Home Cinema Room, Projector TV - What do i need to know?
Discussion
We built our house with a basement room 4m wide x 8m long (no windows or natural light), always intending it to be a home cinema room. Sadly it became a junk/dumping room, but now we've emptied it ready to kit out............but what should we buy?
Intention is to have screen at one end, something like 7'-9'wide x 5' high which would equate to about 100"-120" diagonal picture size. Seating would be half - 3/4 way back.
Happy to spend up to £2k on kit (Sound and Vision) but already have some old Hi-Fi speakers that i could make use of, which in their day were pretty high end. Also have Sky Multi-room already.
Should i do anything to improve the room acoustics? Walls and ceiling (2.2m AFFL) are conventional painted plaster with a few pictures, so the only sound absorbent elements would be the carpeted floor and seating.
Intention is to have screen at one end, something like 7'-9'wide x 5' high which would equate to about 100"-120" diagonal picture size. Seating would be half - 3/4 way back.
Happy to spend up to £2k on kit (Sound and Vision) but already have some old Hi-Fi speakers that i could make use of, which in their day were pretty high end. Also have Sky Multi-room already.
Should i do anything to improve the room acoustics? Walls and ceiling (2.2m AFFL) are conventional painted plaster with a few pictures, so the only sound absorbent elements would be the carpeted floor and seating.
OK so first off if you want to buy new £2k won't get far, at all. I appreciate everyone has thier personal standards and budgets but from a resellers perspective that'll just about buy you an entry level projector (Panasonic?), the cheapest solution for a screen is fixed frame which is also, in my opinion, the best (subject to performance) but again starting prices will still be in the hundreds. Then you have AVR, source (except Sky), equipment storage, control and between four and six speakers to do it right. For that budget I'd take all advice then start looking on eBay and grab last years kit.
Screen size is dependant on viewing distance. Decide where you'll want your sofa, measure the distance to the screen and divide by 1.75 to get an approximate guide of screen size (width). Very rough guide but I use 1.5:1 (distance:size) as the largest generally acceptable screen size for 1080p video, there are some technical documents that give specific recommendations but a lot is also down to personal preference.
Acoustic treatment is highly recommended even if it's just soft furnishings, carpet and book shelves. Poor acoustics must be resolved.
Have to dash but will monitor thread and jump back in when time allows.
Screen size is dependant on viewing distance. Decide where you'll want your sofa, measure the distance to the screen and divide by 1.75 to get an approximate guide of screen size (width). Very rough guide but I use 1.5:1 (distance:size) as the largest generally acceptable screen size for 1080p video, there are some technical documents that give specific recommendations but a lot is also down to personal preference.
Acoustic treatment is highly recommended even if it's just soft furnishings, carpet and book shelves. Poor acoustics must be resolved.
Have to dash but will monitor thread and jump back in when time allows.
Is there a regarded sweet spot in regards to speaker numbers? 5.1, 7.1, then, not sure on the terminology, but start adding high up speakers to get the floor to ceiling sound.
Is it worth going all out to what you can fit? I'm thinking yes.
Maybe just run the cable for future speakers if you find yourself doing the work with a view to complete when budget allows?
Is it worth going all out to what you can fit? I'm thinking yes.
Maybe just run the cable for future speakers if you find yourself doing the work with a view to complete when budget allows?
100 IAN said:
We built our house with a basement room 4m wide x 8m long (no windows or natural light), always intending it to be a home cinema room. Sadly it became a junk/dumping room, but now we've emptied it ready to kit out............but what should we buy?
Intention is to have screen at one end, something like 7'-9'wide x 5' high which would equate to about 100"-120" diagonal picture size. Seating would be half - 3/4 way back.
Happy to spend up to £2k on kit (Sound and Vision) but already have some old Hi-Fi speakers that i could make use of, which in their day were pretty high end. Also have Sky Multi-room already.
Should i do anything to improve the room acoustics? Walls and ceiling (2.2m AFFL) are conventional painted plaster with a few pictures, so the only sound absorbent elements would be the carpeted floor and seating.
Given the nature of the surroundings, it's a good start point for a dedicated room. As mentioned above, £2k is towards the bottom end in terms of expenditure, but that's not to say you wont achieve good results. Presumably you want to make use of the room length and have the projector setup towards the rear of the room? The only issue with this is the throw distance will be quite substantial (to the point where you might find the image produced is greater than the screen size you have). Intention is to have screen at one end, something like 7'-9'wide x 5' high which would equate to about 100"-120" diagonal picture size. Seating would be half - 3/4 way back.
Happy to spend up to £2k on kit (Sound and Vision) but already have some old Hi-Fi speakers that i could make use of, which in their day were pretty high end. Also have Sky Multi-room already.
Should i do anything to improve the room acoustics? Walls and ceiling (2.2m AFFL) are conventional painted plaster with a few pictures, so the only sound absorbent elements would be the carpeted floor and seating.
