Simplifying Life Through Technology
SoundVision LLC is a lifestyle technology company located in Mooresville, North Carolina. We interview vendors, clients and staff with the purpose of demystifying the capabilties of new technologies for your home or business and sometimes highlighting local content that is important to our community.
Simplifying Life Through Technology
Media Rooms vs Home Theaters
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On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Zach, and Andrew sit down to discuss the Difference Between a Media Room and a Home Theater.
We're excited to announce our newest segment, SoundVision Tech Talks, where we dive deep into the world of technology, covering topics that help you make informed decisions on how to integrate technology into your lifestyle. Today’s topic is all about understanding the difference between media rooms and home theaters—two popular setups that are often confused but serve very different purposes. We’ll break down the specifics of each, so you can figure out which setup best fits your needs.
Join us as we explore the key distinctions between media rooms and home theaters, guiding you through the essential elements of each. A media room offers versatility, functioning as a multi-purpose space for everything from gaming and socializing to movie nights, typically featuring a large TV, speakers, and flexible seating arrangements. On the other hand, a dedicated home theater is designed for a full-on cinematic experience, equipped with projectors, tiered seating, and advanced acoustic treatments for optimal sound.
We'll walk through common setups for both, using hypothetical designs and examples from our own past projects. Whether you’re envisioning a family-friendly media room where comfort and function meet style, or a traditional home theater built for immersive movie viewing, this episode is packed with insights. We’ll share real-world scenarios, like how one client transformed their basement into the ultimate media space for their family or how another opted for a state-of-the-art theater that doubles as a golf simulator for a fully immersive experience.
Ever wondered how to incorporate high-tech solutions without sacrificing aesthetics? Our discussion emphasizes the importance of customized solutions tailored to individual preferences. We hope to provide a clear understanding of the benefits and functionality of both media rooms and home theaters, helping you make the right choice based on your entertainment needs, space, and lifestyle. Tune in to SoundVision Tech Talks and discover the possibilities for your perfect home or business setup!
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Thank you. The difference between a media room and a theater, that's what we oh, that's, oh, that's okay, difference between a media room, man cave or woman caveed yeah there you go.
Speaker 2We're not, Andrew. We are not going to work in Netflix and chill, by the way, we're not working that in. Zach doesn't even know.
Speaker 1Nope, I don't, thank God, Although I have Netflixed and chilled before.
Speaker 2I just told the story a minute ago. Did I tell you about me down at ProSource?
Speaker 1No.
Speaker 2Oh sorry, poor Andrew has to hear it again. So you should record this, because this could be it's recording.
Speaker 1Oh, you're recording. Oh yeah, If we're in here, we're recording I already got this story last time too.
Speaker 3I started recording again as soon as I started talking.
Speaker 2I'm at ProSource, down in the lobby of the hotel, with sherry, dantonio and kristin and michelle, another lady, the, the guy that gave us um.
Speaker 2The lady that you're working with down in charlotte, the guy from roanoke that gave us the lady oh yeah yeah her horn yeah uh and um and another guy standing there and we're just I think it was burt from uh, first priority and we're standing there and they're, they're taught. All the girls are like kind of going, they're just, they're I'm tired, my feet hurt, they're doing all the stuff right, and I'm literally standing there and I say, oh don't, we should just netflix and chill. And I literally don't know what it means. I literally didn't know the actual, you know, definition of the term. I thought it meant watch TV and relax on the couch.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah yeah, and Sherry D'Antonio literally almost fell down. She was just crying so hard and so, yeah, so we worked it in, because Zach would know what was it? Dub, what Dubstep, dubstep, dubstep, you know Dubstep.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I got it as one of my Bang Olufsen demos.
Speaker 2Oh, it literally is a style of music that you can search.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, oh, okay I didn't know.
Speaker 2I thought it was just a term, slang term. You can't like Netflix and chill is not a term.
Speaker 3No, you probably can't search it.
