Advice on HT Plan (1 Viewer)

[mikemsd]

I am in the process of having a new house built, and have been trying to purpose build a room originally marked as a 4'th bedroom into a home theater room. Through some tweaking of the floor plan, I've got the room as roughly 13' wide by 16' long. After reading reviews for a while, I think I've picked out most of the equipment I want to put in there, but would like some advice on some things.

Here is the equipment that so far I've decided on. I still welcome all opinions on this set up.

Projector: Epson Home Cinema 8500UB
Screen: VApex Fixed Frame Cinema White 106" 16:9 screen with 1.1 Gain
Sound: Onkyo HT-S9100THX 7.1 Receiver and Speaker Package
Remote: Logitech Harmony 900

The screen comes as a package deal with the projector. I'm doing that trying to save a little bit of money. For the sound, I was going for an integrated system where I wouldn't have to worry about matching speakers, etc.

Now, the equipment that I've got more questions about.

Mount: Visual Apex Universal Ceiling Mount or Custom Built Shelf

Should I go with the ceiling mount, or should I go with a shelf mount in the back of the room? Due to engineering issues with the house, I have to have a closet built into the room. I've reduced it to be approximately 3' across and runs most of the the width of the room. Before that closet came into being, I was going to put the projector screen on the wall where the closet is going to be, and mount the projector to the ceiling. Now that I have a mandatory closet in the room I was thinking of inverting the plan and putting the projector in the closet and building an opening into the room, shielded with plexiglass to cut down on sound from the projector.

Does anyone have experience with the 8500UB and sound levels? Would I be better off putting it in the other room, or is the sound low enough that I'm not going to notice it? Also, is mounting the projector that far back, going to cause light output issues in my room as I will have to zoom the picture?

Blu-Ray Player: Sony BDP-S470 or Sony PS3 Slim

I'm a bit more torn on this one. I like the idea of having the ability to play games on the PS3, but am I going to lose movie quality over not buying a dedicated stand alone Blu-Ray player? I haven't been able to research the players as much as I've been able to research the rest of the material. The PS3 is definitely going to cost me more on the front end, so I'm trying to weigh additional features with the ability to game vs increased price. However, if there are any quality issues or loss of movie watching features by going the PS3 route, I'd probably go for the standalone as I am more interested in movie watching than gaming.

Thanks everyone in advance for any advice you can give me. This is a project that I've always wanted to do, and it looks like it might become a reality soon.

 

[Jim Mcc]

With that projector's lens shift, I would use a shelf. Unless you KNOW you're going to play games, I would buy a normal Blu-ray player and save at least $100. I don't know how well the PS3 upconverts standard DVD's.

 

[jferris166]

I agree with Jim Mcc on the projector location. Definitely shelf mounted, I tried both methods with my new projector and shelf mounted is a much better view (and having easy access to the device is nice as well. I don't know about your exact model, but I sit a few feet from mine and don't notice it. Light output should not be a problem unless unless the room is monstrous but do make sure you have blackout blinds for any windows as the ambient light can definitely detract from picture quality. From what I've heard/read, you do not suffer any picture quality loss on the PS3 simply because it's intended to be a gaming console and not a dedicated player. It is also internet connected so you get all the firmware upgrades, etc. The difference between a ps3 blu ray player and a dedicated device is in usability, you have a few more menus to hop through with the PS3 but if you buy the blu-ray player remote it should work almost exactly like a dedicated player. Also with the PS3 you can stream Netflix movies/tv shows, play music from Pandora, download movies/shows from Amazon, etc., some things you can't do with many blu-ray players. Sounds like a great project your working on, good luck!