Jul 22 Podcast #488: Painting Your Home Theater
A couple weeks ago on Episode 485 we talked about how to paint your own home theater projector screen. That might not be something you plan to take on, but you might have to paint the walls in your home theater or main TV room. If you get that item on your todo list, we’ve got a few pointers to help maximize your effort for an optimal HDTV experience.
Listen to the show
Today's Show:
Blu-ray Reviews:
News:
- Apple will adopt Ultraviolet cloud movie format
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is Bad for 3D TV
- New Roku 2 Players Sling Angry Birds to the TV
- Kaleidescape Refuses to ‘Cave to DVD CCA’ on Movie Servers
Other:
- $55: 70INx70IN Model B Manual Screen for wall/ceiling
- Is Netflix killing DVDs like Apple killed floppies?
- Shaw launches Netflix rival
Painting Your Home Theater
A couple weeks ago on Episode 485 we talked about how to paint your own home theater projector screen. That might not be something you plan to take on, but you might have to paint the walls in your home theater or main TV room. If you get that item on your todo list, we’ve got a few pointers to help maximize your effort for an optimal HDTV experience.
The Color
Let’s be honest, unless you live alone or have a dedicated theater room, you probably won’t get to pick the color for your home theater. Even if you have a dedicated room you might get overruled by the aesthetics committee on that decision. But be prepared to offer some input and guidance. You can’t pick the color, but you may be able to make some subtle tweaks to the shade or hue.
Quite honestly the color of the walls doesn’t really matter that much. But the darker they are, the more contrast you’ll get between the walls and the screen. This makes the walls almost disappear and allows your eyes to only really pay attention to the image on the screen. A dark ceiling does the same thing. Lighter walls could reflect more light and slightly wash out the image on screen. So whether the aesthetics committee picks green, red, blue or brown, the darker you can go, the better TV experience you’ll have.
There is a common misconception that colored walls could miscolor the video image on your TV. Some think that red walls could make the image look pink or green walls would give everything a slightly green tint. In most cases, this simply isn’t true. Unless you have some really bright lights shining on the walls, an incredibly bright projector, or some really strange wall angles near the screen, there just isn’t enough light coming from the TV to bounce off the walls and back to the TV to distort the picture.
But it is true that bright scenes in a movie or television program can light up your walls. While this typically isn’t enough light to actually make its way back into the video image, a sudden burst of red or bright blue around the screen could be quite distracting. Don’t be afraid of color, but the darker it is, the less distracting it will be. Navy blue, dark green, burgundy all should be fine. If you have to go with lighter colored walls, try to stick with neutral colors like beige, tan or gray.
If the room isn’t a dedicated home theater, you may not be able to get a really dark wall color past the aesthetics committee. Most people think that lighter color walls tend to make a room feel bigger and more inviting while darker color walls close in the space and make it feel more like a cave, especially a dark ceiling. So if the room will double as an entertaining area, light walls could be your only option. But don’t fret, when the lights are out, even lighter colored walls go pretty dark.
The Sheen or Finish
The real enemy of video performance is light, and in this case reflected light, so you want to make sure you put most of your influence and guidance into the paint finish. You might even have to cave on the color to gain ground here. Paints are typically offered in a range of sheen or gloss levels. So you can get the color you want (or maybe don’t want) in the finish you do. The typical names, from lowest sheen to highest are:
- Flat
- Eggshell
- Satin
- Semi-gloss
- Gloss
Obviously the less shiny your walls are the less light they’ll reflect and the better your video system will perform. This is exactly why you want to avoid putting mirrors, glass or really glossy photos in your theater. If you have the choice, choose Flat paints in your home theater. If Flat is out of the question, slowly, but painfully, work your way up from there. Glossy paint is a bad idea.
While we don’t have any scientific studies to back this up, we tend to believe that light, flat colors are better than dark, glossy colors. So if you have to give in on either, give in on color. Unless it’s pink.
Just like with color, there are trade-offs with the sheen of the paint as well. The glossier paints are much easier to clean. If you have kids or pets or really messy friends, you’re in for a lot of frustration with flat paints. The easiest way to clean flat paint is to just repaint it, so get used to the feeling of a paintbrush in your hand. Compromising by going with an Eggshell or Satin finish might help save your sanity.
With 4 boys in the house, Braden has gone to all Satin walls, including the home theater and loft, both of which serve as primary HDTV environments. Satin is glossy enough to be cleanable - most of the time - while low sheen enough that it doesn’t really impact the TV and movie experience. Sometimes real life outweighs the purist ideals.
Reader Comments (5)
Hi guys,
You read an email from a listener looking for an alternative to Boxee to playback DVD's and Blu-rays. He may want to take a look at fire core aTV Flash for the Apple TV. This will allow the Apple TV to playback pretty much any locally stored media. I am unsure about blu-ray playback, but it will handle .mkv and I know many folks trans code blu-ray rips to this format. Next gen audio may also be an issue. aTV flash is still in beta for the Apple TV 2 and more features are being added, so hopefully next gen audio will come soon.
Keep up the good work.
Jesse
You guys mentioned the damage done by the latest Harry Potter movie to the reputation of 3D film. While I am not a huge fan of 3D, my son and I did see Captain America in 3D this week. It was pretty spectacular! I felt that the 3D was very restrained and added a dimension of realism to the characters and story. It did create that "looking through a window" perspective that we would all like to see but rarely get an opportunity to. I have to admit that I was "aware" of the 3D throughout the film - but in the same way that I am aware of focus, color, contrast, etc. in a 2D film. That is, as a videophile I was noticing the technical quality of the presentation.
Alternative to Boxee:
I rip my Blu-Rays to h.264 using Handbrake. I set Handbrake to create the first audio channel as pass through of the HD audio and the second channel as AAC, for ATV and iOS use. When I play them back on ATV, I get 5.1 AAC. If I play them back on my PS3, I get the HD audio stream.
For streaming from my local PC to my PS3 I use PS3MediaServer.
Popcorn Hour A-200 will play Blu Ray ISO's and ripped and Blu Rays with almost any container . it will also pass-thru DTS, DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD MA,Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD.( $150.00 non wifi version)
As far as DirecTV Sunday Ticket; new subscribers are getting if for free now. If you call DirecTV customer retention and tell them you don't appreciate spending 300+ dollars for x amount of years...you know complain, they will most likely give you a $300ish credit. They did for me and many other, take a look at DBSTalk.
I have an original PS3 60gig and would not recommend it for anything having to do with anything besides playing discs. The constant updates to both, the system, and Netflix, and the required log into PSN to use Netflix renders the device useless. I've done the computer streaming to the PS3, however, the supported formats is so poor, you have to transcode most things to be spoon fed to the gimped PS3 OS. The hardware is fantastic, the software of the PS3 renders it best suited for techies who love solving problems and engineering solutions. I would love a way to digitize and play my music blurays in a non disk format, hopefully someone will bring to market something that doesn't require 5 figures, or a software engineering degree.
I would think the best solution would be a device that supports multichannel FLAC, but seems impossible for some reason for most media players, I think it's simply a matter that majority of people simply don't care about sound, and isn't going to sell units in the market place. How many people, for various reasons, could even tell the difference between lossy and lossless? There is a extended HQ Dolby digital format that is widely supported, the 1.5mb lossy codec is very good, a step up from DVD, and widely supported.