I have a decent sized basement and I want to use part of it as a cinema
room. I'd welcome comments and feedback.

The space I plan to use is rectangular and measures 9 x 5 metres with a
ceiling height of 2.7 metres. The basement is clean and dry. I'm hoping to
achieve a decent result without spending an arm and a leg.

The walls are rendered and painted concrete. Of the 2 long sides of the
room one is essentially open with 2 arches and a central pillar (which lead
off to another space). The other long side is approximately half solid wall
and the other half is an archway. At one end of the room is a solid wall
without any openings. This is where I'm planning to position the screen. At
the remaining end of the room about 2/3rds is solid wall, with an archway
in the remainder. Obviously, at the moment the room is very hard
acoustically. Lots of echoes. There is a number of socket outlets in the
room.

I'm thinking that I need to install some heavy floor to ceiling curtains
along both long sides of the room and cover most of the floor with large
rugs. I'd need to buy the curtains and rails, but I already have a variety
of large rugs for the floor. I'm considering not having any dedicated
seating (to avoid the expense) but to simply use large cushions instead. If
that proves unsatisfactory then I could buy a couple of day-beds.

The cinema equipment would be a projector mounted either on the ceiling, or
on the end wall. The audio would be provided by a home theatre system that
I already have. I'd need to buy the projector, so I'd grateful for opinions
about projectors and things to look out for.

What do you think? What have I missed?

--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l

On 20/09/2017 16:13, Nige Danton wrote:
I have a decent sized basement and I want to use part of it as a cinema
room. I'd welcome comments and feedback.

Our next door neighbour successfully put in a planning application to
dig a basement under his house with a cinema, plus parking (with a
lift), and of course a maid's room. Have you left space in your design
for a maid's room?

The neighbour's house has been on the market for 18 months, now,
overpriced on the basis of this planning permission. Apparently, the
demand for maid's rooms is less than he thought.

In article ,
GB wrote:
On 20/09/2017 16:13, Nige Danton wrote:
I have a decent sized basement and I want to use part of it as a cinema
room. I'd welcome comments and feedback.

Our next door neighbour successfully put in a planning application to
dig a basement under his house with a cinema, plus parking (with a
lift), and of course a maid's room. Have you left space in your design
for a maid's room?

The neighbour's house has been on the market for 18 months, now,
overpriced on the basis of this planning permission. Apparently, the
demand for maid's rooms is less than he thought.

our former next door neighbour "successfully" turned a 3/4 bedroom, 1
bathroom house intoa 5 bedroom all with en suite facilities. Within a week
of the builders leaving it was on the market (for £2M)* - where it sat for
16 months! As he left he said "you're going to have terrible neighbours,
I've never dealt with anyone like them"
Actually they are the nicest neighbours we've had in our 40 years of living
in this house.

* estate agent contact said "Word on the street is tht he lost his job"

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

Lack of decent Videos to make it worthwhile? Too much trouble to go down
there and have to go back up for a few biscuits...?

Could one ask why you want a projector. I havd a friend with one and he
seems to like it but most people he has around say its a bit dim, and the
thing seems notoriously unreliable and it uses tubes that cost an arm and a
leg.
I'd have thought a large screen tv was more cost effective these days.
Brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Nige Danton" wrote in message
...
I have a decent sized basement and I want to use part of it as a cinema
room. I'd welcome comments and feedback.

The space I plan to use is rectangular and measures 9 x 5 metres with a
ceiling height of 2.7 metres. The basement is clean and dry. I'm hoping to
achieve a decent result without spending an arm and a leg.

The walls are rendered and painted concrete. Of the 2 long sides of the
room one is essentially open with 2 arches and a central pillar (which
lead
off to another space). The other long side is approximately half solid
wall
and the other half is an archway. At one end of the room is a solid wall
without any openings. This is where I'm planning to position the screen.
At
the remaining end of the room about 2/3rds is solid wall, with an archway
in the remainder. Obviously, at the moment the room is very hard
acoustically. Lots of echoes. There is a number of socket outlets in the
room.

