Unfinished basement room that I want to convert into a HT

[TheHOYT]

Hello all,

I've got an unfinished basement that I'm planning to finish in the near future. With one of the rooms, I'm planning a home theater.

***

Dimensions:

15'1" x 13'8" (estimated, as it's hard to get exact)

Ceiling is approximately, 7'7" tall

***

Behind the north wall there's cold storage. Behind the south wall, a bedroom/hallway. Behind the east wall a stairway. The west wall is an exterior wall, with a window.

I'm planning to place the display on the north-wall.

I'm basically seeking information from people on this board more knowledgeable than me, or that have previously installed a HT. I need to know how big the screen should be given my space, whether to go with a flat-panel or a projector, the best way to go about wiring for surround sound, sound-proofing the walls, whether I should install carpet, etc.

I'm not planning on installing everything at once (so, I don't really have a final budget in mind), I'll gradually build up my AV equipment. However, I do want everything pre-wired, sound-proofed, and such.

I know that this information is pretty raw, but any pointers would be nice.

Thanks in advance to anybody who can help!

[roar]

Originally Posted by TheHOYT

Hello all,

I've got an unfinished basement that I'm planning to finish in the near future. With one of the rooms, I'm planning a home theater.

***

Dimensions:

15'1" x 13'8" (estimated, as it's hard to get exact)

Ceiling is approximately, 7'7" tall

***

Behind the north wall there's cold storage. Behind the south wall, a bedroom/hallway. Behind the east wall a stairway. The west wall is an exterior wall, with a window.

I'm planning to place the display on the north-wall.

I'm basically seeking information from people on this board more knowledgeable than me, or that have previously installed a HT. I need to know how big the screen should be given my space, whether to go with a flat-panel or a projector, the best way to go about wiring for surround sound, sound-proofing the walls, whether I should install carpet, etc.

I'm not planning on installing everything at once (so, I don't really have a final budget in mind), I'll gradually build up my AV equipment. However, I do want everything pre-wired, sound-proofed, and such.

I know that this information is pretty raw, but any pointers would be nice.

Thanks in advance to anybody who can help!

I'd love to write you a more detailed response but just don't have the time right now. If you are in a basement it is a good start towards front projection. The size of your room is similar to mine (Check my gallery if you like, I believe I'm about 12'x14') so screen size could reach 10ft pretty easily if you got that route.

If you have a budget that would be helpful or any existing components that will be leveraged. Front projection can be affordable depending on what you consider affordable

[TheHOYT]

Wow, that is a beautiful room Roar! Absolutely beautiful! Jurassic Park is my all time favorite film, so it was good to see it represented. Judging from the pictures it appears that you placed your seating nearly at the very back of the room, is the the norm with this room size? Also, the projector seems to be situated above the seating? Is this at all problematic - with noise, heat etc.?

I definitely want to go front projection if I can (the bigger, the better). I just didn't know if my room-size would be able to accommodate it. But, judging from your room dimensions, and what you've posted in you photos, it appears I'll be able to do so. Having said that, what kind of screen do you use? And, what is the estimated cost? Did you install it yourself, or have it professionally done?

I also noticed that you have carpet, but no acoustic panels. Do you know if it's better to have carpet or hard-wood? And, if carpet, is one kind better over another for acoustic quality? Are acoustic panels necessary?

It appears you have a wiring closet, unless I'm mistaken. I too want to go this route. How deep is yours and what's the setup?

Also, did you build your HT from the ground-up? Or, did you convert it from and existing room? And, if you did build, can you explain how the room was wired, and the est. cost for wiring? Did you sound-proof the walls? Where is your center channel located? Is it behind the screen?

Sorry, I don't mean to bombard you with questions. I'm just trying to gather as much info as I can before I take the plunge.

[roar]

Originally Posted by TheHOYT

Wow, that is a beautiful room Roar! Absolutely beautiful! Jurassic Park is my all time favorite film, so it was good to see it represented. Judging from the pictures it appears that you placed your seating nearly at the very back of the room, is the the norm with this room size? Also, the projector seems to be situated above the seating? Is this at all problematic - with noise, heat etc.?

I definitely want to go front projection if I can (the bigger, the better). I just didn't know if my room-size would be able to accommodate it. But, judging from your room dimensions, and what you've posted in you photos, it appears I'll be able to do so. Having said that, what kind of screen do you use? And, what is the estimated cost? Did you install it yourself, or have it professionally done?

