Home Theater Programming Sources
Off-Air TV
Quick Media Room Design
So, you want a media room. Here’s a quick primer on basic media room design. You can have either a
dedicated home theater or a mixed use media room, such as a family room. While it’s nice to have a
dedicated space for a home theater, many people don’t have that luxury. You can build your media
room into a multi-use space and make it blend right in. The advent of small, digital projectors, flat
panel displays and thin rear projection TVs has been a boon to those seeking to incorporate a media
room with another area of their home.
The first step is to determine your realistic budget. If you only have $5,000 to spend, it’s a waste of time
to investigate possibilities such as a projector lift or a plasma display concealed behind a motorized
picture frame. It’s difficult to set hard and fast rules on asset allocation when designing your home
theater without knowing the specific requirements. For example, if one of the requirements is a large,
flat panel display, then video will take a larger portion of the budget. If a requirement is impressive,
really dynamic audio in a very large room than that will shift a greater portion of the budget to an audio
system that can accommodate those requirements.
You can have a great system on a budget, but you are not going to get a tremendous sound system,
good room acoustics, a good unified remote control and a huge, great picture for $4-5,000.00. Figure
on a minimum of $8,000 – 10,000.00 unless you got really great deals on used equipment and did all
the work yourself. You can, of course do all of those things with a lot of research and some judicious
bargain hunting, but be prepared to really put some effort into it.
Do not assume you need as large a video screen as you can fit into your media room. If you size the
screen too large, you will suffer from excessive eye movement as your eyes attempt to track movement
that is going outside your field of vision. These movements can be subtle but can lead to discomfort
and decreased satisfaction with your theater experience. A good, but general rule for screen size is to
select a screen width that is half to one third the distance from the screen to the primary viewing
location. You should keep the viewing cone at about thirty degrees. The viewing cone is the angle
formed by a line going from each side of the screen to the viewer’s eyes.
You can use any display device and there advantages and disadvantages to each type. Front
Projection:
Advantages
• A front projection set will produce the largest, most dynamic image. With a good projector and
screen combination the image will be quite stunning, especially when watching native HDTV content. If
you have never seen the picture produced by a good, front projection set up, you really should see one
before you make any decisions.
Some of the disadvantages to a front projection system are:
• Needs ambient light control. Even with the tremendous advances the absence of in brightness in
the last five years you still need to control ambient light to get a really good picture. That is because a
front projection system cannot produce black and must rely on the absence of light being reflected
from the screen to show black or dark colors. Ambient light compromises this.
• You have to have a projector mounted on the ceiling or on the floor. This problem has improved
tremendously in the last few years as CRT projectors have basically gone away and digital projectors
have improved and shrunk.
• Projectors make noise. Some make quite a lot of noise. They require cooling fans and these are
noisy. There are some recent units that are much quieter. Two that immediately spring to mind are the
Sharp XV-Z2000 ($4,495.00 retail) and the Fujitsu LPF-D711 ($24,995.00 retail). The Fujitsu is so quiet
you can barely hear it when seated only 2 feet away.
• The larger picture and better detail reproduction will show picture problems so you need to have
good quality sources or the picture can look fairly mediocre.
Plasma:
Advantages
• They’re thin! Some are only three inches thick.
• They look great when displaying HDTV. (most of them)
• They’re thin!
• They look great when displaying HDTV. (most of them)
• They’re…..OK just kidding, but that’s about it.
Disadvantages
• They can suffer image burn-in when displaying static images. Many retailers and manufactures
downplay the dangers here but the phenomenon has been observed very regularly with a variety of
different units. It’s not too bad if you never watch any channels with stock, news or sports tickers, bright
logos or any other static fields or if you never play video games. If you have a home theater PC, satellite
receiver or hard drive music server for goodness sake don’t forget and leave the menu screen up for
an hour or two.
• Many of them look really bad when displaying non HD TV. This problem has lessened with
improved internal video processing / scaling technology. Some plasmas actually look pretty good with
a better quality DVD feed.
