The Home Theater was pretty much complete 6 months ago but as I had a couple of old tripods sitting around largely unused it seemed appropriate to add a couple of cameras to go with them.

The 120” screen is flanked by a 1960s Nikon F on a period Linhof S168 tripod at left and a Calumet 4”x5” view camera with a Schneider Symmar lens, on a 1930s English Gandolfi wooden tripod at right. The Nikon F, which brought back so many horrific images of conflict and death from the front did more to end the Viet Nam war than any politician or soldier. This was before the Pentagon learned to keep photographers away from the front lines, so as to sanitize and extend our endless wars. The Calumet view camera was a staple of Hollywood’s glamor photographers, the large 4” x 5” negatives making the retouching of warts and achievement of glossy perfection relatively easy.

Here are snaps of those two cameras:

The Nikon F, with a 50mmf/1.4 Nikkor lens.

The Calumet monorail view camera with more twists and turns than a politician.

Further, on the sofaback, there is one of these:

The Zeiss Ikon Contax camera is similar to the one which photographer Robert Capa took with him when he parachuted in to Omaha Beach with the 82nd Airborne on D Day. The few surviving negatives (the lab ruined most of the film) are amongst the greatest war images made. He lost his life when stepping on a landmine in Indochina a few years later.

These additions, as well as some further light sealing for errant sun rays, largely see the Home Theater project completed.

Some kaizen called for.

Like Toyota I am a huge believer in kaizen:

Kaizen, though I am both ‘top management’
and ‘rank and file’.

Whether with the opposite sex (costly) or with machines (less so) there are few things in life which cannot be improved upon. With my Home Theater, which runs a movie every evening, the focus of kaizen has been on less obvious areas.

You can read about the construction process as follows:

• Ultra short throw projectors and giant screens
• An old Mac Mini as controller
• The sound system

Hardware has been the least of the issues. The LG CineBeam HU715QW has been a winner. While the extremely acute angle at which it projects the image means that alignment of projector and screen is ultra critical, once done with the help of the software tools in the projector, some garage language and an invocation of grievous bodily harm to anyone moving the assembly thereafter, it has been perfection. We are talking Lexus LS400 quality here (the vehicle which defines kaizen) and with a projector-to-seat distance of some 12 feet, the bulb fan is inaudible.

One of the less remarked aspects of this exceptional piece of hardware has been its seamless and unobtrusive upsampling of regular definition content on DVD so that the quality is very close to that of a BluRay disk with its eight times larger file size – 32gB against 4gB. All those old pre-BluRay DVDs on the file server now look better than ever.

The LG HU715QW UST projector.

Equally, the Sonos sound system has been trouble free and if the maker is applying over-the-air updates while I am in the land of nod, I have not noticed and it continues to work seamlessly. I mention this as these updates has been have been the cause of some controversy, but I remain a happy camper.

And as regards data sources, the old Mac Mini with attached HDD boxes works well using a Bluetooth mouse and the Apple TV 4K puck for streamed content is an absolute knockout with its much improved controller. It also uses Bluetooth, meaning no line-of-sight nonsense with remote controls, with all hardware hidden away in the credenza on which the projector sits.

So the hardware side is robust, high quality and troublefree.

But the same cannot be said for the room. While the size is perfect at 20’9″ long, 13’11” wide and 9’2″ high and the reclining seating is a delight for the bottom and back if not for the pocketbook, getting rid of light leaks has been a truly kaizen project. With the theater first installed in the depth of winter, outside light was not an issue. It was pitch dark by the movie hour. But as Daylight Savings Time kicked in (what jerk thought of that concept?) light leaks became abundant. So first it was drapes for the rear facing triple windows:

Drapes installed. A gorgeous Goldberg
1930s era 35mm film reel hangs from the
ceiling next to an antique English GE
‘candlestick’ telephone. The rear surround
sound Sonos speakers are just visible.

Next, the slatted blinds for the west facing side windows proved totally inadequate. I replaced them with silvered/black blackout blinds which proceeded to leak light at the edges, so L-shaped plastic channels were fitted:

Lots of careful work saw to it that the blinds
remain fully functional. I made the rocking dinosaur
for my boy when he was in his first years and
it makes for a lovely display piece.

Then, as the sun got brighter and shone more on the north-east side behind the screen, light shafts proceeded to show through the screen. Nowhere did the Elite Screens specs mention that their screens are partially translucent so the monster 123″ display had to come off the wall, with much help from my son, and black-out material was fitted over those three windows to seal them off for once and for all. A high risk project:

Windows behind the screen blacked out
with hardboard panels and blackout material.
A small uninterruptible power supply is
behind the left Sonos sub-woofer.

Now things were getting properly dark, a hand extended no longer visible with the lights out. And speaking of lights, all the bland ceiling floods were replaced with spotlights to add drama to the illumination of the old movie posters:

A magnificent Bolex H-16 16mm movie camera
at left, a Cecil B. DeMille-era Weston Master
selenium cell exposure meter and an old Bell & Howell
16mm movie projector add a period touch.The
silent refrigerator at right stores the
essentials – ice cream and soda!

So yes, kaizen absolutely works, but don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy. It’s the same reason that Toyota makes the best cars in the world.

Whoa!

I mentioned that the sound system in the home theater is all Sonos. Easy to install, mostly wireless and more than loud enough for the medium sized room which is 20’9″ long, 13’11” wide and 9’2″ high, with a flat ceiling. The latter is the preferred configuration for Dolby Atmos, which the Sonos Arc sound bar supports, as selected upward firing speakers bounce the height information off that ceiling to the listener.

The speakers – the sound bar, the two rear surrounds and the sub – have internal amplifiers and wireless data connectivity for all but the sound bar, so that all that is needed is a power source for each. The sound bar is hard wired to the UST projector with an HDMI cable. That makes for an easy installation.

