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Formica, Thanks for your compliment. Your kind words are appreciated. I am proud of the result, just not pompus...[] That's what I wanted to communicate. I did not want it to appear that I thought mine was better anybody elses theater. That happens sometimes here. My intent was (and is) to post it here to inspire other forum members. The information freely shared with me over the last four years has greatly educated and enriched the audio component of my life and my family's. For that I felt I should offer something back to the group. Brad

Easylistener, A couple of follow-up questions if you don't mind... Everyone that has an HTPC says it make a big difference and I believe it. Can you describe in what way? Better resolution? Sharper picture? Brighter picture? More HD like? Inquiring minds (and those of us with an upgrade itch) would like to know...[] And secondly, how are you streaming the video around the house? That sounds really cool! Thanks in advance. Brad

Nero 7 Suite. It's got some quirks, but the $80 price is nice for all that is included. The program for editing and DVD authoring in the suite is NeroVision. Hope that helps.

I use four shorts from Pixar. Knick Knack, For the Birds, Mater and the Ghostlight, and One Man Band. Excellent video and sound to show off the theater. Burned them to a custom "demo only" DVD. I use the shorts because several times the "guests" wanted to see more of the movie after the demo scene was over. The 5-7 minute short clips give them a taste without obligating me to an entire evening...[:S]

Dr. Who, The only treatment on the ceiling is 48" out in front of the screen. Just a first reflection kind of thing. I didn't want the look of acoustic panels on the ceiling, so I had Bryan (the acoustic designer) plan for that limitation. It was definately a compromise, but I think he compensated for it nicely. Using the RoomEQ wizard software it tests out very flat in the seating area. I only have one -8db dip at 50htz. Brad

Easylistener, Do tell about your HTPC...I feel an new itch...[]

Thanks for the kind words guys. Dtel, We've only had a few folks over. We 're not big socializers, but the few that have joined us are suitably impressed. It's easy to WOW folks when they haven't had a chance to compare you to some of the great Klipsch theaters we have on this forum (Indy, Picky, & Sandman to name a few)(sorry if I left any other great theaters out). [] First they are WOWed by the large picture...then blown away by the sound quality...hehehe.

A closer look at the two colorful fish <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Words cannot express my gratitude to those of you on this forum that freely shared your experiences and insights into the design of a home theater. The performance of this HT room exceeded my highest expectations. While it may not have a lot of bells and whistles, it puts a smile on my face every time I sit down for a movie and was certainly worth all of the many hours it required. I can only hope that my experience is in some small way, helpful to others on this forum. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Brad

Just for fun I included a screen shot from Nemo with the lights all the way up.

From this view you can see the seating, projector location, and equipment rack. The equipment rack is at the rear of the room and inside the acoustically sealed room. The projector is housed inside the rear soffit. No need for a special hush box, the projector is inaudible at this location. One of the air returns pulls air across the projector as it leaves the room. The soffit also serves as a giant bass trap. It is stuffed full of acoustic cotton. Thats why there are black cloth panels covering the openings on either side of the projector. A single KLF-C7 is located in the center of the equipment rack.

For those of you interested in whats behind the panels on the screen wall, this is what it looks like. The front stage is primarily for looks and is filled with sand. The screen wall is 28 forward of the back wall. This was done to allow for easier, more flexible speaker placement. It would also allow for greater flexibility in acoustic treatments. The speakers are KLF-30s across the front and an SVS PC-Ultra subwoofer. In the corners are floor to ceiling bass traps. The blue material is acoustic cotton. There are various other resonate and panel traps on the back wall. Acoustic cotton was also placed in the screen wall frame in the areas (covered by black cloth in the picture) above and below the screen mount opening. This really helps to control the sound reflections around the screen. I dont pretend to understand all of the science behind the room acoustics. I just know it sounds great. I had Bryan Pape from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />St. Louis do the acoustic room treatment design. I bought the blue cotton from him and built the frames on-site.

