Been a while.

It was before Christmas that I left my last post. I guess I should do an update.

The room is progressing nicely with the last couple of weeks seeing quite a bit of work. On December 30 I constructed my riser. The riser turned out very well. It is about 8 inches high and stuffed full of fiberglass insulation. I tried an experiment on it, I cut 2 1/2" holes in the front between some of the joists. Inside I cut same size holes into the joists themselves. This allows bass to travel into the riser and the effect seems to work well. You feel the bass in the floor yet it never sounds hollow or strange. Moving stuff around on the floor reveals it to be dead sounding. It almost sounds solid and never sounds hollow. I think it will work.

I also ran a piece of 2" conduit through it to run wires through. As we like computer gaming we need to hook up peripherals. I can run USB through it to a hub where most of the controllers can plug in.

On New Years Eve I had some friends over and they brought their Nintendo Wii. I was totally blown away by this machine. I have always not been a fan of consoles but the Wii is fantastic. I may have to get one.

First Piques

I picked up my projector and painted the front wall white. I couldn't wait to try out the projector so I plopped it on a table and fired it up. The pictures you see were all shot at the very same exposure. The image size on the wall was about 120 inches. That is larger than my target size of 106. The picture source is just a regular progressive scan DVD player connected via component cable. The pictures are very close to what you actually see on the screen (and by screen I mean wall).



The projector I selected is the Hitachi HDPJ52 and I am very impressed so far. It is full of useful features and seems to have excellent video processing. I did have my cable box hooked up and found that even SDTV (Standard Definition TV) looks great. In fact, it looked like the best 110" CRT SD rear projection TV I've seen.




Not all the movies I watch were made in the last few years so how it performs on 4:3 movies and particularly B&W is important. The shot here from Paths of Glory looks great. Great film by the way. I collect War movies and have three by Kubrick. This one, Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket. Paths of Glory my favourite of the three.

Primed and Ready

Well, the mudding and taping turned out pretty well for a rookie. It is a messy endevour and I'm glad that this part is over.




Here is what it looked like before priming.




I've used a tinted primer because I will be painting dark colours. Unless I change my mind the side walls will be black and the back wall will be red. A dark deep red or a brighter red is still the question.



The front wall is primed in white because I will be painting it white. I can then use it as a projection surface for a while. This will give me a chance to determine the actual size I want and it's location top to bottom.

Projecting on a white wall works fairly well but a screen is always better. Screens come in a variety of finishes for different applications. If I like the image I get on a white wall I will likely get a white screen. Because I can completely darken the room a white screen should work very well. Rooms that have some ambient light often benefit from a gray screen which will reflect less ambient light improving your blacks. If you are looking at screens ask advice from the pros and visit the manufacturers web sites, virtually all of them have tips on screen selection.

Equipment Rack

Here is the basic equipment rack. It will be stained a dark colour and it takes 20" deep shelves. Some nice wood trim around the front and it will look great. I'll use some shelf brackets so it will all be adjustable. The top is open for ventilation and there is good clearance on the sides.

If you have gone out and purchased very good equipment don't lock it all into a snug fitting cabinet with doors. Heat kills electronics (eventually). A power amp is guaranteed to get hot especially when the volume is up. I know that my cable PVR gets real hot. Most equipment manuals will mention ventilation , take it seriously.



This is the back of the rack as it protrudes into the wiring room. I can stand behind it and get clear easy access to the back. Wiring and changing equipment here will be a snap.

The thing ended up being more solid than I expected. I thought I would need some extra support bracing but because the plywood actually attaches to the wall and then the rack it would break the wall if it was pulled down. I thought I would want about 500lbs of support but suspect that I have over a 1000. It will hold some heavy equipment no problem. My son quite wisely suggested a black curtain on the back to block seeing through the rack from the theatre room.




At the wire drop I attached this piece of plywood. This gives me a great surface to screw things down to tidy up and organize the wiring. Drywall doesn't work very well here.

Now I have to mud the walls and get materials to build the riser and the floor.

It's a room now.

View of the back of the room. I couldn't have done it without that chair. (All hail the chair.)


Well it doesn't have door yet but there is an opening where a door will be. The room even in its cold hard state actually sounds quite decent considering I'm using a cheap amp and some crappy old speakers. Room acoustics can have a huge impact on sound. The sound is quite lively as a hand clap still echoes a bit but with some furniture and carpet it will warm up. I probably won't need any sound treatments.

Gyproc is messy stuff to work with as it leaves dust everywhere and I haven't even mudded and sanded yet but it is very stable and doesn't resonate much. Some home theaters have two layers of gyproc to help isolate the room. I haven't gone to that type of extreme.

Now I just need to mud and sand the walls. Design and build the equipment rack put in flooring and a ceiling.

Oh, yeah, install the equipment. I'm ordering a projector very soon.





View to the front from the equipment rack cut out. I like to watch TV and listen to tunes while I work. Hence the old style TV.

Hey, We've got walls

Some progress pictures. Wall insulated and then covered. I find if I just go slow and steady it progresses nicely. Maybe I'll have four walls before the weekend is up.

It Pays to Shop Around

As I mentioned earlier the electrical inspector asked for a few more outlets and a proper ground wire. While I was shopping for the ground wire I found huge differences in pricing. Bear in mind that #6 ground wire is just a thick stranded bare copper wire. One retailer a famous Canadian outlet that specialises in tires had it (an empty spool) at $6.99 a metre ($2.13/ft). Another store, almost next door, had it for $4.79 a metre ($1.46/ft). A big hardware store had it at $1.45/ft (Canada is stuck in this unfortunate semi metric converted state. I wish we would finish the job as I prefer the metric system but that is a rant for another time.) Finally I walk into another local hardware / lumber yard and bought my wire for $0.65/ft (that's $2.13 /m). So one store wanted the same per foot as another wanted per metre. That is a huge difference and when you want 16 metres it is a big difference.

Started putting up some drywall. Made a little mess here and there which is why I started on a wall that is in my utility area. The sheets in the theater room are looking real nice. It should actually become a room rather than a skeleton pretty soon.

I'll have some pics later.