Hello All,
In the past, I posted a few times about building my own movie theater, theater lobby, game room, and Audio/Video.
A few people requested that once I progressed enough to post pics, I should create a thread.
Here are the details of each of the rooms.
Movie Theater:
22' x 29'. We worked with our architect back in 2003 when formulating the floor plans of the entire house to purposefully
design it in advance so that there is stadium seating to keep people from seeing the heads of people in front. The rear rows
are not risers built as afterthoughts, but rather we built out that room about a foot-and-a-half lower than the rest of
the 2nd story of the house. The theater has a 12' ceiling in the front where the screen and proscenium are located, and
10' ceiling in the rear. There are 24+ seats: three rows of seating with approximately 8 theater seats per row.
There are three “money seats” in the first row with automated reclining. All other seats recline and the seat bottoms
become upright. These seats were bought from an actual movie theater.
Each row is a little over 8" higher than the previous row.
I have 24 tactile transducers which are mounted below each seat and row to provide an impact to all viewers.
The speakers are complete Klipsch THX Ultra2 speakers with LCR, two side dipolars and two rear centers.
There are two big subwoofers with two 1000 watt amplifiers for them.
I have a 2 Terabyte Home Theater PC with capability of storing about 200 Standard Def DVD movies on the hard drives,
all my music, and pictures which are then distributed to other rooms in my house using Microsoft Xbox360’s as
Media Center Extenders. The HTPC also has HD DVD access with the capability of having HD DVD movies also stored on the hard drives.
The projector is an amazing 1080p 3-chip H-DILA projector, the JVC RS1. What an incredible picture!
My screen was put together last week. It measures about 90 inches high and 16 feet wide. This gives us about a
212” diagonal 2.35:1 screen with a gain that is supposed to be around 2.0.
The ceiling is a starfield with about a thousand points of fiber optic light. It has the Milky Way, a whole bunch of
constellations, and two shooting stars that span the width of the ceiling.
A soffit is built around the perimeter of the theater with 3” can lights, and we have columns strategically placed to
hide the left, right, and surrounding speakers. The center speaker and subs are hidden in the stage and proscenium.
Two rows of crown molding are dropped 3” so that rope lighting will illuminate the side and edges of the ceiling
and the walls / soffitts. The black velvet curtains will adjust sideways to allow for a Constant Image Width setup.
The walls will either be covered by red velvet, or acoustic panels to maintain excellent sound.
The Lobby has an 8oz popcorn machine maker with wheels and stand. There is a movie marquee and
we will have a candy counter and ticket taker.
The A/V room contains enough cable to allow for every room in the house to have 2 CAT5E and 2 RG6, as well as in-wall
and in-ceiling speakers with CAT5E for electronic volume and source controls. It feeds signal for 16 HD DVR, DVR,
and On-Demand boxes. It integrates with an HAI panel for internet control of the alarm, security cameras, garden sprinkler
automation, and lighting controls using UPB. All the audio and video components will be stored on two racks with an
isolated electrical panel. It will have climate control for all of the generated heat.
The Game Room is 23'x30' in dimension. It contains a 8’x9’ wet bar with sink. Adjacent to it is a foosball table and a
9’ pool table with a Stroh’s Beer billiard bar light. There are two 10-person oval red felt poker tables, and two sets of pinball and arcade machines.
Here are a few pictures. I’ll update this thread as we progress. Since our baby was born a few days ago, we’ve had to
halt construction. However, we should be finished with everything within a month (famous last words!).
Movie Theater seat that I upholstered myself as a test:
Game Room from the perspective of if you were playing pool. You can see the spools of fiber optic for the star field ceiling:
Wet Bar with sink and wine racks:
Looking into the Game Room where the pool table will be placed:
From the Lobby. The floors are a hand scraped Ebony Merbau wood floor:
Looking into the Lobby and the double doors of the theater entrance:
The screen in front with side columns and soffit framed:
Note the Milky Way fiber optics from the front left corner to the right rear corner. Constellations are placed in the relatively accurate places and the shooting stars span left to right and front corner to opposite rear corner:
Stadium Seating floor height differences:
Screen shot of Naomi Watts in King Kong. This was a HD DVD source with the JVC RS1 projector:
Me standing in front of the screen to provide a reference point of size. The screen is 16' wide by 90" high:
Very wide viewing cone. Note that even at an extreme angle, there is minimal loss of brightness:
Some more screen shots using HD DVD source:
A screen shot with my other screen (2.35:1 for 8' wide screen):
Superman Returns:
Superman Earth in background:
XBox360 in 1080p:
I’ll try to answer as completely and as frequently as possible. Feedback from professionals like TURBO2GO and other enthusiasts are very welcome.
Take care,
J.
