Home theatre systems are no longer exclusively for the super-wealthy.

By Alex May

My husband has been teaching me to speak "home theatre" for five years.

We have a subwoofer. We have an amp. We have a television that is larger than my appetite for loud action movies. We even have an HDMI (an important cable, apparently).

We also have more remote controls than dust bunnies. It's no longer possible to hit a big button and switch on the TV to watch the news - it's a complicated dance with our many remote controls, which my five-year-old can master but I cannot. As for recording The Sopranos, it's as if technology and Channel Nine conspire against me.

Then I came across one of those swanky home theatres that costs loads of money - there is one button on just one remote control that will close the blinds, move the projector and screen into position and dim the lights. How sexy is that? The touch of another button started the movie. That's called home theatre automation, and apparently it costs between $1000 and $2000.

"If you're spending all the money on equipment, it makes sense to automate it with one remote control, otherwise you get sick of it and don't use it," says Len Wallis, who owns Len Wallis Audio.

Home theatres cost between $20,000 and $250,000, Wallis says. They have two components - vision and sound - and the idea is to re-create the all-sense stimulation of a cinema in your home. That means a big screen and surround sound. Wallis recommends a 215-centimetre screen (measured diagonally) as a starting point - "anything smaller doesn't give the same effect".

But Sydney Home Theatre's Stephen Rule says the ideal size for your screen depends on the room it will be in. Large rooms fit wide screens but smaller rooms are better off with narrower screens. Choosing a screen that is too large gives the "screen-door effect", Rule says.

"I always say you should choose a screen that is half as wide as the lounge will be away from it. Of course clients say 'Nah, give me the biggest you've got' but if the screen is too big for the room you will see all the pixels on it," he says.

Builders such as Dave Denton of Denton Homes construct million-dollar-plus houses with dedicated theatre rooms. "People like to have a spot they can escape to, a place that zones them out. We do our home theatres without any windows and it's literally like escaping to the movies or having a great place to watch sporting events," he says. "To fully deck it out with the right screen and hi-fi costs around $100,000." Denton's home theatres often have cinema-style upholstered seats and tiered flooring.

"I've just put in a home theatre that has its own candy bar and popcorn machine," Rule says.

Wallis says about six years ago home theatres were seen only in architect-designed prestige houses - but the explosion of plasma screens and DVD players meant home theatre installations more than quadrupled.

Setting up a home theatre

• To find the screen that's the right size for your room, follow Rule's suggestion that the seating be twice as far away from the screen as its width. So a one-metre screen would have seats two metres away and a three-metre screen would have seats six metres away.
• The acoustics of the room are also important - ideally the space should be "dead" to minimise echoing. Avoid shiny surfaces such as floorboards, Rule says. Carpets and curtains are best. An acoustic engineer, Brian Marston of RSA Acoustics, says placing sound-deadening material - acoustic foam or tiles - on the wall behind the seating will improve the sound quality of the room. Speakers should be placed following the manufacturer's guidelines. "It makes me laugh when people put the speakers on the floor and then put the sofa in front of them - what's the point?" Marston says.
  Placing the speakers on foam or a stand stops the speakers' vibrations from reverberating throughout the room.
• If you buy a projector, rather than a plasma or LCD monitor, it is vital the room can be darkened. Most projectors will not give good picture quality in a light room.
• Spending money on a custom installer who can hide the speaker cables in the floor, walls and ceiling is the best way to keep the room free of tangled cables.
• Plasma and large LCD screens are fragile and dangerous - especially if they are perched on top of a cabinet. It's best to pay extra to mount them on a wall as children can pull down large screens.