Speaker 2You don't want to, no, I did not want to.
Speaker 1He said you don't want to.
Speaker 3He knows some experience.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, oh my goodness. Okay so, andrew.
Speaker 1Andrew, that's that the beat hasn't dropped on this, yet it gets there.
Speaker 2Okay, yeah, I wouldn't know anyway, obviously I wouldn't know.
Speaker 1Can I call out the elephant in the room?
Speaker 2Oh yes, you can. Andrew's freaking.
Speaker 1Ron Jeremy, he's got over here.
Speaker 3Oh god, I didn't even. Everyone's been commenting on it. I didn't even notice it zach, I walked in yesterday.
Speaker 1I thought you were like a collegiate pitcher when I walked in. You got that you got that big baseball stash I walked in.
Speaker 2Yes, I wish I could pull it off. I cannot I was in the conference room and and andrew walks in, I'm like, oh my god, what is that? And he goes. I know, I know, I got sunburned last week. I was peeling so bad?
Speaker 3what the hell are you talking about? Talking about your stash I was looking at the door. That's too funny. Oh yes, that is the elephant in the room.
Speaker 1So, andrew you want to like, kick us off.
Speaker 2Oh yes, that is the elephant in the room. So, Andrew, you want to kick us off?
Speaker 3All right, so joining me in the podcast studio today we have Zach and Mark. Yay, hello guys, hello Andrew.
Speaker 2Today we'll be discussing the difference between a media room and a home theater and what exactly each of them mean. What do they mean? So zach is in charge of basically designing and making sure all our designs are cool and edgy and all that stuff. But what is a media room and what is a home theater? What are the differences? That?
Modern Trends in Home Entertainment Rooms
Speaker 1to be honest with you, they're like super interchangeable. Uh, you know, I would call a theater a media room and a media room a theater, personally, and I probably wouldn't have too many distinguishing characteristics between the two. I think usually when we have clients asking about a theater or a media, we probably hear the word theater more. You know what I mean. Like people are just thinking like a big, a big image and a surround sound experience.
Speaker 2Uh, you know, when they think home, yeah, I immediately think of like a room where you walk in and you shut the doors and there's no windows and big chairs, just the screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1Yep, and, and I I do as well. So so if, if you're thinking, hey, this is a room where I'm going to go lights down and I've got this recliner and maybe there's posters or acoustical treatments or drapery, or usually in my world a theater is that it's a dedicated space, usually with a projector, so we get that bigger image, you know, something larger than a hundred inches, uh, from a video standpoint, and and normally if you're taking the time to design a room, it's got seating and acoustics, maybe, maybe lighting, a bigger video experience than usually. It kind of means a bigger sound experience too, right, more than a sound bar and a subwoofer or even a 5.1 type surround system. Usually it's 7, 9, 11 channels of audio are they?
Speaker 2are they as common nowadays? Uh, when we design, whether it it's new home or renovation, are dedicated spaces that are dedicated for theaters as common as they once were?
Speaker 1I think, yeah, right now. No, we went through a total drop off, like about a year or two ago, maybe three, where we almost weren't doing any theaters at all, and it seems to have coincided with big TVs, 85 inches and above. Finally, getting you know air quotes here, affordable, right? Uh, you know, sony's 98, for example, is is a big image. We've got one here in the showroom.
Speaker 1Uh, you know, depending on your seating distance, that's, that's a big screen. You know, if you've got a room and you're 10, 15 feet away, 98 inches, call it a hundred, that's, that's a big screen. You know, if you've got a room and you're 10, 15 feet away, 98 inches, call it a hundred. That's, that's a big screen, and you could certainly make that be a a theater experience. So I, when, when the big screen TVs became a bit more affordable, um, we'd started to see a trend towards what we would define as a media room and and look, you've got folks that, myself included, you know, three kids at home we had a room that I could have completely made a theater. It would have been the room that we went to, maybe twice a week as a family. More often, probably maybe once a week as a family. Now, it's not to say that other individual members of the family might not enjoy it more often than once a week, but it's kind of where you go to watch a movie Right, right and and yeah, that's.