I also noticed that you have carpet, but no acoustic panels. Do you know if it's better to have carpet or hard-wood? And, if carpet, is one kind better over another for acoustic quality? Are acoustic panels necessary?

It appears you have a wiring closet, unless I'm mistaken. I too want to go this route. How deep is yours and what's the setup?

Also, did you build your HT from the ground-up? Or, did you convert it from and existing room? And, if you did build, can you explain how the room was wired, and the est. cost for wiring? Did you sound-proof the walls? Where is your center channel located? Is it behind the screen?

Sorry, I don't mean to bombard you with questions. I'm just trying to gather as much info as I can before I take the plunge.

I will do my best to answer your questions in line... but not right now Other's I'm sure will chime in. I did the majority of the room myself, you can check out my build thread, might give you some ideas. Others in that sub-forum have some great build threads on going too, it is worth browsing through.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=186876

Tomek has really great/recent build thread:
https://www.blu-ray.com/community/ga...p?member=tomek

EMAGDNIM has a build thread that is just a little ahead of you in the build process:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=198206

[Adam_WM]

My theater was built in an unfinished basement in a 20'x22' room. A bit bigger than yours, but you can use it as a basis for comparison.

I did carpet, LOVE IT. I did, however, do a DriCore subfloor. I read on the HTF that it helped with the bass (so it's not just going through concrete with carpet over it. I've been pretty happy so far.

[roar]

Originally Posted by TheHOYT

Wow, that is a beautiful room Roar! Absolutely beautiful! Jurassic Park is my all time favorite film, so it was good to see it represented. Judging from the pictures it appears that you placed your seating nearly at the very back of the room, is the the norm with this room size? Also, the projector seems to be situated above the seating? Is this at all problematic - with noise, heat etc.?

THe seats are right against the back wall, save for an inch or two. The seats do fully recline from that distance as they are about zero clearance seat for reclining, which is great. Seating has more to do with screen size more than room size, but I suppose the two are tightly coupled. People will show you charts and throw out stats like "you should sit 1.5x your screen width with a 1080p picutre".

I find that seating distance is really personal preference imo. Do you like to sit in the front row at the theatre? The back? The middle? This will dictate how far from your screen you should sit. Experimenting here is often the best option but also means you end up with a projector before the room is finished, which has its pro's and con's. That would allow you to throw a picture on an unfinished wall, play around with the size and then play around with your seating and determine what works best for you. That being said, like in my room and in your room, your length is rather limited so I could see you up against the wall as I am.

I have seen people do 2 rows of seating in a room with our dimensions, but for my screen size and for my budget really, I felt if I added another row of seating I would just be cramming them in and I didn't want to do that.

I will fully admit that the seating against the wall is not ideal for surround sound. I don't have my 2 rear speakers bought/installed yet, but when I do I am limited to in-wall and even then they are right on top of the listener and are really rear-high speakers as opposed to rear, the sound coming out of them is just coming in too high.

As far as the projector being that close to the listener. For me, it is no problem at all, I haven't


I definitely want to go front projection if I can (the bigger, the better). I just didn't know if my room-size would be able to accommodate it. But, judging from your room dimensions, and what you've posted in you photos, it appears I'll be able to do so. Having said that, what kind of screen do you use? And, what is the estimated cost? Did you install it yourself, or have it professionally done?

You have room for front projection for sure. I put my screen together myself, it is pretty unique and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it . Screen costs are all over the place, in order for me to maximize my screen size I went with an acoustically transparent screen material from the vendor http://seymourav.com. The material shipped to Canada was in the $400 range. I think bought velcro for the material and the framing I had built into my wall at a cost of about $100 and I believe I paid a seamstress another $85 to sew the velcro into the material, so the screen was likely in the $600 range. You would be hard pressed to find a 140" diagonal AT screen for anywhere near that price retail. There are certainly no shortage of screen manufactures in ranges from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousands of dollars so knowing budget can really help give you m ore direction there.

AT screens have their pros and cons like anything else in this hobby. The pro's being of course in a small room you can have a bigger screen because you can go wall to wall without worry about having to put speakers at the sides of your screen or obstructing your view by placing them in front. Acoustically it gives you a better or more 'movie like' experience as the speakers are behind the screen at the theatre and when sound is mixed for movies the assumption is that the voices are coming from the screen rather than above it or below it, so getting to place your centre channel smack dab in the middle of your screen is really great. Of course there is an acoustic sacrifice by adding a layer of material infront of your sound, but the AT screen makers claim it to be inaudible, I'm not enough of a sound nut to hear a difference. There is also light lost when projecting onto a screen that isn't opaque, no way around that really, Seymour claims a 1.18 positive gain on the screen which would indicate that it does have the ability to reflect light back, but others have measured the gain to be <1 to contradict their claim, I like mine and don't really get into that debate

I also noticed that you have carpet, but no acoustic panels. Do you know if it's better to have carpet or hard-wood? And, if carpet, is one kind better over another for acoustic quality? Are acoustic panels necessary?

