OK, I have been meaning to make a log of my project for about a year but I never got around to it. I just finally got around to working on the room again because its summer and I actually have time. I am working on this system with my dad and we are both installing it our selfs. I will first start with some of the older photos.

This is the room before we got the carpet installed. My Dad and I built the stage.


These are all the wires coming into the equipment cabinet.


This is a quick setup of the equipment on a small spare TV. We could not stand letting the equipment sit in a box. All the speakers are Martin Logans. The center is the Stage, the right and left are Vantages and the rear speakers are Scripts. I think the bass is one of the older model Decents. They are powered by a Sunfire TGP-5 preamp and a TGA7400 Amp.





OK, here is the room after we got the carpet put in.


Here are the chairs. There seemed to be some junk on the camera lens.


OK, more to come later when I get around to uploading the rest of the photos.

OK, Here is the room as of the last 2 weeks. Now that I actually had time, my Dad and I really started to work on the theater. We moved all of the equipment from the room upstairs and we started to finish the cabinets and other details. We had to rip open the wall to install a new conduit box because the old one was to shallow for the new light controller. We also hung the screen, installed the rear speakers and got the projector in.


This is the overall view of the front of the room with most of the amplification equipment sitting on the podium.



These are the chairs in the back with the new curtains. The carpet and curtains are probably the only things that we did not install ourselves.



The mess of wires in the equipment cabinets. These cabinets where originally in the room when we got the house which is rather nice for us.



This is the rear speaker. We have yet to make blackout boards to go over the windows. We are planning on doing that next week.



Finally, the projector. I cannot wait till we get it mounted.



Thats it for now. I just found some old photos of the room before we started on it. I will post them later. The room was a mess when we got to it.

Looking very classy!

Now for the onslaught of questions,

What size screen, PJ specs, viewing distance?

The screen size is a 100 inch 16:9 Stewart Firehawk. The projector is a JVC DLA-HD1 with 1080p triple chip DILA with 15000:1 contrast. I forgot how far away the seats were but I think it might be about 12 feet.

very nice! $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Well, I am currently sitting in my car waiting for my brother to finish tutoring so I though that I would continue my post. (Yay "borrowed" wifi) Before I continue with the first run of the system, I would like to post some pictures of the room before we got to it. This room used to be a small spare kitchen on the bottom level of the house. The kitchen was installed out-of-code and therefore was illegal so we had to remove not just for the inspectors, but for the sanity of anyone who is not color or faction blind. To put it simply, it was a really cheap and poorly installed kitchen that we were legally required to remove. In case anyone is wondering why we have a spare kitchen, the people in the house before us rented out the bottom floor. The floor has several bedrooms and this monstrosity of the kitchen. The bottom floor could also be locked off from the rest of the house making it nice for renters.

This it with the cabinets. It may look nice but the cabinets are full of dents and scratches. Its also delaminating and there is mold under the sink. Just for reference, those windows can be seen at the back of the new theater.



This is the room with the kitchen gone. Notice the pink which the room used to be. Also, if you look up, you can see the florescent light bar that surrounds the room. This took forever to remove with a grinder and a construction power saw.


Well, its getting hot in the car so im going to go open the windows, I will start working on the posts of the system up and running. We were watching War of the Worlds last night and the sound is GREAT.

OK, since I still have time, my post from the back of the car on some random hill shalt continue. Yesterday we managed to hang the projector and put the system through a test run with the DirecTV box. All I have to say is WOW. This is the first dedicated theater that my dad and I have done and it turned out great in terms of the equipment.

Quiz time. What is the first thing everyone does when they get a new projector? Install it? NO, they play with it! We set the projector up on a table with some little computer speakers. (This was before the sound equipment was installed)


OK, now that we have tested the projector, we were even more motivated to finish the sound. So I wired the amp. All I have to say is that you really need to have a lot of patience when trying to thread stranded cable through a hole that seems too small.



Finally we get all the sound and processing equipment installed. We have to test it with a DirecTV box since we don't have an HDMI DVD player yet. My Dad is still doing research on those.



We actually tested the system with that little LCD from the test setup. Unfortinatly watching TV on such a small TV from soo far away makes a disappointing theater experience. Now comes the projector mounting. Because we live in Southern California we have to worry about earthquakes. In an earthquake the last thing someone wants is a projector falling from the ceiling. We planned ahead for this. While we had the ceiling open my dad and I bolted a 3/4 inch sheet of plywood in the ceiling. This serves two purposes. First of all, the projector mount will have plenty to hold onto so there is no chance it will come loose, the 2nd use for the wood backing is that we can mount the stand anywhere we want in the back and not worry about finding a stud. (<- Here comes stupid comments) Finally, the projector mount is made for a projector twice its size. I could hang from it if I wanted to. This means that the only thing taking that projector off that ceiling is a wrench.


Finally, here is the system running. We have yet to install cabinet doors on the cabinet. We also have lots of other things to do like getting the remote to work. I will post any other changes we do in the future.


Well, thats how much we have done so far. I still have lots of small jobs to do like cabinet doors, programming the remote, more wires, installing the door knob and lot of other stuff. If anyone knows how to program a Universal MX-3000 remote I really need some help with this thing.

So when can you and your dad come do a room in my house?

I love it. The color is perfect for a home theater and you guys did an amazing job.

Thanks. I would be happy to give advise but we dont want to start a business out of it. We put a lot of work into this project because our family will get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

That really has turned out very nice. Great job. Can you get a couple shots of the entire room now that you have it mostly setup?

Sure, ill take some later today. We made special panels that go over the windows to black out the light coming into the room. Ill do an update with those.

