Cinema Sanctuary
Aug 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Gegory A. DeTogne
It was, at one point in time, a rather bleak interior landscape. A place, by all appearances, best suited for storing outdated kitchen appliances, forgotten articles of clothing and other obsolete artifacts of suburban life. Blistering hot in the summer and cold in the winter, it was not unlike any other modern attic with its roughed-in drywall, bare light bulbs and occasional spider web.
There was one man, however, who looked into this neglected space above a four-car garage in an upscale Dallas suburb and saw more. Within his vision, a calming personal oasis materialized, a retreat for the body and spirit where he could relax at the end of his day's work, indulge his passions for cinema, watch sporting events or simply hang out and see what Leno was up to after the news.
Ultimately, the day came not that long ago when this man's home theater dream began to evolve into a reality with the look, feel and textures of a classic movie palace from the 1930s outfitted with electronic systems of the new millennium. In making this architectural and technological transition, this man and his spouse enlisted the talents of two Dallas-based firms - Electronic Interiors and Paramount Entertainment.
A full-service systems integration firm, Electronic Interiors was founded four years ago by David Dodson. During the course of building his company, Dodson kept running into a local architect and interior designer named Mark Klinger, who worked for a commercial theater design company called Cinemark. Klinger, a specialist in creating high-end screening rooms for executives and other VIPs around town and beyond, eventually found himself engaging in dialog with Dodson, which led to the pair's creating Paramount Entertainment, a design business dedicated solely to the development and implementation of home-theater environments.
After analyzing the space and the clients' needs on a number of levels, Paramount studied a blueprint conceived at an earlier date for the proposed cinematic redoubt, then drew up new plans. Inspired as much by the presence of the proposed electronic systems as aesthetic considerations, the design was handed over to Electronic Interiors, which, in a departure from standard industry procedures, served as the general contractor on the job as well as the entity responsible for systems integration.
"Working in tandem with Paramount Entertainment, we can offer the ultimate in true turnkey installation services," Dodson said. "Everything can be managed from the conceptual architectural stage on through systems design and installation. On this project, we also took the extra step of serving as the general contractor. That move gave us total control over the actual construction as well, and saved the client from the burden of dealing with additional service providers."
Operating in his capacity as general contractor, Dodson recruited the carpentry skills of Homes by Bowen, another Dallas firm, to begin the structural transformation of the barren, sheetrocked attic into a cinematic showplace. While the sound of banging hammers and power tools reverberated through the garage end of the residence, Dodson took stock of the intended electronic systems that would be put into place. Featuring a pair of Zenith Pro900 HDTV-ready digital projectors aiming at a sprawling Stewart SN135-HD micro-perforated screen, B&K amplification and processing, Lutron lighting and surround sound components from the PSB Silver Stratus line, the room's A-V dimensions were approved by the owner with the strict stipulation that control for the sophisticated hardware be kept simple.
"From the very outset of the project, the owner emphatically expressed a desire to make the theater easy to use," said Dodson. "He didn't want to take a course on how to run things nor be forced to read a stack of manuals. The operation of the room had to be so simple that you could manage every aspect of it without a second thought. I definitely can relate to his request from a user's standpoint and will second the motion from a contractor's point of view. Theater environments are generally the most technically advanced rooms in any integrated home. To design and install one without a centralized form of complete system control is just asking for trouble. Trouble on my end means regular service calls, many of which will most assuredly arrive at 10 P.M. on weekends and holidays."
It was against this philosophical backdrop that Electronic Interiors embraced an A-V agenda based around a SmarTouch STS-C wireless control system from Crestron Electronics. A complete RF-based, networking device compatible with virtually any electronic component, the STS-C system consists of an ST-CP control processor and an ST-1550C color LCD touchpanel with a screen resolution of 320 infinity 240 pixels that can easily be carried about in one hand. Programmed by Dodson using a drag-and-drop Windows-based program, the Crestron system provides one-touch management of a host of different functions spanning systems in all corners of the room from lighting, audio and video to the movements of a motorized curtain for the screen. Because the touchpanel issues commands via RF as opposed to within the infrared spectrum, line-of-sight issues were eliminated, thereby providing the owner with more freedom of movement and even the ability to control components through walls and mounted inside closed cabinetry.
"With the owner's input, I wrote a comprehensive program for the SmarTouch system which basically makes the wireless color touchpanel as easy to use as a regular telephone and a lot easier to use than a microwave," Dodson said. "The system is so simple that everyone in the house took to it immediately, even the children. And most importantly, this home's control network, just like others we've created like it elsewhere, has just about eliminated control-oriented service calls. Overall, in fact, since we've started using centralized forms of control like this instead of traditional remotes, our service department has reported that trouble calls have gone down 60%."
