There’s no replacing the experience of seeing a first-run movie in a theater. While the advantages to watching movies at home are undeniable—it’s cheaper, more comfortable and you can use your phone as much as you want—there’s nothing quite like the movie theater experience to focus your attention on the film (seriously, put the phone away) and to emphasize cinema’s communal moments (“Avengers, assemble!”).
But we don’t really have that option right now. Sure, some theaters are open, and there’s a legit Big Movie now playing. (I haven’t seen Tenet yet, either.) But until COVID-19 is contained, you might be understandably reluctant to return to movie houses, which means that if you value the cinematic experience even a tiny bit, you need to make your home as cinemalike as possible, short of scattering popcorn on the floor and prefacing every screening with 25 minutes of commercials and trailers. At the risk of sounding like your dad, you need a home theater setup. So here are a few tips on how to make one.
MEASURE TWICE
How big is your living space? Do you share walls or a ceiling/floor with neighbors? Do other members of your household feel less inclined to live in a screening room? Take careful consideration of the assets and liabilities of your space, along with your own preferences, before you’re tempted to pay for stuff that just doesn’t fit your needs.
For example: In a 2014 article for CNET.com—an excellent source for unbiased product reviews, by the by—Wirecutter editor-at-large Geoffrey Morrison did the math to figure out how big of a TV you should get for your space, the key being how far you sit from your television. (On the average, most of us sit about nine feet away from our TVs, or 108 inches.)
Once you’ve figured that out, it’s time to hit the calculator. THX—the “audience is listening” crew—recommends a screen that fills 40 degrees of your field of vision—or the distance in inches multiplied by 0.84—while the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommends 30 degrees, which means the distance in inches times 0.625. The resulting number is the suggested size, in diagonal inches, of the screen that will give you an optimal at-the-movies feeling. By that reckoning, if your TV is nine feet away, THX suggests a 90-inch screen, while SMPTE suggests a 65- to 70-inch screen.
It might go without saying, but you should also consider how a massive screen might dominate a space. If you have a dedicated TV/theater room, great; if you’re shoehorning this beast into a cozy living room, or if you’re freaked out by Black Mirror, bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better.
Sound, obviously, is a more subjective thing. It’s all about what your ears, and the ears of nearby others, can comfortably take. The CDC cautions that anything above 105 decibels—what it defines as a “very loud” TV or stereo—can cause hearing damage after just five minutes of constant exposure. If you’ve got a big house without any common walls, go ahead and go with a multiple speaker set; if you’re in an apartment, a soundbar should work just fine.
TERMS OF ENVELOPMENT
Before you begin shopping for home theater gear, you’ll encounter some numbers that may not make immediate sense. This first, 4K, relates to so-called “Ultra High-Definition”—a display that’s nearly 4000 pixels wide, or 3840 pixels wide by 2160 pixels tall. (For the sake of contrast: Standard high-definition is 1920 by 1080.) Most TVs sold today are 4K, but some smaller sets are still sold at standard HD, and some larger modern sets are a bat-guano loony 8K.
5.1
This is the widely used name for a six-channel surround-sound speaker kit. It consists of two sets of left and right speakers, one set facing the viewer and another to either side of the viewer; a “center channel” that’s largely used for dialogue, and a subwoofer to provide rumble. A 5.2 surround layout has all the above plus an extra subwoofer; a 2.1 layout is a right and left speaker with a subwoofer.
DO YOU NEED AN 8K SET?
Not unless you have eyesight that’s dramatically better than 20/20, or plan to sit unhealthily close to your set as a matter of routine. The eye can only detect so much detail, and until science gives us all super-android eyes, there’s little sense going overboard. Besides, you should be more concerned with a television’s color and contrast—that’s the real make-or-break.
ASSEMBLE!
That’s as far as we dare go. We have no advice on how to build speakers into walls; for that, check out some web tutorials (HGTV has a good one at bit.ly/36lyWFc), or consult with a local contractor. And we can’t recommend one brand of television or surround system over another for a couple of reasons: because tastes vary, and because the product landscape is constantly changing. From the time you read these words to the day you string your first HDMI cable, new products will have been released, and the prices of slightly older products will have dropped. We strongly recommend doing research through consumer electronics review sites like CNET, Gizmodo, Engadget and Wirecutter.
There’s one last thing that you need to make peace with: Whatever you build, no matter how expensive or expansive, will be outdated by the time you turn it on—and one or more of its components will wear out within a decade. That’s OK. You’re not making something that needs to stand for all time. All it needs to do is put you inside of a story … and deep enough that you don’t think about why half the movie theaters are closed, or notice what’s happening on your phone.
