Building my Home Theatre Room - Please guide me

[santhosh]

i wud advice you to go in for a projector,(hd ---either a 720/1080p) rather than the 50'' plasma , or have provision for both (ie mount the instalock PJ screen just in front of the space provided for the plasma) ----the PJ will thrill you far better than the plasma ( this is mainly for movies,, u can do your tv watching on the plasma)
in front of my projector (optoma HD65) my pana 42''pv8d plasma is totally lost it just pales out (u dont even feel like watching movies on it once u are used to a PJ
i am sure for the price of a 50'' plasma u wud surely get to buy a PJ

Thanks Subhash, the plan is to have both - one at a time. I will be providing for a Projector to be fitted at a later stage. I am really not fussed as to which one I want first, the TV or the Projector. The logic that I am going ahead is that if I buy a HD Plasma TV first, I can use this for both SD and HD content(720p). Also, I can design the front wall with the dimensions of this TV in mind. After probably 6 months to one year, I shall go in for a Blu Ray player and also a good FULL HD Projector. The prices would have come down especially with Vivitek and Optoma launching sub-1000$ projectors. This way I get best of both worlds.

For the TV, I have almost decided to buy a Panasonic 50 inch plasma. After the demo, I am pretty sure I wrote down the model number correctly - P50C10D but I have not been able to find it on the net anywhere. I am only able to find P50X10D.

 

[vinay]

Indeed it does help a lot when we share our experience while building a dedicated entertainment room.

The experience which you are facing toward the fabric, who can understand better then me? If you wish i can courier you the fabric which i have used, one of the forum member is also using partly my fabric. I think among the fabrics where air will pass through is a direct or in-direct knitted one.

Indeed it great that through this forum, we benefit a lot, i remember when my theatre was being made there used to be not one forum member who was making a dedicated entertainment room, and see today, there is a explosion of such great entertainment idea.

For me the idea did not work of using different methods for the wall treatment, we are in the same boat i had also made an attempt to paint certain areas. In fact i had also tried my hand on acoustic wall paper.


Vinay.

As always, your posts are very useful. One can easily understand the effort that you have been through and it is nice of you to share these with us. After reading your posts, I find that even I am going through the same phase especially with selection of materials.

I have mentioned this before, but it is difficult to find an acoustically transparent yet aesthetically appealing fabric. What I have found so far it that if they are acoustically transparent, they are also visually transparent and one can see the plywood or acoustic board behind:sad:. I visited a few shops this weekend and will continue to do so. My wife has been very helpful and she has been visiting some shops in her free time. The moment we find a fabric that looks good, we blow through it. Shopkeepers and other customers give us a strange look. To hide our embarassment, we announce immediately "Show us a fabric through which air can pass freely" .

I must thank this Forum as is it is through here that I got introduced to atleast three others who are currently doing their Home Theatre Room and are from Bangalore itself. So we explore various options for materials, products etc and share our findings and hence don't need to do all the running around by ourselves. I must thank Opert, subhash and Srisha for this.

Back to fabric selection. Raw Silk (Dhupian) is not acoustically transparent as I had initially thought. But I really like the way it looks. So I have been toying around with the idea of using reddish orange colored Raw Silk on the upper half of the wall where absorption does not matter. For the lower half, I intend to use an acoustically transparent matching fabric in a different color. I can even paint the Anutone boards in the color that I want. I checked with Anutone regarding painting their boards. I have advised that spray painting would not reduce the acoustic properties of the board but brush painting would clog the pores and is not recommended. Will keep you all updated how I go.

 

[vinay]

i had to pay a lot of money for this pure leather chair. I saw the link which you gave on these chairs, a great range.

One can go for the carpets which are thinner, if we keep certain area of floor with marble cum carpet it will not look nice for an entertainment room. For the time being indeed it is a good idea to use the old carpet for the first reflection point.

