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MovieRooms.com ...FAQ's...many prospective customers are uncertain about the processes involved in bringing the movie experience home. These questions - and their answers - address the most common issues we encounter. We encourage e-mail or telephone inquiries if there is additional information you require. Remember, custom theater environments are our specialty!
What Does Custom Home Theater Mean?
How Do I Decide If I Have The Right Room For A Theater Environment?
What Do Home Theater Rooms Cost?
What Is The Difference Between Surround Sound and Home Theater?
What Is Dolby ProLogic and How Is It Different From Digital Dolby?
How Is Digital Dolby Different from AC-3?
What Does "Custom Home Theater" Mean?
Current digital products provide eye-popping, toe-tapping, seat-rockin' sight'n sound! In the world of big images, new ultra-bright LCD projectors, better screens - and much better source material (DVD, Digital Satellite, HDtv) have all joined to dramatically rachet up picture quality... Digital audio, - AC-3, THX, DTS, better amps, faster processors, newly engineered loudspeaker designs, integrated lighting...whew...
Custom home theater means exactly that...MoveRoom.com consultants visit your home for a site survey, interview you regarding your habits, tastes, lifestyle and preferences, and then recommend a design for you - just for you - that is primarily dedicated to screening movies. It can be as elaborate as an up-town cinema-scope film emporium complete with authentic reclining theater chairs with cup holders and a 10-foot screen that seats 20 of your best friends, or as simple as a funky basement room with a 35-inch TV that doubles as a game room when you are not in the mood to watch a flick.
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How Do I Decide If I Have The Right Room For A Theater Environment?
One of the benefits of working with our company is our experience. We have designed myriad theater environments that have been carved out of unused bedrooms, basement storage areas, even from walk-in closets. With the help of an MovieRooms.com consultant, you can be assured that the perfect theater environment is just waiting to be discovered in your home.
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What Do Home Theater Rooms Cost?
Not such an easy question to answer in just a few sentences...but we just love a challenge, so here goes; A typical theater room - one dedicated to viewing movies - can run from a few thousand dollars, to tens of thousands. The variables include, but are not limited to, the size of the screen, how the image is displayed on the screen, the square footage of the room, the lifestyle of the homeowners, the type of movies likely to be routinely watched (for example, The Bridges of Madison County does not demand as much from the equipment as does Star Wars or Jurassic Park), how many folks will be regularly watching, and finally, what kind of decorating appointments are appropriate. An average price for a knock-your-socks-off theater room with four authentic chairs, a ten-foot screen and a killer AC-3 Digital Dolby audio package can be designed, installed and up and running for around $25,000. If you are not interested in the archectectural touches, like the theater chairs and foot lights, then the price can drop by as much as 20-30%. Out most typical theater room sales range in the $10,000-$20,000 area, with our most elaborate project easily topping the $100,000.00 mark.
MovieRooms.com consultants will be delighted to provide you with a detailed proposal based on your specific needs...just give us a call or drop an e-mail for more information.
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What Is The Difference Between Surround Sound and Home Theater?
Depending on whom you ask, you might get a wide assortment of answers to this question. To the system designers at MovieRooms.com, "surround sound" usually means an audio system with five speakers that frequently plays too loud, gives a listener some degree of rear effects in an environment that bears little or no resemblance to a theater. These systems typically have a picture-image that is not correctly scaled to the sound, and often do not play the film audio track with nice sharp, detailed sound. Conversely, a home theater is just that...a theater environment recreated in the comfort of your own abode. Remote controlled lighting, large images and great-sounding Digital Dolby audio are common characteristics...often the foundation, for a more enjoyable movie experience than most local theaters. Usually - but by no means always - these theater environments are located in rooms dedicated to bringing the theater experience home.
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What is Dolby ProLogic and How is it Different from Digital Dolby?
Dolby Prologic, the surround sound format found on VHS video tapes and some TV broadcasts differs from Digital Dolby in four key ways. First, ProLogic surround sound is an analog technology. Just as compact discs sound much better than an audio cassette, Digital Dolby outperforms ProLogic for the same reasons; Better dynamic range, channel separation, and signal to noise ratios. Second, ProLogic uses mono rear effects signals, that is the rear channel speakers each carry exactly the same sound at exactly the same time. Digital Dolby uses two discrete rear channels so you have what might be called stereo rear effects for a much more enveloping and realistic surround effect. Thirdly, ProLogic uses rear channel signals that do not reproduce the extremes of the musical spectrum; operating from roughly 700 Hz to 7000 Hz ProLogic only employs midrange signals for the rear effects. Conversely, Digital Dolby uses full frequency range rear effects, providing a full 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz frequency coverage, just like the front three channels. Lastly, Digital Dolby has a dedicated low frequency effects (LFE) channel expressly for use with a subwoofer. These four improvements collectively are why Digital Dolby sound quality is dramatically superior to ProLogic.s
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What is the difference between digital dolby surround sound and ac-3?
None, when Dolby Labs first started developing Digital surround sound for the consumer market, the project was known as "Audio Coding - 3" because the goal was to provide three additional high-fidelity channels to the three already in use in ProLogic. The resulting system, with the addition of the low frequency effects (LFE) channel is also known as Dolby Digital 5.1, representing the five discrete channels plus the dedicated subwoofer output. All three terms - Digital Dolby, AC-3 and Dolby Digital 5.1 are synonymous.
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