Speaker 2And and I think the other thing is the the light control right. So once the bigger images, once the televisions got bigger and they were relatively reasonable, then all of a sudden it was wow, this is super bright, even if I have windows, whereas if you have a projector in more of a media room or a you know just a den or something, uh, it looks more washed out. It's hard to good. Point is bright yeah?
Speaker 1yeah, yeah, you didn't have to. You know, it could have been a basement room with uh, you know, walk out french doors or sliders that you know, so you could have that experience. You know, what we saw more in the media rooms were a room that served a purpose other than watching a movie or a TV show.
Speaker 3That was going to be my question. Oh yeah, yeah, Good point If they wanted to be multifunctional.
Speaker 1Correct, correct. For example, the back of mine air hockey table, poker table, dartboard. You know I don't have the individual rows of home theater seating but we have a large you know like seats eight or 10 big U-shaped sofa and there's literally a bar behind it with three or four barstools so you could go in there and then I've done it before gone up there with some buddies and played poker and thanks for the invite.
Speaker 1My wife would not allow cigar smoking up there. But I mean, you know it's something that you could go in there and enjoy. And then, oh, by the way, maybe the game's going on or something. Uh, you know, inside sidebar on the on the screen, but it was a multi-purpose space where you do want to go in and have, like you just said, not to talk over you, but like where you just had to be able to go in there and enjoy it with all the lights on.
Speaker 1You're not going to go play, even in the dimly lit, like you know you're going to have fun, and or it's monopoly, you know, or a board game with your family.
Speaker 2We do that a lot. Yeah, we actually do that a lot, you know. You mentioned seating too. That's another thing. Like the traditional theater was rows of seats. Maybe there's a riser where you step up and there's another row of seats, like when go to a movie theater. But in a lot of cases that doesn't really like that. That's not the way people live, yeah, uh, and so now a lot of the, the companies that make theater seating also make like what you're talking about, where it's sectionals or the sofa form factor.
Speaker 1Yeah cool cool stuff like that certainly do, and and you would never know that it's a theater seat to look at it. I mean high quality furniture stuff.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 1Not build it in your floor Um, you know, like legitimate furniture.
Speaker 2Yeah, we literally have software to design that.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah, salamander makes some great products. Um trying to think of the other one, the company um that we used for the golf sim remember that we went down to florida, was it fortress? Or was cinetec, cinematec, cinematec. Yeah, they had some really good looking german made steel manufacturer.
Speaker 2That stuff was nice and you mentioned that's another thing is you know? Uh, andrew, you said where people are using the room for multi-purposes, and I think traditionally, at least in the context of this conversation you've got a theater. You got like a den or media room or a man cave or she shed or whatever you want to call that. But then you also have people that think outside the box. So, like Zach, you designed a pretty cool room a year or two ago and what? What did we do there? That was a little unique.
Speaker 1Yeah. So the customer's initial well, not initial their main want was golf simulator, but he wanted a room that felt like a theater, could operate as a theater, could sit like a theater or seat like a theater, but he wanted a legitimate, accurate training tool for golf. Couple of different manufacturers um to come up with a pretty, pretty cool design. I mean, the room you walk into, it's gorgeous. I mean all the cabinet design, the lighting designs, like completely acoustically treated space Uh, all of that is hidden, of course. Um to create a really beautifully finished off room. We have a projector and a screen that's dead. It's actually. The screen actually comes down out of one of the custom coffers that we designed in the ceiling as the theater screen. Most people would be like, well, you're going to have a screen for a golf simulator, why wouldn't that be your?
Speaker 2theater screen why?
Speaker 1wouldn't it be. I wouldn't advocate for drilling golf balls into my theater screen all day. You're not going to have very good theater performance on the video side if that's what you do. So we had a huge 16 feet wide, 10 foot tall, the Gossam screen, and dropped a 140, 160. Can't remember.
Speaker 3It was big.
Speaker 2You said two years. It was like five or six years, it's really been five years.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's four or five for sure, oh my gosh, yeah, wow.
Speaker 3Still one of our coolest.
Speaker 1I mean that room was spectacular from top to bottom. It's very cool. The homeowner was unbelievably excited. He and I went down. I took him down to Florida Uh. We went down to interview the acoustical uh treatment company contractor that we used as well as did the seating, had the luxury of going by full swing happened to have a facility there that had four or five of their different simulator models on display that you could get out there and play and test, and he had already purchased his, oddly enough, without ever having played it. So we were able to scoot over to their facility down just uh North of Fort Lauderdale and he was able to play the golf simulator that he had already bought, which was which is fine.
Speaker 1But now that that room was a lot of fun, now that was a. I would call that a. Yeah, I was just thinking when you were talking about multi-purpose rooms. You know, a media room is kind of like multi-purpose in the sense of living and entertainment.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1The golf? I don't see.
Speaker 2That was almost like having Topgolf in your basement, with a screen in front of you too.
Speaker 1Oh, it was incredible, and for those that have, ever played golf sims, I mean, there's a lot of really good ones. I'm not necessarily advocating for or against one or the other, but the Full Swing product is a sweet, super accurate and, as other games, you can kick soccer balls.
Speaker 2There's a soccer game, there's a football game, in fact, that should be something that we talk about on one of these, on one of these technology type podcasts that's pretty cool. Speaking of, I want to do one on audio down the road a little bit. But you did mention speaker technology and we don't necessarily have to get into the technology here, but I think it would be interesting for folks to know that even when you add more speakers, a lot of people think, wow, okay, cool for sound, but then I'm going to see all these things everywhere, but we don't really do that.
Speaker 1No, no, that's uh, it's hard to kind of put into words, but that particular room being acoustically treated, Um, and when I say treated, you walk into the space and if we ever put a video aspect of this, you could like post a photo or two of that room.
Speaker 1Um, but you walk in this room and it's, it's very well done, from a millwork standpoint, columns, uh, coffers. We did a Wayne's coding from about chair railing down and in the from the chair railing down, we did this really pretty, pretty damask, pretty damask, excuse me, we did a dark black tone. From the chair railing down, from the chair railing up, we did a damask print acoustical fabric and behind all of that is an unbelievably technically intricate system of acoustical absorption, acoustical diffusing, that allows that room to be completely calibrated to sound as good as it possibly can. You walk in that room and you almost feel like like when you walk into the studio, how the sound changes because we have acoustical treatments in our, in our podcast studio, right, but in that room that allowed us to conceal everything. You don't see a single speaker in that space. We're either behind the screen or behind the acoustical panels, or well, yeah, in those two locations, and that was super cool, including subwoofers.
Speaker 1I love walking into a room and not seeing speakers. That's my.
Speaker 2Oh no, I, and I bet the designers that are listening here love it. That's music to their ears. That is the I would call the ultimate, but even like taking a step back from that. Things like small aperture type speakers are so popular now that that match the newest uh, lighting fixtures, uh, but but kind of touch on what's what's a small aperture? What does that even mean in English?
Speaker 1Well, most people are used to walking into a room and looking up and seeing some shape of a six and a half to eight and a half, maybe 10 inches in diameter grill in their, in their ceiling, or if it's in a wall. It's eight inches wide, 12 inches tall and it's a white perforated aluminum grill and it is what it is a lot of times it's missed.
Speaker 2It's uh gone. Turned brown or tan? Yeah, for years.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, most of the manufacturers have kind of nixed that uh by using a uv resin, uh and a uv process and their um and their powder coating so it allows a purchase of a white speaker today to be white in 10 years. We walk in homes now that have 10 year old or older speakers that this uv protection didn't exist oh gosh, and you look up and see an $800, $1,000, $1,200 pair of speakers and they're yellow.