The gadget which i am using to control the lights via remote, are of brand "generation next", it is a upcoming brand, cost of the unit with remote is around 40,000/- rupees, it could be available for more cheaper now. The unit can control via remote 8 different types of lights with the usual mood lights, dimmers, you can do various mix and match, with so and so command, so and so light will be on or off, it can control the screen and a projector lift too. For these light controls no switches are required that is the beauty of it, all control via remote. There are some American brands also available which are just too good, but they are very costly, James Bond and others can afford it. :yahoo:

Vinay

Vinay, I have a space problem and also my budget does not permit me to buy LAZBOYS. But definitely at a later stage, I would like to add just one recliner chair from the
Ekornes Stressless range. This will be used mainly by me while I am listening to music. They are available in India through Stanley. Pictures can be foundhere

About flooring, even I would like to go in for a full wall to wall carpet, but am afraid of making the sound too dead. Anyways, this will be done at a later stage. Until then, it will be using an old carpet at the first reflection points. This is temporary until I have made up my mind about floor options and also have enough saved.

Vinay, could you please share some information about the remote controlled lights. I am interested in knowing what brands of remote switches you have used and how much they cost. What brands are available in India?

 

[vinay]

I think in a dedicated entertainment room, there should be only a projector for movies with no TV, the room should be used only for music and movies. If one has a TV in such room it would be sick to watch all those advertisements during the show you are watching, and then we will end up watching news and the crazy serials. I had a TV installed via projector, i realized the blunder and had it removed from my red entertainment room.

Indeed a TV is no class compared to a projector for watching movies.

Vinay.

i wud advice you to go in for a projector,(hd ---either a 720/1080p) rather than the 50'' plasma , or have provision for both (ie mount the instalock PJ screen just in front of the space provided for the plasma) ----the PJ will thrill you far better than the plasma ( this is mainly for movies,, u can do your tv watching on the plasma)
in front of my projector (optoma HD65) my pana 42''pv8d plasma is totally lost it just pales out (u dont even feel like watching movies on it once u are used to a PJ
i am sure for the price of a 50'' plasma u wud surely get to buy a PJ

 

[vinay]

I think the best way out would be to have the projector first so once you are used to watch movies in such a grand way compared to watching on TV, then no way you will go for the TV in a entertainment room.

About going for the blue ray player i think it is not a good move, look at the cost of a blue ray player and not to forget the useless cost of movie, then importantly one must not forget these movies are like a thermocal glass, in most of the cases you would not like to watch the movie again, it is any day better to go for gadgets like wdtv and related, take the downloading route.

For the TV, i think it should be the basic one for watching the serials and news related as who wants to see such programmes in 720p? In other words to watch movie via projector is the best way out, especially in your case who is making a dedicated entertainment room.

Vinay.

Thanks Subhash, the plan is to have both - one at a time. I will be providing for a Projector to be fitted at a later stage. I am really not fussed as to which one I want first, the TV or the Projector. The logic that I am going ahead is that if I buy a HD Plasma TV first, I can use this for both SD and HD content(720p). Also, I can design the front wall with the dimensions of this TV in mind. After probably 6 months to one year, I shall go in for a Blu Ray player and also a good FULL HD Projector. The prices would have come down especially with Vivitek and Optoma launching sub-1000$ projectors. This way I get best of both worlds.

For the TV, I have almost decided to buy a Panasonic 50 inch plasma. After the demo, I am pretty sure I wrote down the model number correctly - P50C10D but I have not been able to find it on the net anywhere. I am only able to find P50X10D.

 

[tsrobinson115]

Hello everyone. Nice to meet you all.

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[santhosh]

Hello everyone. Nice to meet you all.

Welcome to our Forum tsrobinson115. Have a nice stay

Also, tell us about yourself by posting an intro in the introductions section. Link below:
Introductions

 

[santhosh]

I was unable to post pictures in my previous update. So, I'll quote from my previous post and share some pics. So, here goes:

3) Like I mentioned in my previous post, I got two metres of fabric which I have finalised for the upper half of the wall panels. It is reddish orange raw silk.

