The term "home theater" itself came about when flat-panel TVs appeared , and its association with the concepts of wealth and even luxury is very stable. But now, after a few years, it’s hard to surprise anyone with a flat screen - who doesn’t have it? A few years later, such a concept as the design of home theaters appeared. Moscow, and beyond it, and other large cities began to offer the services of specialized firms for organizing turnkey home cinema halls to those who could afford it.
The owners of spacious houses, solid and carefully planned, strive to provide themselves and loved ones with the maximum level of comfort and accessibility of all the pleasures that modern technologies allow. Designing a home theater system with equipment according to the latest achievements is the work of a highly qualified specialist who can handle a lot of problems and pitfalls here.
What does he look like
What is a modern home theater? At almost everyone, at the first mention, it is associated with a spacious room, comfortable and stylish furniture, a modern speaker system, a large screen and a high-quality projector. But not so simple. It is not enough just to buy and place everything mentioned in a single room.
Designing a home theater system with installation involves a number of steps - from developing a project from scratch to installing and configuring equipment - both video and audio. This process includes the necessary measures for the acoustic decoration of the room and its high-quality sound insulation. In order for the spent, sometimes quite considerable funds, not to be wasted, each stage must be worked out correctly.
Things to take care of
Designing a home theater consists of the most careful selection of all system components. In this case, the acoustic parameters of the selected room, its features in terms of architecture, light, etc. must be taken into account. The project must provide for the optimal materials of the cable channels and their configuration, composition and length of each circuit. Carefully thought out should be the location of all power points, as well as the management of the cinema.
Do not forget that even the smallest home hall is a copy of a real "adult" cinema. Despite its small size, the requirements for it are quite professional. The difference is only in scale. Your cinema should not have fundamental differences from the public in terms of sound and picture quality.
How to choose the right room
It must be isolated. Designing a home theater in an ordinary living room is not a good option. Most often, it has an irregular shape and too large a glazing area. In addition, the living room always has sharp corners and several walkways to other rooms. All such circumstances do not help in any way to use it for these purposes.
Small details of the interior will contribute to the fragmentation of sound with its distortion and damage to the impression of the process. The linear parameters of the future cinema (length, width, height) must not be correlated in multiple terms, otherwise there will be an intersection of sound waves reflected from the ceiling and walls, which, superimposed on each other, can change beyond recognition.
About sound insulation
The issue of sound insulation is also extremely important, which also needs to be considered when choosing a separate room for the cinema. It is especially relevant when designing a home theater in an apartment. The doors to the room intended for him should be thick and close tightly and securely. Each void in the wall and between structures should be filled with materials with good soundproofing properties.
For surface treatment, there are special suspended acoustic ceilings, as well as wall panels. Simple drapery will also help. Bulk floors give excellent sound insulation quality, with a layer of fine gravel or sand located below the decorative cladding.
What else is important
Very, very much depends on the chosen acoustics. In particular, focusing on it, they choose finishing materials and interior solutions. If the acoustics are poor-quality or incorrectly selected, the sound of even the most expensive complex can be killed. High-quality sound belongs to the system component by only 11%, the remaining 89% depend on the parameters of the room in terms of acoustics.
Thus, neglect of the proper preparation of the future cinema can become the main and most serious mistake that will nullify all your efforts.
Order service?
It is possible to calculate the cost of the procedure for preparing the acoustics of the hall at the preliminary stage, taking into account the layout of the room, the available furniture, materials of building structures. The smaller the room, the more money the acoustic processing process will require.
A service such as designing and installing home theater systems is now available at a professional level. The specialist will choose the proposed plan for furniture arrangement, using a special computer program that can simulate the behavior of sound in a future movie theater.
What should not be indoors
Smooth, with a rigid surface structure (like wallpaper pasted over walls) must be removed or masked. They must be made soft and embossed. All items from plastic, laminate, glass, metal, ceramics and tile are removed from the room, the same applies to the skin. It is very desirable to decorate the walls with mineral plaster or natural wood, lay thick carpets and drapes made of dense fabric. Wallpaper would be nice to stick on fabric or carpet type too.
