Types of Cinema
We can start with a simple DVD player, audio video receiver, surround speaker package and plasma display. From key room dimensions, such as distance from screen and distance from speakers, we can design your entire cinema experience. In most properties a room cannot bedesignated solely for the home cinema so compromises have to be made; this is where our experienced home cinema designers can help.
For more comprehensive and larger designs we can look at projection to meet the screen size requirements. Projection should be considered once you exceed a 50" screen size, and can be used up to 300" without problem. The size of the screen should be designed based on the distance you sit from it whilst considering the source material. In better cinema rooms the ambient lighting should be considered and blackout blinds used to control it. Split height seating should be implemented to optimise audio and video performance and higher quality electronics should be used throughout to maintain the full cinema experience.
Reference Level Cinema
Having a reference level cinema is the ultimate in home entertainment; it is a cinema which recreates the film as it would have existed during post production screenings. This is the environment the director would have finally approved his film for release, this is how the director wants you to view his work, this is the best place to experience the real action and emotion of the film!
Reference level cinemas are designed around a strict set of published standards, the image and audio performance have to meet or exceed these. The standards are very challenging to meet in the domestic environment, without professional design, construction and calibration methods.
Control
Other things to consider in a home cinema are more practical; once you exceed a basic set up, a control system becomes essential to make it easy to use by the whole family and visitors. The configuration of the room including blinds, curtains, lights, source and surround sound settings should all be automatically set; so all you have to do is put a disk in or select your movie from your media server, sit down and press play on the controller. It is easy and relaxing with none of the stress of finding the 6 different remotes and pressing 15 buttons!
Viewing Environment
One of the most neglected parts of your home cinema is the environment. We have mentioned the room lighting, but décor is also critical. If it’s a designated room then you may have the option to use dark non-reflective wall, ceiling and floor coverings. Reflected light from these surfaces can cause distraction and this is not desirable. Position of lights should be designed not to cause reflections on the screen visible by the audience; the use of up lighters close to the audience can solve these problems within a good design.
Room Acoustics
Room acoustics are another environmental consideration. The speakers and electronics could be the best available, but put them in a bad acoustic space and you may have just wasted your money. Careful consideration should be taken to select the best room based on its main dimensions; this will more evenly distribute acoustic features. We can advise on this at the planning stage, especially if it’s a new build. Features contained in badly designed rooms can cause bass frequencies to sound monotone and exaggerated. Similarly, higher up the frequency range we need to consider sound reflections, diffusion and absorption. Acoustic features can be controlled with furniture, pictures, DVD racks and special materials. Even if the cinema is also your lounge many things can be done to improve the acoustics without making your room look like a studio. Electronic means of improving acoustic problems can also be employed if more traditional means cannot be used due to interior design constraints.
Picture Ratio and Resolution
Most TV broadcasts are now in the 16:9 widescreen format, this is the shape of the majority of flat screen TVs on the market. There are however, still a few TVs which use the 4:3 fornat and even some early flat screens using 15:9. When selecting a projection screen or TV it is essential to get the ratio which suits your source material, usually 16:9.
Picture resolution is a very misunderstood area of home cinema, much of the confusion comes from the press and advertisers convincing us that more is better. This is not always the case and your resolution selection should be based on what you need and lower resolutions should not be ignored. Three main resolutions exist in the UK: 576 lines; 720 lines and 1080 lines. These are the native resolutions of TV and DVD, games consoles, SkyHD and Blu-ray players respectively. When selecting a display you will soon discover that the native resolution of the display does not necessarily match the source and some scaling is needed to make the two fit together. This is where picture quality can be very badly affected. As well as the resolution we also have other factors such as frame rate and progressive or interlaced signals. This is how the picture is constructed in the source and ultimately displayed. Deciding where all this processing is performed is critical to performance; do you do it in the DVD player, the display or with a separate device?
Signal processing is critical to your home cinema experience and is another area where professionals can select and design the best solution for you based on experience.
Anamorphic Widescreen
For that really special home cinema experience, anamorphic widescreen gets you even closer to that cinema experience. Around 65% of DVDs are in fact not in 16:9 ratio, as most flat screen TVs are. This results in black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. This is described below:
As we have mentioned you may be familiar with the black bars at the top and bottom of your current screen when watching many films, this is a 2.35:1 cinemascope image being displayed on a 16:9 screen, around 65% of films are displayed like this:
An electronic vertical stretch of the image is performed to make use of all the pixels and brightness of the projector:
An optically horizontally stretch of the image is then done to get back to the original 2.35:1 ratio image:
Black screen masks then reveal the extra screen width.
This method of projection produces a much larger picture as illustrated above, with around 75% more area.
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