Dark woods and fabric walls set the tone as you walk into this spacious theater. The ceiling has a stunning cherry wood panel across it that provides a place for several recessed lighting cans. As these lights are dimmed and the doors of the theater close behind you, it is obvious that great care was taken in making sure that ambient light and noise from outside are kept to virtually non-existent levels. Even the finest audio system in the world won’t sound as good as it could when being hampered by ambient noise. Anyone who has installed a projector in a system knows the struggle of trying to get the room dark enough to really make the picture shine. The CSI team did the client right by property sealing off the rear doors and ensuring that sounds from outside room do not creep into the room.
The deep red material on the seats, walls and floor, as well as the lighting sconces on the walls, scream classic movie theater, but that is where the similarity ends between this theater and anything you might consider vintage. A Digital Projections three-chip DLP projector supplies the cinema-grade image. The light output at the screen was measured at 1910 ANSI lumens, with a contrast ratio of 915:1 for an incredibly bright and beautiful picture.
The projector is housed in a custom hush box and has a very quiet fan that exchanges the air in the box eight times a minute. The hush box is located in the exercise room, which is adjacent to the back wall of the theater. When a projector is installed in a hush box, heat is one of the main concerns, if indeed not the primary one. To combat heating issues, the system was set up so that the cooling fan runs for an extra 15 minutes once the system is shut down to prevent super-heating inside the unit. Two panels of optical glass were placed in the wall in front of the projector lens to minimize noise in the room. According to the system designer, the only way you know that the projector is actually running is by the super-bright picture that appears on the screen.
In the video department, the system consists of a Faroudja DVP-1500 DVD player/video processor and a Sony HD200 Satellite receiver. Like almost all HDTV junkies who don’t have time to sit at home and wait for their favorite shows to air in HD, the client is eagerly anticipating the arrival of his soon-to-be-installed Hughes HD TIVO unit. The homeowner will not only be able to enjoy HD in his theater, but the signal will be routed out to his 17-inch LCD, which is mounted above the treadmill. If you are going to slave away burning calories in your home gym, you might as well do it in style while watching the news or the latest blockbuster films on DVD or satellite.
The audio equipment includes a Lexicon MC-12 processor, balanced version 2.0, a BSS Audio Soundweb Digital EQ, a Mark Levinson amplifier, two Proceed amplifiers and a Meridian CD player for music listening. The client even has an Acoustic Research Preamp for his turntable that is installed in his rack on a sliding drawer. This system makes for both a stunning surround system for watching movies and a killer two-channel set-up should the urge to listen to some vinyl or a stereo CD ever arise.
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The deep red material on the seats, walls and floor, as well as the lighting sconces on the walls, scream classic movie theater, but that is where the similarity ends between this theater and anything you might consider vintage. A Digital Projections three-chip DLP projector supplies the cinema-grade image. The light output at the screen was measured at 1910 ANSI lumens, with a contrast ratio of 915:1 for an incredibly bright and beautiful picture.
tem was set up so that the cooling fan runs for an extra 15 minutes once the system is shut down to prevent super-heating inside the unit. Two panels of optical glass were placed in the wall in front of the projector lens to minimize noise in the room. According to the system designer, the only way you know that the projector is actually running is by the super-bright picture that appears on the screen.