Home Theaters Give You an Escape From Reality
There’s nothing quite as satisfying as being able to immerse yourself in total darkness before seeing a crystal clear studio logo pop onto the big screen while a blast of 5.1 digital surround sound overtakes your senses and rumbles beneath you. You are experiencing the rush of watching a movie in a theater. But not just any theater, it’s your home theater.
That’s right. No one kicking the seat behind you, throwing candy at your head or talking on the phone during the best scenes; if they do you can kick them out yourself!
In many ways the home theater experience far surpasses the big screens of movie theater chains. Not only the annoyances listed previously, but there’s also the factors of cost and convenience.
With the price of a movie ticket running somewhere around $10, plus the cost of snacks, you could easily afford your own home theater just by skipping those evenings out for a year or two. Depending on how expensive your tastes are possibly even sooner than that. And there’s no need to wait for the 7 o’clock showing or stand in line; you can start, stop and schedule your movie showings whenever it’s convenient for you.
As true home theater enthusiasts we’d been designing our perfect escape since before we bought our house. We were just looking for the perfect house to fit our dreams. We found it a few years ago and proceeded to design our dream theater with gusto. We had most of our cinema equipment (just needing a few finishing touches like the 5.1 digital surround and more monster cables) so we dug into planning everything from seating arrangement and style, to carpet color and decor, to the large hinged wall with secret escape route (doesn’t every kid want one?)
By doing most of it ourselves we saved thousands of dollars but it also took about a year to “finish.” Well, it’s finished enough for us to enjoy, we are always working on the little touches here and there. Many people hire professionals to design and build their theater’s, which saves a lot of time (but not always money.)
After a long hard day at work, or an evening of frustrating parenting, the need to escape reality can become overwhelming. Being able to drop ourselves into complete darkness and seclusion and then immerse ourselves in a full senses banquet of sights and sounds from Hollywood we can quickly forget our own headaches and get wrapped up in the big screen. Those two hours are sanity savers without ever needing to leave the house (or get candy thrown at our heads).
Learn more about home theater seating and home theater projector
Video Projectors: Info You Should Know
A video projector is one of the most important components in the home theater set-up. It can make or break your home viewing experience, so the more you know about this device, the better. A video projector is very similar to a film projector. Like a film projector, it casts an image onto a screen, but it functions differently in that it converts analog or digital video signals into a form that viewers can see. The picture is much clearer and sharper than that produced by a film projector.
These days, shoppers can choose from three different types of video projectors, including cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), and digital light processing (DLP) models. All have their pros and cons, and some are more practical than others when it comes to day-to-day viewing. Consumers who watch primarily standard, analog TV might want to go with a CRT model rather than a DLP or LCD set, as the latter two have bulbs that are expensive and need to be replaced after 1,000-2,000 hours of use.
Factors to consider when shopping for a video projector include pixel density, scaling, contrast and brightness. Pixel density is critical to the quality of your viewing experience. Consumers who plan to watch lots of high definition (HD) programming should look for a projector with a high pixel count. A count of 1024 x 768 is good for DVD viewing. Keep in mind that 720 p HDTV signals must have a pixel count of 1280 x 720 in order to reproduce effectively. 1080i HDTV signals require a pixel count of 1920 x 1080. Most projectors come equipped with scalers that will adjust the signal so that it fits the pixel count.
Contrast ratio is also important in a projector. Look for a contrast ratio of 1500:1 or higher. 2,000:1 is a superior ratio. Good contrast means a better picture, with brighter whites and deeper blacks on the screen. Brightness is another issue. When considering projectors, look at the ANSI Lumens rating. Models that have 1,000 ANSI Lumens or higher will provide adequate brightness.
A few more basic factors to consider when looking at video projectors:
Inputs: You want to make certain that the projector is equipped with the inputs you want, including connections for composite and S-video analog components, as well as connections for DVD players and HDTV.
Size and weight: If you plan to take your projector with you when you travel, or want to move it from room to room, then you need to look for a model that’s portable and easy to set up. You’ll want to consider the size of your viewing screen, the size of your rooms, and the distance you’ll be sitting from the screen before buying a projector.
