Unhappy with the commercial theater experience
If you’re like me, and love the experience of getting immersed in a good movie, I’m sure you’ve been frustrated with commercial movie theaters—expensive tickets, ridiculously priced snacks, uncomfortable seats, sticky floors, noisy crowds, cell phone use, etc. Then there are traffic and parking hassles, poor weather, inconvenient show-times. Too often, the picture quality is disappointing, the sound distorted, the dialogue hard to understand.
Consider a home theater
Watch what you want, when you want, and enjoy whatever drinks and snacks you’d like. Taking advantage of available technology, the picture and sound quality at home can exceed anything available in regular theaters.
An excellent home experience
Recent technological advances now allow you to enjoy 4k movies, with 4 times the resolution of ‘regular’ High Definition. You may also hear about “HDR” which stands for High Dynamic Range. This provides an enhanced, more life-like experience, with an expanded range of vivid colors. These provide an incredibly thrilling experience that has to be seen to be appreciated.
2 Ways to Enjoy Movies at Home
A Large-Screen TV to fit in your living room
Large flat-screen TV’s, in the 75” to 85” size range, are dramatically more affordable than they were just a year or two ago. Just add a good Dolby Surround Sound system, and you’re right in the middle of the action! With a well-designed setup, any room in your house can be perfect for movie watching.
The “big-screen” experience
To get the full ‘big-screen’ experience that movie theaters offer, you can move up to using a Projector, with a screen in the 100” to 200” range!
2 Types of Home Theater Rooms
A shared space
With some planning and creativity, you can add this type of system to rooms that are used for other purposes as well. The new “Ultra-short Throw” systems will project the image from a cabinet underneath the screen, making it adaptable to pretty much any room. And with the right choice of screen material, the room doesn’t have to be completely dark.
A dedicated room
For the ultimate experience, you can have a room in your home “dedicated” to Home Theater. Here, you have full control, and can design the theater of your dreams. You can get the best 4k and HDR picture quality available, along with a totally immersive sound environment. A traditional Dolby Surround setup will give you great sound in front, behind you, and on the sides. The newer Dolby Atmos will expand this sound-field above you, so that when a helicopter flies overhead, that’s where you hear it!
Get rid of the “dozens” of remotes
Given the complexity of modern technology in this field, you can end up with half a dozen remote controls, making it challenging to even get everything turned on! But with a well designed Automation system, operation of even a very complex system becomes child’s play. A single remote will control everything, and most things need only a simple Voice Command.
Don Cohen is a System Designer for Audio Advice. He practiced Ophthalmology in Mooresville for 34 years. Following his retirement, he started working with Audio Advice. It is the largest home integrator company in NC/SC, now serving Lake Norman. Audio Advice can design, install, and support home theaters at a wide range of price points. We have resources that will be extremely useful, with this link a great starting point: Home Theater Buying Guide.
Don has had a decades long passion for technology of all types, and enjoys sharing, and teaching others about how to put these capabilities to work for them. Contact him at 704-534-9096 or [email protected].
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