Award-Winning Home Automation & Electronic Control Systems Integrators in Michigan

Ok, so you’ve admitted that you have a movie addiction, and now you’re committed to creating your own home theater – the ultimate indulgence for your addiction. When you consider how much you’re spending on your home entertainment equipment, it makes sense to create the best theater room possible for your budget. So here’s a 12-step program to help you and your co-dependent movie junkie get the greatest bang for your buck.

Step 1: Start out with what you envision the perfect home theater room to be. Does it look like something fabulous that would be seen on MTV’s “Cribs”? Or are you going more for a mini authentic theater look? Does it have to fit into your current home decorating style or will it be an environment all its own?

Step 2: Set a budget. Though you enjoy going to an imaginary world through movies, this is not the time to live in an imaginary world. Be real about what you can spend on your home theater equipment and furniture. Doing otherwise may be a less than pleasant reality.

Step 3: Even a genius like Orson Welles wouldn’t buy furniture for his home theater without measuring first. Measure everything in the room and make a diagram to take shopping with you so you know the measurements of the room and where windows, doors, etc. are. Unless you have Transformer-like powers, you want to be sure everything fits before you make any purchases. Home theater equipment and furniture are too heavy to move around several times until it’s in the right location and especially to lug back to the store if it doesn’t fit!

Step 4: Time for some R & D. Guys, there’s no way around it – you have to go shopping to make informed and intelligent decisions about your home theater equipment. If you have a spouse, family member, or friend involved, be sure you go together. Bring back detailed notes, pictures (when possible), prices, delivery information, fabric and paint samples.

Step 5: Time for some gut level honesty- discuss and/or decide what HAS to be in the room and what can be left out, what colors you love and hate, and whether or not you want the theater equipment to be visible when not in use. If you’re doing this with someone, this is where you begin the compromise process with each other.

Step 6: Every good movie needs a good snack and beverage to go with it. But who wants to run to the kitchen every time a food or drink is craved? Make sure your home theater is equipped with a snack and drink bar, maybe include a microwave for popping popcorn.

Step 7: How much of a techie are you? Again, this is not the time to be living in fantasy land. There will be plenty of time for that after the theater is finished. In the meantime, hire a professional who specializes in knowing where to place your home theater equipment for the best sound and who can set things up so your electrical circuits aren’t overloaded.

Step 8: Pay special attention to the seating. If you and your guests are not comfortable, not much else will matter. First, you will have to determine how many people you want to be able to seat and gauge that to the space you have to fill to get the actual seat size. In addition to complementing the décor of the room, keeping within your budget, and buying high-quality, you will want to make sure the seat offers both firmness and flexibility and that the armrests are wide and comfortable. A cup holder and a good foot rest are also nice options to have. Also keep in mind that the style of chairs you select for your home theater will greatly affect the sound. Shorter back chairs will allow the sound to travel to your ears with truer, clearer sound.

Step 9: You want home theater drama that’s not part of the movie? Any good cinematographer would tell you that’s where lighting comes in. Sconce lighting would make the room feel like a movie theater; track lights over the seats let people read and write; more lights on the sides of the theater room make light available wherever you are at. Make sure to install a lighting control system (with a remote, please!) that will control each section of lights separately, and will provide dimming options.

Step 10: Anything you put into your home theater has the potential to affect the sound (yes, even your kids). Not only do window coverings help dim the room and prevent reflection but they, along with other strategically placed fabric panels, also help to reduce acoustical distortion by keeping the sound waves from bouncing around too much.

Step 11: As previously stated, large objects will cause sound to bounce off of them, so your home theater room isn’t the place for that sculpture you did in your art class or even a coffee table. Express yourself with cool wall art, textures and textiles, have plenty of comfortable seating, and let the equipment take center stage in your home theater.

Step 12: You’ve reached the last scene of your home theater designing adventure – all that’s left is to carry out the assembly process. Once your room has the audio/visual components, seating, and other details in place, you will have your dream home theater available to feed your home entertainment addiction to your heart’s desire.

TMA! (too many acronyms)
Yes, it appears that 3D is making another swing at the hearts of the viewing audience. Does having 3D in the home mean we’ll have to sit in the living room wearing those silly cardboard glasses? Well, yes, and no. Glasses are required so that each eye only sees the image its supposed to see, but technology has advanced quit a bit from the color filter days. Today, the glasses either use polarized filters, or electronic liquid crystal shutters. The polarized filters are really only for a commercial theater where two projectors will be pointed at the screen. In the home, the electronic type will be used primarily, meaning your glasses will need batteries. The shutters open and close alternately for each eye, at up to sixty times per second.

