Building a "Media Room"...help.!! (1 Viewer)

[Antonio Silva]

Hi all,
First of all, I must confess that I don’t know that much about home theaters and equipment. So I ask for your patience and understanding.
I’m going to move into a new house in about 2 – 3 years time. Being an entertainment fanatic, I will have the opportunity to have a room dedicated to my hobbies, music, cinema, computer games, books, etc. Now, I’ve seen some of your home theaters, having browsed through them here on the Home Theater Forum, and some of them are mighty impressive. But as much as I like them, it’s not really the sort of thing that I’m looking for. I’m hoping to build a room that can function as a “media room”, where I can relax, read, play computer games, listen to music and watch television, as well as movies. As I’m in the process of defining the house plan, and bearing in mind those considerations above, I was wondering if any of you more elucidated people out here could give me a few suggestions/advices for planning a room like that.
Here’s some of the truths/myths regarding some issues:
Room dimensions. What sort of room should I plan? I can go as far as 5 meters wide (16.5 ft), the height will be about 2.60 meters (8.65 ft) and as for the length, what should it be, considering those measurements above?
My plan was to build a 5x12x2.60 meters (16.5x39.7x8.65 ft) media room with a semi-arch at about 6.5 meters (21.4 ft). On that arch, I would place a cinema curtain to separate it from the rest of the room. The room would still be 12 meters (39.7 ft) long but whenever I felt like watching a movie, I could close the curtain and be in complete darkness (without windows or doors) in an area of 5 meters wide (16.5 ft), 2.60 meters high (8.65 ft) and 6.5 meters long (21.4 ft). Are this measurements ideal for a home theater system? When not watching cinema, the curtains would open and the room would be again 12 meters long (39.7 ft), with a big balcony at the end.
Please explain this to me: In order to have a projector and a big screen, one must have a room that is in complete darkness, right? Other that that, the picture will suffer badly, correct? Well, although I like to watch movies in complete darkness, I also plan to watch television with the lights on. So it’s probably better to buy a big television and not a projector. I know that some of you have both, but unfortunately, that’s way too much for my pocket.
As for acoustics, once again, as I’m not really planning a “theater”, and I’m not crazy about the idea of having “fake” walls, are there any tips that might help the sound? I read that having lots of carpets, pillows, couches, etc, will help absorb the sound and prevent it from reflecting and bouncing around the room. Am I correct?
I hope I made myself clear. The ideia for the room is not so much for it to be a “Home Theater”, but more like a “Media Room”. The plan is to go there not only to watch movies, but also to listen to music (a lot), read, play computer games, and lay around.
I wish I was more technical friendly than I am. But other than not having too much time to deal with it (how do you guys and gals manage to find time!!!), I’m the kind of person that would be happy if the machines had just one button: On/Off.
So there you go. Some of the things I wrote above may be considered sacrilegious by some of you (sorry), but then again…
Thank you for the patience and help,
Regards, António

 

[SteveMc]

I am i n a similar situation right now. Hoping to be a new house a few years down the road and I'm already toying with ideas like room layouts and stuff. To be honest i'm not even caring what the rest of the house has...I'll build my room and my wife can put whatever she wanted around it

I read that having lots of carpets, pillows, couches, etc, will help absorb the sound and prevent it from reflecting and bouncing around the room. Am I correct?

This is right. Acoustics depends a lot on the size and shape of the room ,but it also largely affected by what you have in it. Bare walls and floors would cause a lot of reflections, so with carpet and a room full of furniture, it'll help absord a lot of the undesired reflections.
If I were going to have one big multipurpose room, i'd lean toward a RPTV, unless like you said, you could close off part of from the rest of the area. Good luck with the planning.
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