Red-Meadow Theater

Welcome to Red-Meadow!

As featured in Electronic House magazine!

Please visit The Gallery for detailed pictures of the theater and its construction.

The Vision:

Red-Meadow was born as my vision of an ideal home theater retreat. I'm mostly interested in big screen movies of epic presentation (think Star Wars and Lord of the Rings). These films really deserve to be shown in all their glory and I wanted to capture that magic and present it in the home. This is not a theater for standard definition TV shows. DVDs, HDTV, and the upcoming high definition optical formats are the intended usage. I also intend to do some PC and console gaming in the theater, but the primary objective all along has been the proper display of widescreen movies.

Seating:

Red-Meadow features comfortable seating for 7 movie-goers.

The front row is about 13 feet back from the screen and features three Berkline 090 leather recliners.

The back row is about 19 feet back from the screen and consists of a loveseat flanked by two recliners.

All seats are motorized and the front center seat has a factory installed Butt-Kicker mounted to the bottom. The back row seats are on a floating riser platform that also contains a Butt-Kicker. This makes for a more subtle (but equally thrilling) experience.

Screen:

Think your 42" plasma offers a real movie theater experience? Try a 128" diagonal constant-height screen. Red-Meadow's screen is in a true widescreen aspect ratio ( 2.35:1 compared to the usual HDTV 16:9).  What does this mean? Well, for starters it's a glorious 10 foot wide image, but the most notable catch here is that most movies are displayed in their original theatrical presentation ( i.e. without any letterboxing/black bars). This makes the image seem to float on the front wall and improves perceived contrast levels.

The screen itself is a Carada Criterion Series 128" 2.35:1 Brilliant White (Gain 1.4).

Projector:

Red-Meadow is powered by a Sanyo Z4 HD-LCD projector. This projector offers a native resolution of 1280x720p, and is so silent you can barely tell when it's on. The projector also has some cool features such as an automatic lens cover, optical lens shift, a razor sharp image, and many color setting adjustments.

Lens:

To accomplish the anamorphic stretching required to do a true scope screen (2.35:1 aspect ratio), Red-Meadow's Z4 projector is mated to a Prismasonic H600M lens. The Z4 handles the vertical stretching of a 16:9 image while the H600M lens stretched horizontally. The net result is essentially creating a 2.35:1 projector. Once again, this means for most movies presented there are no black bars to deal with. For 16:9 content the lens is used in pass-through mode.

Lighting:

A Lutron Spacer System handles the 3 zones of lighting in Red-Meadow. The wall sconces are Leonardo (Kenroy International) and handle the primary zone of lighting. The riser for the back row seats is lit on another zone with rope lighting (no tripping!). The final zone of lighting consists of rope lighting around the curved stage front, and in the crown moulding running around the perimeter of the theater. All lighting can be controlled by remote.

Paint and Fabric:

Red-Meadow is a dedicated theater and as such the colour scheme is neutral and dark. The walls are painted with BM Kensington Blue, the ceiling and soffit are BM Twilight Zone flat black. Trim work is painted with a Sandstone grey/silver colour.   The fabric running along the shelf wall is Guilford of Maine Obsidian - Corina. The front stage area is covered with black carpet and the main carpeting is Stainmaster 30 New Leather.   All speakers and the screen wall are covered with GOM FR701 Black fabric which is acoustically transparent. This allows the speakers to be hidden completed from view, but still heard clearly.

Speakers:

Red-Meadow is a Dolby Digital and DTS 7.1 capable theater. The front channels consist of Definitive Technology BP10B towers, and CLR2002 center channel. The four surround speakers are BP2Xs. The subwoofer is an SVS PB12 Plus/2. This puts out an amazing 1000 Watts of bass with the dual 12" drivers. All together the output of the speakers is close to 2000W.

A/V Equipment:

A nearby equipment closet handles the audio and video components which are hidden from sight. Red-Meadow features several 300 and 400 disc DVD changers, a Denon AVR3802 receiver, Panamax line conditioner, Comcast Motorola 6412 STB, and several home theater PCs which simplify the operation of the entire system and provide advanced macros/remote capabilities.

Sound Isolation:

Red-Meadow was constructed with sound isolation in mind. Two layers of drywall were used along with ample insulation and Audio Alloy's marvelous Green Glue damping material. In addition, the ceiling and walls do not touch directly to further minimize sound transmission to other areas. The entrance is sealed by a Masonite Safe N Sound solid core door. Generally, the theater is fairly soundproof, although you can only do so much with thousands of watts of power and lots of low frequency effects (LFE) pounding!

Room dimensions / Specifications:

The theater is approximately 15 feet wide by 24 feet long. Ceiling is 8 feet in height. The front stage is around 6" high and serves both a functional and aesthetic purpose. Functionally, it helps to raise the speakers higher than they would otherwise be to accommodate the back row of seating hearing great audio. The stage is also filled with around 1000 pounds of dry play sand to make it completely solid. This is because of the large speakers and subwoofer that will use this as a platform. As far as aesthetics, a stage with a nice curved front just looks good! It gives that great true cinema feeling!

The back riser was built to be approximately 10" high. It obviously allows the back row of seating to have an unobstructed view of the screen.