Saga of the "Old Vic" - Page 26

Thanks for the feedback! The masking system was a challenge and took quite a bit of effort, but I'm sure you obsessed bunch of DIY AV addicts will agree that the end result makes you forget all the effort.


It is extremely quiet, much quieter than any commercial system I've seen. I'm guessing that one reason is that it doesn't have long stretches of wire than can vibrate. The bungy cord spring idea worked well. I'm using 2" tubes which result in quite a fast system. In retrospect I could have used the smaller motors (which are low voltage) and allow 1.5" rollers. This would have saved a little money and made the system slower. There again the more winds of material the less accurate the system is likely to be.. if I were a screen building company I'd experiment more, but I'm DONE with this part of the build.

I don't know the repeatibility and accuracy of commercial system, but I'm getting better than 1/4" which seems very reasonable given my approach.


I wish I knew. Can't say too much or AVS might ban me But I pre-ordered mid October for delivery around Christmas. Over two weeks ago I was told if was on its way. I still haven't even been charged... No doubt JVC can't keep up with demand, but it's frustrating to wait now that I otherwise have a movie capable theater (even if not quite finished).

Never tried Talisker, but have an open bottle of Glenfiddich..


I wish. It must be a windy road to my house with a LOT of corners. Mine you, after the projector I'll be waiting on the anamorphic lens

I'm 90% sure it will be the yet to be released Prismasonic cylindrical discussed here. Due out in 1 month. If not, then the CrystalMorphic 5E.

I'll happily just zoom until I decide.

Thanks!! The thing is that I actually waited 10 years to start my build. Of course my original plans were not quite so ambitious. But over the years my desires grew stronger and fortunately my available funds grew too. I love movies but I also LOVE the concept of a dedicated home theater which although more commonplace now was so ridiculously over the top when I first got interested in it. For me the learning and challenges of the DIY build have been so much fun and the net result is that I'm going to enjoy the fruits so much more. Keep the dream.. "if you build it, they will come"

BTW if you are ever in the bay area (south of San Francisco) ping me.



I have yet to project an image at the screen (projector still hasn't arrived) but I've played a lot of loud music, movie sound track of explosions, etc and I can't see any movement in the screen whatsoever. My IB manifolds do clear the screen but there are builds around hear (BigRed for example) that have partially covered the subs without issue.




My plan is to put together a little movie of my own -- the building of the Old Vic. Figured it would be great to show guests before the movie and then after their jaw drops (particularly at the amount of time I've spent on it) I'll start the show... but I'm really getting ahead of myself since I still need to get the projector up, finish the bar and columns.. In case regular readers are wondering, I've had much less time recently than last year but I should be able to show progress soon and post in that elusive "show me your completed theater thread".

Cheers.

Green Glue ... that is such a distant memory now. I used the fast dispense system from 5 gallon buckets. If I recall I used 2.5 guns per 4x10' sheet of drywall, so 2 guns per 4x8' sheet. I did do a three layer skin (osb+gg+dw+gg+dw) and the results are very good. My door is the weakest link by far but despite that I can crank up the sound as loud as I can bare (which feels like the room is falling apart) with my wife watching a movie in bed two stories above and she can't hear me. The room above experiences a dull thud. More importantly, when I'm inside the theater it feels like sensory deprivation since I can't hear any environmental sounds. Mission accomplished.



Thanks Bob! Projector... grumble grumble grumble. Well I had a nice projector hung a few weeks back - a JVC RS50. The image quality was awesome with perfect focus, convergence and very good color. It looked great on my screen. The problem was that it is no where near as bright as JVC claim and IMO less bright than last years RS25/35. Although on high lamp it was bright enough I knew I'd have nowhere to go as the lamp dimmed. So, after waiting since October '10, I sent it back with 3.5 hours on the bulb. In that time I was able to measure the brightness and watch one movie with my family: the latest Star Trek. Those couple of hours were perfect... Presently I'm waiting on a replacement RS40. The consensus is that it is a good 30% brighter than the RS50 and a whole lot less money if I decided to upgrade it 12-24 months from now (there's got to be a reasonably priced and bright LED/laser projector by then).

So here I sit, embarrassed to post much because of my distinct slow down in progress. Actually I have not been completely idle. I have set up a 16Tb nas and Dune streaming media system, finished the screen wall, built a prototype column (not in Walnut yet), added an in line fan to my HVAC return to keep air movement prior to the A/C kicking in and ordered cool parts for my pneumatic sliding hidden entrance Absent of video, I started playing with audio and hooked up a couple of Audessey DSX wide speakers. They are not quite at the recommended angle, but geez they sound great! I wasn't expecting much given that I thought the room already sounded pretty good but I afraid they are here to stay now. The soundstage doubled in size and with the lights completely out I completely lost myself in the room (seriously, I couldn't find the door ) Now I have to figure out something for the frontmost columns / proscenium to hide them.

Oh, and I joined NetFlix!

Cheers.

Sorry, been away on business. The NAS is a QNAP TS-859pro+, it is the largest of their non rackable form factor which has the benefit of really quiet fans. I populated it with 8 x 2Tb Seagate Barracuda Green drives (ST2000DL003) configured with RAID6. These drives are great -- fairly quick and very quiet and cool running. There's a good review here.



You can see the Dune HD Smart D1 below the NAS. I'm using the Zapitti (http://zappiti.com/index.htm) media center skin which works great.


I've been tempted! Thing is I'm still waiting for the a-lens as well so it's not as bad as it seems. Also I'm very stubborn -- ask my wife.

Here's a couple of pics of the screen wall covering. Basically a couple of simple fabric covered frames bent into place and held in place with patches of velcro every 12". The front sides of the frames were painted black to prevent show through. The back lit IB subs are still very easy to see when I want to.



The side panels either side of the screen were made the same way but are just pressed into place with a couple of pull loops so I can easily get to behind the screen.