introducing myself...

[Thomas Funke]

Hi,
my name is Thomas Funke,and I live in good old germany.
I am 34 years old, married and we have to little daughters called Kathy and Anna. I am working as a sound engineer at a great Radio an TV Station in Germany. i am a homcinema enthusiast since 1997, when i bought my first onkyo Dolby pro logic AV receiver.
In Year 2000 i sold it for buying a Dolby digital Receiver, a Denon AVR 3802. After a few month I thought by myself, Great sound, but tiny little pictures and so the idea of our "BonsaimaxX" was born.

There was a small empty room in our cellar wich I could use for my little cinema, an the work started. After working three month and every minute I could use from my spare time our first cinema was done. The result was not overwhelming with a Sanyo PLV-Z1 LCD Projector, some Jbl Speakers an a cineultra progrssive scan DVD Player, and so i started saving Money for better Equipment, better screen and more comfortable cinema chairs.

The Last goodie I bought was a Behringer BFD to eliminate my Bass Problems, and thats where I found your Board an de great RoomEQ Wizard Software wich helped a lot setting it up.

Here are some pictures of my tiny little BonsaimaxX, hope you like it.



I am Moderator of a Board with nearly 2500 Homecinema enthusiasts in germany, called the Beamerforum.

Hope theres a lot to learn about the BFD in your Board for me.

With Best regards an hope you like my little homcinema.

Thomas

[Sonnie]

Welcome to the Shack, Thomas.

I definitely like your Homecinema room.... unique and neat!

If you wanna know about the BFD then you are in the right shack!

[Thomas Funke]

Thanks for your reply an welcome.
I will add a new thread concerning Housecurves, because until now I did not understand how to setup such a house curve. but I will post my question in the Board concerning the REW.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Great looking room there, Thomas! And nice to see a real German here!

Regards,
Wayne

[rcarlton]

Welcome aboard. Terrific cinema you have.

[Jeff Aguilar]

You did a FANTASTIC job with your theater in a small space. We are getting ready to build a new home and I wanted to take over one of the rooms in the basement for a home theater but was worried about the size of the room. After seeing your pictures, I think it is not going to be much of a problem. You really did a great job with your room.

Welcome to the forum.

By the way, how is the sound in your room? Do you get a lot of seperation between the fronts and the rears? Just curious.

Jeff Aguilar

[Phil M]

Welcome to the forum Thomas - I lived in Germany (Frankfurt area) for 7 years, and as a European appreciate the benefits of PAL over NTSC.
Now living in the US and they've jumped PAL with HD TV - and I've just discovered that one of the local satellite TV providers is going to show the World Cup this summer in High Def.
Any chance of getting the World Cup in HD in Germany?

[Exocer]

Welcome to the forums!
Can't say i've ever seen an HT like yours before, awesome job. Very custom/unique.

[Thomas Funke]

Thank you, for all the Replies and the great interest in my BonsaimaxX.

@Jeff Aguilar

By the way, how is the sound in your room? Do you get a lot of seperation between the fronts and the rears? Just curious.

The Separation between the Front an the Surroundspeakers is ok. In the beginnig I had some Problems with beeing not able to clearly locate, if Sound is coming from front or back. But after mounting some cotton cloth (called Molton in german) on the ceiling, the location gets a lot better.

Only Problem in such a little room ist, not to locate the seats in an area of a pressure mimnimum of a standing wave.
Then you can try what you want, having trouble with now bass. But in other ways theres no Soundproblem at all (with a BFD ).
Another Problem is to avoid lightreflections on the sidewalls coming from the screen. This can be very bad, because my screen is nearly as broad as the room. But with some black cotton cloth you can solve this job.

@Phil M,
Awfully HDTV is a Stepchild for our german TV Broadcasters.
There a some TV Stations trying to broadcast HDTV but in most cases it's only upscaled DVD Resolution. But imho it is not more as testing new technology.
Only the biggest PAY TV service Provider premiere actually has some HDTV Programs running.

Also i am not particularly interested in football, so I don't care a pap for football in HDTV.

When we meet with our Group of Home Theater enthusiasts near Hannover, we watch HD Files by HTPC.

@all I apologize for my poor (school) english but i hope everybody is able to undestand the sense of what i am writing.
If somthing i've been writing is absolutely nonsense please correct me after , OK?

I will be posting some more Pictures of my little Theater the next days.

[Thomas Funke]

Here are some more Pictures of my Theater.
The Step to the back row of the seats are illuminated with blue LED chains. Of course they are toggeled off during watching a Film.
The complete room (Lights/ Air condition and AV Equipment) can be controlled by a Philips Pronto Remote Control.



The Door ist painted like a snippet of 35mm Film.



On some glass shelfs in the back of the room there are some little cinema goodies like an oscar (sadly not the orginial ) a small Dath Vader figurine and so on.




Spiderman ist ready for a jump on the subwoofer....




A small frigde looking like a beer can is standing in the Front containing refreshments.



A Rack mounted in the side wall ist holding the Denon AVR3802, a Cineultra DVD Player which has been exchanged with a Denon 1910 DVD Player in the last weeks and my BFD (has not been installed when I took the Picture).



The room is illuminated with old school wall lamps made of high grade steel and opal glass.
The screen and the Back wall are illuminated with low voltage Halogen reflector lamps.



To be continued

[Thomas Funke]

One more thing to tell.
The screen highth can infinetly variable be masked via remote control between Widescreen (16:9) and cinemascope (21:9) Format.
This is realized with a wiper motor from an old car and an old Waterpipe an a little circuit using a programmable controller to decode the IR Signals.

Here are some more pics of it.

[Sonnie]

We have a genuis on our hands...

Neat work Thomas and your English is fine.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

A small frigde looking like a beer can is standing in the Front containing refreshments.

I don’t drink (my ancestors must be spinning in their graves ), but that is very cool!

The screen highth can infinetly variable be masked via remote control between Widescreen (16:9) and cinemascope (21:9) Format.

Also – very cool!!

This is realized with a wiper motor from an old car and an old Waterpipe an a little circuit using a programmable controller to decode the IR Signals.

Wow, did you do all that yourself?? A wiper motor? Unbeliveable!

And yes, as Sonnie said, your English is just fine. Any who doesn’t think so, let’s hear their German!

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

[Thomas Funke]

And yes, as Sonnie said, your English is just fine. Any who doesn’t think so, let’s hear their German!

Thank you, that pacifies me.

Wow, did you do all that yourself?? A wiper motor? Unbeliveable!

Yes i've built that with a lot of trial an error, because something like that you won't be able to buy in germany.
Th IR Interface was developed by a friend of mine.
It is simply controlling 8 Relais for switching and dimminig the lights. Controlling the socket outlets for the subwoofer (for not beeing powered on all the time). Even controlling the Power for the air condition and the maskable screen.

The used Wiper motor has the benefit of a gearing mechanism and enough power to drive the Masks of the screen powerful and unhurried, and ist was very very cheap.

I don’t drink (my ancestors must be spinning in their graves ), but that is very cool!

Most times the fridge ist stocked with some Coke or lemonade, the cans of beer were the original load when i got the fridge as a birthday present from a friend onf mine.


See you soon, Thomas