To get 3D images to our home theaters requires that the entire delivery chain be adapted for the technology. First, the movies must be filmed in 3D. Of course computer animated movies don’t reallly require cameras, so they can handle that. But for real-life 3D, essentially two cameras must be used to record simultaneously, placed about the same distance apart as our own human eyes. It makes sense then, that the information from those cameras woud be doubled, which necessitates a higher bandwidth cable and connector format. They are already putting that in place with the HDMI 1.4 standard. BluRay discs can handle the extra information, but new players with the new format output will be manufactured. Now we we have to get this uber-dense signal to our TV; we’ll likely need a new HDMI cable for that. Speaking of the TV, it will need to have the upgraded input, along with the ability to show twice as many image frames per second; 120(Hz) in fact, so start making plans for an upgrade.

Is it worth it? Well, that’s pretty subjective. There is no denying that 3D is a really cool effect. However, there are many caveats such as how close to the screen you must sit, and how big the screen is, or the effect just doesn’t want to ‘connect’ with your brain. In fact, our brains just aren’t that easily fooled, and it usually takes a focused effort to keep your eyes and brain open to the effect for the whole movie. Many people find this very fatiguing, maybe even painful after awhile. Personally, I think the biggest benefit of 3D video in the home will be for gaming. If I already have to use a funky controller or steering wheel, I’ll gladly wear the glasses to have the full 3D experience while driving my favorite rally car. But I just don’t think the majority of film directors are going to force their audience to wear space cadet glasses and strain to focus for an hour and a half, or two, or three.
______________________
Sean Hotchkiss
shotchkiss@grandhome.com

You have it all planned out in your head - Just exactly what kind of theater seats you’re going to have, the color of the carpet and wall-fabrics, how many rows of seats, how big the screen will be, and so on. You can imagine turning it on for the first evening, having the THX ‘whoosh’ or your favorite movie scene ’shock and awe’ you into quivering A/V delight. But don’t stop there - actually run through what it really takes to make that all happen…

- Set the temperature to the right spot, just cool enough for a lap blanket
- Get all the electronics warmed up
- Turn the lights down low at first, then totally off for the main event
- Find the projector remote
- Turn on the projector
- Set the projector input to ‘HDMI1′ for the BluRay player
- Find the video processor remote
- Set the video processor input to ‘DVD’
- Make sure the video memory is set to ‘Cinema’
- Find the surround processor remote
- Turn on the surround processor
- Set the audio input to ‘DVD1′
- Set the surround mode to ‘Cinema’
- Make sure THX processing is engaged
- Set the volume to reference -10dB
- Turn on all the audio amplifiers
- Find the BluRay remote
- Turn on the BluRay player
- Get the disc playing
- Use the ‘pop-up menu’ to get to right scene for the big show

Much less dreamy, huh?
Can you really remember all of that? Could any member of your family? Guests? Probably not. What about the different settings for different sources like satellite tv or VuDu? This problem of control is what companies like Crestron are perfect for. From a simple handheld automated remote control to a fancy wireless touchpanel, these controllers can turn an evening focused on technology, ’stuff’, and frustration, into one spent enoying the true art of cinema.

Remember - The image may be pristine, and the audio dynamic and crystal clear, but if you can’t turn it on, it’s all just an expensive living room.
______________________
Sean Hotchkiss
shotchkiss@grandhome.com

Choosing a Home Theater Installer: A Checklist
On any given day, you can find a great component for your home theater. You can upgrade your video, sound or entire system with just one good salesman (or one good deal at the big box). But, to get the most out of your home theater experience, you’ll need to look into a reputable home theater installer.

Why choose a home theater installer? Well, consider a few things - the least of which is that high-quality equipment you just bought. You probably bought that audio or video equipment because it was top-notch, so you could enhance your TV, movie-watching or home stereo experience. Like most things, there’s the right way and then there’s the other way to get these things done. You can be thorough or you can take a few shortcuts. Now, it doesn’t much matter sometimes, when all you want is the screen to light up and sound to come out of the speakers, but if you’ve made an investment in parts, then you should get the service, too.

We’ve sat down and come up with a helpful checklist for choosing a home theater installer. Please, forgive us for being uncompromisingly forthright with our list, we’re experts in home theater installations and we’re here to help.

1. Look for a CEDIA certification. First and foremost, do your research. CEDIA is the industry organization, and the website will help you find the very best in custom electronic residential design and installation … and peace of mind. Locate a CEDIA installer here.

