Perspective.

Just for the record...this is how it all began.

Time to dim the lights.

So here it is. I'd say it's about 95% complete. Most of the stuff that is left to do is minor aesthetic stuff. Hanging some posters, finishing the base trim, getting the final curtains up, etc. But all in all this project is coming to an end. It's like that part in a long movie, where you know it's over, but you still gotta sit thru another 15 minutes of "wrapping things up" story stuff.
For some reason the walls appear green in this picture and the chairs seem purply-grey. Just take my word for it. That is not the case. Anyway, what you're seeing here is a view from the screen. I went with some chairs from IKEA for the seating. I needed chairs that weren't too wide and I wanted ones that were easy enough to slide around. These fit the bill. The curtains on the right are temporary, but they're similar to the final ones that I'll be picking up this week. The chairs in the back are on a temporary makeshift riser. Serves the purpose for now, but it's a bit too precarious to leave as it is. This is a view from the "sweet spot". I started bringing in my DVDs even though I don't have a bookshelf for them yet. One of the main things I need to start tweaking is the acoustics of the room. They actually aren't that bad. A few well placed sound panels will help tightening it up. Nothing fell on top of my head when the sub was blasting away, so that's good. All in all it's living up to my expectations. Now that it's ready my time will be spent tweaking the projector and HTPC settings. Finding the ideal audio settings and most importantly, watching some %$!#&* movies!

Sweet light goodness.

Lights dimmed and everything fired up. Time for some screenshots. A bit of a disclaimer here. These images represent everything in a pretty much "out of the box" state. No serious calibration has been performed yet, only some very minor setting adjustments that I picked up in a forum online. That being said, let's see some images.
Here's the login screen. And now that I look at it, I'm a bit embarrassed to see that my login icon is a snowflake. I need to work on getting better pictures with my camera. Most of these pics are a little darker than they actually appear in person. The projector is plenty bright and the contrast more than satisfies me.
Down in front, mother%&$#! Ok, that was stupid. Anyway, what you're looking looking at is the interface for the DVR software I use called BeyondTV. It allows me to record TV (HD stuff included), pause LiveTV, play media files from the web, etc. If you look close you'll see a 6 foot white man on the right side of the picture. Ok, that was stupid too.
A lot of people have asked what's the first thing I'm goning to watch . To be honest I still haven't quite decided. For right now, it's still in the tweaking stage, so I watch snippets of this and that for specific audio and video moments. My parents were in town visiting recently and I quickly turned them and my wife into guinea pigs. I had a "beta" run thru screening of an HD version of The Bourne Identity. It looked and sounded great. They were impressed. I'm playing DVDs thru a software DVD player called Theater Tek. It allows you to run post processes like ffdshow on the image to make it even sweeter. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, I'm just using the default settings on the player without any post processing. Mmmm....Empire.

The whties in this image aren't nearly as bright as they are in person, but you can still get a sense of the detail that I can get out of the box.

Enjoying the dark side.

I put on a little LOTR and started blowing thru chapters and hitting pause to try and find a descent image. Just a little something that made me think...cool. It was sort of a slot machine methodology, but it served it's purpose. This was one that worked for me. This movie is a 2.35 film, so you can see my handy dandy masking system in action.
With this picture I wanted to see what an older black and white movie looked like. This is a clip from The Lady from Shanghai. The darks and lights in the image hold up just fine. The side masking curtains help frame it all up nice and clean-like.
This is a classic moment from my favorite Miyazaki movie. This pic shows what anime and other animated material will look like on the big screen. I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the dark.
And lastly, here's a quick picture of Madden 2007 in action. I have no idea how to play this game, but it looks sh-weet. I'll be curious to get some PC gaming going on. I'm not much of a gamer right now, but this might change my mind.

Almost there...stay on target.

This picture won't win any awards, but it gives you a sense of how it's all coming together. (Try and ignore the warped fisheye lens effect that makes the screen and walls seem curved.)