It appears you have a wiring closet, unless I'm mistaken. I too want to go this route. How deep is yours and what's the setup?

Also, did you build your HT from the ground-up? Or, did you convert it from and existing room? And, if you did build, can you explain how the room was wired, and the est. cost for wiring? Did you sound-proof the walls? Where is your center channel located? Is it behind the screen?

I shoe-horned my first theatre into an existing room making wiring very challenging. I then pretty much tore that room down to the studs to make what I have now. So it isn't from the ground-up I wouldn't say, but it is from the stud's up! Cost for wiring is hard to judge and really is a case-by-case kind of thing as it depends how many speakers you are wiring for versus where your equipment is as all my gear is up front and behind the screen the speaker runs for my front sound stage are very short, but my speaker runs for my rears is long... and my projector is long too. If you are buying all your wires at mono-price I'd probably budge in the $300-$400 range for HDMI, Cat6e and Speaker wire. That will allow you to buy spools of wire/cable and likely have lots left over, but trust me, you are better with lots left over on one spool rather than running out on one spool and having to buy another, which will leave you with tiny runs of useless speaker wire, been their-done-that with previous adventures in HT.

When wiring the genearl rule of thumb is to pull more than you think you need. In my case my room is only 5.1 right now, but is wired for 9.1 and I know I can easily run another .1 for a second sub at any time. You also test your cables before closing the ceiling/walls up. Last think you want to do is run a 40ft HDMI cable close everything up and have it flake out on your once everything is done. Some people run 2 HDMI cables as not to screw around. I've actually got to runs of conduit that I feed any additional cables through that I need so I'm set for the future quite easily.

If your setup allows it conduit is a must. Be fair with your expectations though, if you put a sharp 90 degree turn in your conduit and stuff it full of wires the likely hood of fishing another wire through it in the futre isn't terribly high, if you can't get away with straight runs and at the worst one of those longer 90 degree elbows I'm not even sure conduit is worth it. I was putting a theatre in for a friend once where the guy who finished the basement for her told her it would be a piece of cake to fish wire through the conduit he had left. What a joke. This thing had more bends in it then you could shake a stick at, I had to open the wall in 2 places to get my fish out and replace the bends with ones that could actually have a cable make a turn.

Sorry, I don't mean to bombard you with questions. I'm just trying to gather as much info as I can before I take the plunge.

Hope this gives you a bit of insight. Please don't take any of my comments as gospel, I am not a professional, just a hobbiest who has some input. There are a lot of others on here with loads more experience than I, hopefully they will chime if you come up with some more pointed questions. You can also try the other sub-forums where you might get a better dedicated response. Like the Screen sub-forum of Projectors section. Heck if you haven't been to the avsforum's I can tell you that is where I read most of the information I've acquired over the years.

[EMAGDNIM]

Is there any way were could see some pictures of the layout in question?

[Brainwasher]

92-120 inch would work. I vote 120 inch, I have a 14ft x x14ft and I plan on 120 inch.

[TheHOYT]

Originally Posted by EMAGDNIM

Is there any way were could see some pictures of the layout in question?

Sure! But, I'll have to clean it up first.

Thanks for all the responses! And, Adam_WM, thanks to referring me to your photos, it gave me some really good ideas. I didn't know if I'd be able to support raised seating for two rows, but, judging from your pictures I should be able to swing it. Also, the cabinet for your equipment that extends into a closet under your stair-well, for easy access to the wires. My layout is very similar and I think I'll borrow this idea.

[EMAGDNIM]

Well, I'm in for pictures.

And I'm down to help you out if you have any other questions Hopefully I'd have the answers

And I'm sure you'll be finished your space before me at the rate I'm going HAHA...

[Allforce]

I got a lot of pictures in my gallery under "Construction" if you want to see the process. I'll just say this, plan out everything before hand. I did a ton of research here in the "Home Theater Construction" forum as well as just pouring over galleries before I sat down and drew it all out as I saw it working.