2. Inventory your audio and video. Take a moment to write down what you’ve got, as far as equipment and components. Consider the age of your electronics, too. It’ll be good to be able to share thoughts with the pros on what you’ve already got and what to consider for the future.

3. Make plans to wire. Even wireless systems require a few wires here and there. Especially if you are building new or just remodeling your home theater room, start with a plan (or at least expectations) for wiring for the future. This will help with further home automation controls down the road.

4. Think about integration. It’s possible to integrate lighting and other home comfort controls at the same time you install your new, modern home theater. So, make a wish list of things you think might be nice to have integrated… you never know how easily that can be done!

5. Ask around. Web searches and links are great, but we also recommend that you ask around for references. Ask your neighbors, or even your local Better Business Bureau. Find a finished project that might be similar to what you’ve got in mind for your home theater. There’s nothing quite like good word of mouth.

Our only other recommendation: Be careful, because your home theater project may turn your home cinema into the new “family room,” so expect a lot of use!

Let us know your thoughts and comments! Do you have someone great to recommend?

If you’ve been watching TV lately, you might have seen some new commercials from manufacturers like Samsung, hyping their new “LED” televisions as a whole new breed that’s “changing how we watch TV.”

Technically, these new “LED” TV’s are just LCD televisions with a display lit by LEDs on the outer edge of the TV, as opposed to being lit from behind. Most LCD TVs use fluorescent backlighting.

So, this LED designation refers to the backlighting system thats employed on the newer LCD TVs, not the chip itself that’s produce the image. You might say that the only true LED TV is the one you see at a stadium or ballpark. The new home models should actually be called LCD / LED TVs.

But, an LED TV can claim:

- Lower power consumption.
- No Mercury.
- Thinner profile (because no flourescent-based backlighting).
- Balanced color saturation.

The good news is that LED backlighting is representing a new advance in technology, giving LCD TVs a performance level similar to plasmas in terms of black levels, while also allowing for even thinner, sleeker LCD TV designs. At Grand Home Automation, we’re all about advancement.

Trust us to keep you posted on new developments and new product offerings when it comes to enhancing the home theater experience.

At Grand Home Automation, we love experiences. We also love giving our clients truest cinematic experience right in their own home. It’s amazing how far we’ve come as an industry with new video technologies, developments in acoustic research and home theater planning.

With ordinary home theater systems, like the part-by-part component systems you see advertised at big box retailers, you can lay back and take in a movie experience. But, with a Grand Home theater, the movie experience takes YOU in. We couldn’t make the outstanding home theaters that we’ve planned and installed over the years if it weren’t for some landmark developments in home theater technology.

As we see it, these are our Top 5 advancements in the home theater industry:

1. Dolby Digital. Chances are, you’ve heard - and probably owned - a Dolby technology product, but the  wouldn’t-be-a-movie-without-it surround sound technology now is known as Dolby Digital®. With six channels of full-range sound: front center, front left, front right, rear left, rear right, and the subwoofer for deep bass, Dolby Digital technology makes a richer and more realistic movie sound experience. This technology is so advanced and even so user-friendly, that what you recorded in Dolby Digital can be played back in mono, stereo, Dolby Surround or Pro Logic. (Check out who we like).

2. HD Front Projection Systems. The old CRT projectors were great… and expensive… and heavy… but the digital revolution brought us new video projection technology. With a drop in prices, this means that today’s modern front projectors are becoming more accessible to a wider range of people, particularly to those seeking the finest in home entertainment. Not only does the video projector provide more screen size for the price (a value hard to deny), it’s also as close to a cinema-like experience.

3. LCD Technology. We could go on all day about LCD vs. DLP projector technologies, but for the sake of naming a top technology that advanced the home theater business, we’re going with LCD. LCD (liquid crystal display) has been around, gives a great color saturation and gives a sharp image at any resolution. LCD TVs and projectors are widely available, and even if we continued to argue back and forth about LCD and DLP, the only winner in all this would be you, the home theater owner.

4. High Contrast Screens. They call it the silver screen, but it’s not entirely silver. A top-notch viewing screen isn’t entirely flat either - it will also have perforations in it, so sound can travel through it. Another little fact: you can futz with the color from your projector, but a high-contrast screen will help make whites really pop and will also help make a truer black. You can learn about projection screens from our partner at www.da-lite.com

5. HDMI. The HDMI interface is the global standard for connecting high-definition Consumer Electronics and even your PC products. It’s the uncompressed, all-digital interface that delivers quality and ease of use. HDMI cables represent a digital alternative to consumer analog standards such as coaxial cable, S-Video,  D-Terminal, and VGA. For your home theater, this new standard allows you to be fully digital, with great ease and with more access to high-definition expandability for the future.

