Appliance Technology

The farther away from the sensor, the more problems to compensate for - go to the source, until we can jack into your head.

http://gizmodo.com/5014301/battlemodo-of-highest-res-video-goggles-zeiss-cinemizer-vs-myvu-crystal

A friend of mine built a mini home cinema in his attic complete with electrostat and original movie theatre seats

I had our TV room set up with a wide-screen TV, sub-woofer, centre, side and rear speakers. My wife didn't like the clutter. So to appease her I removed all but a set of bookshelf speakers for the front. The first time we watched a movie she said it sounded like crap. UGH!!!

My future plan involves a super hi res projector and power drop screen (doubles to black-out the windows). I intend to build sub-woofer tunnels into the floor and hidden front-side-rear speakers. All of the components and amps will be in the closet and controlled wi-fi.

I'd like to quote brand, model and part number for my component and speaker choices but the tech changes so fast I will just wait until the day I pay the bill to select the best bits.

I set one up recently in my home. After much research, I settled on the 52" Sony XBR series LCD 120hz TV. It had the best picture (to my eyes) that I could find. I added a Sony head end because I liked the fact that you can program in speaker size, placement, height, and db settings for each of the channels. For speakers, I used Wharfedale Diamond 8 series. For the money these things will rock your neighbors house. Towers in the front with center channel and powered sub. Small standies in the rear. WOW.

The near perfect home theater would certainly have to be capable of projecting any and all media format available. In the celluloid field this would run the gamut of 8mm to 72mm and beyond to the uber-panoramic Ultra-Panavision used in Ben Hur. (Impressive chariot race when you have to turn you head to follow the horse.) In the digital realm one would naturally have to have an all region DVD player, Blue-Ray, HDVD and for thoroughness a true Laser Disc player. But don't forget the magnetic analog tape wars. What home theater could be called nearly perfect if it didn't have a VHS, Beta-max and U-matic tape player.

For sound though, nothing compares with a full pipe organ for those silent movies. Although Laurel and Hardy along with Chaplin do go best with a tin pan alley piano. Let's just remove that wall over there to put both musicians. It was stunning to hear Prokofiev's soundtrack being performed by the New York Philharmonic (with a chorus that I can't remember) while viewing Alexander Nevsky. But I don't think the WAF standard would accept that much space. Naturally the electronics should at least meet THX standards. Possible candidates for electronics would be Parsound's Halo series, Evantide Clockworks, and Rotel. But to choose a set of today's speakers off the top of my head companies like PSB, NHT,Thiel, and Ohm come to my immediate mind but research would have to be done and toys would have to be tried. (With apologies to all the rest.)

Nah, if money was that liquid. I'd just buy a real theater and install a living room out of rows 4 to 10.