Willscam's 11.2 JTR 2.40 SE 4K Theater - Page 4

Size matters....

Thanks for that Mike! But you're too late. I have a full head of steam on my build and I've already got the crown up. My first corner didn't square up very well, but the rest did and I'm really happy about my one outside corner. I'm just about done touching up the paint on the crown.

I got the screen fabric installed in the screen frame. The picture below shows the screen lying face down on some sheets on my riser. The Screen Excellence Enlightor4K material comes with a black backing because the screen material is so thin and translucent. When I have the screen mounted on the false wall I'll take some more pictures.

Larry, if you look carefully at the projector shelf you'll see the two 25lbs dumb bells still sitting up there. With the better lighting in this photo, I think you can make out the sturdy center bracket better.




I also finished off the acoustical treatment of the front wall. It's not pretty, but it will all be behind the screen and black velvet panels. May not be easy to make out, but the side wall/front wall corners, ceiling/front wall corner, and floor/front wall corner all have bass traps pretty much along there full lengths. There is loose fluffy insulation behind the Roxul batts.

The JTR T12HTs look happy ensconced in Roxul.

Trust me, your back thanks you. I work out pretty regularly with weights, but I still have to stoke myself up everytime before I lift these things up onto their stands.

I didn't really bother with being neat (proof is in the pics), I'm too impatient. Also, I did it by myself and those Roxul batts are a little floppy and tear pretty easily.

The shelf board is connected by a total of 9 screws, so I hope it's not going anywhere. That is a good idea about putting some trim around the edges of the shelf. It would improve both appearance and safety. I'll be putting the projector and screen up this weekend, I'll see what height trim I can use without obstructing the projection. Thanks for the useful suggestions!

Ha Ha. My wife is calling it the sound wall, instead of the screen wall.

When she saw my plan for the bass traps behind the false wall, she nixed the idea of additional bass traps in the room.

My wife fancies herself an interior designer and though I've had some freedom to do what I want with this room, she has ultimate veto power.

If it was up to me, this room would be completely function over form. We all have to live within certain constraints, I suppose.

Now you see it....






Now you don't....





and now with some mood lighting....

My wife actually suggested extending the crown molding along the screen wall at first, but after I put up the panel frames for a test fit, decided against it. Who knows, maybe she will change her mind.

As far as I'm concerned, I like the effect of a big black void with a screen floating in the center. Nothing to distract from the movie viewing experience.

Next, clean up some of the mess, hook up remaining speakers, install AV equipment in home made rack and start tweaking.

It's a 140" wide 2.40 aspect screen. It's 58.3" tall and the diagonal is 151.6".

When projecting a 16:9 image, the width will be 103.8" with a diagonal measurement of around 120", if my math is correct.

I'll find out soon if my JVC X70 is up to the task of lighting this up. The room is completely light controlled, when I turn off the lights I can't see my hand in front of my face.

Early on in this build, I projected an image on a wall to determine the size of screen to get. The image looked plenty bright on a tan wall, and this was before the room was completely light proofed. When doing this, we projected Avatar in 16:9, the image was about 110" diagonal, and wife said "this hardly looks bigger than our TV", which is a 73" diagonal Mits. I zoomed the image and she kept saying to go bigger, go bigger.. I finally decided this was the biggest I could go. Did I mention we like a big image?

Our first row seating is going to be 10.5 ft (or 0.9 screen widths). This might be a bit overwhelming for a 2.39 movie, but should be great for 16:9 movies. The second row wil be at 16 ft (or 1.37 screen widths). This should be great for 2.39 movies, but a little less impressive for 16:9 movies. I may end up choosing front or back row depending upon the content and size of the movie.

The sound system is going to be optimized for the front row, so I'm planning on spending most of my time there.

Thanks Brad,

I found your build when I was researching AT screen material. I drew alot of inspiration from reading your build thread. My theater is quite simple in comparison, but I put it together with the idea that it may all have to be taken down, if required, when we go to sell the house in the next 5 to 10 years. After building the riser so soundly, I'm not looking forward to taking that apart. Hopefully, a buyer will see the theater and decide it's a nice bonus and not a detractor.

