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MrAngles' Tornado Shelter Theater

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98K views 731 replies 26 participants last post by  NBPk402 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey everybody, I've been reading the forums for a while to get ideas for my home theater in anticipation of my new house with unfinished basement. We're all moved in to the house and I'm ready to start the planning phase for finishing the basement. I want a home theater and an office down there and would like to make the most of my space (primarily for the theater). The problem space-wise is that there are two round metal support posts in the middle of the basement (indicated on the floorplans as brown dots). Here's a floorplan of the basement as it is now.
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/729/basementoriginal.jpg

Here's what I've got planned so far for the layout:
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/6318/basementoption1.jpg

The ceilings will be about 7 feet tall and I was hoping to do a 120"-140" 16x9 screen, and was hoping to two rows of seating, so a room 18 feet long seems like it would be on the small side. It occurred to me that I could move the back wall a few feet back, and put the post in some kind of pillar, which would allow me to move the seating back a bit, but I'm not sure how well that would work in real life having a pillar there.
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/8568/basementoption2.jpg

I wanted to get some opinions from people who maybe have dealt with a similar issue, or at least people with projectors and a large screen to see what thoughts you you have on having a pillar in the room, or if there are other configurations you'd suggest. Let me know if you need any more information.
 
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#204 ·
Thanks, I bookmarked that thread and a couple of threads referenced in it to check out later. I tried reading today but once again the theory involved isn't getting through to me yet.

So with CiH setups you used to need a scaler and an adjustable lens, is none of that stuff needed anymore with modern projectors? What do people do for the Imax scenes in the Dark Knight, do you put masking in front of the lens itself, or does a black screen wall take care of that?
 
#208 ·
I'm pretty sure at this point that the AE8000U is the projector for me. I wasn't planning on actually buying the projector until later, but looking at the price and the rebate that ends on December 31, I wonder if now is the time to buy? I'm guessing that it's likely for the rebate offer to be extended, but it's $2,641.89 on amazon right now, and it seems like that's the lowest it's been so far. Do projector prices drop during the holiday season then go back up in the 1st quarter like a lot of other consumer electronics? Just wanted to doublecheck with people who have been pricing these things for longer than I have before I pull the trigger.
 
#210 ·
Thanks.

I just want to let you know I've really appreciated all your help. Everybody on the forum has been great, but all the detail in your build thread and the constant quick answers in this thread have been a lifesaver during my build so far. The little details that a lot of people don't include are great, the tip about the panel carrier for drywall for example has saved me a huge amount of grief already.

Anybody who is planning or working on a theater right now owes it to themselves to read through ALM's entire build thread.
 
#212 ·
I loaded up the Durango with Dri-core yesterday. On Black Friday Hy-Vee (local grocery store) was offering $15 off of $75 worth of gift cards, so I bought $450 worth of Lowes gift cards, that along with a 10% off coupon got me 97 panels of Dri-core for $442 out of pocket after tax. Pretty sweet deal. Hopefully they'll be doing the gift card deal next year when I'm ready to set up floor in the rest of the basement.
 
#214 ·
Ok I'm back to floorplanner again, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my soffits. The soffits on the sides have to be about 10" high by 18" wide. I figure I'd make the front soffit match the sides, and make the back soffit about 10"x10" so it's less claustrophobic above the doorway. That's all pretty straighforward, but then I have the support beam going across the room, over the bar counter. Here's what I have planned at the moment.


Another option would be to set all the soffits behind the support beam at 10"x10", using the beam as kind of a transition, and allowing more open space by the door and bar. It looks great to me on virtual paper, but I'm not sure if it will look silly in real life.


Does anyone else have any suggestions? The soffit on the right side in front of the support beam has the air return in it, which is why it needs to come out so far. I intend to run flex duct in the left soffit in front of the beam, and in the rear soffit. That's all I need to use the soffits for, other than to cover the support beam. The projector will hang directly behind the support beam, So I'll need to either use a long arm mount, or extend the soffit behind the support beam and mount to that.
 
#215 ·
I think I would go with the second option. To me, since the beam really is now a part of the room, I think it would make a good transition from one dimension of soffit to the other.

My sides are the same dimensions, but the back is much wider than the front soffit. It really turned out well I thought - does not look silly at all.
 
#216 ·
s`4deWW2A`

Just placed my order for the PT-AE8000U at bhphotovideo.com. $2699 before the $100 mail-in rebate, the best price I found from an authorized dealer (the MIR, two free sets of glasses and extra year on the warranty required that the purchase be made at an authorized dealer).

I'm running out of money in my projected budget here, I'm definitely going to have to extend it before I get to the seating.
 
#219 ·
I cracked open my second bucket of green glue last night. I'll be very happy when I'm done putting sheetrock between the joists. Looks like this weekend I'll be picking up the electrical subpanel, 50' of 6 gauge romex, a whole bunch of 12 gauge romex, a bunch of arc-fault breakers and a bunch of conduit. I guess that means I should make my monoprice order today as well. I already have all the interconnects I need including a 50' HDMI cable for the projector, and I have enough 12 gauge speaker wire to wire up the rears and surrounds. I also have HDMI wallplates, a ton of bananna plugs, a bunch of RCA, banana, cat-6 and coax keystone inserts. So far my monoprice cart has some cat-6 cable, enough speaker wire to wire the L C and R speakers, RCA cables to run to the subwoofers in the L and R speakers, and a five speaker bananna plug wallplate. I'm using conduit for all seven speaker locations, and the projector. Anything obvious that I'm leaving out?
 