The room should not have many windows. Existing ones are curtained as densely as possible with curtains in several layers. Glassware and glass furniture are strictly prohibited. Soft sofas with a large number of pillows, fluffy long-pile carpets on the floor and on the walls are welcome.
How to successfully arrange "seats"? Typically, speakers are placed on both sides of a large sofa, which as a result is on the line of intersection of the axes of sound. There should be no additional seats on the sides of it - those sitting in them will experience significant discomfort from the sound imbalance between the channels.
Home theater design - setup and selection of video equipment
The topic of the importance of proper selection of video components needs no explanation. After all, we are talking about the main component - a high-quality image on your home screen. The choice is among a huge number of televisions, projectors, plasma panels, etc. What exactly to acquire depends not only on material capabilities, but also on the technical parameters and the conditions in which the viewing will take place.
The main criterion that you should look for when choosing a projector is the presence of the Full HD standard. Your technique should be able to play progressive high definition pictures. Although plasma panels are considered universal, nothing is better than a good projector with digital inputs HDMI, DV, iLINK, DVI.
Do not forget about the component part of the cinema. This is a DVD player, receiver or amplifier with a processor. For the entire set of home cinema equipment, they play the role of a computer designed to decrypt the sound and image from DVDs. These devices provide high-quality operation of all acoustics, acting as a switching center.
The screen is our everything
A screen is an equally important component in arranging a home room. The involvement of the viewer in the action is directly related to the size of the image. Any movie looks better on the big screen. Here, of course, it all depends on the room. It is better to take the proportions 16: 9 (1.77: 1), but if your requirements for picture quality are quite high, you can take a smaller screen - about 75 cm wide.
The modern complex Multiroom (Multiroom) makes it possible to obtain surround sound of the highest quality. Designing a home theater with a HI-END class equipment system allows you to make a modernized cinema from virtually any environment. When installing audio multiroom and competent tuning, you can enjoy clear sound in rooms of various types. If you install such a video with a home theater, your system will be unique and will be appreciated by true lovers of high-class cinema.
About design options
Designing a home theater in a house is possible both at the stage of planning the premises, and during new construction or major repairs. If perestroika is not to be, it is necessary to proceed from what is available.
The first option (when the room is only planned) is the most reasonable and effective. The installer works together with the designer, coordinating all the nuances. The result is a neat and harmonious installation into the room of all the necessary equipment.
In this option, it is easiest to take into account many important nuances regarding the exact size of the room, its volume, the characteristics of acoustics and architecture. You can carefully consider the sound insulation and all the necessary preparation of the room.
Home theater design - installation of equipment in the finished room
If you start the project of your cinema at the stage of repair or construction, there are also advantages, although the degree of freedom of creativity is already partially limited. But nevertheless, you can seriously think about the optimal placement of acoustics, laying wires, inserting outlets for video and audio, installing boxes for installing the acoustics that will be arranged. In this case, you will get rid of the inevitable alterations and endless reconfigurations.
If designing a home theater involves installing it in a ready-made room - this option cannot be called the most successful, although it is most common. You have to clean the existing wiring in special boxes, it will be quite difficult to enter all the necessary components into the interior of the finished room. In this situation, the most successful choice would be to attract a serious specialist who has extensive experience in such installations.
To summarize
Conclusion: designing a home theater with your own hands is a rather difficult task not only from a technical, but also from all other points of view, not to mention the material one. But sooner or later, all the difficulties are left behind, and one of the beautiful days you sit down in front of a huge screen on a soft sofa and press the Play button with pleasure.
All! You have started a new life! The sensations of possessing all the wealth of sounds and shades can not be compared with anything! Fantastically beautiful landscapes, the roar of a mountain avalanche, the sound of the sea surf - all this is now yours. You will feel the magnificent sound of music literally on the palate and with great satisfaction remember the words of the classic that cinema is the most important art for us. Now this is a miracle in your home - in your own hands.