Today's sedentary lifestyle has led to the creation of many forms of entertainment. The home theater system is one such form that has gained tremendous popularity. A home theater provides quality experience while watching movies, programs, matches, etc.
Home Theater Design
Designing a home theater room is an interesting activity for those who love to spend their time viewing movies and programs. Any room of the house can be selected to install the home theater. However, the basement is considered as the best option, since the basement blocks out the noise from the surroundings. It provides the necessary ambiance and environment for creating a theater-like effect.
Designing a Home Theater Room
Once the room for the installation of the home theater is decided, a proper plan should be devised to arrange the equipment and the furniture required. The home theater assembly contains a screen, two types of speakers i.e. the main speakers and the surround speakers, and other equipment. A cabinet aligned to a wall is used to fit in the aforementioned equipment except for the surround speakers. These are either installed on stands or on high places.
The furniture used for seating should be placed at a comfortable distance from the screen. And for easy viewing, the seats should be slightly higher than the screen. High-backed seats are considered ideal for home theater design plans. Recliner seats though, are a comfortable option, but should not be used specifically for designing a home theater room. This is because the position of the viewer's head changes due to these seats.
Home Theater Interior Design
The interior designing of the room used for the home theater should take into account the acoustics. Walls parallel to each other create a problem in the reception of the sound. So it is advisable to add sound proofing material to the list of items used in interior decoration.
The lights too affect the quality of viewing. There is no point in installing bright lighting as they may cause a glare on the screen. The wires that come along with the electronic equipment in the home theater, might render a messy look to the room. Try to hide the wires behind cabinets or beneath a rug. There is a chance that the lump of wires might be prominent. The best way to deal with the problem of wires is to cover them in tubes or pipes.
The look of the room can be spruced up by decorating it with different themes. A person interested in watching channels related to nature such as the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel, can give the room a 'green' look, by decorating it with plants and images of wildlife.
Hiring a designer to set up a home theater is a costly affair. The trend of DIY in home theater designing is fast catching up nowadays. It not only helps create a customized home theater design, but also gives the owner a sense of satisfaction. If one needs to make any further changes to the arrangement of the home theater assembly, it becomes much more easier with the experience gained in the process.
Thus, home theater designing not only saves money, but also gives the owner a feeling of fulfillment.
By Shashank Nakate
Home theater Design Ideas
Home Theater Design
With the trend toward cocooning taking hold in North America, many people are turning their homes into something more. The days of watching television the old fashioned way (sitting on a couch with a coffee table in front of you watching basic cable) are long gone. Today, what everyone wants is a satellite TV system, like the DISH Network, and a home theatre.
Novice or Pro
If you want to build a home theater, don't worry – you don't have to be an expert in electronics or home building to achieve the best home theater. One important detail, though, is whether or not you plan to use an already existing room or if you plan to add an addition to your home specifically for the home theater.
While building an entirely new room will allow you to design your theater exactly as you would like it, it is also by far the more expensive option. Using an already existing room can help you save money but it also means you have to work with what you've got. Depending on the room you choose, this may be a blessing or a curse.
Now that you've got your room picked out (or have given yourself the freedom to build a new one), it's time to do a home theater room design.
Home Theater Guide
To get yourself started, sketch out what you want. Don't worry about measurements or your chicken-scratch style just yet. The main purpose of the sketch is to let you see the ideas in your head. If you're stuck for ideas, it's always a good idea to peruse some magazines and get some pictures of home theaters.
There are many different types of home theater interiors that you can draw inspiration from. Plus, if you've hired a professional to help with the home theater designs or setup, then using pictures can help give them a clear idea of what you want.
Once you have the general idea of what you'd like to do down on paper, then it's time to get to the nitty-gritty details. Doing more specific sketches of certain areas and features of the room will be necessary. These drawings will deal with things like your home theater seating, the home theater speakers (you can't just rely on the television speaker when you're building a home theater), the wiring, the home theater lighting, any cabinets you may be putting in and so on.
