ATMOS CINEMA ESCAPE

We started modelling the room in AutoCAD. Being a basement room, the ceiling height was non-negotiable, and there were several niches in the space that we took advantage of. We stripped the room back to its concrete shell to claw back as much height as possible. After taking its true dimensions we came up with 1) a design incorporating a raised rear seating platform, 2) a separate section at the rear of the room that incorporated the projector booth and 3) a rack that had the clients’ local sources within it. There was a pre-existing control system in the property which we extended over to this space to allow for continuity throughout the house. The benefit of utilising the spaces in the structure that were pre-existing kept the cinema as large as possible, whilst ticking the client’s brief boxes.

Ceiling height was an issue, there was not enough void within the ceiling to house the rear set of Atmos channels. We presented two solutions, drop the newly installed Alcantara wrapped panelled ceiling or mount the speaker with a custom solution allowing it to be slightly lower than the ceiling itself. With the client’s agreement the speakers went into a custom mount that was also wrapped in Alcantara and you wouldn’t notice the difference!

Initially the room was specified with a different projector, during the project we were made aware that an updated version was in the pipeline so suggested we move to this model giving greater functionality. There was not much time between availability and project end date however we placed a pre-order ahead of time and managed to get one of the first of these projectors in the country.

The property already consisted of a Lutron Homeworks QS system, this allowed the client to upgrade the Lutron keypads to keep in harmony with the new interior design. We were also able to add automated blinds in other areas of the property. The cinema lighting can be controlled via an elegant Lutron keypad or by a touchscreen device. The system allows for pre-programmed scenes such as “cinema” which can dim the lights, turn on the projector and select the input source. Special attention was given to the LED logic of the Lutron keypad to ensure it’s backlights and LED’s didn’t take away from the Cinema Lighting scene.

The cinemas audio system was made up of Steinway Lyngdorf’s P300 Processor, three A2 Amplifiers, an A1 amplifier, 7x S-15 speakers (FL, Centre (inwall version) FR, SL, SR, SBL, SBR), 4x IC-16 Speakers (Atmos front & Rear) and 2x LS R212 woofers. The projection system consists of JVC’s NZ8 projector, Display Technologies AT Frontier Fixed frame screen, Port Hole Glass, 2x Mistral 150 Fans and a Mistral commander. The source inputs include Apple TV 4K, SKY Q Master, PS5, XBOX Series X and a Sony 4K Blu-ray. Control is provided by Control 4 Neeo Remote and an EA3 Controller, and the network uses Cisco’s SG350X 24 Port Switch. All of this is housed in a Middle Atlantic 42 U QAR RACK with Surge X surge protection and Aten IPPDU.