FYI

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/installations/2162/oliver-stones-radical-cinema.html

Hmm...I was expecting something a LOT better...especially the room.

Hmm...I was expecting something a LOT better...especially the room.

What about the screen?

That is a great artical. That is my philosophy for how a home theater should be. My Dad built a dedicated HT with the giant leather recliners and such, but my humble living room theater is more comfortable... I just wish I had my dad's gear :)

~Jay

That is a great artical. That is my philosophy for how a home theater should be. My Dad built a dedicated HT with the giant leather recliners and such, but my humble living room theater is more comfortable... I just wish I had my dad's gear :)

~Jay

Next time around Im going to concentrate more on comfort!

While planning the renovation, Stone immediately realized what others have found out only through bruising experience — that having a separate home theater room can isolate you from the rest of the family and turn movie-watching into a chore. "There's a flow to the house from room to room, and it's important to keep that flow and not have a sequestered space," he says.

I'm with Oliver Stone on this one.

I've had a modest "home theater" in our back family room for over 5 years (it's a plasma, back when switching from a small CRT made plasmas look big. Now it's just the size of an average TV). But the room is far from ideal for trying a big screen experience - too much going on, to many uses for the room.

But in deciding where to do the projector-thing, I've ruled out a dedicated-built room and even ruled out the basement. Even when I imagine the HT in the basement, it feels sort of sequestered and isolated. This no doubt depends on personality, taste etc.
But I guess I'm just one who enjoys being social and connected, so I like the idea of using one of the rooms on the main floor, so it doesn't feel so isolated ("see you later, I'm disappearing into an isolated place in the house to watch a movie").

I do certainly feel pangs of envy over the people who have done a dedicated HT room, especially in how much easier it is in terms of achieving the right decor for high performance, placement of equipment etc. Integrating this stuff into other rooms in the house can certainly be a headache.

But...our front living room feels like a perfect compromise. I think I've figured out how to end up with suitable decor that will be good for projector performance, but not feel like an odd "bat cave" on the main floor. I also like the homey, comfy look of something like a big sectional sofa facing the screen, vs HT recliners. I LOVE the feel of the recliners, but aesthetically a sofa feels more integrated into the home.

I'm curious about other people's preferences, on this issue.

.. I'm just one who enjoys being social and connected, so I like the idea of using one of the rooms on the main floor, so it doesn't feel so isolated ...OTOH there's something blissfully anti-social about having a dedicated HT room. Between the controlled lighting, sound dampening and comfy couches, we've christened ours the HT womb. :D

It also doubles as my 2nd bedroom if the wife gets to snoring. ;)

For me its about immersion. Although we do have a "social" 5.1 system in the family room with a 50" plasma, it is a completely different experience from the home theater. After dreaming about it for 5 years and building for 1, we finally fired our dedicated HT up a couple of weeks ago when the RS1 arrived. It took us to another time and place. You completely forget you're in your own home, and you get into the story in a way that is impossible otherwise (IMO). That's what I wanted most of all.

We have so many TV's etc. etc. but we've always have had a band on a TV in the main front living room. Thus allows social conversation to take place w/o a TV blaring in the back/foreground.

My experience over time, friends and family are always wowed by the theater and excited to watch their first movie but after that they always prefer the living room with the big screen. I cant get them back in the theater! If I want to get into a movie I prefer the dedicated theater
for the reason strange_brew mentions it shuts out the rest of the world and allows you to immerse in the movie.

My experience over time, friends and family are always wowed by the theater and excited to watch their first movie but after that they always prefer the living room with the big screen. I cant get them back in the theater! If I want to get into a movie I prefer the dedicated theater
for the reason strange_brew mentions it shuts out the rest of the world and allows you to immerse in the movie.

Good points both ways. I can see the excitement of the dedicated theater, how it gets you in the movie mood and sweeps you away.

That said, I know that if I had a dedicated theater my wife, who does not view movie-watching with anywhere near the priority I do, would virtually never join me there. But if it's just in the living room, she'd have little problem joining to watch, or watch hi-def TV content etc. Same for the kids.

I love having a dedicated HT, and wouldn't want it any other way. While I can understand the draw of having a pj in the living room, I don't think I could get the same performance out of my gear, and I think it would be too busy there for me not to get distracted.

I can understand both approaches. I chose to build a dedicated HT because I actually like getting away from the rest of the house. The HT doesn't even feel like it's on the same planet with the rest of my neighborhood, which suits me fine.

I never stopped being amazed at how many "home theaters" that are featured in magazines (or are owned by "celebrities") seem to pale in comparison to what one would expect. I would MUCH rather go into an "immersive room" to enjoy a movie, when it is "appropriate". I still spend the vast majority of my time watching shows on my plasmas (in bed and in the den), but NOTHING gives you the "REAL" home theater feeling like a dedicated room...

Lee

Reading this, it seems I've ended up with a pretty good compromise between the two options, and I can see the value in both. Let me explain.

What I have is my first house, and a completely dedicated, built from scratch HT was simply not possible in the house. However the basement did have a layout conducive to setting up an HT (and you know you're in deep when you choose a house based on it's HT-friendlyness :D).

The basement is mostly open, interrupted only by the stairs from the main floor and the back quarter closed off for the laundry (now shop/laundry). The part adjacent to the laundry was just the right dimensions to for a HT (though not big enough*). So basically immediately after moving in, I repainted that whole section a very dark blue, redid the ceiling tile (painted, them which is not fun, but payed of), and installed the theater. Basically it's a dedicated theater.

