Basement cinema

[Nige Danton]

I have a decent sized basement and I want to use part of it as a cinema room. I'd welcome comments and feedback.

The space I plan to use is rectangular and measures 9 x 5 metres with a ceiling height of 2.7 metres. The basement is clean and dry. I'm hoping to achieve a decent result without spending an arm and a leg.

The walls are rendered and painted concrete. Of the 2 long sides of the room one is essentially open with 2 arches and a central pillar (which lead off to another space). The other long side is approximately half solid wall and the other half is an archway. At one end of the room is a solid wall without any openings. This is where I'm planning to position the screen. At the remaining end of the room about 2/3rds is solid wall, with an archway in the remainder. Obviously, at the moment the room is very hard acoustically. Lots of echoes. There is a number of socket outlets in the room.

I'm thinking that I need to install some heavy floor to ceiling curtains along both long sides of the room and cover most of the floor with large rugs. I'd need to buy the curtains and rails, but I already have a variety of large rugs for the floor. I'm considering not having any dedicated seating (to avoid the expense) but to simply use large cushions instead. If that proves unsatisfactory then I could buy a couple of day-beds.

The cinema equipment would be a projector mounted either on the ceiling, or on the end wall. The audio would be provided by a home theatre system that I already have. I'd need to buy the projector, so I'd grateful for opinions about projectors and things to look out for.

What do you think? What have I missed?

[GB]

Our next door neighbour successfully put in a planning application to dig a basement under his house with a cinema, plus parking (with a lift), and of course a maid's room. Have you left space in your design for a maid's room?

The neighbour's house has been on the market for 18 months, now, overpriced on the basis of this planning permission. Apparently, the demand for maid's rooms is less than he thought.

[charles]

our former next door neighbour "successfully" turned a 3/4 bedroom, 1 bathroom house intoa 5 bedroom all with en suite facilities. Within a week of the builders leaving it was on the market (for £2M)* - where it sat for

16 months! As he left he said "you're going to have terrible neighbours, I've never dealt with anyone like them" Actually they are the nicest neighbours we've had in our 40 years of living in this house.

• estate agent contact said "Word on the street is tht he lost his job"

[DerbyBorn]

Lack of decent Videos to make it worthwhile? Too much trouble to go down there and have to go back up for a few biscuits...?

[Brian Gaff]

Could one ask why you want a projector. I havd a friend with one and he seems to like it but most people he has around say its a bit dim, and the thing seems notoriously unreliable and it uses tubes that cost an arm and a leg. I'd have thought a large screen tv was more cost effective these days. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Pity it did not come with a a'maid'. NNever heard them called that before. Brian

[Adrian Caspersz]

Sounds fine. Probably worth a look at avsforum.com

I'd need to buy the curtains and rails, but I already have a variety

My TV is a bit high up on my wall (above the fireplace, if there were one) and hence seating has a good back for my back & neck. I've got the rear surrounds exactly mounted _close_ behind and a bit above my ears, greater than 90 degrees from the front centre. The close thing was critical - before they were far in the rear corners and I'd miss most of the surround effects.

I don't know. Is the holy grail of bright HD/4K, LED, DLP and no mechanical color wheel affordable?

Illuminated 'do not disturb' sign on the front door, Beer kegs, piping and taps, Fume extraction for the popcorn machine?

[whisky-dave]

That's why you need a maid and somewhere to store her, hence the maids room.

[Martin Brown]

Depends how big you want to go and how much you are prepared to pay for the kit. I have seen one extreme enthusiast setup with a projector and full immersion Dolby Atmos sound system. I watched a shuttle launch on it and it was almost like being there (after we had stopped all the doors and windows from rattling). It also did very convincing 3D too.

Their demo DVD does a heavy helicopter and all the usual set pieces for showing off fully immersive surround sound and 3D special effects.

More cost effective yes, but if you want a true cinema experience with a picture >4m across then projection in a darkened room is the way to go.

Newscasters look very intimidating at that size!

We sometimes borrow kit from the Round Table (and a bloke to go with it) to do occasional film shows in our village hall. It can work very well.

My own flat screen TV can do 3D but it is only worthwhile if it is dark outside otherwise peripheral vision flicker distracts too much from the content. I tried watching Wimbledon in 3D and lasted about 15 minutes.

[Huge]

At least until you realise that the movies are just as shit, no matter how big and loud they are.

[Graeme]

In message , Adrian Caspersz writes

Casks, please

:-)

[Max Demian]

A WC in the corner. Or just one with a padded seat in front of the screen.

[Adrian Caspersz]

To watch a great movie and enjoy the experience "all most like being there", ye need to get into some sort of edge of dream trance state.

All the surrounding goings on around your TV set, phones ringing, SWMBO screaming, children brawling, fire alarms screeching; are neatly switched out by the brain focused by whatever depth of field lens "3D" effect the cameraman has applied, and similarly for the sound field, stereo or whatever.

It works up to a point with Soaps and even very small screen TVs where the cast of, say, Eastenders suddenly becomes some weird subliminal extension to your local family, and ye now have more reasons to worry to the grave about their deadly and dreary life issues. Happily though, I divorced the lot of them after 26 years of unmissed episode acquaintance.

However, when I was young & watching Superman in the cinema, I'd come out of the place with a crazy kind of feeling that actually _I_ could fly as well. Psychologists / Psychiatrists probably have a name for it.

The "superman" effect doesn't happen with my 40" TV and all the 5.1 Dolby / DTS gubbins.

I don't watch it in the dark and I don't really enjoy the shock of "all most like being there" next to a bass belching explosion from a fictionally deployed nuclear device tossed out of a car window by the Terminator - so haven't invested in a Sub to amuse the neighbours.

Films I really enjoy are either inspirational storytellings or technical production works of art. The latter look / sound great on my AV kit, passed on by someone who had a fussy wife that didn't like wires and the mess of boxes.

Other films admittedly were just a waste of a quid from the charity shop

- and I hope they made more of that coin toss than I had from that DVD. For that reason, I have a 95% rule of avoiding buying "replay" DVDs from Poundland.

[Nige Danton]

Fair comment, and until fairly recently I think I'd agree with you. But affordable projectors have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A group of us used to take turns hosting a "movie night" and one the couples had a projector that they would set up in the garden. A huge picture 10 or

12 feet across and as bright as u would want it. The projector (then) was about USD3 thou.

[Nige Danton]

I was thinking I'd need a refrigerator near by, so supplies would be stored there.

[tabbypurr]

And the bulbs?

[Martin Brown]

A fair proportion of the purchase price of a new projector by the time you need to replace one in a projector that only gets occasional use. Its a tricky calculation to decide whether to get a new projector with extra feature/more resolution or a new bulb for the old one.

[Rob Morley]

Popcorn machine.

[Nige Danton]

Not sure, but from memory ~ USD150 with ~ 3,000 hour life.

[Nige Danton]

Maybe, but don't think that's applicable to me. I tend to use kit until it no longer works rather than changing for the latest model. E.g. I'm writing this on an original iPad.