Speaker 1It's just bad. Yeah, it is very bad. Yeah, yeah, but the options for that nowadays are you mentioned small aperture. What does that mean? It's a tiny footprint. So now, looking up in the ceiling instead of seeing a 6, 8, 10 inch diameter, maybe it's a four or a two or maybe it's a nothing and it's an invisible speaker behind the sheet.
Speaker 1So you know, in those someone might look up and go okay, well, my eight inch speaker with an eight inch woofer and a and a and a pivotable tweeter, like they sound good for in ceiling speaker, how are you going to make this little four or two inch thing in the ceiling sound good? And what you're not seeing when you're sitting in the room looking at the finished product is the aluminum aircraft, you know engineered enclosure, that's sitting on the other side of the sheet, that has a six and a half inch woofer in it with a port, and it has a and a box and a box and then there's a, a tweeter module mid range tweeter module, for lack of a better term, so that's the only speaker that they have to cover with a grill.
Invisible Technology in Home Entertainment
Speaker 1So now you get this two or four inch reveal. It might have a flange, it might be. It might be flange, less could be. Be put into wood, mill work, concrete finished in a multiple different ways and aspects. But to take that a step further, as the invisible stuff, right, we have a phenomenal vendor partner. We're doing a pair now. We just finished a pair in another, and when you look at designer and everybody's standing in the room wondering well, you know, we're going to have Venetian plaster here over here and we're doing a wood.
Speaker 1You know, these wood paneled walls seem to be kind of the theme nowadays. We're doing wood panel walls and we've already got this kind of ceiling clutter, if you will, because we've got lights and there's a ceiling fan and we really want audio in here. But I don't want to see it and to be able to look at them and say I got it no problem and I've got it with something that sounds great. Not you know, some of the invisible technology as that's emerged over the years. I've heard it and literally you know I wouldn't install it in an enemy's home. It didn't sound good, but the product that we have now, it sounds really, really nice and it's invisible.
Speaker 2And that's you know. Again, when you talk about a theater, one of the one of the traditional things was it was the traditional, the spouse that wasn't as into it would be like, okay, that's your room, you know? If you want to have your big speakers in there or whatever, like that's okay, I just don't want them out in this space. And with these various technologies, whether you go all the way invisible or whether you do small apps or whatnot, now you can have a media room, a den, something like that, where it's not as intrusive and you still get the great sound. But you don't have to have, you don't have to give up the aesthetics to get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1And and look. Video is easy to compare, like, factually, what looks better than another thing? Right, you can put 4k yeah that's really good, you can put 4k.
Speaker 1You know, two TVs on the wall, side-by-side, same content, uh, one's 4k, one's eight, and, and I can stand in front of a client, look at the AK and I can say without any shadow that that TV looks better than the other. You can't do that with audio, you can't do it with with any aspect of what people hear differently what sounds good to one doesn't sound good to another. Um, you know? So, really kind of listening to the client and maybe what they've owned before in the past and giving them some experiences of of, uh, different things here in our showroom, just at like level hey, what does an in ceiling sound like? What does an in wall sound like? What is a floor standing invisible on and on and on and letting people kind of experience and make an educated decision on what they want to move forward on. Yeah, and to take a quick tangent, this is, I think, important. We talk about this media room aspect being maybe a multi-purpose room where there's other things going on other than movie or sports. We talk about a theater. That's kind of more of this dedicated space where it's a bigger screen. You know, you're going in, you're dimming the lights, you know maybe there's specific seating or specific seating layout, but it definitely where I'm going to watch a movie. You can do. I mean these manufacturers.
