Home Theatre ceiling height

I'm finalising my house design and have got an architect to help me polish it up. He is suggesting a small raised roof section above some section of the house with windows in it. The end result is that some rooms, including the theatre room will have 3.7 m high ceilings.

The theatre room is 6 m x 4 m with a 200 mm raised floor platform at the back that extends out 1.5 m.

I was wondering how the 3.7 m ceiling height would affect the Theatre room:

1) Can you get automatic projection screens that come down from such a height (and don’t cost much more!)?
2) What will be the effect on the acoustics? That is, do high ceilings improve or ruin the acoustics?
3) Any other effects that I haven’t thought about?

Hi Casa.

For the motorised screen you (well we do, and have in the past...) order it to be made with Extra Top Black Leader, however, the more of this you need to add the more the screen could lose it's 'lay flat' properties, and it will be more susceptible to (at the bottom) swinging due to slight air currents in the room (if I walk closely past my screen when it's rolled down I can induce a small swing back and forth in it with the air that I disturb)

I'm honestly not even sure Screen Technics will/can agree to make a screen with the amount of black leader you would need (perhaps 1.2m !!) if you were going to mount the screen canister to your ceiling (or above the ceiling!). All of the extra material might be too much to squeeze inside the canister...

What about creating some sort of bulkhead at about normal ceiling height in the theatre? (you can put downlights in it for effect, you can completely hide the screen in it).

As far as sound goes, the higher ceiling can only have a negative effect - any relection/echo will be more likely to show up (as the delay for the reflection reaching you will be more)... It will be more important to try to absorb/reduce those reflections.

Rod,

Thanks for the reply.

1) The reduction in the 'lay flat' properties is a concern.
2) Not too worried about the swinging since the image would remain fixed. Have i got this right?
3) The ability to get the extra 1.2 m, or so, black leader into the canister is a problem. I think I'll contact Screen Technics to see what they say.
4) The bulkhead idea is something to think about, but may look odd since looking along the screen wall I would have, from bottom to top:
a) 0.9 m of wall
b) 1.5 m of window
c) 0.3 m of wall
d) 0.6 of bulkhead protruding, say ,0.3 m
e) 0.6 m of window
d) the ceiling.

I'm sure it can be made to look good, but more things to think about!!!!

5) The delayed reflections from the high ceiling have me concerned.

The extra roof height is mainly to make the outside look good and provide some sun shielding on an otherwise flat roof. I could, as a last resort, still put in a ceiling at 2.7 m height. This would result in about a 1 m space between the "roof ceiling" and the "room ceiling". Imagine how much equipmen I could store in there!!

I'm going to have to do some more thinking. And my brain already hurts.

Cheers,
Casa

Cool man.

Re the swinging, that's pretty much correct - it would have to pick up a fair swing before you'd actually notice it from where you're watching the picture from (free hanging screens probably get tiny swings in them all the time (ie less than a couple of mm), too small to be noticed from the viewing position).

The idea of the lower ceiling in the theatre has real merrit. You could therefore very easily hide your screen up in there (if you decided to do this then be aware that the trusses would have to run the same direction as the screen/screen box) - there'd be plenty of room to work up there.

You could also install a motorised projector lift to hide the projector itself (like mine ):


Also, you could do something creative with the ceiling itself, like perhaps creating a recessed feature section like this (not necessarily with the same colour scheme):

Howdy Rod

We are playing around with our HT/Sitting room which is 3260 x 4380. We intend to have 2700 ceilings throughout but following from some research the celing height is best to be between 2400 (standard) to 25550.

I noted your comment re a creative ceiling which is what I am pondering with a drop ceiling and a shadowline around the edges for some discrete lighting perhaps. Am wanting to see what other great ideas are out there......

Went to click in the URL where you show a recessed feature but is a bad link...

If you have any suggestions where I could research ideas on what I can ponder with the ceiling be much appreciated.

Shane

I would pm rodda, I havn't seen him much online these days best way for him to answer you questions