Media room lighting

1. Avoid natural ambient light in your home theater room. Lighting is very important in any theater, and there is no reason why you should allow something unpredictable and unmanagable as outside light to ever enter the room where you watch movies and sports. The simplest way to address this issue is to have no windows at all. This is a big reason why basements are such a good choice for creating media room. If this option is unavailable, install heavy curtains or blackout shades (they will also cut off the outside noise). Motorized drapes may be useful, because they would make it easier to convert the media room to serve other purposes during the day.
2. If possible, integrate the lighting into the entire home theater system. This means that your media room will benefit from having a designer work on the lighting early on. Ideally, you want to have control over the sources of light in the media room from the same remote that you use to manipulate your electronic equipment.
   
3. It is a very good idea to have several lighting presents. This way the lighting in the room can be changed quickly to accommodate the needs of the moment. Otherwise you will be going from switch to switch, changing the levels. Yes, the levels, which brings us to the next point.
4. You should always have a few lights at low levels when you are watching a movie. Just enough to see your snacks and so on. Soft recessed lighting will suffice, and there is no need to worry about any interferance with the TV or projector, because the contrast between the screen and the rest of the room will remain just fine.
5. Consider using floor level track lights, like the ones you see in a movie theater.
   
6. Avoid using shiny fabrics and materials in your home theater furniture. A shiny leather chair will reflect the light and create unwanted glare. Microfiber furniture is probably the best solution.

See also:
Media rooms pictures
Media room furniture

Home media room idea for the future

Here is one very cool idea that, I believe, will eventually find its implementation on the home media room market.

It is no secret that most people who install media rooms in their homes have some disposable income. Usually this indicates that premium products may find a comfortable niche here, even though at first the idea seems cost-prohibitive. Here is what I am talking about.

If you have visited a regular movie theater in the past two years you have noticed that many feature films are now shown in digital format. What's more interesting, however, there is a technology in place that allows movie theaters to play films that are beamed down from the satellite. The only logical step would be to open up this service to home subscribers. This way any well-to-do home media room owner/movie lover can pay to view some new theatrical releases at the same time they are actually shown in regular theaters! Obviously, there would be a very high ticket price, but it is impossible to beat the convenience.

See also:
Media room furniture

Media Room Must Have's

• Large screen TV. The size depends on the room. There is a tendency to use projection systems, but I personally do not like the quality. Plus, using a projection system significantly reduces your lighting options for the media room. Besides, there is additional maintenance involved - you have to replace those bulbs from time to time! Plasma TVs generally are considered a better choice for home theaters, because they tend to provide better blacks, but modern LCDs are catching up very successfully. Also, try to get a 1080p model. You will not regret it later.
• Comfortable media room furniture. Armchairs, love seats - what have you. I implore you not to use the seats that emulate as closely as possible the seats you encounter at the movie theaters. Why? Unless you can obtain the seats from a demolished theater which somehow have a great sentimental value, stick with what's most confortable!
• A refrigerator. Yep. No matter how close the kitchen is you can always have a little fridge to keep your drinks cool. Just make sure you don't get a noisy one. You can even turn it off for the duration of the movie, if you wish.
• A surround sound system. A home media room simply would not make sense without one. The have come down in price a lot!
• A Blu Ray player capable of streaming Netflux, Hulu Plus etc. Getting cheaper all the time!

That's all folks! What I mean to say is that you don't have to overspend to have a nice home theater experience. You can certainly have a basic setup for under 5 thousand dollars. You can even go lower than that. All it takes is finding a spare room.