Even with the one Sub the sound is smooth with no obnoxious peaks or valleys. I generally find that +6 to +8 on the rear surrounds makes for the best sound stage and the bass is not lacking. Response curves show it is smooth down to 25Hz. Late last year Sonos enhanced their iPhone app to permit use of two Subs and reviews suggest that two are better than one. However, at a costly $750 for a Sub, there may be some confirmation bias at work here. Keeping the Subs away from the walls avoids the usual resonance hump in bass response, which avoidance is desirable for smooth reproduction.

So I sprang for a second Sub:

Two are better than one. The Sonos system
makes for an elegant, uncluttered installation.
The rear surround speakers are not shown.

Packaging and installation are very much ‘Apple quality’. The iPhone app walks you though the process of adding the second Sub and once done you run the Trueplay function which has the speakers emitting sounds for 60 seconds while you walk around with the iPhone, waving it this way and that. This captures the sound stage and tunes the system for best results. (If your cell phone is an Android one you will have to borrow an iPhone or iPad as the function works on iOS only).

And yes, the bass is now smoother and cleaner and the mid range is further cleaned up. The image above is from the opening minutes of Damian Chazelle’s ‘First Man‘, the Neil Armstrong story, where he is piloting the experimental Bell aircraft into space and, yes, the effect is earth shattering.

Recommended, if not cheap.

For a huge image in the home theater. And huge sound to match.

Ultra short throw projectors have been around for a few years now and it’s probably fair to say that they are ready for prime time. I have been following the technology for quite a while and prices have been falling with quality rising, as is usually the case with new technologies. Now an UST projector capable of projecting a 120 inch diagonal image at 4K quality is affordable. I bought the LG CineBeam HU715QW which can be found for under $2,300, along with an Aeon ALR 123″ Elite Screen for a further $1,600. This screen is designed for use with UST projectors only and will provide a reasonably contrasty image with the room lights on.

A UST projector sits very close to the screen, some 12″ distant, projecting up at an extreme angle with optics and software providing the required keystone correction. This obviates the need for ceiling mounting and the related wiring complications. The Ambient Light Reflecting screen is coated with millions of triangular prisms, the upper surface parallel to the ceiling to reject ceiling light and the lower facet at some 45 degrees to accept and reflect the steeply upward pointed projected video.

Two words of caution. Do not chintz and use a white painted wall. The result will be ghastly. And be sure to install the projector and screen exactly in accordance with the manufacturer’s directions. You really do not want to correct for distortion using the projector’s built-in capabilities as any change from ‘dead square to the screen’ will degrade image quality. And UST projectors like the LG do not have zoom lenses, so your screen:projector distance has to be exact, meaning 1/16″ accurate. To get that right I used these two laser tools:

A laser level and a laser ruler. The latter is accurate to 1/16″.

While screen frame assembly is easy, stretching the fragile material and attaching it with the 108 (!) included springs is non-trivial, and on no account should greasy fingers contact the screen’s surface. Elite Screen provides a generous amount of sheet material to make sure this is the case, along with the spring stretcher hooks and two pairs of cotton gloves.

The installers mount the screen on the wall after stretching the fragile material onto the frame.

The sound system can be whatever you want. I used a Sonos Arc + Sub + two SL rear speakers, all wireless, for ease of installation and a high quality sound stage. You can easily pay four times more but I’m strictly an ’80/20′ man. Spend 20% of the maximum possible and get 80% of the quality.

The completed home theater.

The image quality is outstanding, provided care is taken to follow the manufacturers’ instructions for screen and projector. Are the blacks as black as those from an OLED LED TV? No. Is the experience more immersive? Immeasurably so. And don’t forget a small, silent refrigerator for ice cream and soft drinks.

My previous HT installation was in 2006 and used an Optoma overhead 480i projector and a 100″ screen. Quality was really good for the day and age, but the current UST setup has a 44% larger screen and sixteen times the definition. What’s not to like?

The 2006 installation used an overhead 480i projector.

Low sound volume from the Sonos Arc sound bar:

When first installed and even with the Sonos S2 app set to maximum volume, I was getting inadequate volume from the Sonos Arc sound bar on streaming movies through the AppleTV 4K using both Netflix and HBO. A check of the Sonos bulletin/chat board disclosed this is a common complaint with many throwing their hands up, blaming Sonos and deciding to sell the hardware.

Wrong. There are projector/Sonos conflicts at work here.

A careful reading of the LG projector’s manual disclosed a myriad of sound adjustments, one of which is mentioned in a rather low key manner on page 66/116 of the large manual, thus:

‘Pass Through’ barely merits a mention, but is a key setting with Sonos.

Simply stated, until ‘Pass Through’ is enabled (you do not want the setting to be ‘Auto’) on the LG projector, the projector overrides the Sonos’s sound controls and limits the maximum volume. Apparently this is also common with large screen LG and Samsung TVs. Enable ‘Pass Through’ and now the Sonos system will rattle your windows and burst your ear drums on anything much above 75% in the Sonos S2 app. I can think of no finer way to enjoy Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score or the glorious sound of the V12 Rolls Royce Merlin Spitfire engine in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. That costly Sonos Sub really earns its keep here.

Room tuning:

By the way, Sonos comes with a ‘Trueplay’ option which, when triggered, broadcasts a series of sounds over 60 seconds while you walk around the room waving your iPhone this way and that. This tunes the Sonos system to your environment and who am I to argue? It sounds just great after this strange procedure. And non-iPhone users need not apply as this only works with iPhones. Apple should buy Sonos and add something special to their mediocre selection of sound devices. Maybe ‘It Just Works’ is not quite right with Sonos, but it’s close.