Home Movie Theaters

Sometimes it takes the combined talents of two professional organizations to come up with a striking, one-of-a-kind home theater. Such was the case with this Florida home. Cinema Design Group is a leading designer, manufacturer, and installer of home theater seating, acoustic panels, and custom home theater environments. Along with Boca Theater and Automation, a premier provider of turn-key, custom-built integration systems and home theaters, these two specialists created a home theater that bears the resemblance of the familiar geometric Art Deco designs of the early 20's, yet, it reveals a distinctive 21st century edge.

Nestled among the rolling estates of northcentral New Jersey is a recently completed 22,000-square-foot mansion on 11 acres that represents the height of luxury. Among the usual features associated with such homes—the large and well-appointed kitchen with industrial-grade appliances, the sprawling master suite with grand bath and giant hisand-hers walk-in closets, the fully equipped gym area, the climate-controlled wine cellar, the multi-bay garage complex stocked with one or more exotic cars, the attached pool and cabana, and, of course, the dedicated home theater—is the extraordinary media/entertainment space you see here. Dubbed the Sports Room by the homeowner, it’s one of the still rare examples of a commercial video wall used in a residential application, and it is indeed the ultimate game day oasis.

<I>It looks like our Sheetrock Theater is now complete. </I>

Sanus Systems' VisionMount LMT15 motorized tilting mount provides automated movement by remote control, making it easy to adjust the viewing angle of your TV. It can automatically tilt to a pre-set position up to 13 degrees when the TV is turned on, or it can be positioned as desired with the IR remote control. When the TV is turned off, the mount returns to a neutral position, flat against the wall, for a low-profile appearance. It's available in black for $319, and supports flat panel displays from 40-60-inches, weighing up to 150 lbs.

Patio or yard space is always hard to come by in Manhattan, so if you're lucky enough to get some, you'd better make the most of it. For one well-to-do Fifth Avenue apartment dweller, that meant more than just tossing some outdoor furniture on his rooftop deck. As a music and movie lover, he was already enjoying some very fine audio/video gear in his living room, including a superb two-channel music system sourced by a Linn turntable and a Naim CD player and electronics driving top-of-the-line B&W speakers. The challenge, then, was to insure similarly impressive sound quality, but to do it on an outdoor patio space exposed year-round to the wrath of often brutal and sometimes belligerent New York City weather.

With flat panel TV's getting so thin, speaker manufacturers are again challenged to create speakers that compliment them. Artison, a leading innovator and manufacturer of custom high-performance loudspeakers, recently introduced an incredibly thin speaker that attaches directly to your TV.