With more and more “blockbuster” movies being released in tall aspect ratios (apparently optimizing for IMAX screens) or even frequently switching aspect ratios midstream (Christopher Nolan!!), my existing, 12-foot wide 2.4:1 aspect ratio screen hasn’t been so useful as it used to be.  These taller aspect ratios meant that the image ends up quite constrained, not using much of the screen real estate to the left and right.

So I finally decided to go through the trouble of buying and installing a new screen.  It’s the same width as before (12 feet) but now in a 16:9 aspect ratio.  So now I’ll have “Constant Image Width” (CIW) rather than “Constant Image Height” (CIH).

It’s another retractable screen (Luxus) from Stewart Filmscreen using the same screen material (Ultramatte 130 and still 30% gain) but this new unit was quite a bit heavier than the old one.  It weighs somewhere between 125-150 lbs depending on which documentation you believe.  I installed another set of mounting blocks with 2×6’s on the wall to clear the window sill but there was no way just two of us could lift it in place.  Four of us were able to do it though! Many thanks to Tim, Geof, Jennifer, Richard and Nacho for volunteering to help Darlene and me:

Old vs New (2.4:1 vs 16:9)

The new taller screen is filled out wonderfully with the likes of all those tall aspect ratio movies – making these films feel much more immersive again.  And so far, the upper and lower “black bars” with 2.4:1 material haven’t been distracting.

Some movies (like Tron: Legacy) like to switch aspect ratios.

I’ve been waiting to go to 4K/HDR until high-performance, laser source projectors became reasonably affordable, but it looks like that’s going to be a while yet.  (Similar to the wait for high def projectors in the early 2000’s.)  So, here we go, it’s the JVC DLA-RS640U projector (full specs here) and it’s quite the nice jump up from my older JVC RS55U projector, from early 2012.  By the way, I recommend contacting AVScience for a purchase – they offer steep discounts from the retail prices and are great to work with.  I’ve purchased from them multiple times over the years.

Both my old and new projectors are able to display video at 4K (3840 x 2160 pixels), but the RS640 can take 4K input sources while the old RS55 could only take HD content (1920 x 1080) and upscale it.  More importantly though is the ability of the RS640 to display high dynamic range (HDR) content, giving a much wider range of colors and shadow and intensity.  In addition, the RS640 provides even higher contrast ratio, even tighter spacing between pixels, more lumens, better motion enhancements, better 3D display and a low latency mode for gaming (yay!).

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I’ve just added Dolby Atmos support to my home theater by upgrading my receiver and my Blu-Ray player and by adding a pair of vertically firing speakers.  I decided to go with the Onkyo TX-RZ3100 which provides for 11 audio channels at 140W/channel, giving me 7.2.2 in my new speaker configuration (seven = three front + two side + two rear, two subwoofers, and now two down-firing).  For sources, I now have an UltraHD-capable Sony UBP-X800 Blu-Ray player and the newest AppleTV.  All of this also means I’m ready for 4K/HDR if/when I eventually upgrade my projector.

The additional speakers are a pair of Klipsch RP-140SA add-on speakers that I can simply set on top of my two front subwoofers. They’re naturally angled to fire upwards and bounce off the ceiling and back down to the listening area.  I didn’t want to have to go to the trouble to mount downward-firing speakers on my very high, vaulted ceilings so these were a very easy and convenient solution.  They’re not really meant to be used for a vaulted ceiling, but they seem to be working well enough.  I certainly seem to get a nice reproduction of Dolby Atmos movie soundtracks.

So how does it sound?  Well, I definitely like it and I definitely think it was worth the cost and effort.  As much as I liked my existing 7.1 surround sound system, this new object-based, spatially-encoded audio is quite impressive in the movies that make use of it.  It certainly sounds much better than the old channel-based surround sound.  It’s amazing how much more the sound seems to be coming from directions where your speakers aren’t!  I say go for it – particularly if you’re planning to upgrade your components to support 4K/HDR anyway!

It’s rare that I go out to movie theaters, preferring to have friends over to enjoy my home theater, but sometimes I do for special movie events, like the release of the first new Star Wars movie in a long time: The Force Awakens.  Well, we happened to go to a theater with an impressive sound system and I was startled by a number of instances in the movie where you could seriously feel the sound pressure of something big happening on screen or the impact of an explosion, not just *hear* it.   In other words, some serious pressure waves in that theater.  That experience left me wanting to find out how to get that at home!

I’ve long been pretty content with my Acoustic Research S12HO subwoofer (a 12″ inch down-firing driver), particularly in my old condo’s home theater.  It filled out the bass response well, without being overbearing and without bothering the neighbors.  I’ve had it since 1999.  However, in my home now in the hills above Santa Cruz, I have a much larger room with a huge vaulted ceiling and my old subwoofer can’t really fill the room.  (Plus I don’t have close neighbors to worry about bothering.)

So I did my usual many days of research and ended up settling on getting two (yes, two!) highly-rated V1800 subwoofers from Power Sound Audio.  The V1800 subwoofer features a 725 watt amplifier and a huge, vented 18″ driver capable of getting down below 16 Hz.  It’s capable of delivering up over 120 dB of sound.  (Here’s a list of comparative decibel levels.)  I bought two of them because a single subwoofer can potentially fill a room in such a way that you get large peaks of output in some locations in the room and large dips, even dead spots, in other locations.  Adding a second subwoofer in a different location allows it to interact with the room in such a way that its peaks and valleys will tend to cancel out the other subwoofer so you get a more even response throughout the room.  It also has the side effect of increasing the output overall by quite a bit (about 6 db).

Here’s a great set of tips on how to go about optimizing both subwoofer placement and crossover settings.  For me, the only really practical location was up front on either side of my equipment cabinet:

Even with the large vaulted space of my home theater, I found that the appropriate gain setting needed for both subwoofers was only about 20%.  It was amusing to turn them both up to 50% gain though just to see what would happen.  The room shakes so hard at that level that I’m afraid of turning it up any further for fear of breaking something like a window.

Anyway, set an appropriately balanced level, their impact (literally and figuratively) is still quite dramatic.  These guys fill out the bass end of music wonderfully, nice and tight, without being overbearing at all. And for low frequency effects (LFE) in movies, the experience is fantastic.  The rumble from a passing train in a movie makes you believe there really is a train passing by.  A rocket launch shakes the whole room (and much of the house) – you feel it in the floor, the walls, the chairs.  And most amazing of all, you feel sharp explosive impacts on your chest.  No need to strap subwoofers to your chairs!  “Tron Legacy” makes for a great bass demonstration throughout.  I particularly love how you literally feel a jolt to your chest when Sam is struck by the laser digitizer and transported into the digital world.

Okay, back in February of 2002 I said I didn’t expect to upgrade my home theater projector until full HDTV resolution was available, but I spoke too soon. It looks like affordable full HDTV projector resolution is still years off, so I’ve just sprung for the new Sony VPL-HS20.  It boasts much improved contrast, more input options, better computer signal syncing, quieter fan, better pixel fill ratio, etc… all for half the price that I paid for my 10HT three and a half years ago. And yup, I looked around and found the best price at ProjectorPeople.com again. (Hey, if you buy from them, please mention me as a referral.)

This is an old write-up and screen shots from some screen material testing I did back in February of 2000 when I built my home theater around the Sony VPL-VW10HT.  I tested mostly product from Da-Lite but also a single sample from Stewart.

Please keep in mind that both companies now have many newer materials to offer.