I'm thinking that I need to install some heavy floor to ceiling curtains
along both long sides of the room and cover most of the floor with large
rugs. I'd need to buy the curtains and rails, but I already have a variety
of large rugs for the floor. I'm considering not having any dedicated
seating (to avoid the expense) but to simply use large cushions instead.
If
that proves unsatisfactory then I could buy a couple of day-beds.

The cinema equipment would be a projector mounted either on the ceiling,
or
on the end wall. The audio would be provided by a home theatre system
that
I already have. I'd need to buy the projector, so I'd grateful for
opinions
about projectors and things to look out for.

What do you think? What have I missed?

--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l

Pity it did not come with a a'maid'. NNever heard them called that before.
Brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"GB" wrote in message
news
On 20/09/2017 16:13, Nige Danton wrote:
I have a decent sized basement and I want to use part of it as a cinema
room. I'd welcome comments and feedback.

Our next door neighbour successfully put in a planning application to dig
a basement under his house with a cinema, plus parking (with a lift), and
of course a maid's room. Have you left space in your design for a maid's
room?

The neighbour's house has been on the market for 18 months, now,
overpriced on the basis of this planning permission. Apparently, the
demand for maid's rooms is less than he thought.

On 20/09/17 16:13, Nige Danton wrote:

I'm thinking that I need to install some heavy floor to ceiling curtains
along both long sides of the room and cover most of the floor with large
rugs.

Sounds fine. Probably worth a look at avsforum.com

I'd need to buy the curtains and rails, but I already have a variety
of large rugs for the floor. I'm considering not having any dedicated
seating (to avoid the expense) but to simply use large cushions instead. If
that proves unsatisfactory then I could buy a couple of day-beds.

My TV is a bit high up on my wall (above the fireplace, if there were
one) and hence seating has a good back for my back & neck. I've got the
rear surrounds exactly mounted _close_ behind and a bit above my ears,
greater than 90 degrees from the front centre. The close thing was
critical - before they were far in the rear corners and I'd miss most of
the surround effects.

The cinema equipment would be a projector mounted either on the ceiling, or
on the end wall. The audio would be provided by a home theatre system that
I already have. I'd need to buy the projector, so I'd grateful for opinions
about projectors and things to look out for.
I don't know. Is the holy grail of bright HD/4K, LED, DLP and no
mechanical color wheel affordable?

What do you think? What have I missed?

Illuminated 'do not disturb' sign on the front door,
Beer kegs, piping and taps,
Fume extraction for the popcorn machine?

--
Adrian C

On Wednesday, 20 September 2017 23:05:44 UTC+1, DerbyBorn wrote:
Lack of decent Videos to make it worthwhile? Too much trouble to go down
there and have to go back up for a few biscuits...?

That's why you need a maid and somewhere to store her, hence the maids room.

On 21/09/2017 08:05, Brian Gaff wrote:
Could one ask why you want a projector. I havd a friend with one and he
seems to like it but most people he has around say its a bit dim, and the
thing seems notoriously unreliable and it uses tubes that cost an arm and a
leg.

Depends how big you want to go and how much you are prepared to pay for
the kit. I have seen one extreme enthusiast setup with a projector and
full immersion Dolby Atmos sound system. I watched a shuttle launch on
it and it was almost like being there (after we had stopped all the
doors and windows from rattling). It also did very convincing 3D too.

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/brands/dolby-atmos.html

Their demo DVD does a heavy helicopter and all the usual set pieces for
showing off fully immersive surround sound and 3D special effects.

I'd have thought a large screen tv was more cost effective these days.
Brian

More cost effective yes, but if you want a true cinema experience with a
picture 4m across then projection in a darkened room is the way to go.

Newscasters look very intimidating at that size!

We sometimes borrow kit from the Round Table (and a bloke to go with it)
to do occasional film shows in our village hall. It can work very well.