J. Hall writes articles for consumers who want to find the best New Technology Offers currently available. She has written for many major publications about the latest deals and promotions and how buyers can find the best discounts.
How To Choose The Right Home Theater Seating
Have you just bought a wonderful surround-sound home entertainment system but no decent home theater seating to sit on to watch the latest rented DVD? Do you always have to squeeze next to the cat and your daughter who likes to hog the old sofa like it was her bed whenever she watches anything on the screen?
Do you have to constantly pause the DVD to get your tomato juice from the kitchen benchtop because there is no place to put your drink without fear of spilling it on your white carpet? And does your back suffer terribly even only after 30 minutes of watching your favorite sitcom?
Home theater systems and home theater seating - the suburban preoccupation of the decade
If you’ve answered yes to any of the questions above, then despair no more. In the past five years or so, home theater seats have surpassed the comfort and support provided by the traditional movie theater seat.
Home theater seating can range from actual movie theater seats with beverage holders to more plush reclining club chairs and home theater loungers with footrests and built in wireless bass audio.
But how do you choose a good home theater seating? Below are some tips on how to choose a home theater seating that is just right for you.
Tips on how to choose the right home theater seating
1. The first thing to ask yourself is how many will you normally seat?
- If you prefer your home viewing to be strictly limited to yourself and your only daughter, then you will only need a seating for a small group of three.
- If you are planning to invite the whole neighborhood, then you may need to create one or more rows of grouped seating just like in a real theater. You can choose to have single seats carefully placed in your home entertainment or rumpus room or build a group of 2, 3 or 4 chairs.
2. The second and equally important question is will your current home entertainment or rumpus room have space enough for your home theater seating plan? It would be wise to allocate a room or part of a room that is spacious enough for your home entertainment area. Or if you have the budget and the inclination - you may want to add a special room for this specific purpose.
3. A very important priority in any home theater seating is comfort as you may need to be seated for an average of 90 to 120 minutes for a full length feature movie. Answering the following questions may help you to judge whether the home theater seating you are choosing will give you the level of comfort that you need.
- Does the footrest extend before the backrest reclines? This is important so that your body remains supported and your movie viewing and line of sight is kept intact.
- Are the armrests wide enough to rest your arms and provide the right balance?
- Does the seat and back offer both firmness and flexibility? Does the seat provide high density foam cushions to provide both comfort and back support?
- Does it provide full support from head to toe?
4. What style of home theater seating will fit your decor? After all, theater seats should be part of the home theater and should enhance its overall decor. Do you want an upholstered home theater seating or do you want to see some of the timber’s natural woodgrain enlivened by an oil finish?
Do you want supple, luxurious leather or the warm caress of velvet? What colors complement your decor - the girly-cute pink of custard; the regal low-maintenance ruby of pomegranate or the uptown classy brown of biscuit?
5. Was the home theater seating constucted using techniques that have been proven to result in stronger and more durable loungers and seats that can withstand everyday use, such as using kiln-dried hardwood base frames and cushions made of high density 2-lb foam.
6. Last but not least, how much do you want to spend for your home theater seating? Whatever your budget, there seems to be a home theater seating for everyone’s fancy:
- whether its the $4,700 three-seater Rodeo Leather Lounge with built in wireless bass shaker, recliner, footrest and wide armrest rolls for the ultimate in home theater experience,
- a vintage movie theater seat which had its previous home from a local movie house and which you’ve just bid successfully on ebay for $99,
- or somewhere in between.
Flor Buenaventura is a writer who has a great interest in furnishings for the home and garden. To see a fantastic collection of resources related to home theater seating, please visit her Home Theater Seating and Home Theater Furniture
Identifying Your Home Theater Needs
If you are in the market for a home theater system, chances are that you have a pretty good idea of the individual components you will need in order to make your system complete. Most people find questions when it comes to specific information about the individual pieces and parts of the system. However, in an effort to educate all about home theater systems, this will be a brief break down of components that one might expect to purchase during the course of building a premium home theater system. Keep in mind that everyone will have their own specific needs and preferences and you may have some perfectly acceptable components already. This of course, will save you money on the overall purchase if you choose to keep the pieces you currently own.