There's a handy throw ratio / screen size calculator for this sort of thing on the projector central website. In terms of kit recommendations, given the budget constraints, I'd look at something like:
Projector: BenQ W1070 (circa £500). In terms of bang for your buck, you wont find a better image for less if buying new. An alternative would be to pickup a used Sony or JVC - early 1080p JVC's (the HD1) can be had for similar money to the BenQ and will be a big step up in performance (particularly black levels).
Speakers: You mentioned you already had some floating around - fortunately speakers are the one area that stays quite still in terms of development. So long as you have enough for 5.1, job's a good'un. 7.1 is a cheap upgrade, and most AV receivers will handle that now anyway. Speaking of which...
AV Receiver: Onkyo TXNR838 (circa £700). It's not top tier nor bottom tier, but it's futureproof, will handle UHD if you choose to upgrade the video side of the setup in the future, and will provide 7.2 channels. I'm not sure if you're interested in Dolby Atmos, and fixing some speakers above you - if you are, it's worth holding fire for a couple of weeks as DTS will be finally announcing their Atmos rival, DTS:X - speaker placement being unknown at the moment, and there's already a bit of a bun fight going on as Atmos and Auro 3D aren't a common layout.
Money savers: Don't spend a fortune on speaker cable or HDMI cables. There's lots of snake oil around - if the projector is to be ceiling mounted and the HDMI cable chased into a wall / ceiling, it's worth getting a better built cable, but nothing horrendously expensive (a QED HDMI will work perfectly). Speaker cables are much the same (some will argue they hear a difference, but given the budget of the build, a big reel of Maplins speaker cable, for all of £20 will work as well as the £5.95 per metre stuff that retailers try to sell you).
Other than that, just make the ceiling, floor and walls as dark as possible, perhaps add a rug in front of the seating area as an aesthetic and economical form of acoustic treatment, and job's a good'un. You can spend a fortune on room treatment, but things have come on leaps and bounds when it comes to room EQ that is built in to modern AV receivers, so as long as the speakers are standmounted on solid platforms, or are floorstanders and not on rickety creaky floorboards, you don't have to spend a fortune to produce great sound.
Regarding future upgrades - UHD is quickly gathering pace, and whilst UHD Blu-Ray is coming, it's more likely that content will be available by streaming, so a provision for a CAT5e cable is a sensible choice for content delivery in the future. This of course means a new projector, but one step at a time - it's always good to build in some futureproofing to parts of a build that are not easily swapped out later (cables chased into walls and the like).
These things do take over your life though, if Kelvin (OldSkoolRS) appears, he'll back me up...your first dose of upgrade-itis will be around 6 months in
fuelracer496 said:
Given the nature of the surroundings, it's a good start point for a dedicated room. As mentioned above, £2k is towards the bottom end in terms of expenditure, but that's not to say you wont achieve good results. Presumably you want to make use of the room length and have the projector setup towards the rear of the room? The only issue with this is the throw distance will be quite substantial (to the point where you might find the image produced is greater than the screen size you have).
There's a handy throw ratio / screen size calculator for this sort of thing on the projector central website. In terms of kit recommendations, given the budget constraints, I'd look at something like:
Projector: BenQ W1070 (circa £500). In terms of bang for your buck, you wont find a better image for less if buying new. An alternative would be to pickup a used Sony or JVC - early 1080p JVC's (the HD1) can be had for similar money to the BenQ and will be a big step up in performance (particularly black levels).
Speakers: You mentioned you already had some floating around - fortunately speakers are the one area that stays quite still in terms of development. So long as you have enough for 5.1, job's a good'un. 7.1 is a cheap upgrade, and most AV receivers will handle that now anyway. Speaking of which...
AV Receiver: Onkyo TXNR838 (circa £700). It's not top tier nor bottom tier, but it's futureproof, will handle UHD if you choose to upgrade the video side of the setup in the future, and will provide 7.2 channels. I'm not sure if you're interested in Dolby Atmos, and fixing some speakers above you - if you are, it's worth holding fire for a couple of weeks as DTS will be finally announcing their Atmos rival, DTS:X - speaker placement being unknown at the moment, and there's already a bit of a bun fight going on as Atmos and Auro 3D aren't a common layout.
Money savers: Don't spend a fortune on speaker cable or HDMI cables. There's lots of snake oil around - if the projector is to be ceiling mounted and the HDMI cable chased into a wall / ceiling, it's worth getting a better built cable, but nothing horrendously expensive (a QED HDMI will work perfectly). Speaker cables are much the same (some will argue they hear a difference, but given the budget of the build, a big reel of Maplins speaker cable, for all of £20 will work as well as the £5.95 per metre stuff that retailers try to sell you).
Other than that, just make the ceiling, floor and walls as dark as possible, perhaps add a rug in front of the seating area as an aesthetic and economical form of acoustic treatment, and job's a good'un. You can spend a fortune on room treatment, but things have come on leaps and bounds when it comes to room EQ that is built in to modern AV receivers, so as long as the speakers are standmounted on solid platforms, or are floorstanders and not on rickety creaky floorboards, you don't have to spend a fortune to produce great sound.
