Newb to home theatres need help with mine

[JRoX85]

Well my wife finally broke down and told me I could have a man room, the problem I have is that it is far to small for a full blown theatre. I live in SW Florida so I have no basement and am converting my office to an media/gaming room. My budget is $2000 (I ge furniture wholesale), and I should also be able to get by w/o a rack as the room has two storage closets which should suffice. Here are the specs for the room The room also is divided from the living room by french doors. I have worked in the home security and access control field for the past 7 years so I am able to get things done on my own.

9ft10"x9ft2" going down to 5ft even (the room is not square)

Here is a current list of products I have

1) Logitech Harmony 1100
2) PS3 Slim
3) XBOX 360 Slim
4) Monster Surge power cord
5) imac computer

Here are my questions and any help from the guru's would be greatly appreciated

1) I know that I will be going with the new Vizio led tv would a 47" be to big or should I stick with getting a 42"( Reasoning behind this is because I am partially blind in one eye and have to sit close)

2) As far as sound goes should I just get a soundbar for the room or can I get a decent 5.1 (I am skeptical as the room isn't the largest by any means and is divided from the living room by glass panel french doors)

3) How do I get movies on my mac and transfer them to my ps3 in BLU-RAY format?

Again my budget is $2000.00, what would one of you guru's do in my shoes??

 

[JRoX85]

Here is a quick sketch I did from my mac paint, any input on what I should do would be really awesome, also bay window is on North side of house and covered by front lanai so minimal lighting gets in.

 

[sholling]

I can't help you with the Mac or getting it talking with the PS3 but you may find it easier to get the Mac and a Western Digital TV Live (~$85) working. The WDTV Live plays almost anything effortlessly but I don't know about itunes music and it will not play the lossless sound tracks from a Blu-Ray rip. DTS 5.1 yes but not DTS-HD. As some members have discovered the hard way DTS-HD is a PIA to get working with anything but a purpose built home theater PC and that's still a PIA to get working.

Only you can decide how screen size effects your vision issues so I'd get to the store and look for yourself. If bigger works for you then you have your answer.

Looking at your drawing I'd start by getting the L&R front speakers out of the corners. You always want at least 18-24 or more inches between the front speakers and side walls and you want the tweeters to be at ear level. In a 5.1 system the surrounds go directly to your left and right and a little higher than the L&R fronts. The room is so small (< 800cuft?) that a little 10" subwoofer like an Outlaw LFM-1 Compact ($339 shipped) should pressurize the heck out of that room with the doors and windows closed. You'll have to experiment to find the place that it sounds best. I'm sure someone else will be along with other suggestions as well.

For the rest it's hard to say without knowing how much budget you'll have left after the TV. Perhaps last years Denon AVR-1911 receiver ($400 shipped). It's a good little receiver with all of the features you're likely to need and has plenty of power for a room that size.

Assuming a $500 speaker budget then a pair of Infinity Primus P163, the PC251 center, and a pair a P153 for surrounds would be a nice choice. The P163 and P153 are front ported which makes placement easy. If the budget is $750ish (w/shipping) I'd consider Ascend Acoustics' CBM-170SE bookshelves and center and their HTM-200SE as surrounds. The 170s are rear ported and need a good 12-18" behind them for the port to work but the HTM-200s are sealed and can be wall mounted.

Let us know f you have more questions and how it turns out.

 

[JRoX85]

Thanks for the input, as far as streaming movies/shows I think I have pretty much figured that much out I am going to ge a 1-2tb external net drive and use mk2vob to convert them onto my ps3. Also I am budgeting the tv betwen 800-1200 as I get big discounts.I think I am going to sway towards a 5.1 instead of 3.1, and am looking into Pioneer receivers and a polk speaker setup.

 

[hopper81]

5.1 & HDMI Ports

Yes I would highly suggest the 5.1 vs 3.1 The true surround sound will make your man cave a place to get away from the rif raff of society. If you are into gadgets at all make sure that you have a receiver that has plenty of HDMI - IN ports. For example, I have four of my HDMI ports used for DirecTV, Apple TV, Roku / Netflix box, Sony PS3 Blu-Ray.

ProjectorCentral.com has a calculator that says the 47" screen should be comfortably viewed from 5-7ft away. Even though you are not buying a projector the calculators are recommended by a variety of sources. I picked a random projector for this link below. Click on the link then slide the image diagonal slide toward the lower setting of 47" then you can see the seating distance toward the top of the screen is 5-7Ft.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/3M-H10-projection-calculator-pro.htm

PS - Did I mention the Roku box WWW.Roku.com - for a one time fee of under $100 you can have close to 100+ different internet TV channels. You can litterally spend a whole weekend browsing all kinds of Channels.

But your an Mac type guy so you might go for the Apple TV - $99 last time I checked at Best Buy. I have read that the new Operating System IOS-5 for the IPhones, the ICloud to stream your ITunes music, and the new Mac Computer Lion software to be released this fall will make your Apple TV the new home device integration gadget that make your friends envious.

http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/photo-stream.html
http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html

Good luck, I would like to hear how it turns out for you.