• Many plasmas suffer from rather severe image artifacts although this is also improving greatly
due to the better internal processing.
• Some plasma displays have a high power consumption. (2-3 times that of a 32” tube TV)
LCD flat panel:
Advantages
• They’re thin! Some are only three inches thick.
• They have none of the image burn problems of plasma displays.
• The newer units have a pretty good picture.
• They have a long life (50,000 – 60,000 hours)
• You can get a true, 1080P native resolution display.
Disadvantages
• The larger sizes (32+”) are still fairly pricey.
• The older units don’t have picture quality as good as plasma displays.
• Black and dark reproduction is not as good as plasma
There are some new types of flat panel displays that will be released for consumer use soon including
Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) and SED. These promise even better image quality than either
LCD or plasma when fully developed, in addition to lower cost, thinner profiles and much lower power
consumption.
Rear Projection TV can be either digital or CRT based. The CRT units are going away fast as
consumers move to thinner, lighter digital rear projection TVs. At this point, the better CRT rear
projection sets offer fantastic performance for the money. You can get a 50+” HDTV ready CRT set from
good companies such as Panasonic and Sony for under $1,500. These bargains will be gone soon as
production of CRT rear projection sets stops. Panasonic has indicated the 2005 model year will be
their last for CRT RPTVs.
You have two basic categories of electronics to consider, separates or an A/V receiver. Separates use
different pieces of equipment to perform the amplification and the preamp/processing functions. A
receiver integrates these components into a single unit. Each have their advantages and
disadvantages.
Separates –
Advantages:
• Usually superior sound quality due to having the high power amplification circuitry in separate
enclosure from the delicate, low power switching and control circuitry. In addition, the power supplies
are separate and optimized for their particular tasks. Lastly, the designers of separate components
tend to make fewer compromises because they are designing a component for fewer tasks and
usually have higher standards to meet.
• Greater flexibility – Because the amplifier and preamp processor sections are separated one can
be replaced if system requirements change. For example if a new surround sound format becomes
available only the preamp processor must be replaced. If you move into a larger house with a large,
dedicated home theater room, you can exchange the amplifier for a larger one. They usually have more
installation friendly features like serial and Ethernet ports, control triggers and inputs / outputs.
Disadvantages:
• Usually more expensive – two components cost more than one. Expect to pay $1,000.00 –
$5,000.00 for a preamp / processor and $2,000 - $8,000 for seven channels of amplification. You could
even spend far more if you really wanted to have the absolute best. An average combination would be
about $6,000.00. Contrast that to a receiver. Even a great quality surround sound receiver is $3,000.00
- $4,000. The most expensive mass market receiver is the Denon 5805 for $6K.
• They take up more space – With a preamp processor and between one and seven amplifiers you
can take up a large amount of real estate in your equipment rack.
Most name brand A/V receivers today, except the really basic ones, have plenty of features and sound
decent. Some have too many features that are never used so choose a unit that gives good sound
quality first and features second. The features you should get are:
• Wide band (at least 80MHz bandwidth) component video switching – It is a good idea to have
twice the required bandwidth. HDTV needs about 37MHz.
• Video transcoding – this feature also (mistakenly) called up-converting changes all video sources
plugged into the receiver to component video. This way you can leave your display set to a single input.
• Discrete output devices – an amplifier may be integrated onto a chip or have separate output
transistors fastened to a heat sink. Discrete devices have a much higher current capacity and do a far
superior job of delivering dynamic, lifelike audio amplification.
• Plenty of inputs and outputs for future components. Make sure you have enough places to
connect any components you are likely to own in the future. Some receivers only have 1 coaxial digital
input, for example. Although most components have Toslink digital outputs, if a component you are
considering doesn’t and the one on your receiver is already being used, you are out of luck.
• Discrete remote commands for power on, power off and each input. If you are programming all
your components into a “smart” remote control. You will find it tough to program it for “one touch”
operation without discrete commands. Look for discrete commands on all your components,
especially your receiver or processor and display device. Many components do not have these on the
remote. Some, however, can be found from other sources.
dedicated home theater or a mixed use media room, such as a family room. While it’s nice to have a
dedicated space for a home theater, many people don’t have that luxury. You can build your media
room into a multi-use space and make it blend right in. The advent of small, digital projectors, flat
panel displays and thin rear projection TVs has been a boon to those seeking to incorporate a media
room with another area of their home.