Identifying your Home Theater Needs
First of all, there are all kinds of ‘home theater in a box’ kits on the market today. These kits are already put together in order to help you get the home theater you desire in one fell swoop. While you can get perfectly good home theater systems in this manner, I honestly believe you will get better value for your money by building your own system one component at a time. If you are impatient in a hurry or simply do not wish to spend the time researching your options then the home theater systems that are sold on the market may be a good idea for you.
Now that we’ve gotten past that, you should notice that some people consider the actual television to be a part of the home theater system. You can go many routes when selecting a television that will work with your home theater needs. It is entirely up to you what kind of television you select. I do however recommend that you seriously consider the lighting in any given room before choosing your television. Projection televisions do not do well in rooms with a great deal of light. Otherwise, go with what works within your budget and the overall look you prefer for your home theater viewing.
Home Theater
Sound is another important component of most home theater systems. The amount you spend on your sound system should depend entirely on how much sound impacts your enjoyment of movies. You can spend a lot of money on a good set of speakers and sound system or you can seriously cut costs by spending less on this particular component. Everything when it comes to building a home theater depends entirely upon your personal preferences and the overall system you wish to build.
In order to get the greatest benefit from your speakers you will need a receiver in order to process the sounds and present them in the best possible light. The receiver basically receives information from all manner of devices and sends the signal where you tell it to go. Your receiver is one place that most people tend to spend a good portion of their budget and with good reason. This is by far one of the most important components and one that many people do not already own. More on Home Theater Info.
How To Set Up A Home Theater - 6 Home Theater Installation Tips
It’s one thing to make a decision to set up home theater in you home but it’s another in actually doing it. Do you know how to set up a home theater? Most will answer no so what do you do?
Let’s get one thing straight, a home theater can mean just having a television, DVD player and sound system but most people will have images of cinema style entertainment. There’s nothing wrong with this thinking. What this article is about is making you aware of the fact unless you plan your home theater installation then it will come back to haunt you later on…that’s a given.
For those working on a tight budget then start small and complete your set up as your budget allows. But if you can afford it, then getting a professional in to do the job is almost as good as putting money in the bank. In fact, there are professional home theater consultants available today that can plan your entire set up.
Some of the major consumer electronics stores also offer services on how to set up a home theater. For the inexperienced, this is advice worth listening to. Not only will they give you advice but you can also have your home theaters professionally installed.
What about if you have the experience with electronics and are prepared to do the installation yourself?
How To Plan A Home Theater Set Up
Let’s take a look at several factors which can either enhance or ruin your home entertainment experience. These are not in any particular order but all important in the final outcome.
1. Plan you entire layout on paper. This includes cabling and always allow for extra cables.
2. Highlight where you want your equipment to go. Where will you place the TV? Can it be mounted or will it sit on a cabinet or stand and will the layout of the room enable or accommodate the TV and sound system? You also need to allow room for extra components which may be added later on. This is one of the major factors and many don’t take future additions into consideration.
3. How much power do you have coming in? Will it be able to support your system? If you are unsure then ask an electrician to come in and check it. When asking how to set up a home theater power is often overlooked but it should be one of the first things to be considered.
4. Heating can be a problem. Many systems can generate a lot of heat and you need to clarify this with an expert. It is always a good idea to install a cooling system which may simply be just a small fan connected to an air vent.
5. TV viewing distance is vital. Take into account the size of your room in comparison to the television. If you are buying a large screen TV then be sure you can position your seating far enough away to enjoy the experience. A general rule of thumb is to take the width of the screen into account and it needs to be at least 2-5 to 3-5 times that distance from the TV.
6. Take into consideration factors such as phone and high speed computer connections especially if you intend using your system for gaming such as play station. Just make sure the connections are close by. Also, consider your cabling length. Buying short cables is a trap for new players as it restricts the flexibility of your system.
Design Home Theater Room
There are few things more enjoyable than relaxing while you are watching a great movie and eating hot buttered popcorn. There are two ways you can get this laid back feeling. The first way is to go to the movies. The second way is to watch the movie in your home theater. Now when we talk about a home theater it doesn’t mean that we have a separate movie hall in our home. So what can you do to get a home theater? The first step should be a design home theater room.
What is a design home theater room? Is this a room where you will be designing how a home theater looks like? Now this sounds like a really great career choice to look into. Oops I got side tracked by our question about design home theater room. Basically what you will need to do is to design how your home theater room will look like and where you will place all of your entertainment needs. To achieve the optimal amount of use from this room you will need to do some planning.
In this plan you will need to allocate and design home theater room equipment placement so that you can see where the other items in the room will need to go. So before you do anything else take your plan and enter what will become your home theater room.
Measure out the entire floor area of that home theater room. This will give you the base from which you can plan and design home theater room placement ideas. See where the lighting and the windows are in this room and look to find the direction that each of these light sources fall. With this information you can decide where the home theater projector screen will go and mark off this area both on your plan and on the wall.
Next decide where you should have your speakers set up. By having speakers placed strategically you can enhance the sound in the home theater. In your design home theater room sound quality will need to be seen to in the shape of sound barriers and isolation clips. These items can help to decrease that amount of noise that you will hear from the outside and increase the quality of sound that is coming from your movie into the home theater.
A final phase for the design home theater room is the placing of home theater seats. These reclining seats must be placed where there is ample room for everyone to enjoy the movie without have to endure a lot of strain. You should also ensure that everyone can stretch out their legs and relax during the movie.
One other item that you will need to see about is that of the various home theater accessories. While these don’t need to be in the design home theater room atmosphere becomes enriched with their presence. All of these ideas will help bring your home theater to life.
Home Theater Room Design
As many of you know watching a great movie on a small TV can be a little disappointing. This is because the TV will not give us the entire thrilling view that having a large television can. To compensate for this we either go to the movies and watch what we like or we invest in many electrical items that will mimic this movie theater feeling. Now having gotten this stuff we need to transform one section of our home into a home theater room design.
To make sure that you make the most out of the living space that you have and you won’t cause any injuries to yourself, you should think about where you want everything to go in this room. Therefore the best way to get a good home theater room design is to have a written plan of how your new entertainment room will look.
Since there are so many factors to take into account when you are planning your home theater room design you should carefully measure the room that you will be using as the home theater so that you know that all of your electrical items and home theaters necessities will fit in here.
Once you have gotten the measurements noted you can start by planning where the various components will be placed. In the section where you movie screen will be, remove any pictures from that section. To get an idea of how the lighting can affect your viewing and to find out the clarity of your movie vision, place black masking tape over the wall about the size of your screen.
With this tape in place you can know see where the light falls in the room and decide what windows you will want to have drapes for. This part of your home theater room design will allow you to pre-plan the amount of money that you will have to spend. Next you should take a chair and move it around until you have found a position that will let you see the entire screen without causing eye fatigue.
Now the next part of your home theater room design is to have your speakers kept in certain places so that you can experience a surround sound facility. Therefore you should think about the placement of these speakers and the wiring that will be needed. Keeping the various electrical wiring to a minimum will help to prevent your home power from becoming overloaded.
After all of these home theater room design issues have been looked over bring in the various items that you will need one at a time and begin the installation process. You may think that having to bring all of the equipment separately is hassle but at the end of the day you will have a fully working home theater and you won’t have overloaded your power circuits either. Now this is what home theater room design can bring to your life.
Home Theater Seats
While many people prefer to watch a movie at the movie theaters there are some people who prefer the luxury of their own homes. These people will rent or buy videos or DVDs so that they can watch these movies whenever they desire. Some of these people will just watch their movies on the TVs that are in their possession without realizing if there is another way to get more enjoyment out of the movie. Others will sit in comfortable home theater seats and feel that they are in a cinema all because of their home theater.
Now if you are among those people who like to sit in movie theater seats to watch a movie you are in luck. There are home theater seats that have been made for the home theater owner. These theater seats are very similar in appearance to the cinema seats but they made so that you can install them in the various places and positions that you want.
You can find many of these home theater seats on various online shops. As there are a number of these shops on the web you can take your time to look for various home theater seats that will suit your budget. Now if you are a trend conscious person you can look for the latest items in home theater furniture.
You will find that there home theater seats that can be given a custom design look. Other times you will see plush looking home theater seats. Sometimes you will find home theater seats that have the look of a rocking chair. However as you only have a certain amount of room in your home theater you will need to restrain yourself.
Before you buy these home theater seats you should see if you can find any chairs in your home that you can place in your home theater. While they may not match if they are very comfortable and sturdy you can paint and re-upholster the chairs. This way you will have found an inexpensive way to watch the movies.
Take my family for instance. We like to watch movies in different types of positions. My mother loves sitting a reclining armchair. Unfortunately she falls asleep during the movie because the seat is so comfortable. My sister loves sitting in a wide office swivel chair that she can lower to whatever position that she wants. My father just loves to sit in a home theater chair that looks like it came straight from the movies. I love sitting in an old armchair whose cushions just overflow the sides.
As you can see there are home theater seats that you can buy from the shops and there are home theater seats that are living in your home. All that you need to do is to choose what you want in the way of comfort.
Home Theater Chairs
I have found that being able to sit in a very comfortable chair and watch a movie makes the whole movie experience even more exciting than I could have ever imagined. Now I have decided to re-create this atmosphere in my home with a home theater. So I have already selected the room where I will just absorb all of the action. To make watching movies in my home even more cinema like the main item that I will add are some great home theater chairs.
You might think that this is going over the top for a home theater room but there are so many other people who feel the same way. So where can we begin our hunt for fantastic home theater chairs? You can see what your local yellow pages will turn up in the way of home theater accessories and seating. You could also see what you can catch in the World Wide Web.
The internet has so many listings for these goodies that unless you have a clear idea about what you want and the price limit that you will set, you can get carried away. Now when you look on the site pages you will be able to select the type of home theater chairs that will be best suited for your home theater.
There are so many wonderful home theater chairs that are given on these pages that sometimes you may want to have it all. This however is not a great idea as there is only so much room that you can have everything placed in.
So what you should do is to decide how many people you want to share this fun with. Once this point is settled you can look for single rocking chair type home theater chairs or customizable home theater chairs that are like the ones in the cinemas. For the various people who at the end of fixing their home theaters find that they are nearly bankrupt (like me!) they can find an easy solution for home theater chairs.
This solution is to look for chairs that you don’t want to keep in your living room, dining room or any other room for that matter as they have no place in the d
Home Theater Projector Reviews
There are many items that are needed to make your home theater experience marvelous. One of the more important items is that of a home theater projector. To find out the one that will provide you with the best possible quality viewing you should see if you can find home theater projector reviews.
These home theater projector reviews will not only inform you about the various types of home projectors that are available but you will be given a brief description of these home theater projectors. Sometimes these descriptions will have the specifications that your home theater needs to get the highest picture quality.
As there are quite a number of home theater projectors and home theater projector reviews you will need to find a couple that will give you the information that you are looking for. One of the main items of information that you should look for is that of the price of these home theater projectors.
You can look on the internet for home theater projector reviews. As there are different types of reviews you should look through these carefully. The information that will be given in each one of these home theater projection reviews is based upon the information that was able to be gathered and the personal preference of the author.
Therefore you should also find out from various shops that sell these items what the price range is for the various home theater projectors. In addition you can ask about the various features that some of the home theater projectors may have. This way you have the ability of seeing if the home theater projector reviews and the information that you have received from the shops are about the same.
Now when you see a few home theater projectors that seem to be what you want in your home theater, you should check out various home theater reviews just to know what various people have to say about the performance of these home theater projectors. Based upon these reviews you can decide if the price and the specifications are acceptable for your home.
Before you do buy one of the many known and unknown home theater projectors you will need to find out what are the warrantees and guarantees that you will be given for their performance. You must also see if there is a return policy for these home theater projectors if any problems develop within the first few hours of use.
Now just think of all of the hassles that you have avoided because you looked to see what sort of home theater projector reviews that you could discover. From the information that you found in the magazine you were able to choose the right home theater projector.
