SnapStream Blog (staging)

Guest blog posting by Seth Miller (draven in the forums)

After years of yearning to bring the true theater experience home, I have finally succeeded. My home now boasts a theater that will engulf you in the movie experience, tower over you with special not meant for mere television and bring a library of over 175 movies no more than the push of a button away, a jukebox of movies from TV and DVD. This theater was built on a limited budget, but boasts all the features that I’ve been dreaming of since I first heard someone say, “home theater�.

Home theater, we’ve heard the term thrown around for years by every electronics store chain and every television manufacturer in the business, and they’ve applied it to every piece of equipment that could show a picture. But what does it mean? Are we talking about a 13� TV stuck in the corner of a living room, or are we talking about actually bringing the theater experience home? For me, I wanted a full blown theater in my home, and I think I’ve finally succeeded.

Years ago, the only way we could watch our favorite movies was to go buy some over-priced popcorn at our local cinema and pay an arm and a leg for a ticket in. Then came the VCR. This technological marvel opened up possibilities like we had never seen before. We could rent movies from the local Quick Stop for half of a theater ticket, and enjoy the movies in the comfort of our own living room. Sure, we all had to crowd around the TV and watch a cropped version of the original, but it was at home, and that made a difference. Later, DVDs brought us crisper images and the original widescreen format on a medium that we didn’t have to rewind. And surround sound systems brought us one step closer to the theater experience, but was it ever really the same as being in the theater?

Today I can proudly boast that I have found, or rather created, the true home theater. That’s right, a theater at home, not a TV masquerading as the famed silver screen, but an honest to goodness theater. “How?� you ask. Well here is the low-down.

First, let’s talk about the theater itself. I’m making use of a finished basement and the large open areas that you can usually find under the main floors of a house. The room is roughly 24’ X 14’ arranged deep, rather than wide. At the far end of the room, There is a set of shelves that are built into my wall. I have two recliners, and a couch giving me seating for five. The “TV� is where things get different.

My basement

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a High Def plasma TV, I opted to instead install a projection system. A good quality projector like my Optoma EP719 can be had for around $900.00. There are even more affordable options out there, just remember you get what you pay for. This particular projector has a 1024 X 768 resolution and 2000 ANSI lumens. The lumens are the key here, the more you have, the brighter the projector is.

My Optoma projector

My Optoma projector in action

I have also purchased a commercial projector mount for around $100.00. Since my projector is mounted upside down, I had to be careful to find a projector capable of inverting its image. Most projectors will do this, but be careful to check because there are a couple very well priced projectors with all the features you are looking for except they are designed for business presentations done by travelers, and they do not ceiling mount. I also made sure to get a projector with an IR remote, more about that later.

When it’s time to watch our favorite movie (or TV for that matter), we pull down a 96� screen that is mounted above the bookshelves and I end up with a picture that covers the wall from floor to ceiling (as demonstrated below by my daughter). I have opted for a less expensive manual screen, but there are models available that will raise and lower at your command. The viewing experience is controlled by a PC hidden in a side cabinet.

My daughter browses our movie collection using Beyond Media and the DVD Library plug-in

The PC is running Snapstream’s Beyond TV and Beyond Media. Since I am talking about the home theater experience, I will focus on Beyond Media, and in particular, a piece of pure programming genius, and every tech fiend’s best friend, the DVD library plug-in. This plug-in, allows me to store, organize and watch a library of over 175 movies and growing. Many of these are backups of DVDs I have purchased over the years, and a growing library of movies recorded by Beyond TV from various movie channels like HBO and Showtime.

Here is how it all works. First of all, I downloaded kilrsat’s DVD Library plug-in.

The DVD Library plug-in from the main menu of Beyond Media

It is a breeze to install, but there are instructions included in the first post on the page. Once installed, there are a couple of options that add to the theater experience. I like to see a preview or two before a movie starts, you might prefer to go directly to the main event, but I find that there is something exciting about anxiously awaiting the start of the “feature presentation�. The DVD Library comes complete with this option. You can select the number of trailers to watch, and point the plug-in to the file where your trailers are stored.

