The world of home entertainment is changing rapidly, and consumers have a wide range of options. This book will guide readers through all the aspects of creating a beautiful and comfortable home theatre that elegantly takes advantage of media-related emerging technologies and furnishings.
Starting with a "whole interior" approach to home entertaining, the book takes readers step by step through an examination of current technology, space planning, acoustics, functionality, lifestyle, and overall aesthetics with the goal of planning and designing an entertainment system that's right for you. All types of spaces are addressed, from small urban apartments to spacious, multipurpose living areas to full-blown dedicated theatre spaces.
Customer Review: Designing a Room not a System
The first question you have to ask is 'What is a home theater.'
And the author doesn't have any better definition than you do, so she has written the book in three sections, and with a definite point of view.
One section is on small systems in small rooms. Here you are basically using more or less standard equipment in more or less standard rooms.
The next section is on multi-purpose rooms, such as a den or living room with a major emphasis on media but still useful for other things.
Finally there's the dedicated home theater. Here a room is built to make your own small, but technologically, audiologically, aesthetically and in every other way professional quality. This often includes stadium seating, with high quality chairs and tables for drinks and popcorn between the seats.
All in all the book is more concerned with the interior decoration of the home theater than with the technical aspects. I suppose that's fair, because the rapid change in the technology. Anything you attempted to print in a book would become obsolete at the next Consumer Electronics Show.
Customer Review: Misleading title and little substance
I bought this book to help me plan the space for a home theater I am planning to build myself. Big mistake. It contained nothing useful for me.
This is a book written by someone who only knows home theater from the perspective of rich or trendy clients who pay big bucks to have someone else do all the planning. It's also something of a advertising piece to show off very big and expensive (nothing under six figures) home theaters designed by two firms the author repeatedly gives credits to. At the very end she even has a brief interview with the head of one of those firms.
If you're really rolling in the dough and want to see lots of glossy pictures to see how to spend your money, this book is for you. Example: "John and Jane have a wonderful theater space with arched alcoves along the walls. They display their collection of antique vases in each alcove, and use accent lighting to enhance it. They install a crystal chandelier for ambient lighting..."
For everyone else it's a waste of time. It's so limited in text that it didn't take more than a couple hours to read through. Instead of giving you some real planning guides, the author limits herself to glosses of the obvious along with references to the type of professional you'll need to hire (so many - I've never heard of an acoustician before. He came somewhere after the cabinetmaker you'll need to design the housing for the projector).
This is a book that bows to wealth and trendiness. For those of us who want to tap our own creative ability as well as our more typical budget, we'll have to look elsewhere for inspiration and information.
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A decorating handbook for the parents of babies through teenagers with an emphasis on safety and planning and designing rooms that grow up with a child.
