Here are some images of the cinema's I've owned

1.) Leytonstone

This was my budget cinema set-up prior to mid 2001 - I had a a surround sound amp for years and a few sets of speakers and had a 32" TV and then via the free ads gotten my dream. An old Barco CRT projector. I think i paid about £400 for the first one. I ran it via a HTPC and used DVD via a creative encore DXR2 card.

2.) The Palantir

We bought a house which had a large spare room. It was L shaped extension which had no windows, just a leaking roof light and pair of double doors. We replaced the roof and got rid of the roof light and the ceiling needed replacing so we tweaked the height. We created the length by making a stud wall creating a corridor and kit area which also had the double doors in it.

My Ex is an Architect and used autocad to create the wall panels and boxing. I cut and profiled them at work using a cad/cam router. They were a matt shade of grey which didn't reflect and dulled with the lights. The lower sections had sound insulation for room acoustic purposes.

Alas the room was never full finished, though all the panels were made and painted and many films were watched the proceedings were halted as was the restoration of the house when plans were published to run a road through the house. Lots of complications and a divorce took the impetus out of the project.

I saved all the arches, panels and boxing facades and they are safely stored

3.) The Dreaming - Another Dream

When forced to move I looked for a property with a potential cinema space. I found a good deal on a end of terrace tall modern town house. Life took over for a few years and I built up a decent living room set-up. A 55" 3D capable plasma TV, a 7.1 Kef 3005 egg life style system. This slowly grew to 7.2.4 Atmos system with a better amp and a second set of 2nd hand Kefs. Life was reasonable, but I still had the cinema space at the top of the house which was hardly ever used. It did as a party crash dorm for a couple of parties but for a few years it just did nothing.

I was hosting my Girlfriend for Christmas and I'd been pondering about getting the cinema room usable, so I moved some of my kit up there and it sounded decent. The Yamaha Z9 amp is old. It pre-dates HDMI. I had used it previously with a 7.1 channel input in the later days of my old system, which is fine for a single source but it wouldn't do for now. I started to investigate pre-amps and found the Nakamichi AV1 pre amp on a silly deal for £200. Multi HMDI, Dolby True HD, DTS Master, Multiple HDMI and 7.1 output and impressive sound. WINNER

My old screen was pretty good, but it was in my Garage. The house is 4 floors and the cinema at the top. No way to get it up there. I wondered about a crazy idea of cutting it in half along its width and then plating the joint once in the cinema. It worked and didn't even add any extra issues.

I got a Mitsubishi HC4000 off the AV Forums 2nd hand. It was cheap and gave a good 1080P image and was a lot lighter and smaller than my old Barco which I really didn't fancy trying to mount on the ceiling and digital projectors had come a long way

My previous cinema screen wall was a kind of H frame which had the screen pivoting on bolts. I didn't like that intrusive idea and the more I thought about the cinema idea, IF i came to sell the house, most people would want this as a bedroom or second lounge, not a batcave cinema. So I thought i'd try to build one without destroying the underlying room. As such I wondered about high tensile wire strung between two shackles either side of the walls. The screen is light weight and that would just be a few raw plug holes and the room had some of those from the previous occupants! It worked. I used a line for the top and one for the bottom and had a floating screen

The Palatir had a raised platform form and whilst I hadn't been able to save it, I really liked the cinematic feeling it gave to the room. I still had the three luxury cinema chairs and if I wanted friends to visit in the future it made sense to recreate it.

Apart from adding seat mounting and being tiered for better rear viewing, the platorm riser has a "secondary" purpose. Tactile performance

My kit rack is an old server kit rack. Similar to the big BT one i used to have (still in the garage). I'm ex IT and love the flexibility and sturdiness of this option. There is a reasonably full listing on this page including a rough diagram of how it all fits together as i know my set-up is somewhat different to the norm.