The first step is to determine your realistic budget. If you only have $5,000 to spend, it’s a waste of time
to investigate possibilities such as a projector lift or a plasma display concealed behind a motorized
picture frame. It’s difficult to set hard and fast rules on asset allocation when designing your home
theater without knowing the specific requirements. For example, if one of the requirements is a large,
flat panel display, then video will take a larger portion of the budget. If a requirement is impressive,
really dynamic audio in a very large room than that will shift a greater portion of the budget to an audio
system that can accommodate those requirements.
You can have a great system on a budget, but you are not going to get a tremendous sound system,
good room acoustics, a good unified remote control and a huge, great picture for $4-5,000.00. Figure
on a minimum of $8,000 – 10,000.00 unless you got really great deals on used equipment and did all
the work yourself. You can, of course do all of those things with a lot of research and some judicious
bargain hunting, but be prepared to really put some effort into it.
Do not assume you need as large a video screen as you can fit into your media room. If you size the
screen too large, you will suffer from excessive eye movement as your eyes attempt to track movement
that is going outside your field of vision. These movements can be subtle but can lead to discomfort
and decreased satisfaction with your theater experience. A good, but general rule for screen size is to
select a screen width that is half to one third the distance from the screen to the primary viewing
location. You should keep the viewing cone at about thirty degrees. The viewing cone is the angle
formed by a line going from each side of the screen to the viewer’s eyes.
You can use any display device and there advantages and disadvantages to each type. Front
Projection:
Advantages
• A front projection set will produce the largest, most dynamic image. With a good projector and
screen combination the image will be quite stunning, especially when watching native HDTV content. If
you have never seen the picture produced by a good, front projection set up, you really should see one
before you make any decisions.
Some of the disadvantages to a front projection system are:
• Needs ambient light control. Even with the tremendous advances the absence of in brightness in
the last five years you still need to control ambient light to get a really good picture. That is because a
front projection system cannot produce black and must rely on the absence of light being reflected
from the screen to show black or dark colors. Ambient light compromises this.
• You have to have a projector mounted on the ceiling or on the floor. This problem has improved
tremendously in the last few years as CRT projectors have basically gone away and digital projectors
have improved and shrunk.
• Projectors make noise. Some make quite a lot of noise. They require cooling fans and these are
noisy. There are some recent units that are much quieter. Two that immediately spring to mind are the
Sharp XV-Z2000 ($4,495.00 retail) and the Fujitsu LPF-D711 ($24,995.00 retail). The Fujitsu is so quiet
you can barely hear it when seated only 2 feet away.
• The larger picture and better detail reproduction will show picture problems so you need to have
good quality sources or the picture can look fairly mediocre.
Plasma:
Advantages
• They’re thin! Some are only three inches thick.
• They look great when displaying HDTV. (most of them)
• They’re thin!
• They look great when displaying HDTV. (most of them)
• They’re…..OK just kidding, but that’s about it.
Disadvantages
• They can suffer image burn-in when displaying static images. Many retailers and manufactures
downplay the dangers here but the phenomenon has been observed very regularly with a variety of
different units. It’s not too bad if you never watch any channels with stock, news or sports tickers, bright
logos or any other static fields or if you never play video games. If you have a home theater PC, satellite
receiver or hard drive music server for goodness sake don’t forget and leave the menu screen up for
an hour or two.
• Many of them look really bad when displaying non HD TV. This problem has lessened with
improved internal video processing / scaling technology. Some plasmas actually look pretty good with
a better quality DVD feed.
• Many plasmas suffer from rather severe image artifacts although this is also improving greatly
due to the better internal processing.
• Some plasma displays have a high power consumption. (2-3 times that of a 32” tube TV)
LCD flat panel:
Advantages
• They’re thin! Some are only three inches thick.
