I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for this, but I figured I'd give it a try.

We're moving into a new house in the end of May, and the living room ("Great Room") isn't layed out for HT very well in my novice opinion. In the future, we're going to fix up the basement, but that's not going to happen for a while.

Anyway, the main problem in the room is that there's a fireplace in the middle of one of the walls (the one on the left of the picture, linked below). The bottom left hand corner of the room is all windows. And the top side of the room is open to the dining room.

So, any ideas where to put the television, seating (probably a couch, loveseat and a chair or two), and the surround speakers? I'm at a loss...

Here's the link to the floorplan. Thanks for any suggestions!

http://www.gmhomes.com/SummerPines/stcroix2.htm

CW

Looks very similar to my room and it is not a good room to setup in.

I have my TV and front three in the corner to the left of the fireplace (as you face it) and the rear channels on the side walls.

It is not bad but I too am waiting for the day I can build a theater in my basement.

I would say either put the TV in the corner (bottom left on the drawing) or depending on what you plan to do with the fireplace, and how big your TV is, you could actually put the TV in the fireplace. Then, when want a fire for atmostsphere, you just pop in a Fire Place DVD. Just a thought.

That was a joke, right? Please tell me that was a joke.

does that mean u cant watch dvd on cold days?

What kind of fireplace is it? We have our fireplace set kind of close to the ground, so that the mantle is only 1/2 way from the ceiling. Above it, we have an 80" screen and a front projection system. It works very well for an odd shaped room. Plasma displays work well too for smaller applications.

*laugh* Now THAT was funny

It's a gas fireplace, and is right on the ground. There's a freestanding mantle above the fireplace, but that could be removed (and we'd save ~$300 in the process). Interesting...

How much distance would I need for the projection system (from the back wall to the screen). How good is the picture quality? Can I hook it up to multiple sources (DVD and Sattelite mainly). And most importantly, how much does a decent one cost? I never actually considered anything like that before, but it might just work...

Currently we're thinking about putting it in front of the windowed area (lower-left corner of the picture), with a sofa against the wall opposite the fireplace, and probably a love seat separating the dining area from the living room.

Any other ideas?
CW

Gas fireplace is the best for this, since soot and smoke is well controlled. How much space is:
[list=1][*]Between the top of the mantle and the bottom of the ceiling?[*]Between the top of the fireplace (say if you decided not to use a mantle) and the bottom of the ceiling?[*]Between the fireplace and the opposite wall (where the couch would go)?[/list=1]

The picture quality is absolutely excellent, with low/mid quality ones on par with the best $10k DLP rear projection TV's. You can hook up multiple sources, no problem. A projector costs from about $1500 to $20k (though most are from $2000 to $6000).

The only problem with projectors, is that light is your worst enemy. You would have to get the room relatively dark every time you would want to watch TV. I would suggest, if you have the funds, to get one of those LCD TVs which are made to go over fireplaces (saw it one a website covering one of those consumer goods shows). And if you really have money, you can hold out for one of those TVs where the screen is the thickness of a Credit Card (I think Sanyo is putting it out?).

On a side note, glad everyone enjoyed that joke. I was hoping that someone would take me seriously (i had a great follow up) but oh well.

Unfortunately, I can only answer 1 of the 3 questions (well, maybe 1 and a half...). The distance from the fireplace and the opposite wall (with the couch) is between 10 and 11 feet.

The distance between the top of the mantle and the bottom of the ceiling... I'm not sure exactly, but the room does have vaulted ceilings, so that height shouldn't be a problem.

Here's another link with some pictures that we took of the place:

http://www.fezam.com/house/

Greatroom.jpg shows what our fireplace with mantle will look like.

Greatroom2.jpg shows the fireplace without a mantle, but we both really like the mantle... This picture also shows the windows in the room, which I'm guessing could be blocked off with shades easy enough if we used a projector.

greatroom-from-upstairs1.jpg shows how high the ceilings are (keep in mind that's the "wrong" fireplace in the picture, as ours isn't framed like that, and has the mantle).

Does this help any?


So what's the follow-up? You can't hold back from us now

How good are the LCD TVs, and how much do they cost? I'm probably pushing things a little bit by getting a $2,000-$3,000 projector, but I can rationalize it with my wife by telling her, "We don't need to spend $1,000 on an entertainment center now!" Much more, and I don't know if it would fly... Opinions?

Also, how bad is the light to viewing? I'm sure we could block the window light easy enough. I'm a little more worried about the light coming in from the dining room, since there's a patio door there. Light won't be streaming in from there for the most part (it's an eastern exposure, and we normally don't watch much TV in the morning), but would still be visible. We could probably get blinds to stop light from coming in there too, but depending on how dark the room needs to be for a projector....

Thanks for the help everyone, I really appreciate it and look forward to hearing more thoughts/opinions!
CW

I was going to say that you could hide the speakers in stacks of logs beside the fireplace.

LCD screens are pretty expensive, but they have come down. They start at a couple thousand dollars and go up and you increase size. I have heard they are not as good as a regular tube TV, but they damn good. I have seen a RCA 38" for $2400. I don't know how good it is, or even who makes the best, so hopefully someone can help with that.

Light is real bad. Think about when you are in a movie theater before the movie starts and they have those stupid ads and movie trivia that everyone reads cause there is nothing else to do. It is not bright in the theater by far, but that amount of light really screws up the picture.

What were the builders thinking...No home theater

Well it looks as if with your budget and the room dimensions you are probably out of luck for a good home theater set up. Placing the TV in the corner by the windows is your beat solution. an LCD or plasma screen is out of your price range, and with all of the light sources you would not be happy with a projector. I would recommend turning one of the upstairs bedrooms into a den/Family room and using the living room as a formal living room the only suggestion I could come up with

I'm not looking for a top-notch home theater (yet... That'll be in the basement once we finish it). And I might just have to stick with my crappy 32" TV for now (which doesn't even have S-Video.. Blech). But I'm still looking at other alternatives.

Does anyone know how good the LCD tvs are? For example, I found this one, but can't find much info on it:

http://shopping.yahoo.com/shop?d=ztv...k=dmks/slk407w

Can this be hung above the fireplace? I'm guessing I'd have wires hanging down from it to get to my A/V equipment, as well as to power it, but how's the picture? As stated earlier, I watch DVDs and DirecTV. This model is right around the max I could spend (around $2500). But I don't want to blow that much cash on a piece of junk. However, if we had an above-the-fireplace model, and it was of decent quality, I can see us using it for at least 5-10 years as a "secondary" TV, even after the home theater is built in the basement.

Any other suggestions?

CW

People who saw the Samsung 40" LCD TV didn't like it too much. Apparently, ghosting was still a big problem with it, unfortunately.

In terms of projectors, how much ambient light you can take varies according to the gain of your screen and the brightness of your projector. No matter what you do, if you have direct light on the screen, it'll wash out the image. Of course, this is the case even with a normal CRT television.

My setup at home has quite a bit of ambient light and i'm still able to watch (3000 lumen, MLA equipped, 800:1 on/off contrast "light canon" type LCD projector), eventhough I have a .95 gain screen. Something like the new Stewart Firehawk screen with 1.3 gain and very deep black levels would be even better at rejecting off-axis light.