Color is slightly more reddish than it looks in the picture.

1) Monday morning was a nightmare. Not sure why, but I woke up at 3AM. I could hear it raining heavily. Something told me that the carpenters may not have closed the windows and hence water might have entered the Home Theatre Room...............I switched on the light to find that water was flowing from the Home Theatre into the adjoining room at the speed of a tap. ......I could not understand why there was so much inflow, so took my maglite torch and an umbrella and went to the terrace to get a better view........So all the water collected on the terrace was rushing through this point and through the hole into the Home Theatre Room.........I then mopped the adjoining room as there was a computer and a motorised threadmill in that room. Also, there was a chance of water entering the rest of the house if the level increased.........I then diverted the water flow using a long pipe and also nailed the polycarbonate sheet to cover the hole, thus blocking water to almost 99%of the original flow. With the problem now fixed......I have pictures taken pictures, will post this weekend.......Carpenters spent atleast two hours cleaning and re-organising themselves that day as some areas were still damp.

Water trickling through the opening. The duct that is seen is an exhaust from the bathroom behind the right side wall. I have installed a Greenwood Airvac Silent Exhaust Fan
in there. Also, I will be covering the duct with Fiberglass tube like product specifically made to deaden exhaust noise:

There was more water in the HT when I first got there. I did not want to ruin my camera, so this was shot towards the end is after a mopping operation.

Water entering the adjoining room through the door

 

[santhosh]

Update Time:

Electricals and Lighting: Electrical work will start this weekend. Most of the wiring will be completed this weekend with just some finishing touches on a later day. I have already over-shot my budget for electricals . Here goes the small list:

a) I bought Fire Retardant Low Smoke (FRLS) electric wires by RR Kabel . I bought one coil for 4sq mm, one of 2.5 sq mm and three coils of 1.5 sq mm. Each coil is 90 metres and the five coils cost me around 6k totally after a whopping 45% discount from the dealer. I have instructed the Electrician to use color coding for easy maintenance and trouble-shoooting. Also, note the color of the wires, they have a white stripe(s) throughout. This indicates that the wires are FRLS.

b) I bought a IR remote controlled Switch Unit by MK India (A Honeywell Company). At Rs.3500, the Remote control is exactly what I was looking for. It allows me to control 3 lights and one volume control for fan. I will be using the fan controller to dim my lights - theater-style..Yay!!. One thing though, the fan control cannot handle more than 100Watts, so have to make do with five 20Watt bulbs for dimming or equivalent. Maximum distance for remote is 25 ft(Line of Sight). Also found some very interesting products from MK India like Timer based, Sensor/trigger based switches and also a 110V step down transformer that looks like your regular wall socket and fits into panel. Will have to revisit this shop when my pocket permists. Another thing to rejoice(for me and several others I am sure) is MK products are a direct fit on Anchor Roma Boxes.
The switches can be operated via Remote as well as the buttons seen in pic below

Sleek Remote can be seen here

c) Bought some LED spot lights, CFL lights and related fittings. Also, I picked up a product (quite expensive at 9k, but still lesser than the 45k that I was quoted from a Bombay based chap) which will work as my star light ceiling solution with a little bit of tweaking. Sorry, no pics of product yet as it has been to a technician for tweaking. In all, the purchases cost me around 18k and I know I have to spend atleast another 10k on these as the cove lighting and Star Light is not complete. Lighting does not have to be this expensive, just that my selection was a little fancy and I ended up spending so much. Also, will be meeting the evillage chap this Saturday for ambient lighting.