• They have none of the image burn problems of plasma displays.
• The newer units have a pretty good picture.
• They have a long life (50,000 – 60,000 hours)
• You can get a true, 1080P native resolution display.
Disadvantages
• The larger sizes (32+”) are still fairly pricey.
• The older units don’t have picture quality as good as plasma displays.
• Black and dark reproduction is not as good as plasma
There are some new types of flat panel displays that will be released for consumer use soon including
Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) and SED. These promise even better image quality than either
LCD or plasma when fully developed, in addition to lower cost, thinner profiles and much lower power
consumption.
Rear Projection TV can be either digital or CRT based. The CRT units are going away fast as
consumers move to thinner, lighter digital rear projection TVs. At this point, the better CRT rear
projection sets offer fantastic performance for the money. You can get a 50+” HDTV ready CRT set from
good companies such as Panasonic and Sony for under $1,500. These bargains will be gone soon as
production of CRT rear projection sets stops. Panasonic has indicated the 2005 model year will be
their last for CRT RPTVs.
You have two basic categories of electronics to consider, separates or an A/V receiver. Separates use
different pieces of equipment to perform the amplification and the preamp/processing functions. A
receiver integrates these components into a single unit. Each have their advantages and
disadvantages.
Separates –
Advantages:
• Usually superior sound quality due to having the high power amplification circuitry in separate
enclosure from the delicate, low power switching and control circuitry. In addition, the power supplies
are separate and optimized for their particular tasks. Lastly, the designers of separate components
tend to make fewer compromises because they are designing a component for fewer tasks and
usually have higher standards to meet.
• Greater flexibility – Because the amplifier and preamp processor sections are separated one can
be replaced if system requirements change. For example if a new surround sound format becomes
available only the preamp processor must be replaced. If you move into a larger house with a large,
dedicated home theater room, you can exchange the amplifier for a larger one. They usually have more
installation friendly features like serial and Ethernet ports, control triggers and inputs / outputs.
Disadvantages:
• Usually more expensive – two components cost more than one. Expect to pay $1,000.00 –
$5,000.00 for a preamp / processor and $2,000 - $8,000 for seven channels of amplification. You could
even spend far more if you really wanted to have the absolute best. An average combination would be
about $6,000.00. Contrast that to a receiver. Even a great quality surround sound receiver is $3,000.00
- $4,000. The most expensive mass market receiver is the Denon 5805 for $6K.
• They take up more space – With a preamp processor and between one and seven amplifiers you
can take up a large amount of real estate in your equipment rack.
Most name brand A/V receivers today, except the really basic ones, have plenty of features and sound
decent. Some have too many features that are never used so choose a unit that gives good sound
quality first and features second. The features you should get are:
• Wide band (at least 80MHz bandwidth) component video switching – It is a good idea to have
twice the required bandwidth. HDTV needs about 37MHz.
• Video transcoding – this feature also (mistakenly) called up-converting changes all video sources
plugged into the receiver to component video. This way you can leave your display set to a single input.
• Discrete output devices – an amplifier may be integrated onto a chip or have separate output
transistors fastened to a heat sink. Discrete devices have a much higher current capacity and do a far
superior job of delivering dynamic, lifelike audio amplification.
• Plenty of inputs and outputs for future components. Make sure you have enough places to
connect any components you are likely to own in the future. Some receivers only have 1 coaxial digital
input, for example. Although most components have Toslink digital outputs, if a component you are
considering doesn’t and the one on your receiver is already being used, you are out of luck.
• Discrete remote commands for power on, power off and each input. If you are programming all
your components into a “smart” remote control. You will find it tough to program it for “one touch”
operation without discrete commands. Look for discrete commands on all your components,
especially your receiver or processor and display device. Many components do not have these on the
remote. Some, however, can be found from other sources.
Copyright 2004-5 1 touch movie.com
Home theater and Automation Guide
All rights reserved.
Home theater and Automation Guide
All rights reserved.
Quick Media Room Design
1 Touch Movie.com
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