Home Cinema

Page 5 of 8

Installing

Drill drill drill !!

Roland was waiting for me when I got home from work, and so at half six, we started installing the screen and projector.
I had part-exed my electric 8 foot from Owl for an electric 8 foot from Screens UK. The new screen has borders and is thicker material and therefore less likely to ripple. Drilling the holes for the screen and projector were a complete nightmare because the ceiling concrete is reinforced with metal girders, which were near impossible to drill through.

Projector
Roland insisted that I hang from the projector mounting before we bolt the projector to it. I weigh more than the projector and it took my weight no problem. The surprising good news is that there is a good foot between the back of the projector and the wall, leaving enough room to locate curtains right across the back wall.

Vents
Notice the circular vents placed in the plasterboard. These are to allow air to circulate behind the boards to reduce dampness.

Projector 2
Since we're going to be doing more drilling etc., I covered the projector with a couple of dustbin bags to protect it from dust. Roland is coming back on September 5th to set up the projector properly since it was gone 10pm before we finally got the unit in place.

19th August 2000 - Last of the painting

With much help from Paul and his girlfriend Yvonne, the painting was finished.
I decided on the same dark blue we used on the ceiling for the skirtingboard.

Pat (plasterer chap) put me in touch with a curtain expert friend of his who came over September 4th to quote me for installing the necessary curtains. He's coming back to do the job on 11th.

5th August 2000 - Converging
That nice man from Barco, Roland came back to finish setting up my projector. He took the whole evening to set it up just right.

5th August 2000 - Converging

After Roland had finished converging the projector and tweaking the brightness output of the graphics card, I took a couple of snaps of the image the Barco was projecting. I forced the flash off, but everything else was set on automatic. These images, which have not been altered in any way, are the results.
Remember that these images are 8 feet wide - nearly the entire width of the room.

11th September 2000 - Curtains

I didn't want to put the weight of the curtains on the walls, so it was decided that I should have batons screwed to the ceiling and attach the curtain rails to the sides. I paid a curtain installer to supply and paint the batons (in the same blue as the ceiling), supply the curtain rails and put the curtains up. In all there are 5 pairs of curtains used. 2 pairs for the left-hand wall, one pair for the back and one pair for the right-hand wall. All these curtains have chords attached between the curtain rail and the skirtingboard which, when pulled, opens and closes them.
As for the fifth pair of curtains, one curtain drapes over the door and one curtain over the rear-right-hand corner to hide the electricity pipes.
I also bought a valance which the curtain bloke put infront of the electric screen.
In the photo (middle right) you can see the curtain edge next to the screen has been angled round so that it forms an effective border. Also you can see the screen switch.
For the picture below-right, I overlaid a screen grab from Dune onto the screen.

16th September 2000 - Tweaking the curtains

A couple of problems with the curtains needed to be sorted, so I got the experts in.
The left-hand light fitting was just a tad too close to the wall and one curtain snagged on one of the lights when opening the curtains. So I got Dad to come and move the fitting about an inch away from the wall. It was difficult, but did the trick.

Also the valance was too long, so Mum put her sewing skills to use and shortened it so that, while it still hides the screen, it doesn't extend beyond the screen's top black border.
The total cost of purchasing and installing the curtains was £300. This was more than I had planned to spend, but the overall effect is excellent. Particularly the valance, which helps to frame the screen perfectly.
When closed, as planned, the acoustics of the room have improved. There is still a little echo in the room, but I attribute that to the sound waves bouncing between the ceiling and concrete floor. When the carpet is down, hopefully this will be resolved.

22nd September 2000 - Underlay and carpet

Friday evening, Vicki's (other) brother Gary came over to fit the carpet and underlay. No problems with the underlay and the carpet just about fits. Having been left in a garden for a couple of rainy days and then in my garage for several weeks, it's filthy. I have a carpet shampooer and the picture right is after a quick initial clean with some washing up liquid. We were surprised by the photo because the carpet actually looks fine. Only under the bright light of the camera flash does the dirt really show up. We'll have to get some proper carpet shampoo and have another go.
The manhole, by the way, is there to keep an eye on the water table so we can pump out the water if it rises significantly. Gary had the idea to put some kind of sensor down the hole to let us know if the level rises to a dangerous level. Dad, as usual, came up with the goods and built a water sensor which lights up a small LED brighter as the water level rises. It's much more convenient than having to frequently lift the carpet up and check the water level.
Unfortunately the paint on the skirtingboard is very easily scratched off, and I'll have to repaint areas scuffed by the rough underside of the carpet.

October 2000 - New Carpet

After failing to adequately clean the carpet, I decided to buy a new one. I would have preferred a patterned one, but this one matches the curtains perfectly.
Here you can see the speaker cable laid round the sides of the room to feed all four rear speakers.

I used the weekend to put the sound system in. First I assembled the Apollo stand and wired up the Yamaha DSP-A1 and Pioneer 2950.
The 5 Ruark Dialogue Ones came out of their boxes and were simply too heavy to fit on the stands Ruark sent me. I temporarily put the speakers on their ends on the floor. It actually sounds ok and I'm considering leaving them there.
Moving the REL Studio II downstairs was a major task. I used my Dad's trolly jack and pushed the sub out of the front of the house, round the back of the house, through the back garden and kitchen and into the front left corner of the Picture House. Unfortunately it's about 4 centimetres too wide and the screen catches it on the way down. I'll have to try it at the back behind the chairs. Mean time I also installed my computer and took down a couple of shelving units holding all my DVDs.

The sound is, as expected, pretty good. The speakers sound a little shrill, but I'll put that down to them not being run in. Generally the sound is weighty and clear. The acoustics in the room are great. It's completely dead.

I tried to set the projector up at 960x720 @ 96Hz but I think it's more than the projector can cope with. I started to set up 960x720 @ 72, but didn't get finished in time. So I went with 800x600 @ 72 for the evening.
I tested the system with Bowfinger. We'd never seen the movie before and true to form, Vicki and Elise slept through it. Though Power DVD played the movie without any problems, the overall picture is still less than smooth. Like the 3:2 pulldown isn't quite working. I'll have to look into it.

22nd October 2000 - Sound !

I still have to complete the setting up of the video and audio, but it's a good start.

Following the latest in home cinema PC tweaks in the AV Science forum, I read with interest a hardware mod being tried on the MPACT DiVA cards which removes some filtering which reduces external radiation. It acutally sharpens up the picture quite a lot. So considering the problems I was having with the Software DVD players, I sent my old MPACT card off to Mark Grant - a chap located in Yorkshire who upgrades the cards for a modest fee.

The MPACT works fine. Playback is trouble free.

12th November 2000 - Trial run !

A couple of trial runs to test the system were successful. Here is the front of my home cinema, with a close up on my DVD collection.

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