What do you think? What’s made your home theater experience lately?

Once a year, we integrators gather for professional training and an industry trade show. The acronym CEDIA stands for Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association. I’ve enjoyed attending since 1994, and here are a few highlights from this year’s event that I thought were worth sharing:

Audio

While there were no earth shattering changes in the audio world, everything is improving. Audio processors continue to add features, such as digital room correction that is automated, yet still fine-tunable by pro’s for super-precise adjustment. The Integra separate processor stood out as an astounding bang for the buck unit, laden with features such as balanced outputs, on-board HDMI processing, and pretty much every surround decoding format known to man.

Interestingly, subwoofers are getting much smarter. Triad’s new line of subwoofer amplifiers carry an impressive on-board DSP processor with multiple bands of digital parametric equalization, delay, phase, and adjustable crossover frequency for both the woofer itself, the line outs for satellite speakers, and line outs for custom multi-way sub setups (VERY cool – I’m still geeked about that one).

For loudspeakers, we’re seeing more line-array arrangements from companies like McIntosh and Artison which are very appropriate for rooms with poor acoustics such as tile floors and plaster ceilings. And for those theaters that are extremely large, or even perhaps sporting pavilions, there are companies such as PHC that are producing commercial cinema grade systems that have enough output to power these oversize spaces. Yes, these speakers are quite large.

Video

Who says bigger isn’t better? New video projectors from companies such as Meridian Audio and JVC with resolutions over 4,000 horizontal pixels are absolutely stunning. These higher resolutions will allow us to dramatically increase screen size and still have an image that is watchable in the front row. Interestingly, rear projection is making a comeback in the form of high-end 16:9 and 2.35:1 aspect ratio high performance displays that show a phenomenal image even in extremely high ambient light conditions. While not inexpensive, custom rear projection may be the way to go for those who would otherwise be considering that $100k uber-giant plasma screen.

Remembering that our reference video systems are really just trying to faithfully reproduce the original film as created by the director and cinema photographer, why not just install a film projector? A new company called Wolfe Cinema is doing just that, producing true 35mm film projectors for the residential market at prices that may be less than you would imagine. About the size of your kitchen refrigerator, two are recommended, so each reel can be switched into place without interruption. Apparently, 35mm reels of up to date movies can be rented or even purchased for around $2,000 each.

Where’s my popcorn? When it comes to digital content delivery, there is a company about to begin digital distribution of very high bitrate (45mbps) movies directly from the studios by means a proprietary hard drive shipping system. Some serious encryption is no doubt taking place here to keep the hackers at bay.

Control

Improvements in control systems continue to flow, but you still have to choose between the less expensive systems with limited options and scalability, or go for the fully custom solution that while expensive, is virtually unlimited in accomplishing whatever a creative mind can conjure up.

The up and coming major application for home automation technology is energy management. Combine thorough energy monitoring with custom integration control, and some serious savings can be realized. While this level of ‘green’ won’t be widely available in homes for a few years, the top automations firms (yours truly) are doing it on projects right now. Call today, operators standing by…

Gaming

One of the training sessions I attended focused on video gaming, which turned out to be an eye-opener for me. I’m not a big gamer myself, though I do enjoy GT3 racing on an ancient Sony PS2 in my home theater once or twice a year (lame, I know). But it really got me to thinking about those families who may actually do a decent amount of gaming.

There are two primary forms of gaming: immersive, and social. The immersive style would be something like the racing I just mentioned or perhaps one of those first-person action games where you can play for hours and almost loose contact with your physical body. These immersive games require isolation, and a home theater may be just the spot.

Social gaming is a completely different beast. When you’re playing Guitar Hero, where do you stand? Are you blocking the projector from hitting the video screen? Do you have your back to your audience while looking at the big screen? And when playing Wii bowling, you need a lot of room, probably right where the sweet spot theater chairs are. If you plan on having your home theater pull double duty for video gaming these are just some of the important things to consider.

Come to think of it, maybe you should make an appointment to talk with your local CEDIA certified home theater design specialist / propeller-headed A/V geek. I wonder who?…
______________________
Sean Hotchkiss
shotchkiss@grandhome.com

Say - what is all this ‘cue-sticks’ stuff, anyways? Well, acoustic treatments help control the sound in the room. You might visualize sound from a loudspeaker or subwoofer kind-of like dropping a quarter into a bathtub full of water. It drops in, making waves on the surface that move outward and then bounce of the sides of the tub, reflecting around for quite awhile. If the waves were sound, that first wave from the quarter directly hitting your ear will make a nice, clear, intelligible sound.