Home Theater Furniture
One of the first and most essential decisions you will need to make is about the seating in your home theater. What type of chair do you plan to install? A couch? A recliner? A high-backed seat? Where do you want the seats to go? Do you plan to have decked seating? These are important decisions as they will affect all the other areas of your home theater design.
The number of seats you plan to install will dictate how much available floor space you have. The location of the seats will determine just where all your home theater equipment has to go as well as the sightlines to the screen.
Home Theater Design Many home theater experts advise against the use of high-backed seating because the added height serves to absorb some of the sound. Additionally, recliners are also not the ideal type of home theater furniture because they allow a viewer's head position to change. Both of these factors can subtract from your listening pleasure. However, because of the exquisite comfort these seats provide, many home theater owners and builders are willing to overlook this detail.
Home Theater Tips
If you've hired a professional to design the room and/or do the home theater installation, then all you really need to worry about is figuring out what you want. But, if you've decided to go the DIY route, then here are some tips that are important to keep in mind when it comes to home theater setup.
1. The length of your walls can work with or against you when it comes to the acoustics in your room. Parallel walls can be a nightmare when it comes to sound. If you're building the room, then the easiest way to resolve this problem is by building a room with walls of different lengths. However, this may be a bit of an issue when it comes time to sell your home. The other option, for those of you who have or just like walls of even lengths, is to cover your walls and floor with material. Decorative curtains, nice carpeting, even foam can help keep the sound from bouncing all over your room.
2. Home theaters usually have a lot of electronics associated with them. And with electronics come wires and cords. The last thing you want in your home theater is unsightly wires running everywhere so take the time before hand to figure out just where you plan to place them. If you're building the room from scratch, then placing some of the wiring in the new walls or floor is definitely an option. Just make sure you hook everything up and test it out before you seal the wires up. It won't be so easy to get to them later. Using pipes or tubing is also a handy way to keep wires and cords neat while also camouflaging them. Running everything under your carpet is another option. But, to keep your rug from looking and feeling lumpy, cut out small sections of the padding to place the cords in.
Home Theater Design
3. Theaters are not known for being well-lit areas, so when it comes time to pick the lighting, refrain from anything too bright. Also, when you pick or design a room, go with one that has few, if any, windows. Basements are great for home theaters because they usually have small windows or even no windows at all.
4. Whatever room you choose, try to pick one that has a minimal amount of exterior noises.
5. Consider putting in cabinets or shelves that have space for each piece of equipment you plan to install. While many people do it, it is a bad idea to stack your home theater accessories on top of each other. The electronics can build up heat, which can hinder their performance.
The Final Design
Now that you know where the seats will go and what electronics you'll need (make sure you create a list), it's time to personalize your home theater. Most home theater stores offer the time-honored pieces to help give your room a real movie theater feel. As nice as this can be, it may not be you.
Home Theater Design Consider breaking away from the traditional art deco home theater design (think classic Hollywood) and do something that is more meaningful to you. If you're a big Star Wars or Star Trek fan, then why not design a room to resemble the Death Star, the Millennium Falcon or the Enterprise? Perhaps you're more of a Bollywood kind of person. Then turn your home theater room into a sultan's palace.
Now that your home theater is finally done and every last detail has been looked after, it's time to sit back and enjoy all your hard work. Just don't be surprised if everyone in the neighborhood wants to watch the latest movies and the big game at your place.
Home Theater Design Tips
By: Scott Steinberg
Five tips for improving your home audio and video experience.
The lights go down, the curtains part, the Blu-ray player starts to spin, and the speakers fire. Thus begins the total suspension of disbelief that results from a great home theater. To really pull it off, however, you must consider the entire experience rather than simply sticking a system in a room and hitting the play button. Taking into account the nature of your room, aesthetic details and performance tweaks will make your home theater more cohesive and enjoyable. Here are five vital tips that, though simple enough, will dramatically improve your home audio and video experience.
