Home Movie Theaters

Some people purchase a home for the large kitchen, we purchased our home because it had enough space for a dedicated theater. The space we used was one of the two oversized two-car garages. I wanted the design to create a total environment for enjoying a theater experience, from approaching the theater to exiting it. Therefore, I put a lot of effort into the design and construction of the entry.

Located in a 10,000-square-foot apartment that comprises the entire 52nd floor of The Point condominiums in Panama City, Panama, this 26 x 16 x 10-foot home theater adheres to the recommended proportions for well-balanced acoustics and good sound distribution.

If you are looking for an unusual speaker that will fit anywhere, including unconventional spaces, and still be decorative, you should check out the JBL Control NOW indoor and outdoor loudspeakers. The quarter-round shape allows for the uniquely versatile speaker to be installed in a wide variety of places including areas where other speakers can no be installed. Priced between $249 and $279, these guys won't break the bank either.

You’re probably asking the same question we asked when we saw this tantalizing video wall: How’s it work?

Prather Warren, owner of Innovative Home Media (IHM), had no idea what he’d signed up for when he agreed to take Triad’s CinemaPlus demo theater after the 2009 CEDIA Expo. It’s not uncommon for manufacturer’s to sell off some demo gear after a trade show so they don’t have to ship it back to the factory...but a whole room?

Bang & Olufsen (B&O), known for their killer designs, makes their 103" plasma TV available in the United States. The Beovision 4-103 is one of the largest TVs on the market. What makes the Beovision 4 stand out from all the others is that special B&O touch. The motorized floor stand lifts the TV from it's position near the ground, when you are ready to view movies or TV. By resting the TV inches from the floor, it becomes less prominent in the room when not in use, according to the B&O press materials. However, I'm not sure how a 103-inch TV is not prominent, no matter where in the room it is located.

Dolby Atmos, for you members of the unwashed and uninformed masses (yeah, you know who you are), enables film sound designers to treat individual sonic elements as virtual “objects” that can be placed and moved almost anywhere within the three-dimensional space of a movie theater. Two things are important about its adaptation for home theater. First, the soundfield—in its original, discretely encoded version, not an extrapolated one—is no longer limited to a two-dimensional plane circling around your ears.