Converting an Existing guest room vs Building a new one in the Terrace

[narenkum]

Hi Guys,

After going through the pictures\threads of Vinay,Mdharan, Purna, Premblr and many others got really motivated and I am also planning to setup a dedicated home theater room.

Mine is an Independent Duplex house with 4 Bed rooms. Now I am in the dilemma whether to convert one of the guest rooms which is 20ft by 13 in dimensions and with 5 feet gone for the bathroom will have a clear space of 15ft by 13ft for the dedicated room.

Alternatively I can construct a new dedicated room in the terrace with dimensions in the range of 24ft by 15ft.

Converting the guest room:

Pros:
1.It is ready and just need to do the acoustic treatment.
2.Easy and regular access as currently I goto the terrace hardly once in a month.

Cons:
1.Fixed and limited dimensions.
2.Need to do lot of wirings for the 5.1 or 7.1 setup and literally not possible to
go beyond 7.1.

Construcing a dedicated room in terrace:

Pros:
1.If planned well with the help of our forum members will turn out to be an excellent one.
2.Can construct a curved wall similar to Mdharan's setup.

Cons:
1.Budget will needs to be stretched as the construction cost is huge now.
2.Not sure about the approval process for constructing a room in the 2nd floor.

Can I just to do the acoustic treatment for the guestroom now, by installing the acoustic panels and use it for 2- 3 years and then reuse the same when constructing a new room in the terrace?

The above option if it can be executed seems to be the most cost effective.

Now coming to the components:

Already Purchased:
Projector - Epson Tw 8100
Blu ray player - Panasonic BDP 220

Both the above were recently purchased based on the feedback from our esteemed forum members.

APC 1100V - UPs for projector

Pending items to be purchased:

Screen- Curved screen seems to be really nice but comes in above 35K need to check for any good quality low priced model.

And for a 13 feet wall can I go for a 150" projection or 135" would be better?

Planning to add a Denon AVR with Polk speakers combo but will need to audition them before. I will shortly post the pictures of the room.

Please provide your valuable inputs so I could decide upon the room and start the work quickly.

 

[vinay]

Welcome to the world of a private mini theater at home.

It is a great idea to make dedicated movie room at home if one watches a lot of movies and related or does a lot of other projector related activity like trading across markets.

It will be a good idea to construct on the terrace especially if you are looking for around 6/8 recliner seating arrangement. One of the brilliant benefits to have at the terrace will be that movie room will be completely isolated from the house and that is the way it should be especially for the people who are planning to give up a movie hall viewing completely. A 5.1 is more then enough but indeed everyone has a choice and they may not hesitate to go for a 7.1 with a room length of 13 feet or so.

I also think that it will be better that to take a call once for all if you want to use the guest room or terrace because it will be a lot of less hassle in moving from one place to another after 3 years or so.

It all depends how much is your passion by which you will know how to step up the plan.

My best wishes.

V.

 

[Swamy_HT]

And for a 13 feet wall can I go for a 150" projection or 135" would be better?

For 11 feet wide wall, I gone with 135" screen which occupies 10 feet and left with 1/2 feet on both side. Go for 150". Go for BIG as much you can.

 

[narenkum]

Welcome to the world of a private mini theater at home.

It is a great idea to make dedicated movie room at home if one watches a lot of movies and related or does a lot of other projector related activity like trading across markets.

It will be a good idea to construct on the terrace especially if you are looking for around 6/8 recliner seating arrangement. One of the brilliant benefits to have at the terrace will be that movie room will be completely isolated from the house and that is the way it should be especially for the people who are planning to give up a movie hall viewing completely. A 5.1 is more then enough but indeed everyone has a choice and they may not hesitate to go for a 7.1 with a room length of 13 feet or so.

I also think that it will be better that to take a call once for all if you want to use the guest room or terrace because it will be a lot of less hassle in moving from one place to another after 3 years or so.

It all depends how much is your passion by which you will know how to step up the plan.

My best wishes.

V.

Thanks Vinay for your inputs and wishes.

This will be exclusively for watching movies and at least a minimum of 2 in a week.

Passion- Hmm my passion for movies is quite high, Last year purchased an LG 47LM 7600 over my 42"LG exclusively for watching movies and now here I am with an Epson TW 8100.