Here's where it's the compromise though, there are only three walls, the front and both sides. The back is open, and leads into an open room (that I have yet to come up with a real purpose for) and off to the game room with the pool table and fireplace.

Now that it's "done" (is it ever really done?) I've been hosting movie nights periodically for some of my friends from work. This setup works great for that. They can come over an hour or two before we start the movie and hang out. You can sit in the theater and play Xbox 360, you can be off playing pool, or just hanging out in either area, move between the two, etc. So you get the whole social-event-experience with the mingling and the talking. But then when you decide to start the movie, everybody* can settle into the theater and enjoy the full dedicated theater experience.

*Like I said, not big enough though, anybody else have trouble deciding who to invite and who not to? I know I do, but then again, I've only got room for two rows of three, so it's pretty easy to invite 5 people. At this point I'm really looking forward to getting/building my "dream" house and setting up a real, from-scratch theater with at least twice the seating :D

Great article. Highlights the importance of fitting the theater to your lifestyle. In my case (being a retired guy):

Dedicated HT, with RS-1, 8 foot wide screen, 7.3 sound, recliners in front row, granite counter and seating in second level, where my wife and I eat dinner virtually every night (and have close friends for a casual dinner), followed by a movie or some TV.

Master Bedroom, with RS-1, 5.1 sound and drop down 7 foot screen - rarely used (just installing RS-1 (was a G-11U) - this may change amount of use)

Game room - 45 inch 1080p LCD, 7.1 sound - medium usage

Gym - 42 inch 720p LCD, 3.0 sound - medium usage

The Master Bedroom unit is a bit wasted, otherwise everything flows with the house design and lifestyle very well. If we had not set up the dedicated HT with an eating area, it would not get near the use it does now.

Marcel J. Dumeny

Marcel,

It sounds like your wife is 100% on board with your hobby! That is very cool. My wife is tolerant, but I'd never convince he to put a projector in the bedroom.

stranger89,

You have what I would consider to be ideal. Once all the light are off it is almost like being in a dedicated theater.

My situation is a living room that is sort of connected to the dining room. We have no basment and it is a small house. Once all the lights are off it isn't too hard to leave reality and move into the movie. I do have decent sound, and a nice big screen. I think many living room home theaters have to significantly compromise the layout and the components.
In my case nothing is really compromised. I do however have to wait 'til dark because there are too many windows to black out.

~Jay

We did something along the lines of what Stranger89 did. Rather than have the back open though, we have 2 doors going into the back of the the theater. From the bar area, you can sit / stand and chat while people in the HT are watching sports/playing XBox. The kids playroom is right there as well so we can keep an eye on them at the same time. When we want to, we can shut the doors and settle in.

I always recall an interview done with Wolfgang Puck, where he was asked what his favorite food was (after work). He said nothing beat a simple sandwich. For a guy who spends all day creating masterpieces of exotic food (or just signing endorsement checks), he prefers to keep it simple when it comes to his off time. I don't see Stone being different from this. I'm sure he wants to keep his personal life simple. There are plenty of professional screening rooms to visit when he's on the clock.

And some people just don't care about movie presentation that much. Someone has to keep up the ratings for "American Idol" after all. :)

We built our dedicated basement HT a few years back, and have really enjoyed it. A big factor for us was isolating the sound of a theater from the kids' bedrooms a couple floors up, so we didn't have to worry about cranking it up after kiddy bed time. We use it every weekend, but pretty much only for movies. It's a little too sequestered to get used for frequent TV watching. For that, I'm finally getting around to picking up a plasma for the family room. It should be interesting to see if having a 50" HD screen in the family room leads to us using the 110" front-projection screen in the basement less...

For us it comes down to how much we love to watch movies. Ive got 4 kids, 8, 4.5, 3.5, and 18 months. My older 3 LOVE to watch movies. We go to all the new kiddie releases and as most of you with younger kids know they love to watch certain movies repeatedly.

My kids always nag me about watching a movie in "my room," as they call it, but its really their room, I just take care of it for them. 8)

Anyways, we havent really had a big old movie night in a while but in the past when we have family and friends over our media room gets a lot of play time. We are going to be closing on our new home this Friday, FINALLY, and will be moving in on Saturday so it wont be long that we will have big old movie nights back in my house, again.

This time with a much better projector and a nice large 2.35 screen. 8)

We still have fairly large HDTVs in our family room, game room, and master bedroom, but watching those TVs just doesnt compare with watching movies in our media room with my kids huddled up all around me, clutching their popcorn, sodas, and sour patch kids packs. 8)

I'm in the dual theatre camp. My GF and I are big movie fans, and we built the basement bat cave first with the priority on the movie viewing experience, so, black carpet, walls, and ceiling in the front half of the theatre and a relatively large ( 160" 16x9 ) screen. It works perfectly as the 'escape theatre', and we use it almost nightly ( except now during hockey playoffs ).

A year later we built a livingroom theatre, initially makeshift to watch the last Olympics. The priority here was not compromising the room ( 40' of floor to ceiling windows with no drapes ). So, we ended up with a high brightness, low contrast LCD and a small (92") retro-reflective screen. It worked surprisingly well for it's intended purpose ( HDTV / Sports ), but I could never stomach watching a movie on it. This year we retired the old LCD, and replaced it with a budget HD1000.

This opened my eyes a bit to the potential of true dual-use 'livingroom' type theatre, and what could be done with a high brightness and high performance projector that is currently the realm of the 3 chip DLP's. Today, if I could only have one, I would go the route of the livingroom theatre. Although I would miss the 'huge screen / black room' escape for movies.

Jonathan

I like my home theatre much better. Can't believe how unimpressive his room is.