#220 ·
Not sure what you have planned for runs to the projector, but I'd run (2) cat6 for video, (1) cat5 for serial, (1) cat5 for network, (1) cat5 for potential 12v trigger.

You might also run a cat5 from the projector to the front of the room in case you need an IR receiver for 3D on the projector...I'm just getting into the 3D so I'm not sure if this one is really required. I know they bounce the IR off the screen, but if that doesn't work properly, the IR receiver may be necessary.
 
#224 ·
Yep, I have 10 or so RCA keystone inserts. I'm not sure I'll use them anywhere other than at the equipment rack though, I'm thinking about just having the speaker and RCA cords come straight out of the screen wall behind the speakers without wallplates, and just acoustical caulking the holes. At my last house the white wallplates always stood out against the wall color and I've kind of come to the conclusion that there's really no point to them until you need to run additional wires to that location, which hopefully I won't end up needing to do.
 
#222 ·
I actually have 400 feet of cat-6 cable in my order already, so I'll have plenty to do all that, but I'm using 2" conduit to the projector, which should allow room to run a couple HDMI runs if I end up needing more than one, plus room for cat6 and s-video, whatever. Cat-6 to HDMI is great when you don't have the space for an actual HDMI cable, but I wouldn't want to use it if it's not entirely necessary, I've found that it cuts out due to interference once in a while.

What are serial and network connections for on a projector? Also, what are 12v triggers used for? The only explanation I've found for 12v is for "automation" which is pretty vague.
 
#223 ·
I am using the serial connection on my AE-7000 to allow for communication with the Global Cache / iRule set-up. In essence, it allows for the IR connection. The 12V trigger can be used to do things like send a signal to open curtains, turn on equipment that has input trigger capabilities (amplifiers are what I am thinking here mostly), etc.
 
#230 ·
Good point, I've been wanting to do this for a while, I drew up a quick A/V wiring diagram. The green is wire, and the red is conduit. I'm planning on putting in a drop ceiling (eventually) in all the areas outside of the theater and mechanical room, so I should only need conduit in the theater room's ceiling. The conduit are all straight runs until they take a 90 to enter the wall, and then they just hang loose inside the walls. I'm planning 1-1/2" conduit for all the speaker wire and RCA runs, and 2" conduit for HDMI and whatnot to the projector. I'm also going to leave a string running through each conduit to make it easier to run additional wires through them if necessary without pulling the existing wire out.



I'm pretty stoked about the plan because it should be pretty easy to run any additional/replacement wires to any of the existing wiring points.

The only thing I'm stressing about now is how to run power and A/V to the bar and riser, since I don't plan on having my riser meet the wall at any point. I've considering drilling a couple holes in the support pole and running it through that, or maybe cutting a channel into the Dri-core...
 
#231 ·
That looks much easier than what I ended up doing - good plan!

As far as the electrical to the bar / riser, if you cut a channel in the Dri-Core, how long would it need to be - i.e. at what point would you be running it from? I think this might work as long as you ensure it is seated properly below the surface of the Dri-Core so that foot traffic will not cause it to wear. But, I would try to make sure it is either a small length or in an area where you plan for the least amount of foot traffic.
 
#232 ·
I figure there would be less foot traffic behind the bar, which would be around 3 feet from the wall. I haven't tried this yet, but maybe I could pull the plastic piece off of a couple Dri-core panels, rout out a channel in the OSB, then glue the plastic back on? 12 gauge romex should be easy enough to do that way if I keep it flat, I don't know about HDMI though. The other thing I could do maybe is glue a layer of OSB on top of the Dri-core behind the bar creating kind of a mini-riser, while not affecting headroom back there too much, allowing me to cut a channel through the entire thickness of the Dri-core. Hopefully that wouldn't be too much of a trip hazard.

Of course all of these options make me a little nervous about what happens if the basement floods even a little bit...
 
#234 ·
The other thing I could do maybe is glue a layer of OSB on top of the Dri-core behind the bar creating kind of a mini-riser, while not affecting headroom back there too much, allowing me to cut a channel through the entire thickness of the Dri-core. Hopefully that wouldn't be too much of a trip hazard.
The more I think about it I think this is what I want to do, except I think I might skip the Dri-core under the riser altogether. Then I could use pressure treated 2x3s directly on the concrete to frame the part of the riser that is behind the bar, and caulk or sprayfoam around the edges to keep water from getting under there from under the Dri-core in the case of a flood (assuming that the flood doesn't originate from under the riser somehow). Then I'll have plenty of room to run wire, and I'll leave a lip in the OSB on top of the framing so I have a spot to put rope lights to keep people from tripping.

I've been reading a bunch of threads at AVS about people having to rip up their Dri-core after floods, so the idea of having the riser separate from the subfloor is really starting to appeal to me.
 
#233 ·
This is a bit out of my area of expertise, but could you use an outdoor electrical wire? Those have to be made to withstand the elements, so I would think it would be fine should the worst happen.

I would also check local code to see if there are any standards for running wire along the floor.
 
#236 · (Edited)
I looked pretty silly yesterday driving around in the snow with eleven lengths of conduit sticking out of the window of my car. I also picked up a Jawstand. It was a great help holding up one end of conduit while I secured the other end to the joists, I imagine I'll find a bunch of other uses for it before this project is over.

I had a chance to watch Fringe on the 8000 last night, it put out an impressive picture despite being projected onto a beige wall. This being my first projector, I thought it was particularly interesting how much light and even image was reflected onto the white ceiling. Definitely a good case for a flat black ceiling.
 
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