Home Theater Room

The Family Media Room

A dedicated Home Theater or Media room has become a popular addition to houses in the last several years. The media room is your room for all that home theater gear. Inside it you must pack a 5.1 surround sound system, a big screen TV or front projector and a variety of sources including a DVD player, digital television source such as digital cable box or satellite receiver. And most importantly the media room must have enough outlets to make all this stuff go.

Dedicated home theater rooms can vary in how elaborate theyre built. If youre working with a very large budget you can hire CEDIA professionals to plan and execute everything from wiring, lighting and complete room acoustics for your home theater. The sky is the limit when building an elaborate theater -- there are systems with remote controlled temperature, curtains, lighting and of course sound and vision all mapped to a single button on a programmable remote control.

When it comes to decorating your personal theater you can capture the modern essence of the local Cineplex or the classic look of a historic turn of the century theater. Furniture and accessories are also available to accentuate the look no matter what your price range. The most important consideration to guests is seating: no matter what style you go for there are comfortable home theater seats that will let your audience relax and recline. For less elaborate options you can take nearly any living space, rec. room or family room and with a few adjustments turn it into a dedicated home theater room. DIY Home Theater communities on line abound with users who have changed their living spaces with clever Home Theater designs for surprisingly low cost.

If youre planning a media room in your home or are buying a home and wish to see a room dedicated to media youll want to take the time to make a few important decisions that will lay the groundwork for your media room. How large is your intended audience? How large do you want your home theater room to be? If this is just for a family of four with the possibility of adding a few extra people youre able to use a much smaller room than if you needed to be able to seat upwards of 20. The size of the room you need to fill with sound will dictate what sound equipment you would buy, starting with speakers that are capable of filling the room with sound. For larger rooms youll want to use one of the 7.1 surround options. These days nearly all Dolby Digital and DTS decoding receivers also have the extended formats that include DTS-ES and Dolby Digital-EX. These provide 7.1 surround instead of the typical 5.1. With the extra two channels add two speakers behind the audience to help fill out the surround effects.

Select speakers that will really fill your room with sound. There is no getting around the size of your speakers -- these are mechanical devices that must be able to move air in the room that delivers the sound youll hear, and micro-satellite speakers arent sufficient to create theater sound for a room larger than a dorm room. Youll need drivers that are large enough to make air vibrate through the room. At least one subwoofer is a must, if youre looking at a room with length in the 20 range or larger youll want to consider adding another sub to the opposite side of the room from the first sub. The dual sub configuration is a good way to ensure the high impact bass reaches every seat in the house with equal intensity. Another popular option for subsonic impact is a new breed of home theater accessory called tactile transducers or bass shakers. These are vibrating devices that can be mounted to seating or under floors to let the audience really feel the thunderous bass found in movie audio tracks.