I decided to finally break out the camera and finish getting some pics of my completed home theater. This thread is not intended to brag or show off I just want to share with you guys what's possible in a nearly 100% DIY HT build. I did all of the room design and construction work (well my 15 year old son did help some hehe []) The carpet was the only material installed by someone else. It took me about 6 months of research and about 6 months of build time. Most of the ideas for video and room design came from studying, researching, and following threads over at the AVS Forum. The AVS guys know rooms and video, but they dont know horns. J All of the great audio ideas came from guys on this forum. My thanks, for the magnificent sound I enjoy, goes out to many here on this forum that helped guide and educate me on the finer points of Klipsch-dom over the last 4 years. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> My design goals were Dedicated theater room, fully light controlled. (No external light sources) Totally sound controlled environment. Seating for 5 (our family size) with room for 3-4 more occasional guests. 120 or greater 16 x 9 screen A sound experience that would exceed the commercial theater experience (and maybe make your eyes tear up with joy. J) Make the project as much DIY as possible (this was also good for the budget J) I will try to anticipate a few questions by sharing some specs. The room dimensions are 16 x 28 x 9. The room was acoustically sealed by using two layers of ½ drywall on the walls and ceiling. Green glue was sandwiched between layers of drywall and on the studs (for sound dampening). No mid or high frequency sound gets in or out. The room has a very low sound floor (quiet). The room is dark green with maroon carpet. The ceiling is 3 shades lighter than the walls. The camera makes it appear much lighter than it is. The acoustic panels in the room are 2 x 4 x 2 covered with paper on the face and wrapped in gray GOM fabric. The columns are designed for sound absorption and diffusion. They are stuffed with acoustic cotton and the black cloth on the front of the column covers an opening. The two columns at the rear of the room contain the KLF-C7 side surrounds.

Chambers, I highly recommend that you look into the SMX screen as mentioned above. I have one and can tell you that you will give up very little in video performance compared to ANYTHING! Not just AT screens. Thanks to a neighbor with a "solid" screen I was able to do a comparision in my theater, with my equipment. Very little loss of brightness. If I remember correctly, the guy who found the screen material and started SMX has the same projector you do. In a room the size you are going to have, I believe you will notice the location of the center channel if it is above or below the screen. Especially since you already have experience with an acoustically transparent screen. As with many things, trade-offs are part of the process. Video supremecy vs audio supremecy vs budget supremecy...[] For me it was audio supremecy...I suspect with your current Heritage setup, it might be the same for you... Good luck with your research...

Buckeye, Relax man! We are all here to help each other! [] I'm truely sorry you don't see the point of my post and that apparently my post got under your skin somehow. The information I shared was intended to point out that technical specs don't always work as expected when connecting video components. If you check out the reply from Fish above, I think he makes my point in a very HI-DEF way. It appears (from my Inbox) that Wuzzzer has taken action...I hope he will share the results with all of us once he has done his comparision...

Buckeye_nut, It certainly does clarify your knowledge of the Zenith 318DVB...but not the facts...[] The Zenith 318 does upconvert the component video feed. Mine operates in 1080i upconverting mode at all times. Perhaps a link to this 1,832 post thread will help to enlighten those would might be interested as to why this player is such a gem... http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=400480&highlight=zenith+318 . You may wish to call the Zenith an anomoly, but my point in the prior post was to state that different "source" and "destination" components will respond differently, sometime even within identical models...it all depends on the engineering and manufacturing QC. To avoid a flame war, I will stipulate that you are technically correct, that in a broad and generalized sense, digital connections should be and are in most cases superior. My experience has shown me that broad and general are not good enough for me...as I am sure it is not good enough for you...or you would own Bose...[] My recommendation to the owner of this thread remains...buy a cable and see for yourself...it just isn't that much money in the grand scheme of things. Nuff said...[]

According to several discussions I've seen posted on various forums...it depends...[] What it seems to depend on, is your input device (DVD Player, HD Cable Box, etc). I know from personal experience that my Zenith DVD player has a better picture using the component(analog) cables than it does using the DVI (digital) connection...and it is a difference you can see. Theoretically this shouldn't happen, (and it's not just me...it's been documented extensively over at AVS forum) so it's the engineering of that particular Zenith model. My advise... try it both ways. An extra cable is not much money to have the peace of mind knowing that you have explored the options and are using the best connection for your set up. Hope this helps.

You have a reply...[<)]

Scooter, Just send me your shipping address in an email via this forum. I'll get it out to you in a couple of days. [] Brad

BTW... If any of you guys in this thread would like a sample of the SMX material, I've got some left over from my screen build and would be happy to send some to you. Just send me an email through this forum. I've probably got enough for 2-3 samples (18" x 24").

