Let Us Entertain You
This piece is to provide an overview of the amazing technological advances that highlights how far we’ve moved in the field of home entertainment. Imagine a waterproof television built into your bathroom wall, with a heated screen to prevent it steaming up and a remote control replacing the duck in your bath. Fantasy? Not anymore, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Home entertainment has really come of age, where it used to be that a large part of property renovation budgets were spent on luxury kitchens and bathrooms, now home-owners – and often their architects and interior designers – are turning their attention to home entertainment and investing in systems that fulfil the technical requirements, whilst maintaining a design feel that brings a totally new dimension to their properties – inside and out.
While many still want to convert attics, garages or basements into state-of-the-art home cinemas, a new trend towards integrated systems is evolving. The average spend these days is between £10,000 and £20,000 although it’s not unknown for an individual to pay over £200,000.
We are moving away from the concept of home entertainment as a dedicated cinema room. Multi-room technology enables you to control your TV, satellite and cable viewing, gaming, music and even mood lighting from anywhere in the house. It used to be that you watched TV in your lounge and surfed the net where the PC was stationed. However, new technology and cutting-edge designs have enabled the boundaries between our living spaces to converge.
Even the garden is now considered another ‘room’: creative outdoor lighting, all-weather designer speakers cunningly disguised as planters or rocks to blend in with your landscaping. All with integrated wireless technology so that everything is mobile and can be positioned to help to create the outdoor mood.
When it comes to making a statement, size certainly matters. The recent trend towards larger and flatter TV’s continues, where once the average was 42 inches it is now around 50 inches, with enquiries on 60-65 inches screens also on the up.
Home entertainment systems can equally be unobtrusive and subtly stylish, complimenting the existing style of the property. Flat TV screens can slide away gracefully into hand-crafted bespoke wooden cabinets and wall mounted speakers can be disguised as designer prints. Even projectors and projection screens can retract into the ceiling (space permitting) at the touch of a button.
The latest wireless systems can also help you to achieve a clutter-free look and avoid the disruption of cable installations, making it possible to install home entertainment systems in buildings where cabling may be intrusive or impractical.
The Sonos Multi-Room system is an ideal and easy to use system putting the wireless concept to good effect, intelligent enough to facilitate different music in separate rooms, all via one central control unit.
Whether you have a period property or have just spent a lot of money on redecorating your family home, you don’t want to be pulling up floors and chasing wires in walls, so where do you begin? It is important to get a very detailed brief from the customer. So, following consultation, we usually advise a site visit by our CEDIA Designer to establish, from a technical perspective, the room design and décor. Then we can recommend the right equipment for optimum results. If a client lives in an apartment for example, they might not be able to have a THX cinema replicated in their house, but we can specify systems that achieve a terrific performance – without disturbing the neighbours! From a practical point of view, we need to understand what the system is being used for.
Is the client’s ultimate dream to be surrounded by classical music in every room? Are they a movie-fanatic looking for earth-shattering sound effects? Or are they looking for a multi-purpose system to entertain the whole family? Every case is unique and by going to an independent company you get impartial advice. We can specify the right solution from a wide range of top brands.
Sometimes customers do not really know what they are looking for and so a private appointment at Kent Home Cinema Centre is where they might begin their journey of inspiration.
The company’s five demonstration rooms give customers a first-hand experience of the very different results that can be achieved through high-end design and technology.
The reception is the first demonstration room. Music emanating from ‘in-ceiling’ speakers via a multi-room Sonos system, plus ambient ceiling lighting, give an indication of what can be achieved.
Meanwhile the Artcoustic room, with its clean lines and monochrome furniture appeals to lovers of fashionable style. The technology is all integrated as part of the room design, hidden in contemporary cabinets or disguised as elegant wall-mounted prints. In this room you can experience the excellent performance of well designed speakers without knowing where they are. You can select art designs from an extensive gallery of prints, commission your own painting, or even use your family portraits, to cover the speaker grills, making them part of the décor and effectively invisible. As the screens are interchangeable, the image can be changed whenever you like, so your sound system always reflects the contemporary design of your home.
The latest in Blu-ray technology; a Freesat HD & Blu-ray recorder is linked up to a state of the art plasma TV that is not only very thin but operates with wireless HDMI. This all sits on a beautiful walnut media wall with matching AV cabinet, bespoke made to our specifications. This third room has been designed to show customers that a minimalist style and high performance can also be achieved without breaking the bank.
But it’s once you enter the dedicated projection room, that there’s really no going back, even if you aren’t an ardent fan of home cinema. This is where customers get to experience films as the director intended in cinema-scope ratio. You’re invited to relax in the company’s own brand Front Row leather cinema seating and, at the touch of a button, the intelligent remote control closes the soundproof curtain, the lights dim, the projector beam picks up dancing flecks of dust, and you wait in anticipation for electronics to transport you into the ultimate experience of home theatre!
Featuring a top of the range Runco Cinewide Projector, which presents the film as the director intended, in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, this room was not surprisingly the most expensive for Kent Home Cinema Centre to equip. In fact it’s even better than the real cinema because you are entirely in control of your environment.
Projection on a more modest budget can be experienced in the fifth demonstration room with a JVC Home Cinema Projector which can be partnered with a variety of award winning top brand speakers.
The idea behind the designs of the demonstration rooms has always been to give customers an idea of what can be achieved in a variety of different spaces and with different budgets.
Source: http://blog.kenthomecinema.co.uk/2009/09/let-us-entertain-you/
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