View ChannelsFeatured: Finance
View ShowroomsFeatured: Radiantec - Radiant Solar Heating

BobVila.com

Home

Hooking Up Home Theater

Tim Woods from Internet Home Alliance looks at the features and benefits of planning home entertainment systems before you build your home.

Get Adobe Flash Player to see this content.

Clip Transcript For:

Hooking Up Home Theater

computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" Hi, Tim Woods with the Internet Home Alliance. We're in the final stage of putting together our home entertainment package from Panasonic. It's made up of several different elements. The first one being the great high-definition TV, it's got a theater aspect ratio and what's unique about it, it uses digital light processing. That's basically about a million micro-mirrors on 1 semi-conductor chip that allows you to get the same intensity of the picture, no matter where you are in the room. Down here on the floor, we've got our AV control, these ties into our 6 speakers. We've got 4 surround stereo-speakers on the ceiling. We have a center channel speaker and we also have this great bass woofer, which you can put anywhere in the room. On top of that, we've got our CD and DVD changer, so we can take our personal library of DVDs and CDs and use that in with the speakers and the TV and it's all tied in to the huge network system direct TV plus, that basically allows us a multitude of options as it relates to the ports in entertainment. Before all of this happened, we have to really consider the infrastructure that was involved. So let's go behind the TV and I'll show you what I mean. So back here, we're making our final connections to the home networking system in the house. These are basically our inputs and outputs to the home entertainment system. This has a connection that goes into the network connection center in the basement from home director. If you look here, we've got our cat-5 and our RJ. Our cat-5 is basically all our Ethernet. Now, RJ is applying and distributing our cable throughout the whole home. This basically means that we can send DVD pictures to any----basically any TV in the house. As well, we could put this TV and this home entertainment system literally in any room because this 2+2 configuration with our AC also is in every room of the house. Let's plug in our AC and turn around and I'll show you what's going on with our audiovisual. Our speaker panel is actually built into the wall. Our speakers are mounted on the ceiling and the connections are actually made here. So instead of having dangling wires all over the place, they run under the drywall and terminated to the panel, which takes it into our home entertainment system. Now, that we're hooked up, we're already to go."

[-]

More Videos »Related Videos

Soundproofing

Here's another great tip from BobVila.com. Even if you live in a quiet neighborhood, laundry and dishwashers, hair dryers and even showers can make your house a noisy place. If you work at home, you know how important a quiet environment is especially when the kids are enjoying that fabulous new home theater. So, what s the best way to keep sound from going where you don t want it? You can absorb it, block it, break it or isolate it. Absorption dampens sound waves by converting them into weaker energy. Fiberglass batt insulation inside interior partitions actually converts sound to heat. Carpets, upholstered furniture and acoustical ceilings also help with sound absorption in large open areas. Blocking sound requires a barrier with enough mass to stop the air movement caused by airborne sound waves. you can block noise by using acoustical caulk in all gaps, double drywall, concrete walls or even lead sheeting. Breaking the path of the sound means removing the point of contact between the inside and outside so sound doesn t reverberate through the structure. Acoustic wall studs or a layer of foam under flooring allow the inner surface to float and isolate the noise. Even if you re not building a recording studio in your garage, there are lots of reasons to make noise control part of your next remodel. Find out more at BobVila.com: The ultimate home improvement web site! BobVila.com 2008

Review of the Home's Media Center

Tim Woods meets up with Bob again in the media room to showcase the electronic components that have been installed. Woods points out the Panasonic high definition flat screen plasma TV that is recessed only 1 inch into the wall. The home theater also includes digital surround sound, which is composed of amplifiers, decoders and subwoofer and connected a progressive scan Panasonic DVD player, and a CD player. Woods also shows the new Replay TV box, which allows the homeowner to pause live television and pick up where the show left off.

A Complete Basement Remodel

The new family room is all done and furnished and looks terrrific. Bob talks with Sarah Monzon, the homeowner who also acted as the general contractor on the project, about the remodeling work done on the room. The room was a "cave" according to Monzon before the project was started. A pitted soapstone sink was previously used as a laundry and had become an eyesore. The room was also cluttered with accumulated junk. Because of the shortage of space in the house, the family decided to finish the basement to add to the living space of the home. Monzon acted as the general contractor for the project because there wasn't money budgeted for the expense, which was not necessarily an experience she would choose to repeat. The local inspectional services department provided a large amount of information for the novice general contractor. It is imperative before homeowners do any work on their home that they obtain the necessary permits and find out what is safe and what is not. If homeowners do work on their homes without a permit and anything goes wrong, insurance will not cover the damage. Before any work was done on the house, the basement floors were concrete and heating ducts crisscrossed the ceiling. There was flooding damage in the basement during the past fall which needed to be corrected and prevented in the future. Basement Systems was called in to install a perimeter drain and drainage system. A lot of existing plumbing was then moved from the ceiling to make more headspace and a new HVAC system was installed to move the heating ducts. The new central air system complete with an air filter made the house much more livable. In one of the smaller spaces in the basement, a new bathroom was installed with the help of technology from Saniflo. Owens Corning Basement Finishing Systems was then called in to install new finished walls. Many of the mechanical devices in the basement are now hidden behind the walls but are still accessible as the walls can be easily removed. A new entertainment center was then installed in the finished basement featuring a S1 Digital Media Center. The media center allows the homeowner to browse digital pictures taken using the family's digital camera or to set the image as wallpaper for the screen. Television shows can be watched or recorded using a schedule guide. The media center also can store home videos, movies, and music. New reclining chairs from Bell'O were put in the entertainment room. When laying protection from flood damage in a basement, it is important to elevate wood from the concrete floor. Instead of using a plywood underlayment, a plastic tile system was used which interlocks and can be screwed down onto the concrete. Plastic webbing underneath the tiles diverts any water which may come up through the concrete or spill in the basement to the perimeter drain. Slide-Lok cabinets were put in the basement to increase storage space. The Slide-Lok wall system was put in place to hang tools in the workspace. The husband of the family is a musician and uses much of the storage space to hold his instruments. Because the room can double as rehearsal space, two and a half inches of fiberglass are in the walls to reduce sound transmission to the outside. The basement has a small office space for the husband as well. Accents throughout the space correlate with other things in the room. The lampshades on the desk have a design which relates to the flooring product. The floor does not have a wall-to-wall carpet although it looks as if it does. The floor is from Binvetec and features tiles of carpet which stick to the floor. The product has interlocking patterns which can easily be layed down. Bean bags from Sumo were put in the room for lounging in and the kids love to play on them. A stairwell fishtank from AquaVista is only four inches deep.

Appliances for the New Family Space

A half bathroom and a laundry were also installed in the basement of the Melrose home. These systems were installed using a pump system because the room is below street level and needs to have wastewater pumped up to the sewer lines. A SwanStone Deep Laundry Sink was put in place with a Moen faucet. A Whirlpool front-loading washer and dryer set was also installed. In order to fit so much material in a limited space, the homeowners shopped for appliances using Brandsource.com, which gave the couple detailed information on different brands, including sizes and shapes. Brandsource carries information from over 2,500 retail outlets and features $10 billion in products. The appliances were installed by a local dealer. The washing machine is a Whirlpool Duet, which features extra-large capacity, is energy efficient, and has storage in the bottom. A large freezer from Amana was installed along with a refrigerator-freezer and a GE microwave. A GE wine cooler chills beverages in the other room. The TV is a 50-inch Samsung flat panel. A 42-inch plasma Samsung TV was also installed in the master bedroom. A smaller television set was installed in the children's room. A stainless-steel grill was put in the backyard.