The problem comes in when the rest of the waves bouncing around continue to strike your ear, from multiple directions, delayed by varying amounts of time. Although our brain is astoundingly good at figuring out which signal arrived first and understanding the basic content of the sound, it gets a little confused about which direction it came from, and the true tonal quality and subtleties.

The fact is, the vast majority of what we consider to be audio fidelity is completely morphed and man-handled by the air between you and the speaker, along with all the reflections that merrily bounce off the walls, floor,  and ceiling. When you think about it, it’s amazing we can understand anything at all. To figure it out, humans use a three-piece pattern recognition system consisting of the left ear, right ear, and a grey ball of mush called our ‘brain’. Try this sometime in a noisy, crowded, indoor space: tightly close off one of your ears with a finger. All of a sudden, the environment sounds much more random, and the brain has a hard time distinguishing sounds and figuring out where they came from. T

here are two primary ways of controlling all this chaos in a theater room. The first method has to do with controlling the dispersion of the speaker itself. If you don’t want reflections from the ceiling, then don’t send sound in that direction in the first place, silly. This might be accomplished with types of horns, baffles, or tall and skinny line array speakers. The second method handles the sound where it strikes the wall or boundary.

Absorption is one method of dealing with the waves as they approach theater room surfaces. Most absorption materials, such as fiberglass or cotton panels, are porous to a varying degree so that sound pressure waves must push their way through, bounce off the wall, and then push their way back out. All this resistance knocks the energy out of the wave, maybe even stopping it. Imagine riding a bicycle down a sidewalk near the beach. You can move along quite easily unless you veer off into the sand, where you slow down quite quickly or even stop due to the friction of pushing through the softer material.

Diffusion is another method of keeping sinister reflections from gittin’ ya. But I’ll defer the de-confusing diffusion discussion until another not-too-distant discourse.
______________________
Sean Hotchkiss
shotchkiss@grandhome.com

Speaking of wars…  Akin to the pushing between Coke and Pepsi, McDonald’s and Burger King, or Ford and Chevy, the two control systems manufacturers AMX and Crestron have been serious competitors for a couple of decades. Recent press releases reveal that for some, the stakes have become very high indeed.

Although GHA normally uses Crestron gear, really either of these two systems can provide truly elegant control of almost anything that can be controlled. Much bantering goes back and forth between the two camps regarding differences, capabilities, reliability, yadda, yadda. When it comes right down to it, if you’re not enjoying a great movie a few moments after pushing the “Watch DVD” buttton on your custom remote control or shiny wireless touchpanel,  the problem most likely has to do with the initial design or programming. Systems like AMX  and Crestron come out of the box with absolutely nothing programmed into them - no buttons, no colors, no settings, no fancy intuitive logic. Everything that happens when you press a button (or not) is totally due to the integrator’s application and programming of the product.

The insider advice says - don’t shop for product brands or logos. Choose the best integration company. One that does very thorough client interviews, project scope definition, engineering layouts and diagrams (before work starts), continuous project management, and exhaustive quality control on every project. Come to think of it, I know of a great group of people that just happens to fit the description…
______________________
Sean Hotchkiss
shotchkiss@grandhome.com

War is so messy. Mayhem, destruction, and casualties. The same has been true of the great format conflict between the two opposing camps of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Both vying for the privilege of replacing the ubiquitous video DVD as the next generation of digital high-definition movie media, the struggle had been going on for two years. Primarily the big beef was between Sony (Blu-Ray), and Toshiba (HD-DVD). Similar to the epic videotape clash of the late 70’s and early 80’s, only one media format would ultimately come out on top. Avenging for the death of the superior BetaMax videocassette, Sony’s perseverance paid off with Blu-Ray, and won over the heart of the market.

The Blu-Ray format is truly superior in that it uses blue lasers to bounce off the disc’s reflective layers. Blue light has shorter wavelengths, therefore allowing smaller dots on the substrate, which equals - more data! It has taken many decades for manufacturing technology to advance enough to mass produce small blue lasers and LEDs. Besides, blue is just a really cool color when associated with techy stuff. BlueTooth for your cell phone stuffed in your ear, blue lights on your satellite receiver - so soothing…

So now is the time we can go ahead and upgrade our home theaters and media rooms with a brand-new, high-definition, all-digital, uber-blue, movie watching MACHINE! Just make sure your fancy LCD TV has an HDMI connection for the highest resolution signal possible. Yeah, I know… but you really need a bigger one anyway - don’t you?
______________________
Sean Hotchkiss
shotchkiss@grandhome.com