LED (Some RED and some normal bulb color, will be alternated and controlled by two differnt switches) and CFL fittings:

This is how the RED LED looks when focused on the Red Raw Silk. I am not good at Photography and hence unable to capture the actual effect

Now, this is how the Star light Ceiling looks in our trial run. I spread the lights randomly on a peg board, switched off the lights and shot this. There is some more R&D involved and I might need to spend another 9k as the current ones may not be sufficient to cover the area that I have planned.

Contd...

 

[santhosh]

Updates Continued

:Carpenter Work: There was zero progress for three days. Thanks to two full day planned power outage in my area on Saturday and Monday and Ganesha Chathurti festival on Sunday.

Carpenters have not commenced work on the ceiling. The ceiling will be in two levels. Two grid like frames are first built, one in the form of a 'U' covering 2.5 ft of sides and rear portions of ceiling. This is the lower bit and is fitted wtih 12 mm plywood covered with fabric. I wanted to use MDF for its properties, but also read about its inability to cope with heat and moisture (if any) and also that it was relatively heavy. A 4 inch layer of high density(48kgm) fibreglass - 4 inches will be laid above it with an air gap. This 'U' shape bit will also house the spot lights. The Center portion of is higher and pegboard will be fitted onto it. I am using two layers of 4 mm pegboards glued and stapled together, thus making it 8mm thick. Some of the holes in the peg board will be used for the starlight ceiling and later wrapped in a dark blue fabric to get that night sky look. BTW, this two level ceiling is not only for aesthetics but also certain constraints from the existing grid like ceiling which is not symmetric.

This picture shows the framework. The one on the side covered with plywood is at a lower level (about 6 inches) in relation to the other.

I had to get another inner frame as I have to fit the starlight ceiling to it while it is on ground and then mount it. Here is a picture of the pegboard fitted temporarily

Anutone Boards: Got correct size boards as a replacement from Anutone on Tuesday. Must thank Praveen of Anutone for obliging to do this. This time around, I got them to paint it matt black. The idea behind painting it black(without losing acoustic properties ofcourse) was to give me sufficient time to search for an acoustically transparent fabric, until which time, it can remain as is and still look good. Black also matches the fabric used on upper half (red raw silk). Worst case, I can even apply speaker grill cloth and nothing can be made out as it is black.

Here is a pic from a trial that we did yesterday. I am getting the edges bevelled to suit the upper half. These will be hand painted in matt black. Please note that the pic is inverted, will edit it later:

Some background as to why the boards needed replacement. Picture above gives an idea as to what the problem was.

Anutone Boards were slightly smaller compared to the Plywood Boards that I had gotten made. I had told the carpenter to make the boards 2 ft x 4 ft (24 x 48 inches) as the Anutone boards were also 2 ft x 4 ft. Little did I know that Anutone boards were smaller by half and inch on both sides. Anutone uses metric system for measurement and the boards are exactly 600 x 1200 mm. Now the problem is that the upper half of my walls are Plywood covered with fabric while the lower half is the anutone boards. Now, my plan was to have a groove like pattern between two boards from top to bottom and left to right. To achieve this, both plywood and anutone boards would need to be of the same size. I called up Praveen from Anutone and explained my problem to him. Today morning, he got back to me saying that he would get new boards made exactly of 24 x 48 inches. I will be getting the boards on Monday.

 

[opert]

Room is coming along quite nicely Santosh! Great Job!

I don't mean to take over your thread, but I wanted to get this out since we are in a similar stage of the project..

I was not sure how the carpenters would handle the installation of the acoustics and handed it over to Praveen from Anutone - I am supplying the glass wool (Thanks Santosh :clapping , wood, fabrics etc. - Praveen/Anutone is supplying the boards.

I did not want to wrap the fabric on the panels and contacted Walltracts for mounting the fabric-They have a system where they use some kind of "Fabric Grippers" (Picture attached) - Walltracts was expensive (about 120/sft) but Praveen again came to the rescue - Anutone has a similar system and they are about 100 per running meter which is a huge difference.

I am having a hard time with the fabrics especially since I need atleast 50 inches wide fabric (My panel is 48" tall and need an additional 2 inches for the grippers).

