Home theater cinema - dedicated, detached and high-end

This is a high end idea for a media room. In fact, I don't think the term "media room" even applies here... If you have a lot of land, consider either converting an existing detached structure (a garage, an oar house, a barn - what have you) into a classy stand alone home theater or creating a new building with the same purpose. The advantages of such an approach are many:

• You can stay away from any sources of noise.
• No need to worry about the noise generated by the home theater itself.
  
• The new building can be positioned to minimize daylight.
• You can entertain various groups of people without having to really open up your house to anyone!

Depending on the climate in your area, a passage could be created from your main dwelling. A separate parking lot is also a plus.

See also:
Media room pictures

Home media room - how to justify having one in your house

It is quite obvious that anyone who has doubts about their immediate financial situation should stay away from major home improvement projects, whatever they might be. For the rest of us, here are a few ideas that should help justify upgrading to a better movie/sports watching experience at home.

1. A lot of people would like to have a larger TV screen. I believe it is a mistake to get the biggest set you can afford and plop it in the focal center of whatever room you use to watch TV all the time. Here is why. At this point in time we have a great discrepancy in the quality of television signals that we feed into our TVs. There is Blu-ray, HD broadcasts, regular DVDs, SD digital broadcasts, regular cable channels, VCR tapes etc. The problem is that although Blu-ray discs will look good on pretty much any size TV screen you have, blowing up the picture of a regular SD cable broadcast would reveal extremely low quality (compared to Blu-ray). The simplest way to deal with that is to avoid watching such sources of the screen that is too large. This, in my opinion, justifies creating a separate media room where you will only watch high-quality content.

2. Human psychology is such that we get used to everything. It is a very simple fact that once you start watching everything on the biggest TV screen you can get very soon this will not feel special to you at all. Imagine if you spent several hours at the movie theater every night watching everything from movies, to nightly news. This would get old very soon. I believe that home movie experience is something that must be cherished and kept as something special. Using a huge TV or a projection screen for all your viewing needs will quickly cheapen this experience. So, the solution is to have a home media room and (also important!) not to use it too much.

3. This is perhaps a minor point, but things like that do add up on the scale of the entire countly. The bigger the screen, the more energy it consumes. If you are watching a news report about energy crises and global warming on a "65 plasma TV you are not a credit to humanity (unless you are strangely interested in Katy Curic's dental work). Limit the use of a bigger screen for special occasions. You will be happy you did (see above).

Home theater - choosing the best room

Granted, not everybody has the option of choosing between several rooms in order to designate a potential home theater. But even if you have a choice of only two spaces, these tips may be helpful. Also, you may see a great deal of problems with the room you have already set your heart on before even installing all the equipment, saving yourself a monumental audio-visual failure.

1. Do not pick a room that is too big. Generally speaking, the larger a room the more difficult it is to properly fill it with sound. By selecting a large room for the home theater you increase the chances of having to invite a professional or spend a long time figuring out the best placement for the speakers and additional elements that can improve the sound. Also, the size of the room will determine the size of the screen. Not a big problem if you were going with a projection system, but if your plan was to use a plasma TV the price tag may turn out not too accommodating.

2. Avoid perfectly square rooms. They tend to produce some strange sounds. A rectangle would be ideal, especially if you are going to place the screen on the narrow side. The wall behind the screen should not have any windows or doors.

3. It should be relatively easy to keep the room dark. You may have to install curtains on the windows.

4. It is great if the walls are muted. Dark gray or black walls are best. Avoid shiny surfaces, they can create a lot of glare. Be prepared to install drapes throughout the room to absorb ambient light.

5. The ceiling should not be too high. Sound can become trapped in the upper part of the room, it can also resonate and echo. Sometimes hanging drapes or partitions can create a smaller space in a large room.

6. You want to have a good rug in the media room. Hardwood floors, so desirable in the kitchen, would be a glaring nightmare in a home theater. The sound would also bounce from a tile or wood floor.

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

10 most common home theater mistakes

A little do's and don'ts tutotial: