Imagine the scene: It’s getting late on a Friday night, but you’re really in the mood for a good movie. Sure, you could drive across town, stand in a long line for tickets (and again for popcorn) and jockey to find a good seat in the crowded movie theater. Luckily, you don’t have to. Instead, you shuffle across the house in your pajamas, pour yourself a glass of wine and settle into one of the comfy chairs in your own home theater.

The home theater, or media room, is a hot ticket item in newly constructed homes, and one of the most-desired additions of homeowners who are reconstructing an existing home. The home theater offers the ultimate in privacy and technology. With today’s advanced systems, you don’t have to set foot out of your house to experience the full impact of the theater—minus the sticky floors!

Fortunately, sleek screens are fast replacing the traditional bulky television, and there are a myriad of options. Since the screen is one of the essential ingredients in getting the most out of your experience, and will likely be the focal point of your room, screen selection is a good place to start.

Fixed screens are usually made of vinyl material that has a permanent tension for pristine picture quality. Rear-projection screens provide fantastic image definition and are ideal for those who place high emphasis on atmosphere, as they project well with various intensities of light in the room. Motorized screens are controlled either by a wall switch or a remote control. These screens unroll and stretch out so that they don’t have to be permanently set on the wall—quite useful if you want to use the room for something other than a home theatre. Manual projection screens are not as expensive, but there is less variety than with other types.

“Whenever we install a system, we usually do a motorized screen that is operated by a switch somewhere in the room. We install three types of projectors: DLP (Direct Light Projection), LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and CRT (Cathode Ray Tube),” says Andrew Cassara, home theater specialist at Poole Lumber Company.

Choosing your own feature presentation has never been so technologically advanced. Kaleidescape DVD Technology, the latest development for storing all of your movies, allows you to arrange your collection according to title, genre or even director listings. “You can navigate the system alphabetically, or [even] by DVD cover art,” says Charles Vargas of Creative Design Group. “Another great thing about the Kaleidescape product is that you can never fill it up. It works with computer hard drives, so when you fill one hard drive up with DVDs, you can just add another one.”

There is also the possibility of getting streaming video on demand from some of the digital video recorder companies, such as Tivo and Replay TV. You can store your music collection in your system, as well, and say goodbye to those piles of CD cases. Amazingly, high-tech systems actually “learn” about your musical taste as you make selections, and will automatically choose songs for you for your occasion, whether it be “Dinner Music” or “House Cleaning.”

Central to the sensory experience of home theater is sound. Have you ever watched a scary movie on mute? It just doesn’t have the same effect. Today’s technology offers panoramic sound that places you in the center of it all. Powered stereo amplifiers differentiate left, right, front and rear sound, and mounting the speakers around your room provides the ultimate experience. High-end speakers come automatically calibrated to achieve sonic accuracy in any type of room. Everything from the most powerful explosion to the softest whisper can be heard in full detail. And there’s good news for those who crave the best in sound performance, but despise the look of bulky speakers set about the room. Today’s speaker models are designed and built to the highest level of detail. With their sleek lines, beautiful curves and exquisite finishes, many speakers look like a piece of art.
Performance and style are no longer mutually exclusive.

Add a popcorn machine for the final touch!