Creating a Media Room,
Part 1 -- Video
Listening to music in the home goes back to Edison's
phonograph in 1877, and stereo music systems have been with us for more than forty years.
It's only fairly recently, however, that "movies on TV" have become "home
theater."
But getting into home theater places considerable demands
on the entertainment rooms of most houses, as a lot of gear has to be accommodated.
Increasingly, homeowners are choosing to have at least the bigger bits built into their
new houses rather than grafting them on afterwards. That's often the least expensive way
to arrive at a media room, but it's only possible if you are in fact building a new home.
For most of us, providing an entertainment center means
matching equipment to an existing living area. That's rarely straightforward: there are a
lot of choices and decisions to be made before a system that suits a particular family can
be put together.
In one case a simple rearrangement of the room may be all
that's necessary; in another, everything will have to be replaced or relocated in order to
achieve satisfactory results.
Throughout, it's important to keep in mind the uses the
space will be put to when you're not watching movies. Technically, the ideal setup for
video may be all wrong for conventional music listening, and so a compromise between the
two must be sought. And few of us can devote space to such applications exclusively; the
room will have other uses, and these might not be compatible with the equipment you want,
either for practical or aesthetic reasons. Huge speakers in the middle of the room and a
totally dominant large-screen TV may not be suitable when you use the room for your kid's
birthday party or the weekly bridge night. And other members of your family may simply
dislike being surrounded by tons of obvious audio and video equipment. It's worth
remembering that one element of any system is the people who are going to use it and live
with it.
In most people's minds, the primary feature of a home
theater installation is a large video screen, but plenty of excellent systems use screens
not much larger than the ones we grew up with. Whatever sort of display unit you choose,
there are ways to optimize the viewing experience.
One is to provide an environment that approximates a movie
theater in terms of darkness; most of us watch TV in rooms that are fairly bright, either
because of windows letting in a lot of sunlight or because of high artificial
illumination. That's understandable from a practical point of view, but it isn't always
appropriate for video viewing. Both the overall "theatrical" effect and
resolution are better served by running the picture darker than we're used to, but this
requires a room in which light can be largely eliminated.
For many, that means a basement location; alternatively,
heavy curtains can be used to block ambient light. For the electric lights you do use,
it's important to locate them so they don't reflect off the screen disrupting the image,
or cast light obliquely on it to soften the blacks. Dimmers are an excellent way to
provide low light for viewing and more illumination for other purposes.
Positioning of the screen is important as well. Theatrical
standards specify that, in a regular theater, the screen should fill a horizontal angle of
at least 30 degrees at the most distant seat. In home theater terms, that means that if
you have a 40-inch monitor, the most distant viewing position should be about five feet
(or, for a 29-inch monitor, less than four feet). That's rarely practical, both because
most of us would feel uncomfortable sitting that close and because it's virtually
impossible for more than one viewer to be at that distance and not be watching from too
great an angle.
Also, it's easy to see the individual scanning lines at
that distance, and that can be distracting. Some compromise is thus usually necessary, and
this largely depends on the room and the set itself -- some offer better off-axis images
and less-obvious scan lines than others.
One factor to remember is that, although large screens may
offer a more satisfying visual experience, they are much harder to accommodate in many
rooms. Bear in mind that screen, audio speakers, and viewing seats have to be carefully
located to complement each other, and that can be made very difficult if, say, the ideal
location for one of the speakers is in front of a doorway, or the video monitor should
really be placed blocking a window.
Ideally, a longish bit of clear wall space is best, which
can accommodate the monitor in the center and the main speakers spaced a few feet away on
either side. Alternatively, many rooms lend themselves to having the TV in a corner and
the speakers placed a short way down the walls flanking the screen. Whatever is the best
arrangement for you may end up being a matter of trial and error . . . which can be hard
if you are actually building things into your walls.
As for picture quality, there is a definite limit to what
the old-style North American television system can do, but until recently, TV sets had a
tough time getting the best even from that. Now virtually all NTSC monitor receivers
display the 300 or so lines of resolution the broadcast system is capable of with ease,
and most of the better ones have no difficulty with the 500+ lines of a DVD. Ultimately,
the most ambitious home-theater systems will incorporate true high-definition sets, and a
selection of these is available now, if you don't want to contemplate upgrading later.
Whether or not this is worth the premium price of an HDTV monitor at this stage is another
question.
...Ian G. Masters
ian@mastersonaudio.com
For video installation considerations, see "Creating a Media Room, Part 2 -- Audio" also posted
January 1, 2001.
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