I found a very good remote lighting controller along with touch and pressure sensitive switches for lighting from GM - Have to wait for a week for the dealer to receive them - will update once I have more info.

Still having trouble getting a decent 135" motorized screen - most dealers have only upto 120". Zoher and Co has this-Has anyone in Bangalore sourced from them? I would help greatly if I can see their material before buying.

Thanks!

 

[santhosh]

Room is coming along quite nicely Santosh! Great Job!

I don't mean to take over your thread, but I wanted to get this out since we are in a similar stage of the project..

I was not sure how the carpenters would handle the installation of the acoustics and handed it over to Praveen from Anutone - I am supplying the glass wool (Thanks Santosh :clapping , wood, fabrics etc. - Praveen/Anutone is supplying the boards.

......................I am having a hard time with the fabrics especially since I need atleast 50 inches wide fabric .......Have to wait for a week for the dealer to receive them - will update once I have more info...........Zoher and Co has this-Has anyone in Bangalore sourced from them? I would help greatly if I can see their material before buying.
Thanks!

Thanks Opert. From the pics, your HTR is coming along nicely too. Shall try and visit you this weekend. Also, like I mentioned before, I must thank this forum because it is through here that I met members like Opert and others who are in a similar phase. Thanks for the pointer(s) on the GM remote switches and for sharing your knowledge on projectors and screens. I shall wait until you have more info about the GM switches as they sound like VFM and more flexibility.

 

[santhosh]

I did not want to wrap the fabric on the panels and contacted Walltracts for mounting the fabric-They have a system where they use some kind of "Fabric Grippers" (Picture attached) - Walltracts was expensive (about 120/sft) but Praveen again came to the rescue - Anutone has a similar system and they are about 100 per running meter which is a huge difference.

The walltracts work looks awesome. And I can vouch for the fabric wrapping by anutone too as I have seen it at their Experience Center and they are great too. They use grippers too and there are absolutely no wrinkles.

In my case, the mounting of fabric on the panels will be a DIY. Will be mounting fabric onto atleast one board during this weekend. Will know how difficult or easy it is . Also, for this purpose, I bought a Stanley Heavy Duty wood Stapler. Here's a pic:

This is a fantastic tool to accurately and effortlessly staple fabric on wood, tacking wires and also accepts nails instead of staples. Costs me Rs.1300 and a pack of 1000 10mm Stanley staples cost Rs.75.

:OT: I love using and collecting tools and it is customary for me to buy atleast one such tool in every DIY home project that I do. Be it automobile projects or home

 

[santhosh]

The carpenters made tremendous progress yesterday. They completed the frame build and also mounted pegboard on it. Here is a pic of the trial fit:

They also completed the trial fit of the Anutone Boards. Here are some pictures:

LHS Wall:

Front Wall:

Rear Wall:
Note the door is also given same treatment to make it discreet. Reason is that the door is offset to the left a little

ps: The reason I say trial fit is, because almost everything panel in my Home Theater is removable. So, the final fit would be after mounting the fabric.

 

[1000w]

I have installed a Greenwood Airvac Silent Exhaust Fan
in there. Also, I will be covering the duct with Fiberglass tube like product specifically made to deaden exhaust noise:

Where did you get this exhaust in BLR? I am planning to put my basement to good use and convert it into a Home Theatre and currently in the study mode.
Also anyone aware of paint I can use for PJ screen. I plan to get Optoma HD20 sometime soon. I have similar problem as many others in the forum, also have normal TV there. Have postponed buying LCD for the reason that I primararily needed for HD content viewing, so till we get HD broadcast I will live with my Samsung 29" CRT TV
-Manish

 

[santhosh]

