Originally Posted by
telugodu 
Let me start by first congratulating you on a great job..
I recently bought a yet to be constructed house, and planning to have a similar home theater as yours.
I would really appreciate if you could answer the following questions.
1. Distance between overhead projector and screen
Each projector has different specs for the throw distance. My projector HC1500 will project a 130" image at 16.5 feet. Which is the location I put my mount.
2. Do you have any wiring plan etc which I can use as a reference?
Ahh, wiring... That is like asking an artist to explain how he paints... No, seriously, I do have a wiring diagram, but it wouldn't make any sense if I scanned it and put it on here. I have the floorplan, and I mark where each line goes, and I give each cable its own number or letter, to keep them straight. Then I mark the ends of each cable with the same number or letter.
Here is what you need to replicate what I have now (and I did have to do some additional wiring AFTER the drywall was in... Not fun...)
First off, I ran rgb wires from my receiver wall (under the screen) to the projector. After I had the drywall done, I realized how much better a HDMI cable looks... So I ran one of those (a 50 footer), I don't even use my rgb wires, in fact, I ended up using two of them for my extra speaker wires I needed when I switched from 5.1 to 7.1. A good switching (many sources) receiver and an HDMI cable are all you really need running from your receiver to your projector.
From receiver to projector
1. HDMI cable, 50 foot in my case, off ebay for $50.
Options include;
2. (I didn't want this, but you may) a remote wire (two strand) to control your screen when projector is turned on.
3. Cat 5 wire, for future upgrades.
4. Standard coaxle cable, in case you ever need it...
From receiver to each speaker location, (go ahead and wire for 7.1...)
Get good thick wire. You can put ends on it yourself with a soldering iron and connectors from radio shack or online. (online better quality)
Keep your speaker wire apart from your video wires and power wire, video is shielded, but you might as well keep it apart just incase...
1. Run each wire to each speaker, making sure to label each end of the wire clearly for ease of hookup.
2. Run a extra seat of 2 channel speaker wires for extra room listening that can be accessed in the future. I ran mine into my storage area. So I can put wires outside, or in a different area later.
Power. Run power to your receiver area, and a different circuit to your projector. Also run power next to your theater seating area for phone, or laptop.
Run a video/stereo audio cable from your receiver area to your seating area. (so you can hook up a laptop later with sound into your theater surround sound).
Run a VGA cable from your projector box, down the wall to your theater seating area, so you can plug in your laptop later. (netflicks online is great with this feature). (cables off ebay are the most cost effective I've found).
Don't forget your phone wiring. I ran one next to my theater seats, and another line behind my receiver as most satelite systems need a phone line.
Run 3 or 4 coaxle cables to your receiver with access in another place in your basement.
I use 2 for my directTV hookup (most 2 receiver setups need 2 cables), third is for my over the air antenna, which I use to get channels on my dvd recorder over the air, and also for use on my receiver to pick up am/fm radio. I have a wineguard 2000 antenna on my roof which is a great way to get great picture quality from very far away without rotating an antenna. Fourth is to run video from a different area of your house if needed in the future...
Here is a pic of my ratsnest, excuse me, my wiring behind my receiver. Speaker is on the left. middle is video wiring, on the right is the phone, and far right is power. A few wires are missing as I ran them after the picture was taken... hdmi, rca to theater seats, ect.
put a big OPEN box in the ceiling for your projector stuff, and mount a board to support your projector mount. Label all your wires...
Theater seat area. things missing from pic, rca wires to receiver, and vga cable, they both come out next to the power which is on the right, phone on the left. The extra coax wire is from my receiver to a extra tv in my arcade...
3. On a scale of 1 to 10 ..How does the audio quality on the speakers compare with the Bose lifestyle in Best Buy or any other store? 1 meaning far inferior to Bose and 10 meaning superior than Bose
No offense to Bose owners. But, I think my speakers sound just as good as Bose. The biggest thing you need to remember in speaker selection is getting a matched set. If you pick one type of speakers up front, and a different type in the back, they will react differently, and cause sound reproduction issues. Placement is critical, as well as the speakers having a large enough harmonic range. I love my "super cheap" inwall speakers, and they sound amazing. The inwalls even have decent bass response, but I would not want to skip the sub. The sub makes the system. I have not had anyone say anything bad about my sound reproduction. I have a full bose sound system in my luxury car, and my home theater has a much better sound system... I have turned it way up (when my wife was away) and literally shook my house. Even then the sound quality didn't diminish, still very clear bright sound.
I would very much recommend my entire system, receiver, speakers, projector. The only component I don't like is my dvd/vhs recorder. It is tempermantal, and takes way too long to turn on, and to eject disks. But, playback is fine, and the HD tv tuner is really nice.
On Monday, My satelite lost the local channels (right when 24 season final episode was about to start... PANIC!). So I went down to the theater, and programmed my DVDRAM to record the episode off of my antenna picking it up off the local over the air signal from cincinnati.
Then after I put the kids to bed at 9:00, my wife and I went down and watched the final while it was still recording. And commercial skip is much better on my dvdram than on my dvr. As you don't have to watch each commercial, it just skipped ahead 1:00 with each button push... We watched the 2 hours in 1:30:00 hours as it had 30 minutes of commericals...
4. Any other suggestions which you could give newbies like me
My wife was nervous about me doing this project, as she thought a large screen tv would be much easier. After we price checked large TV's, and I figured out what I could do my room for... We were both pretty excited. Now we are past excited. Every time we go down to our basement we still say how amazing it is... The bigger you can go the better. You won't regret it!
Any questions just ask, there are tons of guys on here that can help you with the process, and you will be popping popcorn and carrying down drinks before you know it!
Thanks,
T
).