6/8 recliner seating arrangement may not be required as mostly movies are watched by me and my daughter and rarely my wife will join us, so far now 3/4 1 row seating arrangement should be fine.

My immediate priority would be to get a decent budget screen and please suggest whether 150" will be a overkill for the room with 13 feet width? and whether the curved screens are worth the extra money?

 

[narenkum]

For 11 feet wide wall, I gone with 135" screen which occupies 10 feet and left with 1/2 feet on both side. Go for 150". Go for BIG as much you can.

Thanks Swamy,

Can you please share the details of the screen, brand, cost, type etc..?

 

[Swamy_HT]

I have ordered "Elite CineWhite eZe frame (R135WH1)" on Global easy buy ebay.
Cost 56.5 K. (Fixed Frame screen). The same quoted here in chennai from 75K to 85K.

 

[Swamy_HT]

Use this for Screen size,Lumence and watching distance calculation.CarltonBale.com

 

[vinay]

If often there will be only 3 people watching a movie then you can go for the smaller room size but i would recommend a bigger room length for spacious and other factors.

I will not suggest a 150" screen for your room size but then everyone has a different view.

I know of people who suggest to watch a movie from 6 to 8 feet even if the room length is big and they also suggest that to go for the biggest screen too. While it is needless to say that the guys who suggest a 6 to 8 feet watching will mostly have a room length of 10 feet. The point which i am trying to make is that many of them will suggest on lines to what they have and so on therefore you have to read the thin line and judge what could be correct.

In view to this i think you should watch several movies on a bare screen by sizing them differently for each movie by which you will get a clearer idea to the size you are happy with.

About normal and curved screen, here too it will be better that you visit the forum member's by which you can get a clearer idea.

V.

Thanks Vinay for your inputs and wishes.

This will be exclusively for watching movies and at least a minimum of 2 in a week.

6/8 recliner seating arrangement may not be required as mostly movies are watched by me and my daughter and rarely my wife will join us, so far now 3/4 1 row seating arrangement should be fine.

My immediate priority would be to get a decent budget screen and please suggest whether 150" will be a overkill for the room with 13 feet width? and whether the curved screens are worth the extra money?

 

[Swamy_HT]

IMO, If you prefer clean looking image (image artifacts due to Image compression technologies in TV HD broadcast and BluRay MPEG compression)
go for smaller screen size, Immersion on movies is your goal with minor visible artifacts, then go far bigger screen size. [This is something similar to watching TV from longer distance and shorter distance, But getting too close to TV is not possible for immersion, That is why projector comes to play]

Projecting on wall with various size will not give you the correct long term result.
This is some thing,initially if you buy a big TV, we will think we bought BIG, but after 1 or 2 months, we will feel it is small.

Please think why we are going from 21' to 42' to 50' to 135'....? The reality is we will never get the equivalent immersion of natural world what we are seeing through our eyes. The best immersion i have got so far from movie screen is on IMAX screen. I think i am confusing you too much. Final words, Clear image for Pictures/Photos. Immersion is for movies. And of course its personnel preference.

 

[narenkum]

Thanks Vinay and Swamy.

To be honest at the moment slightly confused on the deciding the screen size.Will try different combination on the wall and then come up with a final size.

I would like to inform 2 other points:

1.The installation fellows from the vendor came up and did ceiling mount of the Projector at approximately 13 feet from the front. I assume they were relatively new to this as they initially said will leave 3 ft behind and fix it at 12 feet but I insisted this to be done at the maximum distance from the front.

Now with this 13ft and maximum Zoom I tend to get only around 120- 125" image. As per projector central for getting a 150" image you need to have the projector lens 15 ft from the front wall.

Can I remount this as shown below and use the lens shift?

[/URL]Uploaded with ImageShack.com[/IMG]

2.Also there is a loft in this room at approximately 7 ft height, so either I need to limit the space for the front wall to 10.5 feet, or Project the image below this 7ft which will be too low.

 

[Santy]

My two cents:
Ditch the terrace plan and invest that money for good gear in your guest room. Go for pre pro + power (may be Marantz) instead of AVR and some better speakers and sub. 120" is ideal for this room size. Anything bigger may not be comfortable to your eyes/ neck.

The diagram is quite confusing since 13' is shown longer than 15'
Also I dont think you use keystone to this degree. I would advise not to use keystone and plan the placement accordingly. You can also break the loft to make way for the scree.