My theater is 90% done. Besides tweaking sound and image, all that's left is mount some cabinets I'm putting on the back wall, buy and hang drapes, buy dark area rug, and touch up paint. I expect to be fiddling with the audio and video for a while though.

We watched our first movie in the theater on Memorial Day. We watched Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Pretty fun movie. Projector was bright enough and the picture looked really good. The sound was decent. I have a Denon 4311ci and I changed amp assign after running the audyssey set up, so that defeated the audyssey setup and MultEQ wasn't running during the movie. So the sound wasn't as good as it could be. Plenty loud though and the subs were impressive. My girls gave me a with the first explosion.

Update:

Been watching movies!

My checklist of things to do keeps getting smaller. The wife and I hung the cabinets in the back of the room. It's her job now to fill them with nicknacks. Mainly pillows, throws... nothing that will rattle. I've hung curtains over the sound/light proofed windows and I've touched up the paint. I need to take some updated pictures.

Today, I ordered a dark hallway runner rug that is 16 ft long by 2' 3" wide that I'll lay down just in front of the screen. A poor man's stage? Hoping to reduce any light that's reflecting off my beige carpet back onto the screen. I don't notice any reduced contrast, but I figure it's worth a shot, for the $170 I paid for the rug.

I need to rerun Audyssey since I've made alot of changes to the room since the last time I ran it. The sound quality of the room keeps improving. I'm pretty pleased with where it's at right now. The volume seems limitless.

I've also been messing around with 3D. I've got 4 monster glasses ($50 a pop, one for everyone in my family), a panasonic 3D bluray player (BDT-220), and the JVC X70. I think I've got the glasses tuned in pretty well. Unfortunately, due to the large size of my screen, the 3D is fairly dim. Probably a little dimmer than a cineplex 3D theater. I was expecting that, but still a little disappointing, since my X70 has surpassed my expectations in every other way. I'll probably add a 2nd projector just for 3D, 3D gaming and 2D gaming. It might not be until I get my bonus next year before I'll have funds for a 2nd projector. Hopefully by then there'll be a projector that will fit my needs. Right now I'm only seeing the ACER H9500BD and the BenQ W7000, but because of my throw distance and screen size, I wouldn't be able to fully zoom out the BenQ to fill my scope screen. Anyhow, waiting to buy a second projector will probably be good for my marriage.
Edited by willscam - 6/7/12 at 4:07pm

Yeah, I think the obligatory "movie image on scope screen shot" will be coming soon.



It works perfectly for my simple setup. I control it with the harmony 900 remote (already had codes in data base). I did't have to buy the master controller or separate remote control.

I only have 3 zones - overhead can lights, wall sconces and ceiling dome light. I have setup two scenes (out of 4 possible). I'm trying to think what additional scenes I might need. One scene is "enter theater" which is basically sconces on mid level and dome light on nearly full bright. The second scene is with both sconce and dome lights dimmed considerably. There are non-scene settings for all lights on full and all lights off, so I don't have to create those scenes. I can also dim and brighten the zones at whatever levels I like with the remote. Pretty cool actually.

The only trick that I had to research and find the answer to on the internet, was how to get the dimmers to memorize a scene using only the harmony remote. With the remote that can be bought separately for the spacer system, you simply push scene 1 and hold the button until the spacer dimmer start flashing it's led lights, letting you know it's saved that light setting. With the harmony, if you push the "soft" screen button for scene 1, it sends out a single command, instead of a continous stream of commands. The dimmer won't memorize the scene in response to this truncated signal. To get around this, you have to temporarily assign the "scene 1" command to one of the hard buttons that sends out a continuous command - I used volume. Once the dimmer has saved the scene, then you go back and reassign "scene 1" to one of the screen buttons and reassign volume to the volume hard button. Sounds kind of complicated now that I've written it out, but actually it's not too bad, once you know the trick. I'm pretty fluent with the harmony software, I've owned a harmony one for several years.

Here are the requisite screenshots.

Hey, it's not easy taking pictures in a dark room with a bright subject!

I was using my Dune Smart D1 streamer for these shots and I'm still not convinced it's as clean as my OPPO, but it's pretty good.

I actually think my theater would benefit from 4K at my screen size and viewing distance.