"Family First" Home Theater - March 2005 - page 2
One of the next features that may be going into the theater in the future is a series of customizable dimmers that will allow the client to set different mood light settings, including one that dims all of the lights except for the fireplace, or one that lights up just the wet bar for fixing a drink, or a full brightness setting for those occasions when a new piece of equipment is put into the theater. Dimmers can cause AC problems, so this must be taken into account when installing them in an area where sound and video performance are the most critical factors.
Because there are no curtains to automate, the client watches movies much more than he uses the theater to listen to music, so Gilmore opted to program a Pronto-type remote rather than set up an AMX or Crestron touch panel. This could be easily incorporated into the theater in the future and could even control the dedicated HVAC system.
 A Runco VX-1000ci DLP projector hangs down in the back of the room from a ceiling-mount bracket that is angled up to fit with the slope of the vaulted ceiling. The client was worried that his Steven Segal “On Deadly Ground” original movie poster would be blocked out, but as you can see in the picture, Gilmore found a way to set the projector height so that it only obscures the top of the poster ever so slightly.
When it was time to pick gear for the system, Gilmore chose mainly Rotel items based on their performance, price and most importantly reliability, based on the client’s budget. These are fast becoming the most important factors in choosing product lines to sell and install for AV pros. In the wooden cabinets that are under the 100-inch Stewart Filmscreen 100 Firehawk screen, the Rotel gear consists of the RDV-1060 DVD-Audio player, the RSP-1068 7.1 Surround Preamp/Processor, a RB-1090 two-channel amp and a RMB-1066 six-channel amplifier. Rounding out the rack is the Runco video processor for the projector, a Mitsubishi-HSU748 S-VHS, a Hughes HR 10-250 HD-TiVo satellite receiver and a Furman power conditioner with pull-out lights that make it easy to see the gear, even with the lights off while swapping DVD discs.
A dedicated, heavy-duty air-conditioning/heating system was created for the room and a series of what look like cherry wood window blinds along the top left corner of the room are actually vents for this beefy climate control set-up. The fans are a little loud for watching a movie or listening to music in the room. However, the insulation in the walls of the room is so good that it only takes a few minutes of running the air or the heat. The temperature will then remain steady, even while watching the longest of DVDs.
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