Pro-Install

Home cinema install: Going behind the curtain

Mark Craven  |  Feb 16, 2016

This movie snug is just one part of a smart entertainment space that has us itching to play ball

While some crave a dedicated cinema room far removed from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the house, others want to integrate largescreen AV thrills with their more regular living space. This professional install is a case of the latter, although it's true that 'regular living space' is stretching it a bit...

The room, which uses a hidden Bowers & Wilkins 5.2 speaker system, Runco projector and Seymour Screen Excellence projector screen, essentially occupies the corner of a massive entertainment space, separated only by a heavyweight floor-to-ceiling curtain. It's an unusual scenario, but as installer Cyberhomes explains, the brief demanded it. '[It's] a family space with emphasis on being a play area for the young children and their friends as well as a general entertaining space. The parents like to relax on the large sofa watching TV whilst at the same time being able to keep an eye on their kids in the playroom.' 

'Let's go large'

For dedicated movie and sports nights the owners can draw the curtain to isolate the cinema room from the playroom. In here the request was for the biggest screen possible (150in) within the space, so in-wall speakers and acoustically transparent screen material were natural solutions. The Runco PJ suited the distance and brightness requirements.

For much of the time, the AV setup is used to watch TV, so an outboard Lumagen processor was specified to deliver scaling and deinterlacing, with the Lumagen's different profiles letting Cyberhomes establish specific colour management for individual sources including Sky and Apple TV. 

The cinema was fitted out at the same time that Cyberhomes was completing a massive automation/multiroom project across the rest of the house – including no fewer than 32 B&W in-ceiling speakers, seven Samsung flatscreens in various zones and luxury tricks such as motion-sensitive lighting. We'd probably still end up in here, though.

Installer info

Cyberhomes
www.cyberhomes.co.uk
0333 344 3718

Kit list

Bowers & Wilkins: 2 x ASW610XP subwoofers; 5 x CWM7.4 speakers
Runco: LS-HB Full HD DLP projector
Seymour Screen Excellence: RF 150 WS projector screen (16:9 ratio)
Lumagen: Radiance mini-3D video processor
Rotel: RMB-1575 five-channel amplifier
Savant: HRX-SLN501 HDbaseT receiver; AOM-SS8U 7.1 surround sound module; iPad app/remote control
Apple: Apple TV
Sky: Sky+HD
Lutron: Lighting control

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