Hi all,

I need a little advice to get started. My room is similar to some of the others here with above-garage bonus rooms in that it is rectangular with a non-vaulted ceiling that comes down to knee walls. The room is roughly 13x32 with a cut out dormer on one side and another small cut out where the door is on the other. Drawing (BonusRoomLayout.gif) attached. Windows are shown as double lines on the walls.

BonusRoomLayout.gif

I'm thinking of installing a pulldown screen that would cover the window on one wall when in use and orienting the seating and projector as shown in the pic.

One issue I have is mounting my surround speakers. Because of the cut outs for the dormer and door area, I think they will end up being slightly (5 degrees maybe) in front of the seating area.

If you can't tell, one trade off here for WAF is one side of the room needs to remain available to the kids for play area when movies are not being shown.

My main purpose would be to watch movies or play games. With the primary seating being about 12 feet from the wall/ screen, I imagine my screen size should not be bigger than 6 - 8 feet?

I'm interested in additional or different ideas everyone has about this. Different orientation maybe. Any feedback is very welcome.

thanks,

Tango

No takers, eh? How about just a specific question then:

Q: Given the size and shape of the room as shown in the attachment, what is the best orientation for projection, seating, speaker placement?

thanks.

Well the rule of thumb for viewing distances are for a 16x9 screen 1.5 times the WIDTH of the screen. so you are able to move up your sofa to 10'6" (using a 7 foot wide screen to the eye of the viewer) which would allow you to place the surround speakers behind the listener. :)

Thanks Angela. I was trying to keep the 1.5x rule in mind. I really didn't want to get closer and have the screen smaller as it seems to defeat the purpose of getting a PJ. Everything is a trade off though.

Thanks to zilch321 for the PM of the pictures of his Dad's setup which is similar to mine.

Attached is a picture I took last night of the room as it is set up now. 32" tube is in the armoir. I'm standing at the "back" (where the 'play area' is in the drawing) of the room and the window is where I was thinking the screen would go.

Well the rule of thumb for viewing distances are for a 16x9 screen 1.5 times the WIDTH of the screen. so you are able to move up your sofa to 10'6" (using a 7 foot wide screen to the eye of the viewer) which would allow you to place the surround speakers behind the listener. :)

Now would that be for regular TV viewing or DVD resolution?

When I click those links, I just get 1x1 white Gif images.

Anyway, if the room is 13x30, you can probably make a 13x18 watch area, and a 13x12 play area. You can separate the two with a shelf containing built-in speakers and sound absorbing material (for better acoustics). Just something to think about! (I saw that done in that Norwegian guy's home theater -- search "back projection" in this forum)

Now would that be for regular TV viewing or DVD resolution?

After being spoiled with OTA Network HD and Sat HD programing. Standard Def on a big screen/projection is painful for anything less than 4x width.

With HD content and and a 1080p projector you can do closer than 1.5 if you really want to.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I've decided to move forward with the orientation in the drawing in my original post (links seem to be working now). For the surround speaker issue, I'm going to buy some DefTech in-wall speakers that match my DefTech BP towers I have for fronts and ceiling mount them behind the seating area. Once I get going, I'll start a new thread and post pictures and story.

TU