Home fix-up: Creating successful home theaters
It's five minutes to kickoff. A switch is flipped, and suddenly the curtains close, the room darkens, the screen lowers, and the deafening chant of tens of thousands of screaming fans permeates the room.
"We can eliminate all those buttons on remotes that don't get used," he says. "And we can give users one button that controls more than one device, which eliminates the need to use multiple remotes."The sky is the apparent limit -- literally -- when it comes to home-automation design. "Barry Bonds put a galaxy of light in his ceiling -- a magnificent fake sky," says Firestone.Home automation makes it easy to multitask while watching the big game."We can help with the inclusion of subsystems to control lights, drapes, heating and air," Gutekunst says. "We can also integrate the home theater with the home's security system, so that there can be a picture-in-picture of people at your door."Then we can give you a button to turn on the Jacuzzi so that when the movie is over, you can get in the Jacuzzi. We can also put caller ID on the screen so that if someone calls during the game, you can see who is calling."A major fundamental design decision is whether to make a movie theater-style room with built-in platforms for seating or a room that feels more like a family room. "My wife and I had this debate for six months while we were building our home," Watson says. "Guess who won."Watson's room is
decorated with his jerseys, trophies, game balls and pictures of his teammates over the years. "My sons are now invading the room with their championship trophies," says Watson.Sons Tré, 11, and Christian, 8, and daughter Alexus, 10, join Watson and wife Christa to watch games. "I'm glad we went with the family room design," Watson says. "My faith and my family come first, and this is one way we can all come together."Firestone also advocates designing the home theater around the family. "You should really think about how you are going to use the room," she advises. "If a house has a family room and a media room, and both have big screens in them, the family will tend to use the family room and not use the media room."The classic home theater with platform seats is thus fading in popularity to multifunctional rooms that can serve as home theater in combination with family room, guest room or even home office."People are thinking more about changing the function of a room, instead of adding a room," says Firestone. "Sometimes a house gets too big, and people get too isolated. A home should be for bringing people together."
Star Trek Home Theater
Well we've seen the Star Wars home theater in the past, and now comes the Star Trek version.
And damn is this thing jam packed with goodness. Modeled after the Enterprise NCC-1701D from The Next Generation, this thing boasts "motion-activated air-lock doors with series sound effects, and a “Red Alert” button on the Crestron TPMC-10 controller to turn all of the LEDs bright red and flashing. The system also features “one of the largest Kaleidescape hard-drive based storage systems” ever created, amassing eight servers with 3,816 DVDs."
Well damn. That is one serious home theater system. Looks like someone really loves Star Trek and has serious money to throw around. I wish I had serious money to throw around, but I don't. I just have play money. And