Speaker 1I'll use a term called ALR ambient light rejection. That is something that is used in screen and theater screens. Now, it is not snake oil, it is legitimate technology that allows these screens. What's a screen do? A screen reflects light that's being shown on it. Shine a light on a screen from a projector, you've got an image. Problem is you turn other lights on in the room and those lights also shine off of that screen, which is why when you bring the lights up, the image kind of washes out. Ambient light rejection is going to reject light that's bouncing off of that projector from certain angles and above. In other words, it's mainly focused on only reflecting light. It's being kind of shown from a more of a perpendicular angle to the screen, and the reason for that is multiple reasons.
Speaker 1But these men, the, the main pioneer that developed this, wasn't to compete with other screens, it was to compete with tvs. It was hey, people could put an 80 inch tv in their living room. The room that has all the windows, has the sliding door, has all the light. How do I get something bigger than 80 inches in there and the ALR screens do a really, a really good job of that. My wife, for example, loves a theater, but for you, I've been doing this 26 years and she was like I would never have one in my house, cause I don't want to go in a room where I feel like every time I walk in I have to turn the lights off to enjoy it. But ALR revolutionized that for her. Now you go in 2 o'clock football game on a Saturday. You're over here playing cards, watching a game, lights are on, the image is still bright. They're kind of cool. I like them.
Speaker 2You know, the other cool thing about today's screens and yes, TVs have lifts and drops and that kind of thing I mean we, we do that. But to be able to hide screens, uh, you know you were talking about in in coffers and and and pieces of furniture or the floor or the ceiling or whatever, and they literally are trimmed out almost to where you can't even tell a little too little teeny slit not unlike a shade, actually very similar uh, slit not unlike a shade, actually very similar, uh, that they're unobtrusive. I mean, in our showroom you can see this we literally have a hidden screen and a hidden projector, correct? So the projectors in the ceiling as well. You can't see it and you click a button and it's on a motorized lift and it comes down. So when you use it, great, and when you don't, it's gone. So I mean we certainly take stuff to that kind of level nowadays.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean we not to name names on the podcast, but we just finished up a nice system in a living room on the lake.
Speaker 1I mean when I say living room, a lot, of, a lot of big windows that face lakeside. The other side of the room opens up into an atrium that has invisible, behind the sheetrock, speakers and and that screen is completely concealed in a in a coffered ceiling system. The projector drops down from the ceiling. The soundbar in that room is concealed in a custom mantle that we worked with the manufacturer and the builder on. So you walk in this room and it's gorgeous and you see zero technology until until it's time to experience.
Speaker 3So cool.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's completely invisible.
Speaker 3That's what's so cool. Yeah, it's completely invisible.
Speaker 1That's what's so cool. That's an incredible space. Yeah, you've been there. You took photos. Oh yeah, oh my God, Incredible that room alone, but the entire house.
Speaker 2Well, this has been cool Good tips and tricks on what the difference is in media rooms and theaters.
Speaker 1Sometimes quick. You'll find folks zach's preaching by the way, he is preaching because I'm one of them. You'll find folks that maybe want a theater quote-unquote audio experience but they don't really care about a big screen. More folks that want to do a big screen because they're they want that video experience oh yeah but they're like yeah, I'm cool with the sound bar, yeah that's right there's no rule that you have to do.
Speaker 1I mean, you know, our job is to create for you what you want. Um, so we have clients that have, you know, done the Ferrari of the video and the and the Honda Corolla for the, for the audio and vice versa, and that is completely cool, I mean, if that's what the client wants no offense.
Speaker 2Hyundai and.
Speaker 1Toyota. You know, I had that paradigm reference system in my media rooms. The audio was incredible. I personally, because of my kid's age at the time, I didn't want to do a screen and a projector. I had the big TV in that media room. I had a theater audio system and a media room video system.
Speaker 2So we will do whatever the client wants is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1That's what I'm hearing too. As long as it's the right way to do it.
Speaker 2Oh, as long as it's the right way to do it. There are right and wrong ways.
Speaker 3Well, andrew you ready to take us out? I think so, and I think we should do this again sometime. Guys, let's do it. A little more comparison, just a.
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