Calibration is vital to get the kit performing in the environment. No point in having invested all the time, money and effort into a room, not to have it perform at its best. I use dirac on the main 7.1 system which I had originally got because the Nakamichi's own calibration routine was difficult and disappointing. I use Audyssey on the Atmos effects and the App allows me to EQ the room without Dirac and then I can disable it on the 7.1 channels. I also use a 2x4HD to time align my subwoofers and apply some PEQ cuts to the system which happens before Dirac. The added advantage is I can use BEQ on the 2x4HD to realign the LFE channel on studio bass cut movies (Disney/Marvel) and this also gives a better baseline for the tactile effects!

Video calibration allows me to get the correct colour balance on the projector so that the image is as the director intended. It is impossible to set more than a few basic adjustments without the proper kit.

I also have a eecolor 3D LUT box which needs hundereds of patches to create a calibration profile. This is re purposed old kit and for a couple of hundred gives professional levels of calibration that would cost many thousands to do otherwise. Downsides it is SDR 1080P only, however HDR 4K is still an emerging standard , so I'll wait a bit on that being perfect!

Current Progress 01/04/2019 - I'm still working and tweaking this room, upgrading and calibrating, however people were asking about it and I thought I'd document things. It is certainly very usable and an incredibly rewarding experience.

This also includes the Epson TW9400 for which i've created an FAQ - This is one of the best bang for the buck projectors at the moment, particularly in regards to HDR, Brightness and Contrast and doing 4K pixel shifting. To my mind it would take two or three times the cost to get maybe a 5% visible increase in performance, even in THIS room!

Screen performance - No images I can produce can ever manage to really show what this set-up can achive, however it is always fun to give an idea of things and that is what this is!

I also upgraded to a professional screen. A bargain from the AV Forums as per a lot of my purchases. This is a 120" diagonal Spitfire acoustic screen. The gain, sound and image are quite close to my home made screen, which shows the research, time and effort making that screen was worth it. However it always had a couple of minor crease marks in the lower right corner and these got worse when I moved it to this cinema. It didn't bother others, but I knew and in the ~10 years since I made mine, large acoustic screens have become more common place and a lot cheaper. I added a couple of small holes in side of the 4" aluminium frame and threaded the wires through. A really small, quick and easy mod that you wouldn't even notice if I ever sell it later.

The rest of the screen wall is made from speaker clipped onto the wires and an extra Ikea curtain wire at the top which holds a couple of clipped black fancy lace curtain fabric panels that fill in the sides. I may stitch these up at some point, but it works!

All of the later images have been taken on my HTC U11 - I'm no photographer and i've tried to show what things are like to inspire others rather than look perfect. It is still a work in progress and I've plans and tweaks and to finish off putting velour on the rest of the light wall surfaces.

I mainly used some velvet cord material for the walls which give a nice touch with the lights up. The ceiling, behind the screen and the less visual parts are some cheap black ultra suede velour from ebay. About £4 a meter for ~150" wide and a staple gun works wonders, miles quicker than painting and removal would be quick, easy and touch up with some pollyfiller and a dab of paint!

My biggest regret is not swapping the carpet. The room evolved from getting things watchable, having fun to contrast chasing and improving as I used the cinema more and got more of a budget and the light carpet now irritates. However swapping it would be a nightmare job. The big black rugs help, but where the door swings out negates doing much there. I've pondered dying in situ or even paint. However you don't see it from the main watching position or even the guest seating without moving your head and looking for it and being carpet the light bounce back is probably pretty low too.

There are probably better rooms out there. The ceiling set-up makes EQ interesting as do the Omin-polar speakers and they are one reason i've not added more room treatment as they work with reflected sound. I preferred the wow factor design of The Palantir, but this room didn't lend itself to that sort of install. However, I could within a day or two return this room to it's dull beige decor and you wouldn't know there was a cinema here at all. This room also has much better critical viewing attributes. It probably isn't for everyone, but I love it and so does everyone who visits.