In the past, I posted a few times about building my own movie theater, theater lobby, game room, and Audio/Video.
A few people requested that once I progressed enough to post pics, I should create a thread.
Here are the details of each of the rooms.
Movie Theater:
22' x 29'. We worked with our architect back in 2003 when formulating the floor plans of the entire house to purposefully
design it in advance so that there is stadium seating to keep people from seeing the heads of people in front. The rear rows
are not risers built as afterthoughts, but rather we built out that room about a foot-and-a-half lower than the rest of
the 2nd story of the house. The theater has a 12' ceiling in the front where the screen and proscenium are located, and
10' ceiling in the rear. There are 24+ seats: three rows of seating with approximately 8 theater seats per row.
There are three “money seats” in the first row with automated reclining. All other seats recline and the seat bottoms
become upright. These seats were bought from an actual movie theater.
Each row is a little over 8" higher than the previous row.
I have 24 tactile transducers which are mounted below each seat and row to provide an impact to all viewers.
The speakers are complete Klipsch THX Ultra2 speakers with LCR, two side dipolars and two rear centers.
There are two big subwoofers with two 1000 watt amplifiers for them.
I have a 2 Terabyte Home Theater PC with capability of storing about 200 Standard Def DVD movies on the hard drives,
all my music, and pictures which are then distributed to other rooms in my house using Microsoft Xbox360’s as
Media Center Extenders. The HTPC also has HD DVD access with the capability of having HD DVD movies also stored on the hard drives.
The projector is an amazing 1080p 3-chip H-DILA projector, the JVC RS1. What an incredible picture!
My screen was put together last week. It measures about 90 inches high and 16 feet wide. This gives us about a
212” diagonal 2.35:1 screen with a gain that is supposed to be around 2.0.
The ceiling is a starfield with about a thousand points of fiber optic light. It has the Milky Way, a whole bunch of
constellations, and two shooting stars that span the width of the ceiling.
A soffit is built around the perimeter of the theater with 3” can lights, and we have columns strategically placed to
hide the left, right, and surrounding speakers. The center speaker and subs are hidden in the stage and proscenium.
Two rows of crown molding are dropped 3” so that rope lighting will illuminate the side and edges of the ceiling
and the walls / soffitts. The black velvet curtains will adjust sideways to allow for a Constant Image Width setup.
The walls will either be covered by red velvet, or acoustic panels to maintain excellent sound.
The Lobby has an 8oz popcorn machine maker with wheels and stand. There is a movie marquee and
we will have a candy counter and ticket taker.
The A/V room contains enough cable to allow for every room in the house to have 2 CAT5E and 2 RG6, as well as in-wall
and in-ceiling speakers with CAT5E for electronic volume and source controls. It feeds signal for 16 HD DVR, DVR,
and On-Demand boxes. It integrates with an HAI panel for internet control of the alarm, security cameras, garden sprinkler
automation, and lighting controls using UPB. All the audio and video components will be stored on two racks with an
isolated electrical panel. It will have climate control for all of the generated heat.
The Game Room is 23'x30' in dimension. It contains a 8’x9’ wet bar with sink. Adjacent to it is a foosball table and a
9’ pool table with a Stroh’s Beer billiard bar light. There are two 10-person oval red felt poker tables, and two sets of pinball and arcade machines.
Here are a few pictures. I’ll update this thread as we progress. Since our baby was born a few days ago, we’ve had to
halt construction. However, we should be finished with everything within a month (famous last words!).
Movie Theater seat that I upholstered myself as a test:
Game Room from the perspective of if you were playing pool. You can see the spools of fiber optic for the star field ceiling:
Wet Bar with sink and wine racks:
Looking into the Game Room where the pool table will be placed:
From the Lobby. The floors are a hand scraped Ebony Merbau wood floor:
Looking into the Lobby and the double doors of the theater entrance:
The screen in front with side columns and soffit framed:
Note the Milky Way fiber optics from the front left corner to the right rear corner. Constellations are placed in the relatively accurate places and the shooting stars span left to right and front corner to opposite rear corner:
Stadium Seating floor height differences:
Screen shot of Naomi Watts in King Kong. This was a HD DVD source with the JVC RS1 projector:
Me standing in front of the screen to provide a reference point of size. The screen is 16' wide by 90" high:
Very wide viewing cone. Note that even at an extreme angle, there is minimal loss of brightness:
Some more screen shots using HD DVD source:
A screen shot with my other screen (2.35:1 for 8' wide screen):
Superman Returns:
Superman Earth in background:
XBox360 in 1080p:
I’ll try to answer as completely and as frequently as possible. Feedback from professionals like TURBO2GO and other enthusiasts are very welcome.
Take care,
J.
Last edited:
