I started collecting my home theater gear back in 1995. Ever since then, I have gathered components in hopes of building a real home theater. Around October of 1999, when I was studying for the comprehensive exam, I started to draw out the plans. This became a great procrastinator tool! After the exam was over and my degree was finished, I started formalizing the plans.
Work started in late October when I learned I passed comps. Work that needed to be done included: taking down the equipment, painting, buying furniture, installing a carpet, building a stage, sewing the curtains, and setting the equipment back up. It took 5 months to do all that. I took little steps at a time, buying things every month and slowly putting it back together.
The original plans were quite different, as ideas got better with time. It turned out much better than I thought. The whole building experience just started to come together. I had a lot of ideas, but I wasn't sure if they were going to work. I ended up making some custom equipment to get things to work right. To give you an example, the masking system around the screen is a series of 5 horizontal copper tubes (each 6 feet in length) that are held in place by two metal vertical poles. These copper poles ride up and down the metal poles to give a custom frame for any projected ratio. I also had to buy 25 meters of fabric to construct the 5 panels of curtains. The valance alone is one piece of material 13 meters in length!
In a way, I am sad that the Home Theater is complete. It was a great hobby to work on. Now all that is left is a some tweaking. Of course, now that it is finished, I have so many movies to watch! This theater would not have been possible without the help and support of my family and friends. I thank all of you!
Below are a series of pictures to show what the theater looked like before and after. Click on the thumbnail to see a better picture.
Let me know what you think.... You can email me
at brian at kinomeister dot com
| Old Home Theater (pictures taken around October 1999) | New Home Theater (Pictures taken 26 March 2000) | |||||
This was the entrance to the guest room before October 1999. Yikes!
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This is the entrance to my Home Theater....
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At one time, it was a guest bedroom that collected junk.
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Here is another from the other side.
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At the time, I was studying for Comps - which is why there is a mess
of papers on the right side. The King Size sheet on the wall was
the first screen that I had. Every once in a while, I would get to
borrow an LCD projector, which was projected on the sheet. When I
didn't have the projector, I used the TV. To the left is the entertainment
rack.
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The screen placement didn't change. Its on the same wall as before,
but I've moved the Titanic display to the corner, added a stage (to hide
the Left, Center and Right speakers) and curtains to cover the masking
system.
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The equipment rack with all my DVDs & LDs. The audio equipment
includes: Yamaha Dolby Digital receiver, Panasonic DVD, Yamaha Laserdisc,
Kenwood CD player & a Hitachi VCR.
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This is the new placement of the equipment rack. I now have easy
access to the components. It was a pain to move all of that equipment!
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The old seating was terrible. It was the futon on the floor (to
the right) which was next to the projector (not pictured).
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I have much better seating. This picture shows just the ends
of the couches, but I also have a Lazy-Boy chair on the other side of the
room. A total of 7 people can sit in the room conformably.
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Here are three screen ratios that can be used. I've taken these
pictures without a flash to show the screen, but the background is rather
dark. The video looks much brighter and cleaner when viewed in the
room. The width of the screen in all these pictures is 4 feet.
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Page created on 16 January 2001.
Page updated on 9 July 2001.
