Home Sweet Home Cinema (read more…)

SIZE | 500 Sq Ft
BUILD TIME | 6 months
BUILDER | Graves Development
CINEMA DESIGN | IDEABOX
LIGHTING CONTROL | Crestron
CINEMA CONTROL | Crestron
SEATING | D-Box

As a client that trusted us for years, we had free reign to design and build the ultimate home cinema and distributed AV system. This addition starts at the end of a long hallway that runs through the core of this 10,000-square-foot home. From the outside it looks like an extension of the homes decor while on the inside there are subtle but rich differences with a modern flair. Limited by the lot size we were still able to adhere to the “golden rule” of room dimensions for this theater while cramming the biggest screen possible between its walls. One issue among many that arose during the design process were the curtains being able to scrunch up enough to clear the monstrous screen. Pockets were framed into the wall cavities to grant enough clearance and the choice of fabric material also became crucial. Thats how exact it is…

Everything in this room was measured down to the last inch to make sure the ideal screen size would look at home. We designed the room around the screen because in the end thats what it is all about, watching the movie. Templates for the custom color matched Thiel 3.7’s were mocked up on the stage during framing to make sure they wouldn’t obstruct the screen from any angle while also clearing the curtains since they would be following the curve of the stage. In the photos you can see when the curtains are open they are just as wide as the speakers and clear the masking of the screen just right.

Another goals was to meet the requirements of their daughter who needed a performance stage while keeping the esthetics of a dedicated theater. As you can see in the photos her name is on one of the stars in the wood stage. The stage and screen can be hidden with 2 sets of curtains that I mentioned earlier. The front pair are automated to cover the stage and the rear blackouts are used to hide the massive 14ft screen when a play is being presented. While everyone is getting setup behind the stage there is a presentation button on the Crestron keypad that automates the curtains, lights and puts the Crestron Procise processor on the mic input so she has time to set up and has the ability to perform!  The curtains open after a small delay…and the single spotlight will ramp up onto her star on the stage. The other lights on the stage soon follow and shes ready to rock.

The video side of the system is a massive 14ft CineCurve screen from Stewart Filmscreen. This 148 inch 2.40:1 aspect ratio screen with Auto-masking is driven off of feedback from the Kaleidescape system so there is never an aspect ratio issue when watching any movie format. This makes it easy to always watch a movie in all of its beauty.

The projector in the Wolf Cinema LED DCL200FD with outboard scaler and fixed Anamorphic lens. Since the projector uses a LED light source it has 30k hours of lamp life and there is never any color drift or degradation as you see with a typical bulb after 1,00 hours of usage or less. This gives you better all around film reproduction and no need to recalibrate.

The audio portion of the system features a Thiel Audio MCS1 behind the MicroPerf screen. A Thiel SmartSub SS2 is also behind the screen and is fed from a Thiel passive crossover. This is what integrates the subs so seamlessly when the room is strictly used for 2 channel listening. For movies the LFE input is fed directly from the Crestron Procise amp when the speakers are crossed over for movie mode. The crossover resides on top of the new Crestron 7×400 Procise Amplifier. This Amp needs 2 dedicated 15 amp circuits to power it. The fronts are the flagship Thiel 3.7‘s that were color matched from the Factory. The speaker wires for the 3.7‘s are routed through conduit that was layed during the stages construction. Directly behind the speaker are floor cups where the wires come out. We didn’t want to lay speaker wires along the floor….. This is another reason we mocked the speakers up in the framing stage. Both the front and rear stages are filled with sand to keep the room and feel as dead as possible when you walk on them. The rear’s of the Thiel 7.1 system are the Thiel Powerplane 1.2’s We went this route so we could hide them behind the acoustically transparent fabric walls.

The ceiling features the ELiTE Starfield from Auralex. The Depth achieved from multi length fiber optics are amazing. You get so many variations in size and depth of the stars. When one of the DMX Color LED lighting controller scenes are called upon  lighting is set to twilight mode you get the feeling of an early morning or dusk sunrise when you look up, it’s hard to not mistake it for the nights sky since it ramps up slowly over time. To add more immersive touches, roughly every 15 minutes there is a shooting star that jets across the sky. Accent lighting was a huge priority when designing this theater and LED colored strips were the way to go since they can produce any color and intensity imaginable. Color themes for the theater are located on the remote control as well as on the on the iPad.

The first 3 seats in the theater as you walk in are DBOX motion chairs that move with the movie tracks fed from the Kaleidescape.

All of the power in the system is provided by a dedicated line that was retrofit through the home from the main feed. 220v is fed directly into a Richard Grey Power House that provides completely isolated AC power and total surge protection. All of the A/C outlets in the home and theater that power A/V equipment are home-run to the rack room where they are tied into dedicated 20amp circuits on the Richard Grey. This is including all displays in the home that are on the Crestron Digital Media Matrix System. All power and low voltage was retrofit throughout the home with minimal cutting.

The core of the system is a Crestron DM-MD16X16-RPS. It is a 16 input 16 output digital audio/video matrix. This allows for any Digital or Analog sources in the home to be sent over CresFiber to any display in the system. There is a local Blue-ray, HD-DVD and Playstation 3 located at the theaters entrance to facilitate easy importing and playing of movies, music and games. These local sources in the home that aren’t located in the rack room are fed back into the crestron matrix via CresFiber where any single source can be accessed throughout the home on mutltiple displays at once if needed.