 

[Premblr]

Naren, if you have kids growing up, go for the terrace plan. You cannot get 100% sound isolation if you use one of your existing rooms, there will be leakage.

I am equally passionate about my music too. I wanted to go separate as my musical taste is different from the rest of the folks at home. I am more of a metal / hard rock fan and the kids are too young to know what is going on. So the terrace plan works well for me.

 

[Santy]

An expensive, dedicated, built from scratch, 24 x 15 ft theatre powered by entry level AVR and Polk TSi and PSW110 sub. :clapping:hyeah::clapping: Go ahead.

 

[narenkum]

My two cents:
Ditch the terrace plan and invest that money for good gear in your guest room. Go for pre pro + power (may be Marantz) instead of AVR and some better speakers and sub. 120" is ideal for this room size. Anything bigger may not be comfortable to your eyes/ neck.

The diagram is quite confusing since 13' is shown longer than 15'
Also I dont think you use keystone to this degree. I would advise not to use keystone and plan the placement accordingly. You can also break the loft to make way for the scree.

Thanks Santy,

Even I am thinking in terms of using the Guest room only.
I am sorry forgot to mention that the drawing was not to scale but a rough one. I am trying to use the horizontal lens shift feature of the Epson Tw8100 but not sure whether I could achieve the desired results?

 

[narenkum]

Naren, if you have kids growing up, go for the terrace plan. You cannot get 100% sound isolation if you use one of your existing rooms, there will be leakage.
x
I am equally passionate about my music too. I wanted to go separate as my musical taste is different from the rest of the folks at home. I am more of a metal / hard rock fan and the kids are too young to know what is going on. So the terrace plan works well for me.

Thanks Prem,

We seldom use this room and have guests only once in 3 to 4 months and we always have another comparatively smaller room 13 X 10 for the guests.

So for now most likely be using this room as the budget for constructing the room comes close to 5 lakhs (24 *15 * 1500 = 540000). How much did it cost you for constructing your 17 X 10 room?

Probably can use this money to buy additional components as suggested by Santy and also can accomdate a 135" curved screen which comes close to 65K.

 

[west10100]

Hi
go for terrace plan if you dont want kids meddling with Av equipment/ Otherwise your guest room should be very good for 120 inch screen and good hif equipment.
BTW, my HT is in the terrace

 

[Premblr]

Yes Naren, your calculation is correct. It will cost you around 5 Lac at 1500 which is the running cost. Then they demand a little more because of the higher floor. If you want the bells and whistles like wooden floor and all it will cost even more. After this you have to grease the corporation, water authority etc. etc.

Right now, I don't have a fourth bedroom to entertain some additional guests, so for me dual purpose is solved with the extra room.

Regarding the speaker choice, don't go for tsi series now as they are out dated and their newer version, the tsx series is already in market. Nothing wrong with tsi series either, there are enough number of serious customer reviews for these speakers and most of the owners speak highly about them. You may have to go for a higher powered amp and sub as your dimensions are bigger. You can do a google.

 

[narenkum]

Hi
go for terrace plan if you dont want kids meddling with Av equipment/ Otherwise your guest room should be very good for 120 inch screen and good hif equipment.
BTW, my HT is in the terrace

Thanks West10100,

From your signature I see you have a Elite 120inch Fixed frame, can you please share the details like cost and where did you purchase this one and how easy is to maintain this fixed frame?

 

[west10100]

ER120WH1 bought through Global easybuy EBAY. cost me less than 30k. Current price is 32.6 k today. You can install with help of one more person. It takes around 1-2 hours and is tiring but not difficult if you go by the manual.
Easy to mount on wall comes with hangers, but needs drilling.
Play quality Excellent... Its few months old, can be cleaned with soft wet cloth.
Regards

 

[Swamy_HT]

Suggesstion, Drill the bathroom wall above 7 feet and construct a box loft with the 2 walls of bathroom support. (5' depth) Now you will have more space for fitting projector with enough space around for ventillation. (Attached the diagram)

I have done the similar way by (But filled entired height) penetrate to my Kitchen.

Note: Lens shif will work better horizontally, if you place the projector on the line of mid height of the screen, And work better vertically, if you place the projector on mid of the screen with line. In your proposed diagram, horizontal shift will not work for roof fitting.