OK, today we installed sun blocking panels. These are a good thing unless your projector is solar powered. Each window has 2 panels that are made out of particle board. One panel is lined with white fabric and faces outside. The white material is there to keep the boards from absorbing the sun and getting hot. The second panel is lined with a black velvet like material and has padding between the fabric and the board. These panels also serve the second purpose as sound dampening panels. They help absorb excess sound in the room to prevent echoes.


Here is the back of the theater with the panels installed.



Here are the windows with one of the black panels removed. The white lined side is still there.



Here is the room from the front-right corner. I was asked to post more pictures of the finished room so I might as well just do it now.



Here are the windows from outside. It looks like the windows are painted white in the photo but thats just the camera.



Here is a photo of the system running with a scene from War of the Worlds. The camera oversaturated the image.



OK, those are the light/sound blocking panels. My next project is to get the doors installed on the cabinets. I am still waiting on the DVD player.

OMG im soooo jealous , how much wouold you say your whole setup cost? look bueatiful!

I dont like giving out number but my Dad paid a lot. We saved a lot of money by doing the installation ourselves. He likes to do things good the first time. One of our old Denon amps for the house audio is 20 years old yet it is still better than some of the stuff on the market. He likes to research these things and get the best he can.

OK, I thought this was a good photo of the system running. Conan O'Brians head is huge on that screen...and its in HD.

yeah that's exactly what I was thinking looking at this equipment..this room must have been crazy expensive.

late 70's/early 80's was the "golden age" of stereo amps...it's hard to find stuff like that anymore.

Ya, he really got a good amp. We expect this system to last just as long.

I really like the clarity/presence of the electrostatic speakers as well. You will definitely enjoy and "wow" your guests with this room. If I made this room I would charge admission . You probably can't find a theater that will look and sound this good.

Great job on the theater room I was going to mention the remote I purchase ,but after checking on the one you have I got a baby, anyway if this helps I could not program my Philips Pronto with the manuals that came with it and I found a program manual on line and within 24 hours I had bakground and buttons for 5 devices.
I understand we have 2 different types of remotes but when it comes to programing them their about the same ,heres a link for your manual

http://www.calypsocontrol.com/downloadable...0ProgManual.pdf

Here,s a link to my remote

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22479

It sat for almost a year because the manual had 135 pages but the first 35 pages got me up and running , get the manual its worth it.

RR

Here's a site that I joined ,it can be very helpful.

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/searc...000&Match=1

RR

OK, this remote unfortunately has like a 6 week training course to learn how to program it. I am currently talking to a guy online who will program them. Meh, I did try programming it and all I managed to do was mess up a template and get someone eases programmed load on the remote.

Did you check out the links I sent you.

Ya I looked at them. I did find a guy on Remote Central who has an ad to program the remote for $300. I am trying to contact him.

I had to read up on the MX 3000 and I realy like it because it does RF signals as well as IR and my poor little Pronto only does IR signals. Did you download the Program Manual from the link I posted ,it looks like it,s free , if so you save can yourself $300, also if anything happens after you have gotten the remote programed like one or two of your buttons don't work you can program them yourself ,I don,t want to sound pushie just trying to encourage you to read the program manual and if its anything like the program manual I have for my Pronto it's realy not that hard . Well which ever route you and your dad decide take you all have creative one hellava theater room ,enjoy.

RR

Success!!! I Programmed it with a little help from a friend of mine. We spent all night working on the theater and we got the remote working along with some in-ceiling cables. The buttons on the screen are not exactly pretty but they work just fine. Oh, we also got the Blu-Ray player working and it looks AMAZING! All I need to do now is get my dad to finish making the cabinet doors. I hope my cooling fans can handle the heat with the doors closed.

Thats great , I'm glad you took the time to figure it out soon you will be puting your own background in, enjoy.

RR

LOL, I am now in what I call the WTF mode of debugging. I cannot get the volume key to repeat commands when held down. At least it all works and at my dad seems to understand it. My mom was scared when we told her that tonight she was the one who needed to turn the system on. She did figure out the 2 buttons to press to boot everything into DVD mode. She will get it in time. I got her a Logitech 550 as a birthday present which I will give to her next week. I have it all pre-programmed so I will just hand it to her and see if she can figure it out on her own. That thing only took me 10 minutes to program including removing the cover from my light switches to find the model code. That is such a simple and useful remote. Anyway, my next update should hopefully have something to do with either cabinet doors, a working volume key or some way to store the massive amounts of DVDs we have acquired over the years.

Here's what I'm going to working on for my DVD collection .
With the help of (Remote Central.com) I'm going to get thumbnail pics of all my DVD,s and program them into my Pronto so when a movie is selected my DVD player will automaticlly select it , here's the DVD player and you can link it to another if you need more storage.

http://cgi.ebay.com/KENWOOD-SOVEREIGN-400-...1QQcmdZViewItem

RR

I am not really in the market for a new DVD player, the one we have is a Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD. This unit has a fantastic up converter chip which works great on all of our DVDs. Ill go get some pics.

OK, Here is another set of pics of the remote, DVD player and our DVD library.

OK, First, here is the overall view of the cabnet with the DVD player. It still needs doors.


Here is a closeup. When I took the picture, I did not see any fingerprints on the equipment, funny what a good flash can expose.


More pics in next post, I hit the max.

The Main page of the remote. Behold the glory of what the non-artistic can do!!! At least they work. I found that template online.


Here is the DirecTV control page. We kept most of the template intact for this one, just some different text and we used paint to fix the buttons.



Here is the lighting control page, we made this one completely ourselves. Once again, behold the power of the non-artistic!!!


Finally, here is the large collection of DVDs. We really have nowhere else to put them so we let them take over this table. Poor table.