home cinema lighting advice

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

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23 Oct 2002
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Hi guys

we have bought a new house and i intend to knock through from lounge to garage to make the lounge much bigger and have a home cinema area. i would like to add some controllable lighting around the room. maybe control colour and brightness.

can someone give me some ideas please. not sure if we want full downlight LED spots or some form of uplighter on each side of the room as we intend to put in some fitted shelves for our movies and books (2500 DVDs, 500 blu-ray and about 500 books!!!) so we could hide the lighting above the shelving somehow.

thanks guys.
 
I fitted 8 downlighters each running at 50watts in my ceiling.
These are wired to a programmable remote controlled dimmer switch made by Crabtree.
This setup is excellent for home theatre use,being used by a spare set of keys on my Kuro's remote control.When I start a film the lights slowly dim out and with the touch of a button dim back up again when you want light.Looks the part!!
 
mad4jags said:
I fitted 8 downlighters each running at 50watts in my ceiling.
These are wired to a programmable remote controlled dimmer switch made by Crabtree.
This setup is excellent for home theatre use,being used by a spare set of keys on my Kuro's remote control.When I start a film the lights slowly dim out and with the touch of a button dim back up again when you want light.Looks the part!!
Click to expand...

cool. any chance of a link? i cant seem to find it

edit: can dimmers work with LED? i know they should in theory but i tried a crabtree one in the kitchen and it didnt dim our LED kitchen lighting but that maybe because the 2 lights in there are both double switched

also, is the dimmer silent? ones in the past make a hum and that annoys me.
 
Not all LEDs are dimmable. The cheap ones generally aren't. You need to go up to the more expensive ranges before you get dimming. The other thing is that low cost wall dimmers rarely work with LED lights for dimming. Again you need to go up range - and cost.

I redid the lighting in my home in 2003. At the time LED just wasn't an option, so my choices were either 240V GU10 or 12V MR11 & MR16 downlights. My concern was that the dimmer switches would work with both 240V fittings and 12V dimming transformers. I went for nearly all 12V and it was a great decision.

In the 9 years since I haven't replaced a single 12V lamp that's on a dimmer. The quality of the light is great - which is something I can't say for LED; the soft start/soft off looks really classy (which is also why no lamps have needed replacing); and the wall dimmers are absolutely silent. I used Varilights with IR control. I have these tied in to my Nevo home controller (LINK)

My 12V transformer choice was made easy because I'd used some B&Q transformers in the past. In a word - Rubbish. I vowed not to make the same mistake on this project. I bought much better quality dimmers with soft start and auto reset. They were double the price but have been absolutely first class and worth every single penny.

If I were doing this again I'd only use LED for accent and effects lighting. I have been in plenty of homes where LED has been installed as main lighting. The lamps themselves look bright and crisp white, but the light being cast down doesn't have the same quality. It's a greyish-blue and not very nice or flattering as a colour from the cheaper lamps. The more expensive lamps are a bit better it's still doesn't have that wow factor to justify the expense of fitting them. Also, unless the place is flooded with LED fittings using the better quality lamps then there's just not sufficient illumination IMO.

I'd use LED colour change strips with IR control in my cabinets and behind the cornices for room edge lighting.
 
Whatever you do, take the time to plan thoroughly - AVF has a fantastic lighting sub-forum, where they can help you to plan a basic setup, with a couple of dimmer switches and Ikea's LED strips for behind the screen, to an all-out, singin' and dancin' multiple-plex style system controlled from your Knightrider wristwatch (or iPad) from the likes of Lutron etc...

It all depends on budget and how much time/mess you want to give to it.

If you want to talk to someone, feel free to get in touch with Luke @ NewLand Solutions, he's all about the home-automation, in fact, it's his bread&butter...

Good luck with whatever you choose - it's great fun once you use it...
 
Last edited:
Dr F33lG00D said:
Whatever you do, take the time to plan thoroughly - AVF has a fantastic lighting sub-forum, where they can help you to plan a basic setup, with a couple of dimmer switches and Ikea's LED strips for behind the screen, to an all-out, singin' and dancin' multiple-plex style system controlled from your Knightrider wristwatch (or iPad) from the likes of Lutron etc...

It all depends on budget and how much time/mess you want to give to it.

If you want to talk to someone, feel free to get in touch with Luke @ NewLand Solutions, he's all about the home-automation, in fact, it's his bread&butter...

Good luck with whatever you choose - it's great fun once you use it...
Click to expand...

oddly i posted there and only had 1 response that would cost me hundreds. i just cant justify that expense with a 5 month old son.

im thinking LED uplighters in a pelmet controlled via a dimmer at the minute.
 
realBabelfish said:
oddly i posted there and only had 1 response that would cost me hundreds. i just cant justify that expense with a 5 month old son.
Click to expand...
That's what proper dimming LED will cost.

I had a job a couple of years ago where the electrician supplied the lamps and LED lighting. At that time a couple of 5m LED strips with dimmable colour change drivers cost the client £600.

There are quite a few different versions of the LED strips available now. The fewer the LEDs and the less powerful then the cheaper they get. I bought some of that LED strip from Ebay to play around with and compare to the better products.

What I found was that the strength of the light is okay if you just want a bit of a colour wash in a cornice, but it's not strong enough to travel any distance. The colour purity is a bit odd. The three colour LEDs aren't equal in brightness, so white looks a bit blue and some of the colours look a bit odd compared to the colours on the remote buttons. You'll soon pick up which colours work alright and which to avoid. Oh, and the remote is useless at anything more than a couple of metres. It has a weak emitter. I squirted the codes in to a learning remote with a decent blaster. That worked much better.

However, for less than £30 you really can't expect much and the lighting effect works okay.
 
I got 4 sets of LED rods, along with the controller box and remote.

