Theater of Payne (working title)

Ok, So my last name is Payne that's what the title means, not the Motley Crue album (not that I have anything against the Crue).

As suggested I decided to create a dedicated home theater post. I am hoping to build this out now while my house is being built (scheduled to be done by March 2009). But I may have to wait some time in the future to work on it.

First here are my floor plans.
First Floor
Basement
Theater Design

I originally planned on doing the HT room a few years from now and I researched it for a long time, but since this is a showcase house my builders are willing to give a discount on the cost of building one (not sure the price on that yet though). So because of this I have been doing nothing but thinking about this all day long for the past two weeks (and probably will every day from now on). I hardly get any work done during the day now. I have the plans right in front of me.... so much work... so little time.

So where do I start (yeah loaded question).
I think I would start by looking at other theaters.
My all time favorite theater and the one I would like to model after is
SandmanX
Of course I am not handy and there is no way my accounting department (wife) will approve that P.O.
My room dimensions are pretty similar to his. Length: 21-8 1/2 X Width: 16-3 1/2 X Height: 9
I would like to enter the room from the back. Coming down the stairs from the first floor you would end up on a platform above the floor at the bottom (size and height undetermined yet). From their you would walk into the room, I imaging about 3 feet in then you would hit the back row of seats, steps going down the side of each side down to the front row of seats (lighted steps), then again steps down to the floor. on the other end I would like to have a few steps up for a stage (again just like SandmansX).

Here are some things that I would like to do. So hopefully I can figure out what I have to do now, and what things can wait to do later. So keeping that in mind, I need to make sure I do anything I can upfront so I don't screw myself in the future.

Star light ceiling - Like to have the border in blue lighting like Sandmans (the one half way down on the page). I would like a few shooting stars and some different color stars. I also heard\\seen that you can do some constellations, I think that it would be really cool to have all the family members constellations up in the sky. My son would get a kick out of it and could point it out when he is in there.
Front Stage - Big enough for the screen, speakers, motorized curtain, etc
Acoustical treatments to make the inside of the theater sound good.
Equipment rack on the back left half of the room. The front of the rack would be inside the HT, while the back will be a network closet for all my home run wiring of the whole house (noisy network equipment though that I would have to deal with).
Big comfortable chairs, motorized with butt kickers.
(This is all I can think of right now).

Things I need to find out.
Theater construction, what to start with, how it is built (again I am not handy so I will have to rely on the builders for the bulk of the work). My builders have done some home theaters, but just a regular room, no sound proofing. I know I have seen DD\\GG suggestions but I am not sure how I can convey that to the builders other than saying read AVSforums.
Screen size - how big can I go, I prefer to keep it big, but I don't want it to look like crap.
Risers - position, height, distances, etc
Stage - position, screen wall, motorized curtains, etc
Speaker placement
Lighting

Wow that is a lot, basically it would be great to see a list of
Do this first, then this second, then this third, etc (if such a thing exists).
Of course cost is the biggest issue and with some of these HT I know sky is the limit. I basically want to do anything can do now that I won't be able to change in the future (well without a complete demo). So things like equipment will be lower on the list of things to get for now, these are things I can upgrade later.

I am sure I will post tons of more stuff later..... actually probably in 5 minutes since this is all I can think of.

pmeyer,

The risers were only just a thought, it doesn't matter to me really... I just like the stadium type seating.
The speakers behind the screen is an idea, I don't really know to much about that yet. I would assume then that the front stage would be bigger and the screen would be off the wall to allow the speakers to be mounted behind them?
I would like to go with the biggest screen size I can, I don't really want to do a big room like this and only have 100" screen.

Thanks for replying.

Ok, so a friend of mine had a great suggestion. Put away all the things I want and can do in the room and and come up with a priority list of the most important thing I want. So here it is in order, not that I don't think they are all important, this is just the order I would prefer.
1. Seating, being comfortable is the most important to me. I don't care how good the move looks or sounds, if you are uncomfortable it ruins the movie.
2. Sound quality, I think sound and video go hand in hand, but if I had to choose one more important I would say sound
3. Video quality, see 2
4. Looks and feel of theater (decent colors, curtains, star ceiling, columns, stage, etc)
5. Sound proofing.

I know everyone will have different priorities, but these are mine. If I can do all of them and stay in budget then GREAT.

I actually do have some equipment I can re-use if need be.
First I have 2 complete AV setups, 1 is newer and is in my current living room (which I will watch about 85% of the time) and the 2nd one is the older one I replaced with the new equipment.

Here is a list of the older equipment (about 10 years or so) currently in the basement setup and is hardly used.
TV: JVC 30" tube
Receiver: Yamaha RX-V890 (5.1)
Main Speakers: MTX AAL1540
Sub: MTX PSW-101B
Center: Yamaha NS-AC85
Surround: Polk Audio M Series
I also have a nice pair of studio speakers Event 20/20 series.
Laser Disk player (with about 60 movies)
6 disk progressive scan DVD player

Current living room setup
TV: Samsung 50" DLP read projection TV
Receiver: Onkyo TX-NR801
Speakers: Bose Accoustimass (I think it is the 15, I have 5.1 but it is cable of 7.1)
Vista Media Center HTPC (dual tuners, plus HDHR)
2 DirectTV satellite HD receivers

I also have a PS3 for blue ray and I will have another Xbox 360 for a media extender.

