Where to start with building a Cinema Room

[radish500]

I've been reading the forums trying to get a feel as to where to start with my new project, and to be honest I don't know where to start.

I've bought a new house, which is almost finished being built and have got half of the converted attic for a Home Cinema room. I have a room, but nothing to put in it !!! I don't like the look of LCD, so do I go for a Plasma or Projector ?? I still have to get all the other gear together and don't have a huge budget, so is there a good place to start ??? A bonus for me is that the wife loves movies as much as me.

But the biggest question is where do I start !! Any help from the fine forum members would be fantastic.

Thanks
Richard

[Skeet]

Hi.
I'm a noob on here too...the people really know theor stuff and will surely be able to help you out.

You say you have a small budget...perhaps if you gave a rough idea of what sort of initial outlay you have for kit, then they may be able to help you choose between Plasma or Projector, and associated Audio gubbins.

[pure_geordie]

I felt exactly how you felt, I started from scratch and I mean from scratch.

From waiting until my house was built then to convert a garage into a HCR.
Had to buy my kit from scratch and everything. Its daunting but remember its worth it at the end.

I new nothing about HC but after a while just asking very basic Q's to understand at first what I was supposed to do led me to asking more challenging Q's and building confidence up, and also to build a picture in my head what I wanted.

To be honest the best advice I can give you is to start and do exactly what you have been doing and that is to read up on HC DIY to get a feel then to do one step at a time from building work/regulations to choosing the right kit and then moving onto your cabling aspects.

I'm sure everything will be fine, just take your time mate

[waf-tastic]

Originally Posted by radish500

I've been reading the forums trying to get a feel as to where to start with my new project, and to be honest I don't know where to start.

I've bought a new house, which is almost finished being built and have got half of the converted attic for a Home Cinema room. I have a room, but nothing to put in it !!! I don't like the look of LCD, so do I go for a Plasma or Projector ?? I still have to get all the other gear together and don't have a huge budget, so is there a good place to start ??? A bonus for me is that the wife loves movies as much as me.

But the biggest question is where do I start !! Any help from the fine forum members would be fantastic.

Thanks
Richard

When I was planning my HC, I thought about a 'big' plasma/LCD but in the end went for a projector because I mainly wanted to watch films. If I was using it for more general TV use, I'd probably have got a plasma screen. The next thing that won me over was a trip to Sevenoaks sound and vision to see their demo room. When I saw their projector setup and the big screen, I was hooked. I have a 100" screen in my cellar (which was completely changed from a dirty unused set of rooms to the nicest room in the house!) and a 6.1 sound setup. It needn't cost a fortune for the equipment - I was expecting mine to be a lot more expensive, but there's such competition and progress in the HC market that I was well under my equipment budget by the time it came to buy it. I started by wanting the latest kit, but in the end, I realised that the award winners from late 2005 (e.g. sound and vision magazine) were still more than capable of providing a great cinema feel. Of course, now there's HD ready to worry about, but as I mainly watch my current DVD library and some TV (F1, football, etc.) I'll worry about that later. As long as you plan for the future (cabling etc.) then you should be ok.

I did a lot of planning for the rooms - working out the available space for the main room, distane from screen and therefore the available screen sizes for the projector I wanted (I still remember the many throw ratio/zoom/screen size combinations I tried!). I just used Visio to make a few different plans with the electrics, lighting, seating etc.

The advice on these forums is always excellent, so searching and asking questions is the way to go.

It has definitely been worth all of the work - it's still nice to have a film show with family/friends to see their faces when they see the custom intro then settle down for a film with popcorn/drinks etc.

Good luck with your build - be careful though - there are plenty of things to spend your time and money on! Getting the wife involved will pay dividends too :-)

[Dr Force]

It appears to be sooo daunting at first but you need to take your time to understand the different types of set ups and what various experiences they bring.

Find out about the pros and cons of plasma/lcd/projector(DLP,CRT,LCD).

I am lucky enough to be having an extension built for dedicated HC room and I am going for a projector for the big film experience.

I will be staring this from scratch and even though I have decent knowledge of AV I have learnt this from scratch via Home Cinema Choice Mag and these excellent forums.

The Home Cinema DIY forum has loads of excellent examples of people starting from scratch to the finished room.

My advice is to spend time learning as its part of the hobby and will prevent many pitfalls and wasting money.

Ask questions on here and you will get good answers.

Good luck matey

[radish500]

Thanks for the reply's and there's loads to read and understand. However, my new house and hence the Cinema Room will be ready in October so I've time to read and then onto the fun part of spending the money !!!

I'll have to take photo's as the room develops and let you all know what I'm doing.

Thanks again,
Richard

[dobbin]

Richard

We will all look forward to seeing your initial photos and the subsequent build. I have a thread in this forum (My First Cinema Room - My First cinema room) where I have tried to show how it all comes together. I have had numerous inspiration from these and the US forums. SOme brilliant designs. Take the bits you like from each to build your own.
We look forward to seeing it.

Dobbin

[inzaman]

Originally Posted by dobbin

We will all look forward to seeing your initial photos and the subsequent build

Same here

There is some excellent advice above Richard and if you follow it you should not go far wrong, any questions just fire away in the relevant forum sections and you should get some speedy responses

[radish500]

Originally Posted by dobbin

Richard

We will all look forward to seeing your initial photos and the subsequent build. I have a thread in this forum (My First Cinema Room - My First cinema room) where I have tried to show how it all comes together. I have had numerous inspiration from these and the US forums. SOme brilliant designs. Take the bits you like from each to build your own.
We look forward to seeing it.

Dobbin

I was ready about your room last night, when my wife saw the "star ceiling" and said "Thats what I want". So I guess I'm into a good thing. I've decided to start off with a large plasma, and then get a projector at a later point. Just need to decide on the budget...

Richard