Browse Forums Home Theatre & Automation 1 Mar 26, 2009 9:54 am My husband and I are not in agreeance on this one, so I am seeking opinions as to which way to go. We have 2 options The first is an open plan kitchen/dining/family openplan room which is rectuangular 4580x9930. The family area before the sliding door would be about 3660, with the dining behind this and then the kitchen. The other option is a room at the front of the house which wis 4050Lx3630W. This room can be closed off. His thinks the family room is best as is that we would spend most of our time in the open plan room so this is where it makes the most sense to have the best tv and sound, and is concerned if we seperate it, it wont be used. I think that the front room is best as there is slightly greater distance between the sofa and the tv, and that I can make it cosier for tv viewing, with less light, carpet, darker colours etc, and the doors can be closed off. Also, I dont like the idea of seeing the subwooofer and speakers etc in the openplan family room. My only concern with the front room, is that it may be too small, and that we also wanted to try and fit the study desk in there too. What is everyone's thoughts?? Re: Which room to use as a HT? 2Mar 26, 2009 10:08 am 4m x 3.6m is not that big, however a closed room is a little better than an open one, so it's slides and swings here. What type of system are you thinking about (sound - speaker size? projector/plasma? budget?)? Re: Which room to use as a HT? 3Mar 26, 2009 11:12 am We are thinking of an LCD screen - size - well we aleady own a 42", but were planning on using that in the family room, so I'd like to do the biggest the room allows. We'd be wall mounting it, and having the computer/dvd/amplifier etc located to the side. With the home theatre system itself I am an extreme novice. I have heard that we need an amplifier (I'd also like to split and have sound available to the alfresco on the other side of the wall). I've also heard the Marantz/Jamo is a good combination. Obviously I'm not huge into HT, but I would like to improve on the nothing that we have now, but with a fairly basic budget, I would say entry level without being one of those "out of the box packages", so all advice is very welcome, including where to spend and where to save. For speakers I do understand the difference between 5.1 and 7.1 and although most movies are released in 5.1 at present, my understanding is they are moving more to 7.1, so we'd probably be better to invest in that. We had been discussing in ceiling speakers when we were considering the family room option, but if it's in a seperate room it wouldn't be so much of an issue what type. I really appreciate your help Rodda Kathy Re: Which room to use as a HT? 4Mar 26, 2009 11:20 am ^^ Cable for 7.1 and install 5.1 is what Im doing. That way when I upgrade to 7.1 its all neat. I would put it in the closed room for sure. When you turn up speakers in an open room it tends to spread the sound without it being louder, but in a closed room it really improves the impact. With our builder they planned for $500 to install a projector mount, HDMI cable from that to the wallplate, power to that mount and 3 pairs of speaker wire from the back to the front of the room (as AV gear will be to the rear). Plus 3 sets (2 each) of network cables to run around the place back to a central point. So, get that stuff setup, especially the speaker wire run to the outside, would be tough to do later but easy now. However we've had the same throughts on that stuff and a wireless media player will suite us fine (plus out alfresco is ages away from the HT). Do they have a display home? Go and imagine the setups and see what you like. Re: Which room to use as a HT? 5Mar 26, 2009 11:56 am Sounds like I have a similar plan as you. I am having my theatre set up in the closed off one (basicaly a lounge with plasma) as we like to be cosy and prefer carpet in that area when we watch tv or dvd's at night, our room is 3.7 x 5.4. We like to use every room in our house, DH hates it when people have lounge rooms and never use them cause the live in the family area what a waste! he says In our open plan room the family area is 5.4 x around 10.5 so from the island bench in the kitchen you will look onto 2 couches at right angles with a tv on the side then look past that to a snooker table. ( the pool table area will take about 4.2mts out of the 10.5 part). We wanted this area to be an interacting one. We will still watch some tv there when we have visitors we will have music dvd's on, but this wont have surround sound etc. Know where your going in life............... you may already be there Re: Which room to use as a HT? 6Mar 26, 2009 1:43 pm Yeah, it certainly sounds like the closed room is the go then. Sitting 3 - 3.5m+ back from a 52" LCD will be fine - good even. For a nice sound system with a Marantz AV Receiver (or similar) and some decent entry-level speakers (4 bookshelfs, 1 matching centre and a small-modest sub) from the likes of Jamo or equivalent would start at around the $2K - $2.5K mark. Re: Which room to use as a HT? 7Mar 30, 2009 1:46 pm Thanks Rod - I was thinking of a 46-52 inch screen - wasnt really sure on how big I could go. I've been looking at the sony bravia 200hz - what do you think of these? Is there much difference to the 100hz? Can you point me in the direction of speakers/amplifier - that budget sounds good. about $5000-6000 all up inc tv is what we had in mind. Re: Which room to use as a HT? 8Mar 30, 2009 2:50 pm The 100/200Hz stuff is crap IMO, most people I know who have it turn it off. It basically makes up images inbetween and doesnt work that well. If you've seen the sony demos, read what it says at the bottom, its a simulation on what they show, in other words they filed it at a higher frame rate and show that, and for the non-200 they just cut out heaps of frames. Its like the mascara ads where they say they use fake lashes, what you are seeing is NOT what the product does. I would recommend watching actual TV with it on before you decide, their tests are setup to trick you. Re: Which room to use as a HT? 9Mar 30, 2009 2:59 pm That is so interesting.... I have a 100hz phillips lcd tv at the moment, and I find it fine, but I do notice the pixels on things like water movement or very fast movement etc. Does anyone have recommendations for large screen TV's then? Re: Which room to use as a HT? 10Mar 31, 2009 9:05 am ^^ Turn it off and see if you like it better. Im not saying the TVs are bad, Im saying that feature is. IE if you turn it off then it should be good. I have a Panasonic Viera and love it, 70a 50" (few years old now), newer ones look even better. Re: Which room to use as a HT? 11Apr 01, 2009 6:28 pm Hi guys, sorry I've been away - had an incredibly busy 5 days... MDH, if you could separate the cost of the TV from the cost of the sound system, what sort of budget are we talking about for the sound... (sorry, that's about all my brain could cope with right now...) Re: Which room to use as a HT? 12Apr 01, 2009 7:59 pm Buying the right tv depends on your situation andwhat u like. They say LCD's are great for bright rooms and outdoors plasma's the other. I install (mounted) TV's and install alot of Antennas. My ob, a large LCD over 48" are no good but much better than the plasma under that size, I suppose that is why Panasonic have released thier smaller TV's in LCD. Also TV stations do have HD channels but not Full HD. So at the most send there signal at 1080i. This would be the problem with things that are fast for eg. water, footy or motorsport. To get the full benifit out of your Full HD TV is blueray. I'd bought last years grand final on blueray, much better That sucks! Hope it all works out. Good to move away from steel anyway for all your reasons, but it's also thermally poor. 16 17856 If what you describe is correct then the brick wall has been dry lined with villa board. That basically means that the villa board is glued to the brick wall with… 3 8310 I'm putting a new floor in my kitchen, slate flagging on a standard concrete slab. 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