Some things to note here: The garage door hinges have finally been covered and the side masking added, thus completing the front wall. The speaker stands are a DIY special. They are a bit ghetto under close examination, so step the %$#@ back and nobody gets hurt. I still need to work on the base trim for the room. And lastly, if you look really close you should be able to make out the faint image of the Windows XP login screen.

Now that everything is hooked up, each evening of work on the HT ends with me getting sucked into some random scenes of this and that. That's a bit of a "no no" in the HT construction world and for good reason. Too easily five minutes turns into twenty. Focus.

Deft and dexterous.

Here are the side surround and rear surround speakers mounted. I went with some basic Sony bookshelf speakers. I could have gone with some higher grade surrounds and dropped $500, but I didn't. One, it would've been overkill for the space I'm in. Two, I'm on a budget. Three, any audiophiles out there who find this offensive can bite my ass.

When I was growing up I played a little bit of Dungeons & Dragons. One of my friends played as a thief. He called his character Dexter Nimblefingers. Well, that's what comes to mind when I look at this picture. You see, I stole this 7.1 surround sound wallplate from a Best Buy down the road. Like candy from a baby. The cost....five fingers and a pair of balls.

The other reason I'm reminded of my adventures with Dexter is because of the cramped quarters when it comes to hooking up wires to this gold plated baby. I ran 14 guage wire for all my speakers and they all terminate right behind this plate. Connecting the wires to the binding posts had me wishing I had the hands of a 4 year old for that hour of my life. Getting everything stuffed into the two gang box the wallplate is mounted to, defied more than a few laws of physics. Luckily sound came out of all the speakers during my test run.

Oh, and I was kidding about that whole stealing the wallplate from Best Buy thing earlier. Actually, it was Circuit City.

Some 5th grade ingenuity.

This is a close up of the masking system I am constructing. The idea is to have a way to adjust the top, bottom and both sides of the screen in order to frame the images projected on it. This helps things seem darker and minimizes distractions from anything around the screen. Ultimately, it just looks better.

The system I devised involves some fabric, some 1x2's, a few eye hooks and some rope. This picture shows how the rope is tied to the 1x2 and is fed thru an eye hook. I have a hook off screen that I tie the rope too once I have the desired framing.

Solving problems with a gun.

Part of the whole DIY process is a lot of trial and error. The error this time around was my failed attempt to paint my newly stretched canvas with a paint roller. I'm not sure why I thought it would work in the first place. The solution was several coats of paint with a spray gun, with a little bit of sanding thrown in to keep it all smooth.

The paint I used was one I read about in the AVS Forum. It's called Silver Screen and it's made by Behr. It actually has no special qualities that make it silver or reflective. It's just more of that paint company nonsensical naming silliness. I did want a paint that was the slightest bit grey in order to help the black levels in the images on the screen. Enough people tried out this paint and showed the results of their efforts and satisfied my need.

Ultimately, I wanted a 110" screen for a fraction of the cost of a professional screen. I spent about $100 total on my screen. Professionally manufactured screens can run anywhere from $300 to well over $1,000 and that's just a bit to rich for my budget on this project.

The importance of stretching.

I had to tweak the frame in the previous post. It was a bit flimsy and the corners weren't flush. I got a heavy duty "L" bracket and borrowed a sander from my trusty friend, Ben. After about an hour I was back in business. The frame was sturdy and the corners were flush.
I bought some unprimed canvas from a local art supply store. I had only strecthed material over a frame one other time, so this was still a relativiely new experience for me. The canvas is pretty heavy duty stuff. I used plyers and a staple gun and slowly worked my way around the frame.
After about an hour and some raw fingers tips this is what I ended up with. It's not exactly 16:9, but that's all part of the plan. This gives you an idea of the size of the screen.

Golden rectangle.

This is the framing for the screen. It's about 8 feet wide and 5 feet tall. When it's finished it'll allow for a 108" diagonal picture. I'm making it slightly oversized since I'll be constructing a masking system that will frame pretty much anything I project in pure black goodness.

Under the rug.

What do you do with cracked, ugly, paint splattered and slightly uneven concrete? You throw down some carpet pad and carpet and fa'gidda bow-dit. At least, that's what I did.