BigStew, It is not only important for video quality it is important for audio quality. Being new to the projector scene two years ago, I tried a DIY blackout cloth screen (about $40 bucks). Not bad, but it was my first so anything would look good to me as long as it was big...[] I had to position the center channel under the screen. I never liked the sound that way. Next I decided that placing my center speaker behind the screen was highly desirable, so I did an acoustically transparent DIY Dazian CCC cloth screen (about $75). Better video, audio quality, and great bang for the buck. So far very modest investments... Finally, I'm now using the SMX screen material from smxscreen.com. Much better video performance, and only about $400 for my 120" 16 x 9 screen. The audio performance only required a +1 dB adjustment to the center channel. One the owners of the AVSForum (Alan Gouger) tried the SMX screen and is using it in his theater. That's enough to tell me that there is only marginal (if any) improvement in the "top of the line" commercial screens. He has owned (and can afford) screens costing more than $5K. If it's good enough for him...it's good enough for me. Highly recommended! Hope this helps. Disclaimer: I do not have any financial or other interest in SMX. Just a happy owner.

Without getting argumentative, you have made a very good point. Individual components will "seem" quiet if there is a noiser component in the system. Replace the Raptors with quieter hard drives and suddenly the video card is loud. Put in a passively cooled video card and suddenly you can hear the fans from the power supply and the cooling fans in the case. Let me warn everyone...the path to PC and HTPC silence is the same addicting path of upgrades that we all experience with our sound and video systems...maybe that's why I love it soooo much! []

Tiger, Noise and the tolerance of it is relative thing...what's Ok to you may be intolerable to me. [] I can only share my experience...once I found that you could run cool AND quiet, anything less than silent is too loud in my PC's. I would expect this to be especially true in an HTPC. The real beauty of it is that it doesn't have to cost a lot of extra dough ($$) to get to silent. Any fan smaller than 120mm (that's a 40mm in that card in your link) will make noise that is audible outside the case. The smaller the fan, the louder the noise signature. As with most things in this HT gig, everything is a trade-off. To get extra performance in a video card you trade heat and the noise that comes with a fan... for silence. Hope that helps...Happy shopping!

Yes, you can as long as your TV, projector, or monitor will accept a DVI input, a 15 pin VGA input, or S-Video (not the best of the three). I once played with the DVI and VGA output to my AE700 projector. Very nice, and I did not use and software enhancement (like theatertek). I will do an HTPC myself one day...[:^)] I'm just waiting for Scooter to figure it all out for me...[8-|] Hope this helps...

Tiger, Here's a link to a card I recommend at Newegg... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150170 . It's a 7600 GS. Comes with a double lifetime replacement warranty from the manufacturer. I've got two of them and they work great. Not using in HTPC, but I would in a heartbeat...[] The pros and cons of this card IMO are: Pros: Silent - no fan - heasink does require extra space. Low power usage means low heat, easy to cool passively Nvidia chipset - good driver support - regular updates Very sharp, clear screen images Heatsink design will fit in any standard height HTPC case. Plenty of horsepower for most of today's games - My son uses one without complaints on many action games on a 1600 x 1200 flat panel monitor. Great manuafacturer warranty. Can be sold and is still covered under warranty. SLI card, so you could run two if you wanted and your system board supported it. Good price/performance - less than $125 for 95% of the performance of the $300 cards. Did I say silent? Most important feature for a HTPC IMHO. Cons: Not top of the line performance. If this is you number one goal, you will have a noisy system. The current 7000 series technology does not allow for both top of the line performance and cool, quiet operation. Actually, it neither did the 6000 series or previous generations. It has has always been a compromise...[] Does require attention to airflow. You need to have air from your case pulled across any passively cooled card. Just the nature of the beast. As you might guess, I think the GT, GTX, and all those other fancy names are probably overkill...unless you are some kind of "ultimate" gamer. If that is true you will probably want to wait the DirectX 10 cards anyway. Good luck in your search...

Guys, If you are looking for info on quiet components check out SilentPC Review http://www.silentpcreview.com/ I have hung out at the site for 3+ years. They review components based on their "quietness". The reviews and the suggestions on the forums are solid. NO BS allowed. They have reviewed several HTPC cases suitable for "silent running". I have 3 AMD Athlon64 mid-tower PC's I built with suggestions from the forums. They are cool (as in temp), quiet, and best of all not expensive. Great source of information. Hope that helps someone looking for info sources...