Where did you get this exhaust in BLR? I am planning to put my basement to good use and convert it into a Home Theatre and currently in the study mode.
Also anyone aware of paint I can use for PJ screen. I plan to get Optoma HD20 sometime soon. I have similar problem as many others in the forum, also have normal TV there. Have postponed buying LCD for the reason that I primararily needed for HD content viewing, so till we get HD broadcast I will live with my Samsung 29" CRT TV
-Manish

I bought the Greenwood exhuast fan for Rs.3500 from PRISM on Richmond Road. One can optionally buy the exhaust duct from Greenwood for Rs.1500. I did not buy it because it is made of a very soft material (like polythene sheet) and I felt that it will not last long. I had seen an exhaust duct at Himal Supply when I went there to buy Fibreglass wool, so bought the duct for Rs.450 from there. Here is there address:

Himal Supply (India) Private Limited
#41, 4th Cross,
Bender Nagar,
Bangalore 560 070.
Tel: (91 80) 2666 5441
Fax: (91 80) 2666 5441
email: [email protected]

FYI, I had searched for atleast a month for an exhaust fan wherein you can attach a duct, but had no luck. Hence went in for this rather expensive option. Later I came across a brand called GMC (Indian co) which makes such fans and I got this for Rs.500 only. But it was too late as I had already opened this one. PM me if you want to know where this is available.

Regarding screen paint, venkatcr had posted on one of the threads that MRF(Yes, they have a speciality coatings division) makes a paitn specifically for this purpose. Try calling MRF and also search for that thread, has some more info.

I might get a HD20 too shortly

 

[1000w]

FYI, I had searched for atleast a month for an exhaust fan wherein you can attach a duct, but had no luck. Hence went in for this rather expensive option. Later I came across a brand called GMC (Indian co) which makes such fans and I got this for Rs.500 only. But it was too late as I had already opened this one. PM me if you want to know where this is available.

QUOTE]
Thanks for the valuable info, How are the noise levels of this rs.500 fan when compared to the expensive option?

 

[PAVAN KADAM]

I might get a HD20 too shortly

Nice work buddy

So whens the First movie getting screened. Would love to see some posters outside your house soon

 

[santhosh]

@1000w: The noise levels of the Rs.500 fan (Brand is GCO) is still acceptable, but not as low as the Greenwood fan. I will confirm the exact noise levels from the manual, I remember it being less than 40dB. Here is a document that I had come across before buying the fan.

http://www.greenwood.co.uk/media/product_ranges/ACCOUSTIC.pdf

I suggest you to buy the Rs.500 fan first and if you are unhappy, then only buy the Greenwood fan. Both fans accept a 4 inch exhaust duct, so you can swap easily if required. Another advantage of the Greenwood fan is that it has an inbuilt timer which can be set to switch off after 20 mins or less.

Nice work buddy

So whens the First movie getting screened

Nice to see you here Pavan Not sure, when I will play my first movie. My plan is to kind of launch(for want of a better word ) it on my son's first birthday exactly a month from today. Hopefully, I get my projector, screen etc by then.

Would love to see some posters outside your house soon

Yeah, yeah go ahead and make fun of me. My friends and colleagues are all having a great time comparing my Home Theatre to a real theatre. They give crazy suggestions like "Dude, instead of a fire extinguisher, why not keep buckets filled with sand in front of the screen like they do in the theatre?"

and lots more..lol

 

[teky]

Nice to see you here Pavan Not sure, when I will play my first movie. My plan is to kind of launch(for want of a better word ) it on my son's first birthday exactly a month from today. Hopefully, I get my projector, screen etc by then.



Yeah, yeah go ahead and make fun of me. My friends and colleagues are all having a great time comparing my Home Theatre to a real theatre. They give crazy suggestions like "Dude, instead of a fire extinguisher, why not keep buckets filled with sand in front of the screen like they do in the theatre?"

and lots more..lol

How about Popcorn maker & an Ice cream factory, Seriously that would become a real theatre now.

Great to see the HT Room coming up. Hopefully you will drive many guys to build their own.