Taffs New Study and Home Cinema Room

Here's a pic of the wall unit I'll be putting in on the left hand side of the room. Solid Oak to match the desk. Though the one that is going to be made for me will be slightly smaller in width (probably about the size of 3 doors on this one, and also some of the current shelf areas will be split into two to allow for more storage options.



Taff
 
Yup, looks much better in the flesh than in the photo as well.

That one is 2k.

My cut down version and the fact that I'm buying a new dining room table, individually designed wall unit for living room and a number of other peices should mean I can get it for 1k to 1.5k. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for.

Also compared to good quality massed produced units in the likes of John Lewis etc it's actually cheaper and this is made exactly to my specs.

Taff
 
Derek W said:
Nothing of help with your room build but an explanation about the 'strange' door.....Its actually a common design feature in architecture. Its all to do with privacy when entering a room. More common to bedrooms and bathrooms although all doors in my folks house (1960's bungalow with 1980's extension) open that way to shield the person from seeing into the room before they're in the room e.g gives a person time to say don't enter for whatever reason.....sitting on the throne :p or in the bath.
Click to expand...

I was going to comment on that when i seen the first door post. Changing the way the door swings would feel too weird for me. I Don't like it when a door can be slightly ajar and able to see into the room.

I didn't realise the reasoning for it other than it just feels weird like someone could be watching you :)

So is this actually a Victorian thing?
 
Same here, it's nice that I have a second or two warning before the wife comes in the room. Give me chance to alt tab away from Megan Fox pictures :D
 
MMM Looking at your designs I'd do it different, and if I was 'doing it', I'd get a projector.

I'd do this:

Projector on same wall as door, projecting towards window. You could probalby make/buy a sweet pelmet setup to hold curtains and the screen discreetly. As you noted, you can't use the window and the projector at the same time, doing it this way solves the problem.

Orienting the room like that solves also the problem of the door/sofa.

You can put the surrounds above the door pointing down, this hides them away, personally I think surrounds stuck on the wall as they often are looks pretty tacky, this would be almost the perfect spot for them in terms of you'd pretty much not see them. (when looking into the room or being in the room.)

Now as I see it there is 3 or 4 choices to make now. (with IMO in comments)

A) Sofa on wall beside door, desk in front of window (blocks radiator, veiwing angle on screen may be compromised with low down sofa and front edge of what looks like a substantial desk, plus it would just be weird to be watching a film with a BF desk in beween ou and the screen.)

B) Sofa on wall beside door desk at right hand side (where you have sofa just now) - (could work, desk might interfere with screen but should prpbaly clear it, and should clear the door as well - possible option. desk on other side ouldn't work so well it ould be in front of sofa.

c)Desk on same wall as door, and sofa in the middle of room so it would go |wall|desk|chair|space|sofa|space|screen|wall| ( May or may not be enough room for that. ) 3 metres, could be a bit tight)

d) do you really need a sofa? Desk on same wall as door, and a decent recliner chair or 2 with foot stools, and a nice coffee table thing in the middle of the room or bean bag or something.

0.02


pic:

sofa can be bigger or have a table
black thing is book shelve, dvd storage, about 2 feet high, or maybe taller?
thin black thing on right is screen

no room for large speakers, so probably a sub+sat setup?

layout.jpeg
 
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Hi Whitecrook,

Thanks for a very detailed response to my set up queries.

Unfortunatley, I don't think your options work.

a) Putting desk by window means that I'd be back with monitors on desk, currently they are nicely supported up on the walls.
I'd be looking into the sun all the time out of the windows, would I think give me a headache.
Radiator needs to be on to keep room warm, but would boil my legs.
b) Desk so big that door / desk would not give enough entry ito the room.
c) Desk in that position means people could look in through window and see whats on the screen, without me being able to notice they are there. Have a similar problem now, but at least I can see them out of corner of my eye.
d), Yup want sofa so wife/kids can all sit together on off chance that we're all talking to each other and want to watch same film.

But thanks for your input, it does make me think through each option and to why they would/wouldn't work.

Also been talking with the wife more about projector and getting the 'Why, do you need a projector/screen' response. Big 42inch TV she will accept, but its going to be grief if I put in a projector and screen. So while I liked the idea, the only way of moving forward is with a LCD/Plasma

Looking through the forum most people are recommending the Panna 42G10 (don't need the internet part of the G15). I'm finding it very hard to locate one of these as they seem to be end of line awaiting the G20/G25's to come into stock. Are there any other 40/42 inch models that people would recommend for around £700?

Thanks again for everyones input.

Taff
 
Check out Richer Sounds for end of line tv deals.

Or look at the new 32" led Samsung OCUK have on offer. May only be 32" but is still a reasonable size and so thn it will hang on the wall with blu tack (well not really but it is amazingly thin lol)

In terms of pc powering it will your main pc be the on you want to hook up? I think if you are using eye-finity you can't hook up a 4th screen (but i may be wrong) so you would need another method.
 
