Swan Family Theater - Page 2

Actually father down the thread you will see that I later decided to go for a 142" wide scope screen. As of right now I am planing on building a DIY spandex screen, a lot of people have been having great results with it and there really isn't much of a weave.

I plan to build masking panels once I have determined the optimal size for myself. That way I can change the screen size with panels instead of a new screen.

5 weeks wow, that sounds way to close when you put it like that, but I still think I can make it happen. Although the final touches such as trim might not be done.

I was planning on silver over white spandex, but maybe I will have to try just white first. As of right now I plan to purchase the Epson 3020 and my room is completely light controlled with no windows.
When you are watching movies are your windows always blocked?
Have you watched any 3d movies with your projector?

As far as 3D goes I'm pretty sure almost all of the content is 16:9 which means my usable screen for that format will only be 107" wide, and I think that will be OK for the 3020.
Stay tuned for more pictures after the weekend.

Well the carpet is in place now and only the entrance step has to be finished. I am having trouble with figuring out how to work the carpet over the over hung edge.
The riser is only 7.5" tall because I am planing on having a mini riser under the seating eventually.

Here is the entrance


Here you can see the corner that I am having trouble with. The carpet that I am using has an attached pad, which I think makes the edge even harder.


Here is the screen wall with the insulation covered and the screen mounting posts in place.


Here is the raiser with my current chairs on it.


In other news, I have received my projector, an Epson 3020. I am also working on a custom projector mount with motorized positioning to transition between watching normal 16:9 and 2.39:1.
I have to make this mount due to the lack of lens shift on the projector.

I plan to order my spandex for the screen this week and pick up the wood for the frame this coming weekend.

At some point I also need to finish mudding the electrical room and paint it.

Spandex is ordered and I also caught a deal on the Panasonic 220 3d bluray player.
Then I finished the first coat of mud in the electrical closet, so things are going forward.

The deadline is getting close and there are still a lot of things left to do. I have been working a lot out of town lately so that hasn't been helping.
I have some bad news as well. While working out of town last week I stopped to pick up some fabric from a store called SR Harris, in Minneapolis, MN. Well when I got back to my car one of my side windows was broken and my work laptop stolen. I also had my passport in the laptop bag. I can't tell you how much this has sucked. The laptop is one thing, but all of my work files were on there, not all backed up at home. I also had the theater room completely designed in 3D CAD, along with a custom electric actuating projector mount that I designed and was going to build.

I kind of feel like the the proverbial wind has been taken out of my sails.

On a better note, my wife and I watched a movie "Knight and Day"with some spandex quick clamped to the screen wall and the projector set on the floor.

We will see if I can get home without any additional damages.

Well the theater is functional. We watched the 3rd twilight movie last night. It's pretty awesome and I haven't even finished the room treatments.


Here is the Screen just after we installed the spandex.


Here is the spandex that was used, the front layer was White moleskin matte spandex, and the back layer was light grey milliskin matte.


Here is the custom bracket for hanging the screen. I had to offset it so that I could get the pivot point over the height of the screen tight track that was used to mount the spandex.


The mounts just hang on 5/16 lag screws.


Here is the first picture of the screen hung. It is 151" wide or 164" diagonal. I Figure bigger is always better, and I can always mask it down.


Here is the front of the theater.


Here is a shot of the back.


Here is the front of the rack.


Here is the back of the rack.


And finally a shot of the projector mounted.



My screen size has grown since the beginning of this project and because of that the recess in the ceiling for the projector mount isn't quite far enough back for the projector to completely fill the screen. Right now I am only projecting about a 145" wide image in scope. Even so I think it looks great. One thing that has surprised me is how good the sound seems to be. The room doesn't have enough absorption yet and you can hear an echo when you yell but while watching a movie it sounds great.

Yeah, progress will be slow for awhile. I already have 2 big family showings planed in the next couple days.

I have a big advantage having the 3d design software to work with.

Just watched Tangled in 3d today and it was better then any theater experience I have had so far.

I will probably wait on investing any more money on the screen wall for awhile.

Had my first public showings and the theater room was a hit. One showing was the Avengers in 3D, then later RIO, Tangled in 3D and finally Knight and Day. It seemed to be a hit, now I just need to vacuum up all the popcorn and clean all of the smudges off the 3D glasses.

Here is a more finished image of the Theater entrance along with the new sign my sister and brother in-law made me for my B-day.

Thanks, It has been a lot of fun using the theater.

When I built this theater I wanted to make it as soundproof as I could without doing double drywall and green glue (yes I know this statement is very flawed to start with). I also didn't have the height to decouple the ceiling. So I sealed every gap and crack I could find and built dead vents for the supply and return. So far I am really impressed with the way the room holds the sound. All night people were amazed at how they couldn't hear the movie until someone would open the door and the sound would pour out.

Of course low bass is a different story. It doesn't really travel to the adjacent areas, but the two room directly above the theater can hear it. If I had to guess I would say it is the frequencies under 80HZ. I can never hear any voices in these rooms, but explosions can be heard and or felt if the sub is high enough. Found this out first hand, when our 2 year old son woke up crying. I went up there to check on him while my wife was still watching the movie. There must have been another action sequence when I got to his crib because I felt his crib vibrate. I asked him if the movie was a little too loud, and he said yes.

So when the kids are sleeping we turn the bass down a notch.

Yeah I have a few hours on it now. I really like the big image, it is running in cinema mode with the bulb in eco mode. It could be a little brighter but I think the trade off for less fan noise is worth it for me. I definitely would like the 3d to brighter though. And I am running that in the brightest mode possible,and that isn't a scope image.