I was dreading the whole carpet install process. I thought cutting it was going to be a pain, not to mention getting the proper measurements so it actually fit around the stud walls. Luckily, my concerns turned out to be for not. The carpet pad was pretty easy to deal with. I was able to lay it out and cut it to fit. Then I used it as a template for the carpet.

Cutting the carpet was a breeze. A fresh blade in the utility knife and it was like a warm knife and butter. Getting the carpet in, really started making it feel like a room.

WAF.

When reading about various aspects of home theatres in the forums, a term that comes up quite a bit is WAF. It stands for "wife approval factor". This kind of mess does not rank high on the WAF scale. Surprisingly, enough my wife has been a real trooper with this project. She'll make the Home Depot and Lowe's runs with me. She was there when I bought my speakers. It's definitely made this project a little easier to deal with.

A garage at heart.

My goal with all this is to keep the functionality of the garage as a garage if need be. The idea being that all I gotta do is roll up the carpet and I could pull a car in. This left me with the challenge of the garage door. I didn't want to do any permanent alteration to the door, like drywalling over it. So I sketched out some ideas that would preserve the functionality of the door. This represents the first couple of steps in that process. I painted part of the door's framework black. I wrapped some sound board in acoustically transparent cloth and covered 95% of the door. I used pipe insulation around the edges of the door. All of this is not going to keep all the sound in and/or out, but it should be an acceptable compromise.

Level complete.

This is the completed ceiling. It took a few more days to finish up than I anticipated, but it turned out nice. This brings the project one step closer to actually feeling like a room. I was listening to Mallrats while I was working on the ceiling. Certain movies are going to remind me of different stages of the project. Collateral is forever drywall.

Hanging by a wire.

This is the drop ceiling in progress. Getting all the tiles into the grid will be a little tricky. It'll happen though. I'm looking forward to covering up the rafters and radiant barrier. I'm thinking it'll start to feel something like a real room at that point. I went with a black drop ceiling to keep things nice and dark and to control light bounce from the screen.

This is a shot of the projector mounted with a little DIY love. I put it up to test the throw of the projector. It hasn't come down. It's nice to have it so I can listen to movies and commentaries while I'm working. And when I need a little encouragement, I'll fade the lights down and watch a few minutes of whatever movie is in the DVD player. Just to marvel at the roughly 110" picture being projected on a very temporary $7 bedsheet. A little reminder of where this is all going.

Technicolor.

So this was a semi-big moment. A chance to see if all of that taping, sanding and mudding paid off. Ultimately, you want all the seams and screws to be nondistinguishable from the rest of the wall surface. I'm happy to say that after two coats of paint, I can call it a success. It's not perfect, but it's better than I expected. After having gone thru the entire drywall experience, I find myself inspecting various walls I come across during the day. It's not an obsession or anything, just a moment of understanding. reflection and empathy.

The blue that I chose for the room is called "Distance". It's made by Behr. I understand that paint companies need to differeniate between all their various colors, but I don't know why they feel the need to name them such melodramatic names. Most of them sound like a pretenious stripper. Regardless, I wanted a darker color to keep light reflection at a minimum. "Distance" fit the bill. These pictures are not the most accurate in terms of color representation, but it's enough to get the idea across.

Optimus Prime.

I've given myself a deadline of sorts. I want to have the theatre operational by mid-August. That's about 3 weeks away. There'll still be things to add on, adust, tweak, etc....but I'll be able to watch movies, as well as show it off to some visiting family members. So, that being said, I'm priming the walls for some paint. Nothing overly exciting, but another step out of the way.

Next.

Trying to make the seams look less like stucco and more like nothing.

Drywall. Taped. Mudded. Sanded. Ready for paint. We move forward.

Purpose.

Just when I was getting my ass kicked by the taping and mudding process, this arrives in the mail. My beacon of hope. A reminder as to why I'm doing all this in the first place. This is the the Sony HS51a LCD Projector. It sports 1280x720 native resolution, a solid contrast ratio, HDMI input, etc. I could go on, but it would only be embarassing. Here's a review with some sample images.