Home theaters are great for relaxing, entertaining, and bringing the whole family together.
Home Theater or Media Room?
Quality in Every Detail
Quality in Every Detail
The first step is to plan your space. Will you have a dedicated home theater room or will your system be in a great room often referred to as a “multi-purpose” media room?
Either way will be fantastic. A dedicated home theater is designed specifically for entertainment: enjoying movies, sports, TV, and video gaming in a truly immerse environment. Bonus rooms, great rooms, attics or spare rooms are great as dedicated home theater spaces.
A media room serves for more than entertaining. A family room or bonus room usually doubles as a media room as well.
Screen Size and Viewing Distance
The next steps are deciding both the location and size for your video display. Both the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and THX Ltd. (a developer of quality standards founded by Lucasfilm) have recommendations on this subject. This step is very important to get right, and is probably the most difficult to fix if you get it wrong.
Home Theater Magic
In many cases, spending a few extra dollars on a great remote control, lighting control, or a popcorn machine can add wow to your creation. With hundreds of installs under our belt, we can make suggestions and offer advice about how to create your own personal magic. Other areas to consider are expert audio and video calibration; electrical and power needs; ventilation and HVAC planning; and integrated video gaming.
Choosing the Right Equipment
This is the fun part for most people. Significant improvements in video technology can give you a great picture for a fraction of what it cost only 5 years ago. This allows more room in your budget for great sound. Unlike video, audio pricing has held very steady in its cost to performance ratio. Recent improvements in home theater speakers will make your surround sound experience even more fun. Matching all your equipment up is where Sierra Integrated Systems’ experts and our experience will be a big help.
Acoustics and Soundproofing
It’s important to have a great picture, but a movie without good sound is a terrible experience. You must be able to clearly understand dialogue. Great sound immerses you in a film’s sound effects. All things being equal, acoustic treatments (these can often be done with normal room furnishings) have a larger impact on the sound than almost any other component. Another thing to consider is soundproofing. Will late night viewing disturb others? Should you do something about it?
When your installation is complete, we will instruct you in the best ways to get the most fun from your new installation. You can rest easy knowing if you have a system emergency we offer on-call technicians and an in-house service department.
