Whats too small to be Home theater?

Hi guys looking at plans after contemplating on so many builders and plans, this particular one has got 4.0 X 4.1 HT room. Do you think its too small to qualify as home theater? Sry for my laziness but is there a general rule of screen size to viewing distance?

Cheers

Not at all too small. All comes down to your expectations for a room that size (ie single row or double row of seating) and how much you want to spend. I would think across that distance 110" would be perfect to feel impressed with the image size.

Hi Macmaz. Unless you are lucky enough to be able to have carte blanch with design prior to construction, all HT rooms will be compromised in some way, whether it be width, length, ceiling height, windows, location of doorways etc. Do you want a general purpose media room with screen or a dedicated theatre. There is a considerable difference. This difference will be in projector choice, room acoustic treatments, construction, equipment etc. Bear in mind also that a perfectly square room is not great for acoustics. Again, depends on your expectations. I think a good 5.1 system would be a good choice with one row of seating and maybe some beanbags for the kids. I built a dedicated theatre from scratch and can tell you that it cost me thousands more than I had planned.

Screen size determination will also depend upon whether you want to go 16:9 or 2.37:1 cinema scope. If its just a normal widescreen then 110 to 120 inch would be a good choice. My room is 6m deep and I have a 145 inch scope screen. I would say it would be way too big for your room. Why not just find a good short throw projector and zoom the image to different sizes before buying a screen?

And the result was?

Hi We are going ahead with a design which has 4.1 X 4.1 Home Theater Room. Construction will start next month or so. So won't be able to validate this decision just yet. Thanks for helping make decision.

Cheers,
macmaz

Are you doing any sound isolation? Great opportunity being a new build

Hi Do you mean Sound insulation? Haven't thought about it yet. What Do I need to consider for this? Appreciate if you can provide a link or something for me to read through.

Cheers,
macmaz

Hey there. Different thing. Depends on whether you are doing a serious theater room with powerful equipment and subs and how much noise you want coming out of the room. If you don't do some for if sound isolation then the room will leak sound badly. 10 mm gyprock is not good for sound reduction.... particularly with subs. Good to read up on sound isolation. Try www.soundisolationstore.com for some basics. It's not cheap but in terms of overall enjoyment of the room it's worth every cent.

This will create some constraints, like projector selection / placement.

4m is not much depth for the room.

I have a 100 inch 16:9 screen and a room that is 4.3m deep. My Benq projector needs to be between 3.6m and 4.5m from the screen.

If you are going for a projector and screen, just make sure you very carefully check the specs on projection distances and that this is compatible with your room dimensions.

Worst case you could go for a short-throw projector, however I believe these are better suited for data applications.

Check out the projector selection calculator at projector central. Link at http://www.projectorcentral.com/project ... or-pro.cfm

Just checked out the Panasonic PT AE 8000 3d projector. At 3.7 Metre throw distance, 1.75x zoom (about 3/4) you will get a 110 inch diagonal screen, which is 2.4 meters across X 1.4 M high. I think a good size for that room. This is at 25 fl which is nice and bright. It's a good projector at a good price. LCD offers more versatile placement options than a lot of DLP projectors. At full zoom you would get about 130 inch 16:9 screen size.

The worst thing about a home theatre is having a pretty much square room.

A lot of rooms should not be called home theatre, but media rooms instead. Nothing wrong with that in itself, as that's all many people want.

In my case the new house we're about to build has a HT room of 5.9 x 4.4m, so well away from being square.

Good luck with your project.

Yep there are some simple rules to stick by. Getting the dimensions right in the room is key. Mine is 6.15 X 5.03 x 3.26 and when the builder changed the ceiling height by a brick they had to put it back so that the dimensions were still good. Not the end of the world if its not but makes getting the room set right easier.

That's a nice tall room you have there... 3.26m high. Mine is only going to be 2.55 high.

Yep the strange thing is that I designed my house around the HT. The bottom floor is all 38 course. and the HT is double brick all around. Hopefully the fit out goes to plan and we have many enjoyable hours in there......

It looks like majority of you guys are going with more of rectangular theater room. But yeah, the other layout of this particular design falls in place and may be more important to us at the moment. Being a first home buyer cannot go crazy with customizing this thing any further.

So it is staying 4.1 by 4.1.

As another poster said it may be better called as Media Room, I am happy to take that. Also may be Rumpus room.

Considering this room is media and living, has anyone gone down that path? Can I see any pics? I am assuming that kind of rules out insulation/isolation.

Macmaz, regardless of what you do, you will still have a great deal of enjoyment if you call it HT or media room, and as you mentioned even a rumpus room.

Whilst it won't allow you to do full insulation or isolation, furnishings you choose can make a difference to the feel of the room. Heavy drapes over the windows that can be drawn when watching a movie, or even left open can help with sound.

Dont get stressed about the size or the shape ... its what you do with it that matters!

Well placed speakers with some soft furnishings, a 100" screen and a good projector and you will have a room that others will envy!