Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Room Layout Ideas Wanted

Good point about the OSD. My previous receiver (Pioneer Elite) had it, but since I will need to buy a new receiver with this theater I will be sure to check that.

Good idea on the shelves. Maybe they could serve as some level of diffusion panel. I will just alternate between blu-ray/hd-dvd and regular DVDs to create different thicknesses, etc. (just kidding by the way). That might be a viable solution to put some narrow shelving in for movie storage that is in the room instead of in the wall, and a small equipment rack up front with tinted glass.

I also am going to take the current duct in the room and add flex-duct to the end of it and snake it around in a soffet. Someone told me that at two 90 degree bends in the flex-duct decreases the sound transmitted through the duct by 60% or something. I figure that I can make that happen. Good thing about being in a basement is that the temps are fairly consistent year-round. Probably a 10-15 F degree variance from the hottest to coldest day, so that helps.

Randy, I was planning on some level of IR repeater if the equipment ended up in the back of the theater, but I guess that it could be relocated elsewhere, I guess. I think that there is great value in having it in the room, but maybe.....

are you going to have easy access behind the transparent wall, maybe you could have all your equipment back there, not sure.. anyway, I'm sure it will be the best v.buol theater yet.

What an awesome project, Nick. I am very envious of your opportunity to build (4.0?) from the ground up.

The movie storage is a tough nut. Having just spent some time with Ray and hearing him wax rhapsodic about his 9 terrabytes of storage, I again wonder about the relevance of physical media. But - if you have a big movie collection and enjoy the ritual of browsing and selecting disks - good for you. Storage of physical media does "cost" both in terms of the shelves you'll have to buy as well as the cubic feet of your home that you have to devote on an ongoing basis. On a "new, ultimate home theater build", I'm not sure I could justify a bunch of space, but my viewing habits are undoubtedly different from yours. Plus, I've never really liked the aesthetic of DVD spines.

Yeah, I'm not "helping", I know.



That's NOT a lot of equipment. You barely need a "rack". That being said, you might want a PC in there or some amps or something, someday. I really like the idea of putting the equipment in the wall in the upper right corner of your diagram (the right-rear of the room). Build a little closet type of enclosure that is open (or glass-door) to the theater room, but with heavily damped access to the back of the "rack" from the family room. Personally, I'd sacrifice a little soundproofing to ensure ongoing access to the back of the equipment closet. You could also put network stuff and oddball tech storage in there.

Put an IR repeater at the front of the room or something so you're not clicking over your shoulder.

Fun! Take some pictures and post some wiring diagrams and stuff.

I like the sewell poduct, no wireless involved, all through extra channel on HDMI cable and compatible will all remotes.

I have enough physical discs to be quite the undertaking to get media bits (zeros/ones) transferred from disc to disk (BD to HDD). I would keep the players for versatility and those quick needs (last minute Red Box rental), but would need to spend money and time on setting up a HTPC. Oddly enough, I was planning on some sort of expansion options for a cheap laptop to be connected with a wireless keyboard/mouse for some things, but heck, my Sony blu-ray player in our living room has so much internet connected options, I am not sure that I would actually use a basic laptop.

I would need to make the decision soon if I am going to need physical disc media storage and put shelves in somewhere, or make space for a HTPC and be forced to build one some time in the near term with a bunch of storage. Obviously I would only transfer over the movies that I really wanted to have "on-line".

Hmmm... I bounced that idea off of someone at work, and he said that he just started using his XBox Kinect for some movie viewing options, but the XBox is going to be in the family room in the basement, not the home theater. I guess if I had the movies stored on another machine in the house that had the space, I would just need to stream it (via a physical CAT5 connection) to something that can play it back in its full HD video and HD audio glory, but who knows what they would take.

So, while there are $$$ associated with physical media storage, there is probably more cost in a HTPC or streaming setup, plus added complexity that *could* make things more complicated than my wife/kids would care for unless done absolutely correctly.

I'm going to need some inexpensive dvd/bd storage soon and I've been looking at this from Walmart.

Thought I'd pass it along in case someone else might like it too.

This will be a fun build. Not as fancy as a lot of the theaters out there, but I just keep moving up, so that's good.

V1.0 was an existing children's playroom in our house 2 houses ago (circa 2000) that had all sorts of dents and crayon marks on the walls. My sound treatments were using adhesive to "glue" thick felt to the walls/ceiling (which actually reduced a lot of sound echo in the room) and using a variety of Christmas light strands, intertwined with some set to "twinkle" and all of that covered by a different type of felt for a "star ceiling". The room was chock full of crappy KLH speakers all over the place. Heck, it was a 10.2 setup. Bass shakers and real movie theater seats (8 of them) plus a couch up front. The screen was a massive 47" rear projection TV elevated off of the floor. I was, however, the first person I knew that had DTS in their house, and DTS titles were very rare. Colors in the room : Black and gray

V2.0 was in a common area in the basement of my previous house. I finally decided to get some better equipment. Pioneer Elite receiver, a nice Sanyo front projector, a massive SVS sub, and of course, my Axioms. Pictures can be found on my web site at Click here and then click on the 2.0 link under The Incredibles screen shot. Seating was a single 4 person couch, lighting control was horrible (dimmable lighting zones, but despite solid metal window blinds, light still came in more than desired during the day. No sound treatments. Added a hd-dvd player over time. Colors in the room : Light blue, dark blue, white, and taupe.

V3.0 was at the same house, but I moved everything into a dedicated room. Click here and then click on the 3.0 link. The equipment stayed the same (added a blu-ray player, popcorn machine, and my fiber optic star ceiling). Couch changed to something more comfortable, but still crappy and only had seating for 4 on it. Room dimensions were junk, but I could make the room really dark (4 dimmable light zones, no windows, and a super thick curtain for a door. No sound treatments, but some cool looking carpet. Colors in the room : Black, gray, and dark blue.

V4.0 is in our current house that we bought the end of May this year.
It will have a new receiver, new projector, new blu-ray player, and a second sub. Some level of sound proofing (DD+GG, insulation, and staggered/double walls), bass traps and 1st reflection point absorption. 2 rows of seats (for 8 people total). Fiber optic star ceiling will return as well. the room will be dedicated (of course) and built to spec instead of what was already there or available (with exception of the ceiling height and width limitations). Colors have not been picked yet.

El Gato, I probably don't even need that much disc storage. I did a big cleanup of old DVDs a couple of years ago. Maybe have a couple hundred left. That would be about 2 times or more than what I need, but it is an idea. For the cost, it is pretty good and is one less thing to have to construct. Although, building one would give me control of wood color to match anything in the room. Nice option though. Thanks!

Yeah, Nick, I know - "change" is complicated. Especially for the OTHER users in your house.

How about some pretty shallow shelves completely covering the back wall? Or maybe just down to about the top of the backrest for the rear-row chairs (presumably with sheetrock flush below that for a built-in look)? That would be A LOT of media storage, and if you interspersed other objects / nooks / crannies in there, you'd have a built-in diffuser, too. If you had shelves like 6" deep (or something) you could subtract that depth from the utility closet for the equipment (i.e. have the equipment rack present as just another opening in the shelf array).

You could mount the QS8 rears on panels that are flush with the front of the shelving.

You'd still have the media "in the room" but they wouldn't be in your usual field of vision.

Where the hell are Bob and Mike? Need some professionals (or at least some craftsmen) on this thing!