Sorry for all the questions but I'm really confused...

I'm planning a media room in the house I'm building and I need some advice. It's an over-the-garage room with a slanted ceiling similar to the one parboy shows here: Parboy's media room (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=800371)

My setup will be similar except that my screen won't be flat against the back wall. It will need to hang from the ceiling about 2' from the back wall. I have a 56" Sammy DLP that we'll use for everyday TV viewing and my son's marathon Xbox 360 sessions, and the screen will pull down in front of that for movies and big games.

My questions:
1. How hard will it be to hang a manual pull-down screen from that ceiling? The ends will have to attach to the slanted part (the 'flat' part of the ceiling is only 4' wide)

2. I am having the builder run a conduit from the back wall to a spot in the ceiling, for HDMI/component cables, as well as an electrical outlet in the ceiling. Do I need to do anything else during construction to be ready to mount a projector?

3. How far back from the screen position will I need to mount the projector? I am planning on a ~96" 16:9 screen

4. I will need to be able to send video from my sources (Directv HD DVR, DVD, Xbox) to both the Sammy DLP and the projector. Are there HDMI/component splitters that will allow me to do this? Can they be controlled with my Harmony remote?

I really appreciate any advice!

bump?

My questions:
1. How hard will it be to hang a manual pull-down screen from that ceiling? The ends will have to attach to the slanted part (the 'flat' part of the ceiling is only 4' wide)

As long as there is something solid to mount to then no. You can take Eye hole bolts crew them into the wood joists, and then hang the screen via some chain. Hooks and chain are an easy way to mount a screen from the ceiling, specially with angled ones like that.


2. I am having the builder run a conduit from the back wall to a spot in the ceiling, for HDMI/component cables, as well as an electrical outlet in the ceiling. Do I need to do anything else during construction to be ready to mount a projector?

Just make sure the conduit is BIG and don't use sharp 90 degree turns, the sharper, smaller the turns are, the harder it is to pull cableing through the conduit, I did it the hard way and I can only fit a single component cable and single HDMI cable in at the same time without pulling so hard as to damange the cables.


3. How far back from the screen position will I need to mount the projector? I am planning on a ~96" 16:9 screen

Have you been to www.projectorcentral.com ? they have a good calculator on there that will give you an idea of throw distance vs. screen size, vs. zoom levels, ect.....


4. I will need to be able to send video from my sources (Directv HD DVR, DVD, Xbox) to both the Sammy DLP and the projector. Are there HDMI/component splitters that will allow me to do this? Can they be controlled with my Harmony remote?

This is the tricky part here. Yes there are splitters, but it also depends on if both the tv and projector are the same resolutions. IE both 720p or both 1080p.

What you can do is get an AV receiver that everything runs through it, both HDMI and component.

So say the DirectTV HD DVR, DVD player are HDMI and the 360 is component. You can actually find some receivers out there that will upscale or up-convert analog video weather its component, composit, and s-video and send all those sources out through one single cable.

I am doing this now with a Yahama RX-V2700 I feed my comcast HD DVR, my oppo dvd player, and my HTPC all to the reciver via hdmi, then I've got my xbox 360, and my first gen xbox and my 5 disc dvd changer via component cables.

The receiver then takes all three component sources and up-converts them out through hdmi, so then the one HDMI cable comes out of the receiver and goes into an HDMI splitter which I got from Monoprice: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10113&cs_id=1011301&p_id=3049&seq=1&format=2&style=

With this setup there it makes life much easier as the reciver does most of the work and you only then have to deal with one HDMI cable to your video displays.

hope this helps
- Josh

Do you see any controller lag when taking the game consoles through the HDMI up-conversion?

I havn't seen any.

- Josh

umdivx, thanks for the advice. I really appreciate you taking the time. That projector calculator is exactly what I needed.

As for conduit, the builder uses 2" PVC pipe, so I should be able to run anything I want thru that I would think.

Good idea about the receiver for outputting to the TV and the projector. I will probably go that route, or one of the 4x2 component switchers. they are a little pricey tho.

umdivx, thanks for the advice. I really appreciate you taking the time. That projector calculator is exactly what I needed.

As for conduit, the builder uses 2" PVC pipe, so I should be able to run anything I want thru that I would think.

again just make sure he doesn't use sharp bends or it'll be a biotch and a half to pull it through.

I made that mistake, but if you can get the 2" riser flex tube shown here: http://www.smarthome.com/2554.html

thats the best route to go as you can do as gradual bends as you need, and makes pulling anything much much easier.


Good idea about the receiver for outputting to the TV and the projector. I will probably go that route, or one of the 4x2 component switchers. they are a little pricey tho.

the money you'd spend on the 4x2 component switcher would better be spend on a higher end receiver, just my experience.

I've done a few setups like this in the past for a few ppl, one setup, we did the projector, and 5 wall mounted LCD's, the splitter was more expensive than the receiver but the receiver still greatly helped out for the component upscaling to hdmi.

- Josh

Thanks for all the advice so far...another question: Do I need CL2 "in wall" rated hdmi and component cables to run through the PVC conduit? I definitely want to stay within electrical codes.

depends on your building codes for your area, but generally CL2 means its rated to be directly in the wall with no conduit.

- Josh