My own flat screen TV can do 3D but it is only worthwhile if it is dark
outside otherwise peripheral vision flicker distracts too much from the
content. I tried watching Wimbledon in 3D and lasted about 15 minutes.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message , Adrian Caspersz
writes

Beer kegs, piping and taps,

shakes head

Casks, please

:-)
--
Graeme

On 21/09/2017 10:00, Adrian Caspersz wrote:
On 20/09/17 16:13, Nige Danton wrote:

What do you think? What have I missed?

Illuminated 'do not disturb' sign on the front door,
Beer kegs, piping and taps,
Fume extraction for the popcorn machine?

A WC in the corner. Or just one with a padded seat in front of the screen.

--
Max Demian

On 21/09/17 11:24, Huge wrote:
On 2017-09-21, Martin Brown wrote:

Depends how big you want to go and how much you are prepared to pay for
the kit.


To watch a great movie and enjoy the experience "all most like being
there", ye need to get into some sort of edge of dream trance state.

All the surrounding goings on around your TV set, phones ringing, SWMBO
screaming, children brawling, fire alarms screeching; are neatly
switched out by the brain focused by whatever depth of field lens "3D"
effect the cameraman has applied, and similarly for the sound field,
stereo or whatever.

It works up to a point with Soaps and even very small screen TVs where
the cast of, say, Eastenders suddenly becomes some weird subliminal
extension to your local family, and ye now have more reasons to worry to
the grave about their deadly and dreary life issues. Happily though, I
divorced the lot of them after 26 years of unmissed episode acquaintance.

However, when I was young & watching Superman in the cinema, I'd come
out of the place with a crazy kind of feeling that actually _I_ could
fly as well. Psychologists / Psychiatrists probably have a name for it.

The "superman" effect doesn't happen with my 40" TV and all the 5.1
Dolby / DTS gubbins.

I don't watch it in the dark and I don't really enjoy the shock of "all
most like being there" next to a bass belching explosion from a
fictionally deployed nuclear device tossed out of a car window by the
Terminator - so haven't invested in a Sub to amuse the neighbours.

At least until you realise that the movies are just as ****, no matter
how big and loud they are.

Films I really enjoy are either inspirational storytellings or technical
production works of art. The latter look / sound great on my AV kit,
passed on by someone who had a fussy wife that didn't like wires and the
mess of boxes.

Other films admittedly were just a waste of a quid from the charity shop
- and I hope they made more of that coin toss than I had from that DVD.
For that reason, I have a 95% rule of avoiding buying "replay" DVDs from
Poundland.

--
Adrian C

"Brian Gaff" wrote:
Could one ask why you want a projector. I havd a friend with one and he
seems to like it but most people he has around say its a bit dim, and the
thing seems notoriously unreliable and it uses tubes that cost an arm and a
leg.
I'd have thought a large screen tv was more cost effective these days.
Brian

Fair comment, and until fairly recently I think I'd agree with you. But
affordable projectors have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A
group of us used to take turns hosting a "movie night" and one the couples
had a projector that they would set up in the garden. A huge picture 10 or
12 feet across and as bright as u would want it. The projector (then) was
about USD3 thou.

--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l

DerbyBorn wrote:
Lack of decent Videos to make it worthwhile? Too much trouble to go down
there and have to go back up for a few biscuits...?

I was thinking I'd need a refrigerator near by, so supplies would be stored
there.

--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l

On Friday, 22 September 2017 11:34:01 UTC+1, Nige Danton wrote:
"Brian Gaff" wrote:

Could one ask why you want a projector. I havd a friend with one and he
seems to like it but most people he has around say its a bit dim, and the
thing seems notoriously unreliable and it uses tubes that cost an arm and a
leg.
I'd have thought a large screen tv was more cost effective these days.
Brian

Fair comment, and until fairly recently I think I'd agree with you. But
affordable projectors have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A
group of us used to take turns hosting a "movie night" and one the couples
had a projector that they would set up in the garden. A huge picture 10 or
12 feet across and as bright as u would want it. The projector (then) was
about USD3 thou.