Can cycle through multiple colours and it makes a great difference to the perceived black levels when watching stuff at night.

Came to £58 in total, and can be had for £52 now.

http://www.kr00t0n.com/Flat/Lounge1.JPG
http://www.kr00t0n.com/Flat/Lounge2.JPG
http://www.kr00t0n.com/Flat/Lounge6.JPG

As I had to use a long exposure to get the light, things looks much more intense in those photos than in real life, will take a video tonight if you like?
 
lucid said:
That's what proper dimming LED will cost.

I had a job a couple of years ago where the electrician supplied the lamps and LED lighting. At that time a couple of 5m LED strips with dimmable colour change drivers cost the client £600.

There are quite a few different versions of the LED strips available now. The fewer the LEDs and the less powerful then the cheaper they get. I bought some of that LED strip from Ebay to play around with and compare to the better products.

What I found was that the strength of the light is okay if you just want a bit of a colour wash in a cornice, but it's not strong enough to travel any distance. The colour purity is a bit odd. The three colour LEDs aren't equal in brightness, so white looks a bit blue and some of the colours look a bit odd compared to the colours on the remote buttons. You'll soon pick up which colours work alright and which to avoid. Oh, and the remote is useless at anything more than a couple of metres. It has a weak emitter. I squirted the codes in to a learning remote with a decent blaster. That worked much better.

However, for less than £30 you really can't expect much and the lighting effect works okay.
Click to expand...

its only really around the cinema section of the room. i am knocking through from lounge to garage and having the cinema bit in what used to be the garage the lounge will retain all its old lighting. all i want is mood lighting in that area so maybe the cheaper LED systems will be ok?
 
krooton said:
I got 4 sets of LED rods, along with the controller box and remote.

Can cycle through multiple colours and it makes a great difference to the perceived black levels when watching stuff at night.

Came to £58 in total, and can be had for £52 now.

http://www.kr00t0n.com/Flat/Lounge1.JPG
http://www.kr00t0n.com/Flat/Lounge2.JPG
http://www.kr00t0n.com/Flat/Lounge6.JPG

As I had to use a long exposure to get the light, things looks much more intense in those photos than in real life, will take a video tonight if you like?
Click to expand...

thx mate. looks pretty decent. where did you get them from?
 
Annoyingly, videos with my camera or phone try to compensate for the darkness and make the lights look brighter than they are, the picture is much closer to the real perception.

IMG_2921.JPG


http://www.kr00t0n.com/Sale/TV1.mp4
http://www.kr00t0n.com/Sale/TV2.mp4
 
krooton said:
Annoyingly, videos with my camera or phone try to compensate for the darkness and make the lights look brighter than they are, the picture is much closer to the real perception.

IMG_2921.JPG


http://www.kr00t0n.com/Sale/TV1.mp4
http://www.kr00t0n.com/Sale/TV2.mp4
Click to expand...

looks nice but im not sure it wouldnt be too distracting.

im planning on painting the back wall with TV and speakers on black, so that everything blends into the wall. i do like the look of backlighting but doesnt it take your eye off the screen?

backlit TVs change the back colour to suit the movie though, dont they? that might not be so bad.

i do love blue light though.... not sure why!
 
realBabelfish said:
looks nice but im not sure it wouldnt be too distracting.

im planning on painting the back wall with TV and speakers on black, so that everything blends into the wall. i do like the look of backlighting but doesnt it take your eye off the screen?

backlit TVs change the back colour to suit the movie though, dont they? that might not be so bad.

i do love blue light though.... not sure why!
Click to expand...

Doesn't distract the eyes in the slightest, but due to your pupils dilating to compensate for the light, it makes black levels seem darker. It also lessens eye strain for people who suffer when watching in low-light as the pupils don't have to adjust as much and as often when going through the movie.

Yeah, Philips Ambilight changes colour based on what is being displayed near the screen edges, which is a bit better, but fixed colours work fine.

Blue is my default "show" colour as it looks cool, but I find the colour that works the best across the board for tv and film is a warm (slightly yellow) white, as it can't really clash with anything.
 
realBabelfish said:
im planning on painting the back wall with TV and speakers on black
Click to expand...
Painting is one idea, but have you thought about black textured wallpaper?

There are some great patterns available now including material effects like woven fabrics and natural materials such as slate and stone. I calibrated a customer's projector a couple of years ago where he had built a media wall. The Plasma was inset. The surface of the wall looked like stitched leather panels. The effect was superb. It added a real wow factor. That was a B&Q wallpaper (LINK).
 
krooton said:
Doesn't distract the eyes in the slightest, but due to your pupils dilating to compensate for the light, it makes black levels seem darker. It also lessens eye strain for people who suffer when watching in low-light as the pupils don't have to adjust as much and as often when going through the movie.

Yeah, Philips Ambilight changes colour based on what is being displayed near the screen edges, which is a bit better, but fixed colours work fine.

Blue is my default "show" colour as it looks cool, but I find the colour that works the best across the board for tv and film is a warm (slightly yellow) white, as it can't really clash with anything.
Click to expand...

nice, i think i might give it a go. i ordered 2 of those cheap controllable 5m LED rolls to see how well they work but they are intended to go around the top of the room lighting upwards.
 
lucid said:
Painting is one idea, but have you thought about black textured wallpaper?

There are some great patterns available now including material effects like woven fabrics and natural materials such as slate and stone. I calibrated a customer's projector a couple of years ago where he had built a media wall. The Plasma was inset. The surface of the wall looked like stitched leather panels. The effect was superb. It added a real wow factor. That was a B&Q wallpaper (LINK).
Click to expand...

i did intend to go for real stone on the back wall, like here:
http://www.century-stone.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=108

but budget is running low since we are redoing the kitchen too...
 
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