What's The Difference Between A Home Theater & Media Room?
What's The Difference Between A Home Theater & Media Room?
Darien, CT – Oftentimes people get a home theater and media room confused. While they’re both dedicated rooms for watching content, their construction is very different and one is more versatile than the other.
A theater is solely focused on the viewing experience for a film. To accomplish this, you extensive planning around lighting, soundproofing, and the amount of audio equipment necessary for creating the complete theater experience.
While a media room can be your movie viewing room, it offers more than just watching movies. This room is where you can watch TV, play video games, and entertain when you have guests over. Unlike the theater, this room doesn’t take the same level of planning.
Home Theater Design
A home theater is a space that is optimized for a theatrical experience. To accomplish this there are numerous things to be taken into consideration such as light, sound, and space. In a commercial theater, there are no windows, and when the movie begins the lighting comes down just bright enough to walk out so that the projection on the screen can be as bright as possible. Similar to the commercial theater, your home theater needs to limit any light entering your home theater, if you do have windows then they need to be fully blacked out by shades.
When home theaters are being built, sound control is a major emphasis. Not only do you want to keep your sound inside the theater but you don’t want any outside sound from entering the theater. The sound in a theater is one of the biggest differentiators between a theater and a media room. Not only do you need to control your sound but you also want to create impressive sound inside the theater. The audio equipment necessary for a theater is perhaps the biggest difference between a media and a theater. A theater is not merely about seeing the film, it’s equally about hearing and sometimes feeling it. When you’re making a large investment like a theater you don’t want to cut corners on the audio equipment.
While everyone wants the biggest screen possible for a home theater, sometimes bigger is not always better. If the room you’re planning on installing a home theater in is only 15 feet long then you may end up being maxed out at around a 120″ screen. You don’t want to be sitting in your seat or on your couch and be 5 feet away from a 10-foot screen, similarly to being in the front row of a commercial theater you’re going to be taxing your neck trying to see the entire screen.
Media Room Versatility
The media room is highly versatile. This room can be used for watching, entertaining, playing, and so much more. When constructing a media room, there are fewer factors that you need to be concerned about compared to the theater. In these rooms, it’s okay to have windows and you don’t need the same level of soundproofing or audio equipment in the room. Because windows are likely going to be in the room a TV is the better option for a screen. A TV is going to provide you with superior brightness and won’t suffer from battling the lighting in the room the same way that a projector would.
If you’re interested in a home theater or media room you can email us @ info@davcoinc.com or give us a call at (203) 838-5887.
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