Help with Theater/Game room

For lighting, look and think about where you're going to install them. Anything that will radiate out toward the screen should be avoided or at least switched separately so it can be turned off when viewing.

For better sound, treat the interior of the room. Don't get nuts but go for a balanced scheme that will address the bottom end control, early reflections, and general decay time control.

Bryan

As far as the door goes, an exterior door with good weather stipping will give you the best sound isolation. The big box stores have a section with all kinds of weather stripping.

If this is a basement consider one of the subfloor treatments (Dricore, Delta-Fl, Plankton), prior to installing your floor. Carpet will probably make you theater sound better than wood.

Well, a couple of things:

1. Mechanical dimmers are noisy both physically and electrically. Get a good electronic dimmer and avoid low voltage lighting if at all possible.

2. Remember that if you're trying to provide some isolation, when you cut holes in the ceiling for can lights, you're creating lots of large holes for sound to get in and out. If you're serious about isolation, those cans will need to be IC rated and mounted inside sealed MDF boxes up in the ceiling.

Bryan

Use standard 110v lighting - you can get them down to 4" in cans and a wide variety of sconces. It will also make your dimmer purchase more reasonable since you won't need a special low voltage transformer.

For the speaker wiring, I'd recommend conduit. That's the best future proofing you can do.

Bryan

Direct Tv uses a Coax line. Use RG6 quad sheild cable if you are laying in the wire. You will need one line per TV from the outside or where ever they mount the junction box/grounding connection.

If you were talking about electrical just a regular socket.

What type of speaker wire?
read:
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

Green Glue:

http://www.greengluecompany.com/

PVC is fine if you do conduit.

Lots of guys just put the cable in the walls bare, but use in wall rated speaker wire.

One example:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=100-742

Wire for at least 7.1 if you have the walls open. Some guys do even more in anticipation of future systems.

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messa...79/129023.html
http://www.dolby.com/promo/HD/trueHD.html

I'm not sure what you mean by disconnect box. You can not use any splitters, each TV needs a separate run to the designated area.

This article may answer your pre-wire questions for satellite TV.

http://www.southernsky.com/prewiring.htm

It is my understanding that Satelite TV requires a separate line to the LNB of the satelite dish for each box/TV. It is not as easy as with cable where you simple split the signal. As long as you can get to the non-room end of the cable (in the attic/crawl space/etc) you can probably use the existing cable, but you may need to cut and splice to connect the existing cable to where the satelite is going to be. If you agree to a satelite contract they will come out and set it up (run the wires, etc)

I am not an expert, but this is my understanding: If you can read a section of the cable it often has what type it is on the jacket. Most likely if it is cable that was run years ago, it is RG-59. After RG-59 came RG-6. Now quad sheilded RG-6 is considered the best. Each step up is a better wire and able to handle more bandwidth. With more and more HD signals, payperview, interactive menues, etc the cables that can handle higher bandwidth are more popular. You can probably get away with your existing cable, but if really pushed you may have some signal loss issues.

You can split satellite feeds, just not with a splitter - you need a box called a multiswitch - costs more than a splitter, but not that bad, $50 or so - lot of variations based on how many inputs and outputs. I have two TVs, each of which requires two feeds (DirecTivo on one, DirecTV HD equivalent on the other) - I have a 2x8 multiswitch - 2 inputs from the dish to the multiswitch, and then two lines out to each of the TVs, with 4 spare for later on.

No, most of the satellites today have four outputs.

You can run four lines from the satellite into the house. Each receiver needs its own line directly from the satellite dish.

The mutiswitch is not a spllitter, but simply a way to add more lines to the house.

If you need 8 lines you would need a multiswitch. It doesn't split lines, just give you the ability to add more.

You cannot split a satellite line like a cable or antenna line.

Run one line directly from the satellite to each location you plan to have a satellite receiver. Remember you will want two lines to each place you have a Tivo/DVR.

I would get quad shielded RG-6.