I'm just going to add in again, about the projector. For a small room like that, and for watching films/movies a projector seems like an even more sensible choice..

A projector + Screen takes up literally almost no space at all when not in use, giving you more chance to use the room when not watching a film.

A 42 TV is going to impose a lot in that room

Presumably you have a TV in your living room anyway, I'm slightly failing to see why you would choose to watch TV in here as opposed to main room?
 
Hi Azra,

Spoke tio Richeter sounds as they are advertising the G10 on their web site at a good price, but they say they don't have any in the bristol shop. 32'' not big enough, looks a good screen though.

For 4th screen, think I'm going to have to get a sperate gfx card with HDMI out and run it from my seond PCI express slot and use that to solely power the tv.


Hi Whitecrook.

Agree in regards to space etc, but wife adamant that she doens't want a projector and screen hanging from the ceiling, though I know I could go portable screen and projector, but makes life more of a pain to use.

On why I want a big screen in this room, we only have a 32'' LCD in the living room and don't want to go bigger there. So only option for big tv is in my study. Also wife and I have quite different taste in tv choices so I want to be able to watch my stuff in the privacy of my own room when she's watching eastenders, larkrise to candleford, neighbours etc.

Cheers

Taff
 
Considering what your spending on beautiful furniture, already with the monitors and a large screen on the wall personally Id say it will just hurt the look of the room with all that tech standing out in full view. I can understand your wifes concerns and think a 42" screen on the wall will be hideous above the monitors for this type of room setting.

Maybe youd of been best having a bit of furniture made at the time that allowed you to use as a desk but also one with a wall enclosure unit inc storage or shelves that could have hid the Tv or a projector screen when not in use or indeed with foldable doors that covered the monitors and all.

Really what you need is a self contained desk/entertainment unit with storage.
 
Yup, but not able to do it totally correctly as I still have a cupboard on the back wall, so lose .5 metres.

Angle is more of an incline than I'd like, but if I manage to get a good comfy relaxing sofa then I should be ok with it. If I went for a hard backed sofa, then it would be more of an issue.

Been out trying to locate a Panna 42G10 today, but everywhere in the area out of them, as Panna have stopped the stock to be replace by the new G20 model in the next month.

Went into a high quality showroom as well to check out the projector screen combinations with a DLP. Looks amazing in a darkened cinema room, but as soon as the light was on the picture quickly washed out.

Now if I could only get the wife to agree to let me convert the garage to a cinema room and for her to leave her car on the drive I could have a huge projector / screen set up.

Taff

Taff
 
Couple of options there.

1. Leave centre speaker on desk under centre monitor, think this will cause sound problems.
2. find a long/narrow centre speaker that I can fit in a gap of 10cm between top of monitors and bottom of tv.
3. put above tv and angle down towards sofa.

your views on best option here would be appreicated.

Taff
 
Depends how much I can get for some items I currently have on sale / to sell.

But probably £300 at strech, would prefer less than £200.

Have been given a link to some Nice Keff HTS2001 Eggs for £175.

Also have old Sony 5.1 set up that I could use, if I can locate where I put the speakers.

Taff
 
I am tempted to say soundbar tbh. Might solve all your problems in one.

Lemme look for best priced one.
 
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Ok, managed to find my old 5.1 kit, bit in the attic, but in the garage and some in the shed.

Have plugged it into the PC and is working really well, huge difference between it and the creative set up I was using.

Using SPDIF to connect from PC and using the amp/decode in the unit to power it all.

The model is a Sony TA-VE215. which was a minin sized unit with staellite speaekers for all round the room and a large woofer.

So as all of that is working well I think I will stay with that sound set up for the beginning as the sound quality(well to my ears) is really good.

Also have reserved a Panna 42G10 for pick up this weekend. Was hard to find one. But can get one if I drive an hour and a half.

So will mount this up over the weekend as well.

Taff
 
Ok, picked the new TV up today. IN the end didn't go for the Pana. Bought instead an LG 42LH4010 instead. Main reasons for the change was in the shop I could see how bad the reflection on the front of a plasma glass screen is. Also the weight of the plasma made me nervous about the wall mounting of it.

TV currently connected intp aerial for SD pictures. can swap a HDMI link into the pc to have it working for Blue rays etc. TV connected by optical to the speaker amp.

See picture below of the set up working. At present can only run 3 screens at a time from the PC. Need to put another gfx card in to get the 4 working together.



Picture below of 4 screen working together with the TV being fed a signal from a standard aerial.



The TV is heigh up on the wall, but from my relaxer chair that I'm temproary using it's not an uncomfortable viewing position.

Also have decided on the chair for the room it's a Francis web chair



Also today, bought some small speaker brackets and ordered speaker cable for delivery

Will drill and mount the speakers tomorrow and then wire them in when the speaker cable arrives on Tuesday.

Also now have to decide on the sofa, wall colours and window blind. Have another 2 weeks before I go to New Zealand for 2 weeks so have to get everything sorted by then as the decorator is coming to sand the floors and paint the walls the day I get back.

Taff
 
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