Configuring the DVD Library plug-in

But what trailers to watch? Surely you don’t want to see the same trailer for Snakes on a Plane over and over again. Neither do I. I want to see trailers for movies that are in the theaters or soon to arrive on DVD and join my collection.

This is easy to do if you have a constant internet connection. All you need to do is to complement this great plug-in with another of Kilrsat’s creations, the Showtimes plug-in.

The Showtimes plug-in was meant to allow you to browse for movies that are currently playing, lets all say it now, “in a theater near youâ€?. I rarely get the chance to go out to the movies, and don’t feel the need with my home theater being what it is, but there is one great thing about the Showtimes plug-in — it downloads trailers. So, I install the showtimes plug-in and direct it to automatically download trailers, and then point the DVD Library to the trailers folder of the showtimes plug-in.

Configuring DVD library to pick-up movie trailers

This folder can be found by default in:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Snapstream\Beyond Media\plugins\movieshowtimes\trailers

As a father I am also very concerned about controlling what my two girls watch. I have several movies in my collection that I don’t feel are appropriate for my children. I use Brett’s PIN module to ensure that my girls can watch TV and movies unsupervised and not click on a movie that is out of their age range. If they do attempt to open a movie beyond the selectable rating limit of PG, they get a message saying that it exceeds the rating restriction that I have chosen.

Brett’s PIN module in action, blocking a rated R movie

When my wife and I decide to watch the same movie, we simply unlock the movie in the options box. This requires me to enter my PIN that I have pre-selected, and all movies become viewable. Once I play a movie, the DVD Library resets to lock all PG13 and above movies.

My movies are a collection of DVD backups and movies recorded by Beyond TV, but it does require a little bit of interaction. For my DVDs, I use a combination of DVD Shrink and IMToo DVD Ripper. DVD Shrink allows me to both back up my DVDs and gives me the option to reduce their file size to fit on a single DVD-R (4.7 GB). It also allows me to backup only the main feature and skip all of the menus and trailers. IMToo will transcode DVDs to DivX or a variety of other codecs that allow you to save hard drive space while still maintaining quality. These two programs helped me import my library to my PC, but the expansion of my library comes from Beyond TV.

I make a habit of recording as many movies as I can from HBO, Showtime, and Starz. I will very often record from the HD channel just for the wide screen format.

Recording movies with Beyond TV to supplement by DVD collection

These movies will not be recorded in HD since I am recording from cable, but I prefer the 16:9 format that is broadcast on these channels. Once recorded, I clip the extra couple minutes from before and after the movie using VideoReDo and then use Beyond TV’s showsqueeze feature to convert the files to DivX. The DVD Library has the option of importing right from Beyond TV, but I prefer not to clutter up Beyond TV with a hundred movies when all of my movie watching is done from Beyond Media. So I simply move the files to the folder I have set up for the DVD Library and search for new movies.

Finally, I control the whole system with one remote. I use a Harmony 659 programmed to turn on my projector and my stereo system with the push of one button. I have also programmed the remote with all of the codes from my Firefly Mini, and I use the Firefly’s receiver to receive the IR commands from the Harmony and control Beyond Media and Beyond TV.

My Harmony 659 remote control

I still sit back from time to time and dream of ways to improve my theater. Perhaps one day my screen will lower automatically. Perhaps a plug-in can be created to dim my X10 lights automatically at the start of the movie. Perhaps I can convince my kids to cook me popcorn every Friday night. And maybe, just maybe, I can replace my recliner with one with a massaging feature. Until that day comes, I’ll continue to enjoy the many wonderful benefits of the theater in my home.

About Me
I am a technical advisor and factory rep for a large truck and engine manufacturer. I currently live in southern New Jersey, and work from my home. My only programming background comes from writing ladder logic for custom electrical applications on my company’s medium duty and severe service truck lines. I am married with 2 daughters ages nine and six, and both are now proficient with using Snapstream products.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 1:01 pm by Rakesh and is filed under Beyond Media, Beyond TV, Developers, Digital Living Room. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.