Be Conscious of Room Acoustics
Have you ever noticed that when you move into a new house or apartment before the furniture arrives, sound is thin and tends to echo? That’s because your furnishings have a dramatic effect on the nature of sound. The same principle applies to home theater—a large part of what you hear depends on the room itself. While mastering room acoustics is a complicated science, there are simple things you can do to improve audio output.
First, consider the type of surfaces in your room. Are there a lot of hard, reflective materials, such as wood floors, mirrors, and windows? Or do you have a carpeted room filled with plush carpets, sofas, and heavy drapes? If you have too many hard surfaces, sound will bounce all around the room, wreaking havoc on audio playback. Fill the area with too many soft, absorbent materials and the room will be acoustically dead, sucking the liveliness out of music and soundtracks. To get the best audio, you need to strike a balance between these two types of materials.
Generally, the front of the room needs more absorptive materials—especially between the front speakers and the seating area where “first reflections” occur. If first reflections are not nipped in the bud by acoustic “damping” materials, they will continue to bounce around the room and cause distortion. Start by carpeting hardwood, tile, or concrete floors. Add some window treatments to dampen sound (and keep ambient light at bay). Opt for upholstered, rather than wood or leather, furniture as well.
The reverse is true for the rear of the room, where some acoustically “live” material is desirable to add life to the audio and help break up sound. That’s why many AV installers use acoustic diffusers at the back of the room. You can create your own diffusers by simply installing bookshelves and filling them with books of various shapes and sizes. Of course, if you hire an AV installer, he or she will fine-tune your room acoustics with a combination of acoustic treatments, such as diffusers, bass traps, and panels.
Home Theater Room
Home Theater Room with Padded Walls
Choose a Dark Color Palette
While home theaters are great places to have fun with room design, getting carried away with over-the-top colors can actually hurt the image being displayed on your TV or projector screen. If you paint your walls a bright red, for example, the picture will have a reddish cast because light from your projector or big-screen TV will reflect onto the sidewalls and bounce back onto the screen. For this reason, many high-end theaters are dressed in brown, grey, black, or other dark colors. These deeper hues absorb light, rather than reflect it back onto the screen.
Buy the Right Size Screen, Sit at the Appropriate Distance
While it is tempting to make the entire front wall of the theater one gigantic screen, that isn’t always the best option. It’s important to consider your viewing distance relative to screen size. If you sit too close to the screen or the screen is too large for the room, you will start to see the display’s pixel structure. If you sit too far away or the screen is too small for the room, you will lose that big-screen impact, which defeats the purpose of having a home theater in the first place.
Luckily, high-definition displays let you sit closer to the screen than ever before, which means you can put a larger screen in a smaller theater than with standard-definition displays. Of course, the debate rages on about the appropriate viewing distance. For instance, THX recommends that you divide your diagonal screen size by 0.84 for 1080p displays, while others recommend multiplying diagonal screen size by 1.5. For a 120-inch screen, these calculations produce a recommended viewing distance from 11 to 15 feet. How far you sit from the screen and how big a screen you purchase is ultimately up to you—as long as you are comfortable, don’t see pixels, and maintain the dramatic impact of the big screen, who’s counting?
Television with Stand and Speakers
TV Stand and Audio Cabinet by Sanus Systems
Take Control
Invest in a good universal remote control to eliminate the five or six separate controls from your various devices. Make sure you purchase a backlit device too: It will help you easily locate buttons in the darkness.
Practice Feng Shui
Now that you’ve tackled the big stuff, take a look at small details that will contribute to your overall enjoyment. For example, don’t install a telephone in the theater—there is nothing worse than being interrupted during a movie with a phone call from a telemarketer. If possible, choose a room that is isolated from the rest of the home, such as a basement too, as this will keep sound from other rooms from intruding upon the sanctity of your theater and vice versa. Remove equipment from the room if possible, hiding it in a separate equipment closet or room as well. And put the entrance to the theater at the rear of the room, not the side or front screen wall.
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