Things I don't have
Projector
Screen
Theater seating

So keeping all this in mind, I still do need 2 complete sets for the new house, one in the main living room (remember 85% viewing time) and one for the home theater.

I will keep the HTPC in the living room and use the 360 in the theater room. I will put the Bose speakers in the living room (wife likes the small speakers, I actually don't mind them). I will put the PS3 and laser disk player in theater room.

So, I am thinking I could just swap receivers so 5.1 in living room and 7.1 in theater. I could re-use the sub and possibly the center channel. The mains and surrounds are probably too old (still sound nice though). The wife won't allow the Big cabinet mains in the living room. Doing this I will probably save some money and can always be upgraded later.

I will have to do some research on AT screens, no idea what that is, if you have a link handy that would be great.

True about the seating and mother-in-law (actually I am very lucky, my mother in law is better than my mother.... shhhhhh). I do think some of these things overlap or are close, but that is just the list in order if I had a gun to my head and had to choose on the spot.

As far as sound proofing. I am more concerned with sound getting in than out. Sure complete sound proofing would be nice, but not a necessity. The reason why it is low on the list is probably the whole family will be in the room when watching so sound escaping is not a big issue. I am building in the country on a 4 acre lot so I am not worried about neighbors.

Riser, So ok, no front riser then, so riser height 12" then? I do have to be concerned with how low the projector hangs down form the 9' ceiling. So with riser it would be 8', then down another foot (I would imaging) for the projector which would leave 7 feet of clearance.... Sound right?

I started to include a bunch of links to a ton of theaters, I figured there would be way to much.... sorry


I was planning on going with a deep red for the theater room


Yeah I know, they were not my first choice, but one night when the wife and I went drunk shopping (that is where you went out drinking, had to much and for some stupid reason you want to go shopping and spend money, usually regretting it in the morning). Out of no where she said lets get a new tv setup.... I didn't hesitate, I jumped at the chance... I used to have those big MTX speakers in the living room that she hated. I actually had a roomate many years ago that was into air brushing. He kept on running out of canvas's and one day when I cam home I found that he used my speaker covers... Anyways, wife was very stern that she did not want big speakers. I have seen many *cough* comments about Bose here and understand most of them. For the main living room TV (85% viewing time) they actually don't sound to bad. Most TV viewing is SD sitcoms or cartoon for the kids.

So what do you think about that Onyko, Do you think I could use it in the home theater for now and switch back to the Yamaha in the living room? Or what about the rest of the parts? We already determined that the bose should stay in living room.

Thanks guys, I appreciate all the comments

Are the AT screen usually more expensive than the standard screens?

Also I wanted to mention about the priority list, that order does NOT signify the amount of money I would spend in that order, it is more of a wish list... If number 5 is the most important, than so be it.

The landing\\platform is not decided on yet, I just like the idea of walking into a theater room then stepping down. It could be 6" from ground or 24" from ground, doesn't matter to me, I had originally thought the platform would be the same height as the second set of stairs coming down, so basically you would not use the second set of stairs, you would be walking right down to the platform then into the home theater room at what ever height I want. There is a side section of the platform that will step down to the family room, again what ever height I want. Does this make sense at all?

Also about the screen, handy I am not, might be able to get some help, but how is the quality really???

All comes down to overall cost. I would love to do it if I can fit it into the budget. At the very least I am going to do a single layer of drywall on the outside of room and a single layer on the inside with insulation in between. If the cost is not that much more for DD\\GG on inside, then I will..

Got a quote back on star ceiling prefab..... 10K.... OMG.. there goes my budget!

Yup: Receiver Specs

Ok.. so then seating, first the chairs... I probably won't be able to afford the to of the line Berkline and some of the prices I have seen, like 3,500. I am sure they have cheaper models, but Ashley's furniture here in town has some of these that are extremely comfortable.. course this could cause passing out during a movie

With a 16-3 1/2 width in the room and knowing I have to get two isle stairs in there is it possible to get 4 seats across, or just three. That picture above is a 2 seat kind of like a love seat on each side. I might consider getting this one for the front row and a 4 position in the back row. Since my wife and I will be the main people watching, kids would be on the floor in front and occasionally a few guest in the back row.

Next question.
Distance from screen, riser height and seating positions...
AV guy says to put the first row of seats at 11.54' back from screen and the second row at 17.44' back from screen. Both of these measure measurements is for a 100" screen. I want a bigger screen at least 120. A friend of mine has a 10x12 room and has a 120 in it and it looks just fine to me. One row of seats is about 8 feet back... Course he has a really expensive screen and an ok projector.

Yeah it sucks that no one around here seems to no what is going on, I think there main focus is selling equipment and that is it. I would love a 130" screen and it sounds like I could do the same type of distance back. If I can save money on the equipment I already have I could get the more expensive projector. But from what I gather, what ever my budget is, is to spend the most on speakers, then screen, then projector... does that make sense?