Home theatre setup queries

Hi folks,

I am setting up a new home theatre room.
Need help / guidance on few things -

1. Screen - which one is better paining the wall white or going for a screen? Screen looks good, however have seen at my friends place, little warping or strech at corners and found that very distracting.

2. Have been looking around for Component video cables - and considering they need to reach the projector (looking for around 5m length - and found Monster - 6m cable - mighty expensive!!). The issue is, even though I have put 1" conduit (concealed), not sure whether I will be able to get the Comp Coonectors pulled through them - as the connector ends are welded! Any other solutions??

Cheers,
Surya

Screen: Paiting white is good if you are on a budget. But the glass beaded screens are not very expensive. I got mine from Ebay india from a vendor in delhi. This guy gives screen material by the meter as well, I just got myself 3 meters and made my 120 inch 16:9 screen. The screen is homemade with a wooden frame

Composite: I got 50ft cable from the sonodyne showrooom folks at 6-7 K. But why composite? why not HDMI?!

regards

Thank you for the reply!
OK. I will check out on the screen..
Both my DVD and receiver are little older and dont have HDMI

DYI in india sweet..

The only problem with painting the wall white is that, its difficult to get the properties that a screen offers. I agree the stretch marks and warping do look ugly and personally even I hate that about screens. Just give the wall paint a shot. If your projector puts out some serious lumen power, painted wall will be okay. The paint should neither be too reflective nor two absorbent.

You should have planned for cabling before hand. Now probably you have to live with the wires running outside the wall.

Surya,

I am having a 72 & 82 inch screen, one is dnp, fibre based from denmark and the other is dalite which is operated via projector, the screen rolls down and up based on the projector light, for cheaper screens, they are available in hyderabad. With DNP screen, for less strain on eyes, there can be around 25% in-direct lights on, while watching the movie, while with dalite screen the room has to be fully dark.

I need to tell you that please compare the price and brand with 3 leading shops, because the price difference which i saw was huge, i was lucky that i did not fall in the trap of over charging, i have given many of the points in the forum, tips for making a dedicated home theatre.

I can assure you that painting the wall for screen is not a good idea by any way, i and my friend have been using a good brand fabric based screen from quite some time, there is no problem of stretch, etc.


Vinay.

Thank you all for the help!

To start with I just got the wall painted white. Will setup the projector and other stuff this week and test out various screen sizes / modes and ultimately will go for a screen.

Thought with too many new parameters - new wall - that means new house :-), new projector, new cables!! - will test out how they play and then decide on which type of screen, etc..

Will update on my learnings soon!

Cheers...Surya

Surya,

When my mini theatre was in the making, I had got my wall white painted to a screen size 90 inches breadth with a height of 7 feet, than for several days I saw full movies, with different sizes on the white wall, I used markers and measurement tapes to set different sizes, finally I choose two sizes, 72" x 3.5 feet (16 x 9 - Dnp brand), and 82" x 5 feet (4 x 3 Dalite brand).

I am having several movies of 4 x 3, and than several tv programmes are also 4 x 3, i use tv programmes to watch major sports shows, etc. I am having a collection of over 200 original dvd's, after watching movies I give them the rating, and during which month I saw them, if I have given a 5 star rating for a movie for a 16 x 9, than I watch it again after say 9 months or so, but this time I watch the same movie on a bigger screen 82", that way the thrill to enjoy the movie on a bigger screen is more greater.

I would like to suggest that while watching a movie one must keep some in-direct light, it would be less strain on the eyes.

I will also say that when one is making a home theatre, one should not hurry up with anything, the work should be as perfect as possible, a lot of trial has to be done, for each and every thing.

Thanks a lot, Vinay.

Sensible suggestions - shows real hands-on experience!

Regards...Surya

Hi All, just with regard to setting up a home theatre.. i require some suggestions here.
My equipments are going to be

1. A 15' x 12' room
2. A 120" screen projection (wall or screen ?)
3. Panasonic AX200U Projector supporting 720p resolutions
4. Sony DAV-DZ570 Home Theatre (For Audio mainly)
5. Sony PS3, to play Blu-Ray, streaming movies from media server
6. A Media Server PC, to store all my Divx and DVD Backups
7. A WiFi router to help in wireless network connectivity
8. A Comfy sofa ofcourse

Ok, my worries about these collection of equipments is, How do i interconnect them ??

We have HDMI ports available on all these equipments 3 & 4 &5. But 3 does not have any audio output. So all in all,
a. How do i make the connections whereas i get the video out playback from 3 and audio in to 4 ?
b. How do i make the connections whereas i get the video out playback from 5 and audio in to 4 ?
c. How do i make the connections as I stream video from 6, and connect to 5, which video out to 3 , and audio out to 4 ?

Ok very weird and confusing questions, but in short, will i face any connectivity issues from these many set of equipments and with them interacting with each other.

Thanks
Aristo