There are two tiers of seating in the theater consisting of three upholstered, reclining chairs on a lower level and five on the top. Typically, the controlling touchpanel sits next to a rear seat regularly occupied by the owner. From this vantage point or anywhere else, the touchpanel's opening screen can be accessed to reveal a pair of buttons - one marked "Showtime Movie," and another marked "Showtime TV." With a simple touch, the onscreen "Showtime Movie" button, as its name implies, leads the user to a list of all the cinematic sources offered, which as of this writing, include a Toshiba SD-3108 DVD player and a Toshiba M762 hi-fi VCR. Press one of these selections, and another screen materializes displaying transport functions for either piece of gear. Not in the mood for a movie? Press "Showtime TV," and you can select from a multitude of channels arriving on the scene courtesy of an RCA DSS satellite system, which also feeds display sources in other areas of the house.
Beyond placing great concern upon ease-of-use issues and a form of reliable, centralized control, which works seamlessly with all the components involved, the owner additionally asked that Electronic Interiors provide the theater with the brightest picture possible. To that end, Dodson specified the aforementioned pair of Zenith Pro900 digital projectors instead of just one, each of which receives signals from a Faroudja VP-250 line doubler. Mounted side-by-side from the ceiling in a custom-made soundproof enclosure, output imagery from the stationary projectors was converged one on top of the other according to grayscale and color saturation calibration standards established by the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF).
Measuring 135 inches (3.4 m) diagonally, the Stewart micro-perforated film screen is automatically hidden from view by motorized velvet curtains when not in use. Burgundy in color, the curtains complement the rich, period-authentic opulence of the rest of the room and open and close as part of scenes stored within the Crestron network governing functions required to power the theatre up or down. This time using THX guidelines, Electronic Interiors calculated the size of the Stewart screen based upon the room's viewing angles so that each seat envelops the viewer's peripheral vision to an extent experienced in full-scale commercial theaters.
The B&K components within the audio signal path include a three-channel model TX4430 200 W amp that fuels the left-center-right PSB Silver Stratus loudspeakers located behind the filmscreen. Each outfitted with a pair of 6.5 inch (165 mm) low/mid transducers and a single 1 inch (25.4 mm) aluminum dome tweeter, the two-way PSB L-C-R cabinets are joined by PSB two-way Mini-Stratus surrounds powered by a 200 W B&K EX4420 two-channel amp. At the bottom of scheduled sound reinforcement events, ground-shaking bass response makes itself felt via a PSB Subsonic III subwoofer also stashed out-of-sight behind the filmscreen.
Audio processing lies within the B&K realm as well, with a model AVP-4090 unit residing at hand capable of translating Dolby Digital, DTS, DVD and Pro Logic formats into a truly hi-fi experience. On the equalization side of things, an Audio Control Bijou Theatre Series EQ unit steps into the fray to help maintain a flat response across the entire audible spectrum.
While designing the room, David Dodson and partner Mark Klinger gave no small amount of attention to the matter of acoustics. "You can put a hideously expensive audio system into a bad room, and it still won't sound good," Dodson said by way of explaining the extra effort that he and Klinger expended in analyzing the theater's acoustics. "Conversely, a good room can only bring out the best in your electronics."
The acoustical challenge in this one-time attic space was to maintain aesthetics while balancing just the right amounts of the room's absorptive and reflective qualities. For our designing duo, striking this balance meant killing off first reflections from the walls and floor with absorptive panels and thick carpeting from Fabrica and then applying a hard surface at the rear to diffuse matters. Reverberation times, in turn, were handled as a percentage of absorption to diffusion.
"You want the rear of the theater to be live and slightly excitable to embellish the surround field," Dodson said. "The front of the room should essentially be dead."
Once again falling under the guiding aegis of the Crestron network, lighting functions in the theater are directed from a Lutron GRX-3106T Grafik Eye system. A six-zone theme controller by definition, the Grafik Eye was used in this application to store four different scenes ranging from total black for screenings to various stages of lowered lighting and a full-on setting for clean-up.
Taking approximately 12 months from its basic inception through the design phase and onward toward final completion, the project wrapped-up as the calendar reached January of this year. Although limited in some respects by the size and shape of the space, which could not be altered, Dodson is happy to report that there were really no problems that could not be solved along the road to providing the client with an optimally performing environment.
"Everything wound up being calibrated perfectly," he said with a satisfied grin. "The audio intelligibility is excellent, as are the screening capabilities, and the whole thing is so easy to use and control that we can't believe it ourselves. As for the owner, you can't get him out of the place. He even reads in there. Now that certainly says a lot for the physical comforts of a room dedicated to moving pictures."
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