Dancing on the ceiling: Part 1
Posted by marshall Tue, 17 Jan 2006 00:32:00 GMT
If you didn't just come across this blog during random wandering, you probably know that I have a certain fondness for home theater. This dates back to my early college days, when my roommate in the RIT dorms brought in his stereo with some impressive-looking (though not necessarily impressive-sounding) speakers, and I bought a massive 27" GE television from Sam's Club. It was, sadly enough, the largest and loudest video equipment on the floor, and soon we were hosting movie nights in our room. These events birthed the dream of one day getting a projector and having a real home "theater".
When I moved out of the dorms into an apartment, my new roommate had a Pro Logic surround sound system. In the spirit of kickin' it up a notch, I bought one of the early computer DVD drives and hooked it up to the TV and sound system, bringing us into the brave new world of digital video. (This was back when only the local specialty stores carried the few DVD movies in existence, and I was buying such award-winning classics as Tomorrow Never Dies just because they were on DVD.) The dream continued to come into focus: a ceiling-mounted projector, a progressive-scan DVD player, and a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound system.
It took several years for the dream to come true, but in September 2001, it did. Lara and I bought a Pioneer surround sound receiver, a set of speakers, and an NEC LT150 XGA DLP projector -- one of the best sets of acronyms found in a projector available at the time in our price range. We hooked a progressive-scan DVD player into it, and eventually ran a Nintendo GameCube into it as well. We got a lovely 84" high-power screen to display the projected image. It was good. Yes preciousss. Only one thing remained: mounting the projector on the ceiling.
It seemed like too much of a hassle to do it right away; under the influence of new home ownership, we had decided that our first small step of improving the house would be completely finishing and furnishing the basement, and we planned to move the home theater down there. We put the projector on the lower shelf of a nifty coffee table that we found, and we kept that arrangement until the basement was finished.
Finishing a basement takes a long time when your project lead is several hours away and only visits every few months. It took a couple of years before the basement actually got finished, and by the time it was, we were ready to sell the house and move closer to the city. We decided not to bother with ceiling-mounting the projector, since we weren't going to be in the house much longer anyway.
We never ended up moving closer to the city of Pittsburgh; in fact, we moved about as far as one can get from the city in the continental United States. Of course, our new apartment in southern California didn't seem to lend itself to ceiling mounting either, being an apartment. So for two years we sat the projector on a small table next to the couch and used it that way.
You might wonder what the big deal is about ceiling mounting. Why is it so desirable, and why is it so hard? Well, it's desirable because the projector needs to be aimed dead center at the screen, and an 84" screen requires that the projector be about 8 feet away. That's pretty much exactly where people want to sit. Anyone who sits closer ends up blocking the projector, and there's not enough room in the living room to sit much further away. The only way to allow people to look straight at the screen and not block the projector is to mount it on the ceiling. As for why it's so hard...that comes down to an issue with the LT150. It wasn't really made for ceiling mounting, and turning it upside-down causes the fan to kick into high gear, which is incredibly distracting. To properly mount the projector, a "hushbox" is needed to contain it, muffle the sound, and provide the hooks for placing it on the ceiling.
Unfortunately, a good hushbox is rather expensive. This, combined with the difficulty of running all the cables up to the ceiling, made us put it off for a long time until we were "ready".
And after another two years of living with the projector in the middle of the living room, we were.
(To be continued)
