The first step in building a good home theater is to get a job with a major producer of projection equipment to learn how to set up and maintain your home theater.
Although this is what I did, of course it is not necessary to go to that extreme.
My training and experience with Barco Projection Systems, helped in setting up and obtaining the equipment needed for my home theater.
I started with a dark basement room that was only about 9 by 20 feet.
I had used it for many things over the years, from a play room for my daughter, to a workshop, a space ship, and now a home theater.
From work at Barco, where they were remodeling, I picked up some cloth-covered wall dividers they were throwing out and placed them along the sides of the theater too hide the cinder block walls and reduce the echo for sound improvement.
I then paneled and painted the end wall a flat white for the screen.
I use the entire wall for a screen with no border, that way the projected image becomes the border and it never looks like the movie is not filling the screen when watching a wide screen version.
It is good to know that all movies are shot on 4/3 ratio film.
Wide screen versions just crop the top and bottom to make it look wide.
I usually test a movie in both wide screen version and full screen to see where they are cutting the image.
Sometimes after a movie had been edited to wide screen it is cut again on the sides to provide a full screen version.
Kodak has produced such a high quality of movie film that it allowed the film makers to reduce the area of the raw film and still get an acceptable resolution.
I enjoy both the wide screen and full screen versions.
But is nice to fill out the entire wall with the picture.
For a projector, I kept my ears open for units being scrapped or sold cheep to employees.
A few years after working for Barco they sold off some of the older demo equipment and I picked a Barco Graphic 400 projector.
At the same time I bought a second broken projector for spare parts.
Total cost was $150.
00.
Over the years with Barco I collected other used or broken equipment to add to my theater.
The Video Enhancer VSE20 was a much needed accessory.
Without line doubling the large image produces horizontal lines resulting from the resolution of the TV quality image from tapes and DVDs.
The line doubling smooths out and fills in the missing information on the screen, resulting in HDTV quality from all TV and DVD input.
No need to buy a HDTV.
With a good stock of extra parts for my old projector and a set of service manuals, I should be in good shape for many years to come.
I have had to make a few repairs and adjustments over the years, but it has been worth it.
The VS20 creates a lot of heat and after about two hours I would have to let it cool down, so I installed two quiet CPU fans on top of the chassis and solved the problem.
When I started building the theater I picked up a display sound system from K-Mart for under a hundred dollars and the surround sound has been great.
The projector is mounted overhead so it is not in the way and we have four nice rockers for viewing the movies.
For an added touch I installed rope light along the ceiling with a dimmer control.
We occasionally watch TV in the theater but mostly save it for movies.
We don't rent anymore, and try to pick out good DVDs to add to our collection.
My favorite movie is Ground Hog Day, I never get tired of watching it and it is much better without the commercials.
You can still get good used projectors on E-Bay, try searching "BARCO" and look for projection equipment and video enhancers.
The Small DLP technology projectors for under a thousand dollars make good home theaters also and video enhancing is not needed as you can only get the resolution that the projector is capable of.
The digital processor in the projector acts as the video enchancer.
The large image may not be as smooth as with a CRT projector and the lamp replacement costs are factors to consider when obtaining a large screen projector.