General Media/Gaming Room build advice.

Wow that's a lot of outlet boxes.

My advice would be to run 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 conduit to whatever boxes you want ethernet/hdmi/whatever in. Then you can easily fish any wiring to them. That being said I ran Cat 6 to a few blue boxes and only did conduit from the front to the projector to the rear wall. But looking back even 1" conduit would have been a lot more useful than just the cat6 and I'm not sure I'll be able to ever use the cat 6 to pull something else through to those boxes.

Also keep things easy and only have LV or full AC to each box. They make boxes that have compartments for both but I wouldn't want to deal with the inspection and it's cheaper to just use the blue ones you have for everything.

It looks like the vapor barrier is behind the studs (which is good) and I assume you will insulate those stud bays? Hopefully pressure treated bottom plates I see right on the concrete but you still might consider drycore or platon or some other way to float your floors above the concrete to keep them warm but also to allow water to flow to the drain.

I can't see your sketchup but your pictures make it look like you've already chosen your layout. Still I think you'd get better feedback if people could see the layout.

I would run an outlet and a piece of conduit, and possibly an ethernet (though this could go through the conduit) to behind the TV. I didn't run any permanent LV cables except cat6 ethernet and speaker wire. I just don't know how long HDMI will be around, or how long the current high speed cables will be around. Hopefully your drywall job lasts longer than that.

Assuming that red thing is a post I think you have the room setup as best you can. If you put the tv on the opposite wall all the space behind the couch gets wasted. The other two walls have the window and the post so they're more or less out of the running.

R13 or R11 insulation is so cheap (I think I paid 7 bucks for a 48sq ft roll or about 6~7 linear foot of wall) I did all the interior walls. It really cuts down on the furnace and water heater noise. I also did the whole ceiling with R19 unfaced and I'm glad I did. If you're going to drywall you can never go add that back.

I work in IT. I prefer not to cascade a bunch of switches if it can be avoided, or at least not plan it. I have all my ethernet cables home run to the corner of my basement where one switch does it all. Really you could probably do one behind the TV and two or three to the "media center" and you probably won't even need to make them all live. The way wireless is going it will probably be builtin to all gaming systems and all but the cheapest bluray players you would buy from here forward. N is fast enough for HD video and it will only get faster from here. I still hard wire everything but worry I'm wasting my time.

I think that post will put the couch too close to the TV. If the room was 20X20 then the post is 10' from the wall, but probably less than that since you take away half the diameter of the post and whatever wall you're adding.

I think you need to consider your AV needs. If you bought a tv and receiver with HDMI upconversion and audio return channel you could get away with one HDMI up to the TV and nothing else even if you had a smart tv and used that to stream things like netflix. I'm not sure if you already have a tv and/or receiver.

I wouldn't buy a soundbar you'll just wish you had gone surround. I would wire 5.1 or 7.1 now and wait for something like the energy take 5 to go on sale, or maybe a couple pairs of polk monitor 35's, martin logan surround package, andrew jones pioneers... plenty of ways you could get 5 speakers and a receiver for 500 bucks and buy a sub down the road, or build one when you miss the remodeling.

Is the room something like 14x20 now? I'd consider 9 cans in a 3x3 grid but you might be able to get away with 6 in a 2x3. One area I have is 12x18 and I have four lights which is the minimum I would recommend. It's a comfortable amount of light but it is augmented by the light from a nearby area. The area is carpeted and has 4 6" cans. I also installed some switched outlets which could have been used for adding lights if needed (but isn't) but is also handy for things on walls that would light up (like a beer sign or poster light).

Wait to buy a TV until you are all done, six months is a long time when it comes to TV's. I'm waiting until fall since we just don't spend much time indoors in spring/summer. I think it's realistic to think that if you have a 50" tv budget now (600 bucks I'd guess) that might stretch to 55" by then. At the very least Samsung (and I'm sure others) still has yet to clear out 2012 and release 2013 models so that should bring some deals.

Warm LED lights will be fantastic. We have LED cans in our kitchen and they are as bright as incandescent, dimmable, efficient... only downside is price and no fancy trims.

I didn't prewire for speakers and had to deal with it after the fact, which wasn't horrible but it wasn't the most fun thing either. I'd prewire for two or four rears (5.1 or 7.1) even if you just leave the wire hanging in the wall cavity for later. I didn't run my fronts or center in wall since I'm still not sure what sort of builtin or media cabinet we're going to do there once we get a new TV/projector/???.

If you really need four things wired for internet up front you might run one cat6 and buy a five port switch for up there. I always prefer to home run all the ethernet jacks back to a central spot and into one big switch (fewer points of failure, easier to setup and upgrade) but at some point running that many cat 6 cables to one spot seems silly.