Regarding future upgrades - UHD is quickly gathering pace, and whilst UHD Blu-Ray is coming, it's more likely that content will be available by streaming, so a provision for a CAT5e cable is a sensible choice for content delivery in the future. This of course means a new projector, but one step at a time - it's always good to build in some futureproofing to parts of a build that are not easily swapped out later (cables chased into walls and the like).
These things do take over your life though, if Kelvin (OldSkoolRS) appears, he'll back me up...your first dose of upgrade-itis will be around 6 months in
Are there Cat6 projectors out yet?There's a handy throw ratio / screen size calculator for this sort of thing on the projector central website. In terms of kit recommendations, given the budget constraints, I'd look at something like:
Projector: BenQ W1070 (circa £500). In terms of bang for your buck, you wont find a better image for less if buying new. An alternative would be to pickup a used Sony or JVC - early 1080p JVC's (the HD1) can be had for similar money to the BenQ and will be a big step up in performance (particularly black levels).
Speakers: You mentioned you already had some floating around - fortunately speakers are the one area that stays quite still in terms of development. So long as you have enough for 5.1, job's a good'un. 7.1 is a cheap upgrade, and most AV receivers will handle that now anyway. Speaking of which...
AV Receiver: Onkyo TXNR838 (circa £700). It's not top tier nor bottom tier, but it's futureproof, will handle UHD if you choose to upgrade the video side of the setup in the future, and will provide 7.2 channels. I'm not sure if you're interested in Dolby Atmos, and fixing some speakers above you - if you are, it's worth holding fire for a couple of weeks as DTS will be finally announcing their Atmos rival, DTS:X - speaker placement being unknown at the moment, and there's already a bit of a bun fight going on as Atmos and Auro 3D aren't a common layout.
Money savers: Don't spend a fortune on speaker cable or HDMI cables. There's lots of snake oil around - if the projector is to be ceiling mounted and the HDMI cable chased into a wall / ceiling, it's worth getting a better built cable, but nothing horrendously expensive (a QED HDMI will work perfectly). Speaker cables are much the same (some will argue they hear a difference, but given the budget of the build, a big reel of Maplins speaker cable, for all of £20 will work as well as the £5.95 per metre stuff that retailers try to sell you).
Other than that, just make the ceiling, floor and walls as dark as possible, perhaps add a rug in front of the seating area as an aesthetic and economical form of acoustic treatment, and job's a good'un. You can spend a fortune on room treatment, but things have come on leaps and bounds when it comes to room EQ that is built in to modern AV receivers, so as long as the speakers are standmounted on solid platforms, or are floorstanders and not on rickety creaky floorboards, you don't have to spend a fortune to produce great sound.
Regarding future upgrades - UHD is quickly gathering pace, and whilst UHD Blu-Ray is coming, it's more likely that content will be available by streaming, so a provision for a CAT5e cable is a sensible choice for content delivery in the future. This of course means a new projector, but one step at a time - it's always good to build in some futureproofing to parts of a build that are not easily swapped out later (cables chased into walls and the like).
These things do take over your life though, if Kelvin (OldSkoolRS) appears, he'll back me up...your first dose of upgrade-itis will be around 6 months in
fuelracer496 said:
These things do take over your life though, if Kelvin (OldSkoolRS) appears, he'll back me up...your first dose of upgrade-itis will be around 6 months in
Yes, I'll back you up. I never seem to stop upgrading, but I tend to only buy used/ex display these days.It sounds a fantastic room to start from, I realise budget is very tight but I would recommend having a look on AV forums classifieds and see if you can pick up some decent used gear on there. For example I recently sold a JVC X35 for £1,200 and there have been a few similar ones for sale lately. In case you aren't aware, but painting the room a dark colour (at least near the screen) will really help picture quality, so don't be tempted to treat it like a typical magnolia living room and make it bright and light.
As noted you won't be able to make the image small enough from that long 'throw' distance so forget about the cheaper models like BenQ as they are pretty much all designed to be used with a short throw to create a big image, the opposite of what you need. My room is 6.5 metres long and only JVC and Panasonic models work otherwise the image would be too big for my screen (102" for 16:9 content or 112" wide for 2.35:1 content).
You could make up a fixed screen yourself (or even just paint the wall and put a black border around the screen area) which would leave you more money for an amp, some speakers and a sub:
At USED prices this could be possible based on what I've sold some gear at:
Amp; Onkyo TX-NR818 £300.
Projector; JVC X30 £1,000.
Sub; BK XLS400 £300.
Surround speakers; M&K K4 wall mountable £200 (or some bookshelf speakers from Richer Sounds).
I wouldn't bother with a centre speaker unless you can find a very close match for your existing speakers, just run with a 'phantom' centre until you can afford to buy three properly matching front speakers.
That leaves you £200 for speaker, HDMI cables and other sundries, or maybe a secondhand screen if you're lucky.
If buying new, then I would be very careful about choosing the right projector regarding throw distance/screen size (post back on here with model, throw distance and screen size and I'll check out if it will work).
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