Newbie needs help with 10 questions

[purcellt]

Hoping for some help from an expert or someone who has "been there"!
I'm building my own 7.1 theater (6 seats) in an unfinished (basement) area of our home. (First room is now framed as of this weekend)
I've attached a PDF of the design I've created (to scale) in Excel format. There are 2 pages to the PDF. Page one shows the layout and page 2 shows how it will look from side view.
Here are specs: (my questions are at bottom)
Room 19’ 3” deep
Room 15’ wide
----
Platform (8"?) plan is to place about 125” from wall (this will be a "wall to wall" and to backwall platform)
First row seating has 94” to eyeballs
Second row 168” to eyeballs
----
Panasonic PT-AE2000U (planned mounting 15’ 7” from screen)
Elite Cinetension2 110” diagonal screen (16:9 ratio)
Denon 4308ci
Polk RTi 10 fronts (have)
Polk CS400 center (have)
Axiom QS8 surrounds (4)
Berkline “Shack Package” (105” 3 seat width)

My questions:
1-Is the spot I've chosen the correct one to start the riser platform? (it's permanent- it's got to be right)
2- If there is some flexibility in platform placement, which side should I "ere" on - short/long placement?
3- Is the height of the platform of 8" correct?
4- What should I cover it with - MDF or Ply?
5- Should I use joist hangers to get the 2x8" off the cement floor (it's wavy. . .)?
6- Is my seating position choice accurate (use a calculator reccomended here on this forum)?
7- Is the placement of the Panasonic projector accurate (used what I thought was calc on the website)
8- If I upgrade the center what would work well with the Polk Rti10s?
9- I'm going to need to run piping that will allow me to pull current and future wiring - where on this forum is the best info found on type of pipe, where to run and how to attach to framing
10- Best recc on remote lighting control system?
ALL other comments, welcome!!
Thanks

[John Simpson]

That PDF you posted was very good -- really helps to picture your setup.

My first impression is that the front seats look really close to the screen... could just be the drawing, and I'll have to sit down and work out what 94" is in metric (!).

A lot of your questions are ones I have too, so let's hope some of the building experts pipe up!

[bpape]

I may be missing something but I'm not seeing the seated head positions. I'm guessing that the front row is about 119" from the front wall. If so, you're in a bad place - within 1" of 1/2 point of the room length. Remember to place seating first, then get a screen size to fit that distance - then verify that the PJ you want will fill that screen with appropriate brightness and quality/pixel density for the viewing distance. Way too many people pic the screen size first and then try to do seating distance based on that - totally backward and ends up with seating in bad places acoustically.

HVAC supplies should be in the front of the room. Where you have them, the front row will get no airflow and the front of the room will become stale.

If any option at all, entry doors in the front of the room should be avoided. This is for the sake of treating the room in addition to not being distracting to everyone in the theater when someone leaves/enters (blocked views, outside light washing out the screen, etc.)

Bryan