And the bulbs?

On 22/09/2017 12:53, wrote:
On Friday, 22 September 2017 11:34:01 UTC+1, Nige Danton wrote:
"Brian Gaff" wrote:

Could one ask why you want a projector. I havd a friend with one and he
seems to like it but most people he has around say its a bit dim, and the
thing seems notoriously unreliable and it uses tubes that cost an arm and a
leg.
I'd have thought a large screen tv was more cost effective these days.
Brian

Fair comment, and until fairly recently I think I'd agree with you. But
affordable projectors have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A
group of us used to take turns hosting a "movie night" and one the couples
had a projector that they would set up in the garden. A huge picture 10 or
12 feet across and as bright as u would want it. The projector (then) was
about USD3 thou.

And the bulbs?

A fair proportion of the purchase price of a new projector by the time
you need to replace one in a projector that only gets occasional use.
Its a tricky calculation to decide whether to get a new projector with
extra feature/more resolution or a new bulb for the old one.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 10:33:59 -0000 (UTC)
Nige Danton wrote:

DerbyBorn wrote:
Lack of decent Videos to make it worthwhile? Too much trouble to go
down there and have to go back up for a few biscuits...?

I was thinking I'd need a refrigerator near by, so supplies would be
stored there.

Popcorn machine.

wrote:

Fair comment, and until fairly recently I think I'd agree with you. But
affordable projectors have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A
group of us used to take turns hosting a "movie night" and one the couples
had a projector that they would set up in the garden. A huge picture 10 or
12 feet across and as bright as u would want it. The projector (then) was
about USD3 thou.

And the bulbs?

Not sure, but from memory ~ USD150 with ~ 3,000 hour life.

--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l

Martin Brown wrote:

A fair proportion of the purchase price of a new projector by the time
you need to replace one in a projector that only gets occasional use. Its
a tricky calculation to decide whether to get a new projector with extra
feature/more resolution or a new bulb for the old one.

Maybe, but don't think that's applicable to me. I tend to use kit until it
no longer works rather than changing for the latest model. E.g. I'm writing
this on an original iPad.

--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l

On Friday, 22 September 2017 13:30:38 UTC+1, Martin Brown wrote:
On 22/09/2017 12:53, tabbypurr wrote:
On Friday, 22 September 2017 11:34:01 UTC+1, Nige Danton wrote:
"Brian Gaff" wrote:

Could one ask why you want a projector. I havd a friend with one and he
seems to like it but most people he has around say its a bit dim, and the
thing seems notoriously unreliable and it uses tubes that cost an arm and a
leg.
I'd have thought a large screen tv was more cost effective these days.
Brian

Fair comment, and until fairly recently I think I'd agree with you. But
affordable projectors have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A
group of us used to take turns hosting a "movie night" and one the couples
had a projector that they would set up in the garden. A huge picture 10 or
12 feet across and as bright as u would want it. The projector (then) was
about USD3 thou.

And the bulbs?

A fair proportion of the purchase price of a new projector by the time
you need to replace one in a projector that only gets occasional use.
Its a tricky calculation to decide whether to get a new projector with
extra feature/more resolution or a new bulb for the old one.

exactly, they're stupidly expensive and not long lived.


NT

On 23 Sep 2017 09:54:11 GMT
Huge wrote:

On 2017-09-22, Rob Morley wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 10:33:59 -0000 (UTC)
Nige Danton wrote:

[...]
[...]
[...]
Popcorn machine.

Why? Popcorn is disgusting.


Even with Marmite?

Home cinema - the Chav updated equivilant to a bar in the lounge.

In message 2,
DerbyBorn writes

Home cinema - the Chav updated equivilant to a bar in the lounge.

quietly smiles

--
Graeme