Recreating the cinema experience has become increasingly popular in recent years, and developments in technology, such as high definition replay, larger flat panel displays as well as projectors and screens, and more powerful surround-sound systems have made this all the more appealing. Having a dedicated cinema room in your house means you can go the extra mile with a larger screen or display, and/or a more powerful sound system than would be appropriate in the public rooms of the house.
Assuming that you’re dealing with an existing room, and aren’t creating the cinema room as part of a new-build, then there’s a few aspects to consider.
Room Symmetry and Layout
You need to firstly look at the size and shape of the room. The ideal will be rectangular, hopefully more than 15ft wide by 20ft long, without windows (or too many windows), and with a decently high ceiling. You may wish to consider its proximity to other rooms as well, as a late-night blockbuster movie session may not sit well under someone’s bedroom. Clearly, the size of the room will dictate your seating capacity and arrangement, as well as dictating placement of loudspeakers – hopefully away from the main seating, but far enough from walls, if you’re using freestanding units. Generally speaking, the seating should be grouped centrally, around the prime listening ‘sweet spot’ maybe 2/3rds of the way down the room.
Seating
The ideal cinema chair is one that keeps you comfortable, but that doesn’t send you to sleep. Big recliners are usually on the shopping list for custom-built rooms, but you may have to cut your cloth to fit, as it were, and many top furniture retailers stock great ranges of both fabric sofas and leather recliners that would fit the smaller room. Judge how many you want to fit in, take some careful measurements, and find the chairs that fit, leaving enough room around the perimeter to move in and out at the sides, and at the front and rear for the sound system to do its work properly.
Equipment
For your screen, the choice is between some form of flat-panel display, or a projector plus screen. The flat panel will give the more compact installation, and the projector will introduce extra complications with cabling. Sound quality is a crucial element, and you should do your homework on what you need. Nothing is more distracting than equipment displays and lights below your screen, and you should probably consider racking the media players, amplifiers, and other non-display equipment to the side or rear of the room.
These are just the basics but hopefully enough to get started on creating that dream cinema room, so you can enjoy great films from the comfort of your own home.
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This article was written by interiors and lifestyle blogger Jonny P – who’s written for many big name brands.