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A few newbie questions!! (1 Viewer)

beastaudio

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First off, I am just beginning the wiring and running stages of my first major HT setup. When I say that, I have had 5.1 and HD and all that good stuff but this will actually be a dedicated theater ROOM! It is in the basement of my house and already has been finished complete with drop ceiling. The room gets good air and stays warm in the winter so Im not concerned about that, running wire with the drop ceiling should be a piece of cake, and the dimensions of the room, are as good as i can get right now (Could use more headroom but oh well) My first questions would be:


1) With a 30-40 ft. HDMI cable running from stack to PJ would I need a signal booster?



2) with the drop ceiling putting the height at around 7ft and my prjector having to mount somehow directly below that, I am afraid it will all end up being too low/loud. with the room being long and thin, I have only a few places I can successfully mount the PJ and more than likely it will end up being about 2 feet behind the seating area. Will it be too loud just mounted by itself, or should I build a "hush box" or some type of enclosure around it? I could also set it offcenter a little and use lens shift but dont know if this will deteriorate the signal at all?


Any help is greatly appreciated!!!
 

Phil Taylor

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30 - 40 ft should not be a problem with today's HDMI cables.


My projector is within 4ft of my ears and I don't notice it when watching a movie. If I think about it I do but if the movie you're watching is decent you shouldn't ... most good projectors are fairly quiet nowadays unless it's in "high altitude" fan mode.
 

beastaudio

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Im looking at the epson 8350 as it seems to be the best in that price range. Should I consider goin ahead and painting the ceiling black as the drop ceiling now is white or could that be a future upgrade? Does it make much of a difference? Has anyone just done the movie viewing area black and left the rest white? (my basement is long/L-shaped and cuts around to another area that doesnt necessarily need to be black as well and would cause a lot of extra work.)
 

Jim Mcc

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Buy a quality cable from Monoprice.com and you should be fine. If not, you can easily add a booster/repeater later. You will not need a hush box with that projector. I painted all my ceiling tiles FLAT black, and it was a GREAT upgrade. Are you going to ceiling mopunt projector? What I did with my drop ceiling/DIY mount is, I drilled a hole thru tile for pipe to connect to projector, and mounted a pipe flange to blocking between studs at the top. The tile itself carries no weight.
 

Adam Gregorich

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The darker it is the better. Equally important is the fact that you use a flat finish. I went with a dark olive color. Don't feel you need to paint the whole ceiling either. You could paint just from the projector to the screen, or even the first 10 feet of the room. You are just trying to minimize distractions of the light bouncing off the screen onto the ceiling.
 

beastaudio

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Originally Posted by Jim Mcc

Buy a quality cable from Monoprice.com and you should be fine. If not, you can easily add a booster/repeater later. You will not need a hush box with that projector. I painted all my ceiling tiles FLAT black, and it was a GREAT upgrade. Are you going to ceiling mopunt projector? What I did with my drop ceiling/DIY mount is, I drilled a hole thru tile for pipe to connect to projector, and mounted a pipe flange to blocking between studs at the top. The tile itself carries no weight.

I plan to do a similar setup as a normal projector mount with an adjustable drop arm will work perfectly. pulled my drop ceiling yesterday and what a surprise! There is a prewired box right where I need it! I call that projector providence!!!


On another note, I think i may hold off on painting the ceiling as I plan on replacing most of the drop ceiling panels as they are older and all have a good bit of bow in them from moisture of year's past. I now have a dehumidifier running and the air is prefect. The previous owner let the basement go and there is plenty of work to get it back up to snuff.


Is there such a thing as black drop ceiling panels? that way when I replace them I can kill two birds with one stone?
 

Adam Gregorich

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Originally Posted by beastaudio (disclaimer: they are an advertiser). They have cables that are very competitive with monoprice, and if you decide to get one of their high end models you wont have to get a second job to pay for it.

Edit: I just checked Blue Jeans website and for a 35 foot cable their prices range from a low of $25 to a high of $100 depending on the series of HDMI cable you want. They also have a lot of non-BS easy to read info that explains some of the differences.
 

beastaudio

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I found this website as well for the decorate ceiling tiles that your website links to but you can get them cheaper direct Ceilume.com. Not sure if im going to go with them or a traditional black tile. I need to start getting prices but I found another thread here that has some really good suggestions, just from about 6 years ago. Hope the same holds true now! I am going to stop by my local lowes soon to see what they can come up with but the black tiles with the white grid is definitely neat looking.
 

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