HOME THEATER & MEDIA ROOMS

A: A typical home theater system comprises of:

• Speakers: Front Left/Center/Right speakers, rear surround speakers, effect speakers (Dolby Atmos) and subwoofer. Typical theater systems can range from a simple 5.1 Surround sound to 11.2.4 surround sound setups with Dolby Atmos. Dolby Atmos is a surround-sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal nor vertical limitations.
• An AV receiver.
• A source player like Blu-ray player, video streamers such as Apple TV or Roku are most common, but for a custom home theater project we would recommend a Kaleidescape video server as it provides the best video and audio experience you can get.
• A 4K UHD Video Projector and projection screen or a large screen 4K UHD television.

A: A 360 degree sound experience representing screen related activities in front speakers (front left, center, front right) and OFF- screen activities in surround speakers. The 360 degree sound experience should be in strict co-relation to the video events On-screen and Off- screen. 3. Will I be able to buy all the products like Speakers, amplifiers, Players, TV etc., at Audio Planet?

All the Audio & Video components for a Home Theatre system are available from Smart Automation Solutions.

A: This is a difficult question to answer. Projectors have come a long way and some offer amazing brightness, amazing color capabilities and the fact that you can project a very large image on a screen is truly impressive. However, you can now purchase an LED television that’s 100” as well as video wall technology is now being introduced for home theater use too, which means you can now build an LED screen wall in almost any size you want. All of these options will provide a terrific theater viewing experience.

A: Yes, the acoustics of the room contribute to more than 40% of the overall sound experience.

A: Room size and room proportions are very critical and hence contacting us even before construction is the right thing to do.

A: Truthfully, speakers are speakers whether used in a typical stereo (left, right) configuration or a home theater configuration. Stereo as a format requires two full frequency band speakers while home theater as a format requires at the very least 5 speakers (Left front, Right front, Center front, Surround Rear Right, Surround Rear Left speakers) and a subwoofer.

Stereo as format demands more fidelity out of the speakers as the listener is bound to have a higher reference for music and hence clear yard sticks for measuring performance. Home theater on the other hand involves many instances of noise (bomb explosion, car chases, gunshots, action sequences etc.) where there can be multiple references and hence unclear yard sticks for evaluation.

A: Room size, room proportions, acoustic surfaces (absorption and reflection), speaker positions, distances from walls, seating positions, screen size & viewing angles.

A: An Interior designer is critical in the converting the acoustic ideas of an acoustic consultant into pleasing interiors.

A: Any of the six surfaces of the room will impact the home theater acoustics.

A: The word “value for money” is the most abused term in the audio video industry. The Term “Value” is a variable from customer to customer and can be ascertained only on interacting with the customer.

A: Although we prefer to service equipment that we sell to our customers, yes we will work with a client that has already purchased equipment and assist with the installation and setup at a mutually agreed cost.

A: This is a really great question and one that comes up quite often when designing a customer home theater. We ask the following questions to the homeowner:

• What is the room going to be used for most? Is it a dedicated theater room or will you be watching sporting events and regular TV channels?

If the room is going to be used more as a dedicated theater/movie room, most of today’s movies are produced in 2.35:1 cinematic format. If your primary interest is in this wider content then it makes sense to match your screen to what you are watching and, quite frankly, you really don’t want to see or waste performance on those black letterbox bars used to squeeze that content down to fit on a smaller display format.

If your room is primarily for watching news, sports and similar TV content other than streaming shows, use a 16:9 format screen. Almost all such content and even some special HDTV movies are delivered in the 16:9 aspect ratio. So naturally if your primary content is 16:9 then a matching 16:9 screen aspect ratio only makes sense. This doesn’t mean that you can’t watch movies on a 16:9 screen, it just means that the top and bottom of the screen image will show black bars and the wider image will fill the left and right sides of the screen.

There are custom film screens available that provide auto masking. Auto masking screens adjust automatically based on the content being projected on the screen, so if you are watching a movie that’s 2.35:1 screen ratio, the top and bottom portion of the screen adjusts into the screen and the left and right portion of the screen frame pushed all the way out to provide a wide screen view. When watching a TV broadcast the opposite happens where the top and bottom potion of the screen frame opens up full and the left and right sides of the screen frame close in to for a 16:9 screen ration screen. These can be quite expensive but they do exactly what they are meant to do.