all the time and when I bought a newer dvd drive all my problems went away, AnyDVD has fixes for their software almost on a dailey basis to fix any disc that wont copy. You can go into the settings and remove all the junk I think, maybe not but you can certainly start the movie without menues and such

Mark P

01-23-06, 12:29 PM

Hey JrFuda,

Do You use ffdshow with TheaterTek or Zoom Player? I was talking to Vern Dias yesterday and he said that when you run 720 or 1080 HD content to TheaterTek, TheaterTek disables the post processing for ffdshow and dScaler if you use his settings.

This is what he said...

"If you click on the .ifo file, then it's just like playing a DVD.

If you used my latest version, there is a limit that says don't resize if the source is over 600 pixels high or 800 pixels wide. I believe Dscaler is still applied, though.

Vern"
Did Vern mention what settings must be changed to make his settings work with ffdshow via Theatertek? I tried his settings last night and my CPU usage went from 30% to 70% so I figured his settings must be working on my 720P projector . the picture cleaned up considerably and I want to keep the PC forced at 720P for media center and internet surfing. Could you explain a little more detailed your statement :

"However TT also has a switch and the default is only to use the video PP if the file types are .ifo or .vob. File types must match the selected file types in the Files dialog to be eligible for ffdshow processing."

Maybe I have something setup right by accident, I remember awhile back playing around with the ATI drivers and setting them to play video at 800 x 600 or something like that but keep the PC at forced 720P

jrfuda

01-23-06, 01:25 PM

I use ZoomPlayer. I scale every thing to the native resolution of my set - 1280x720 - so there's not too much upconversion. I think I don't fully utilize FFDShow, and rather just use it as a codec and not a scaler/filter. I think all of the scaling is performed by ZoomPlayer and its manupulation of the various codecs for playback.

My HTPC serves as my automation PC 99% of the time, with it only being called to serve as an actual HTPC for the playback of pre-movie trivia and trailers - and for playing the couple dozen movies (kids movies) I have stored on HDD - so it's hardware is geared more towards stability and reliability for home automation and less towards mulitmedia. Heck, the video card in it is a 5-year old ATI Radeon 7500!

That said, I've tried using various levels of scaling and filtering with FFDShow, with less than desireable effect... My frame rates were in the tens and teens, even with just scaling and/or a little additional filtering. Becuase of this I let ZoomPlayer handle the scaling and just use FFDShow as a codec - so my PC-based playback system is not a good reference.

Eventually I will build another PC and have a PC dedicated to just mulitmedia playback (a true HTPC - maybe one in each viewing location).

Here's a thread over at CocoonTech (a great automation site) where I discuss my latest integration project(s): http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=3387