Five years ago during covid I did my first home theater post on how to get set up for around the price of a good TV. After three years the sub $100 projector was starting to have some issues and there were other changes we wanted to make in the house so it was time for a nerd power upgrade! Everything execpt the sound system has been kicked up a level and while it’s a lot more expensive than version one, it’s reached the point that unless I am going to drive an hour to see something in IMAX, I’ve got all the local theaters beat.
So why to do this?
It has the same advantages of TV over the movies:
- Pause when you want for bathroom or snacks
- Watching movies over two nights lets me screen a lot more
- Picture is better and as loud or quiet as I want, headphones are also an option
- You can stop watching a bad movie whenever and don’t have to feel you wasted a trip for it
Ok, so what’s the latest gear?
The projector: The laser projector is an exponential jump up in brightness, sharpness and detail. It just looks amazing. The Anker Soundcore Cosmos Nebula 4k SE, Amazon currently sells a refurb for $800, you can get new from the Anker site for $1,000. I got it pre-inflation with an upgrade deal for $900 almost 2 years ago, I bit the bullet on the price after making the mistake of trying a projector that still used an old school bulb (last generation tech that wasn’t as good as the budget LED projector it replaced), and a 4k LED from a now discontinued line of Nebula projector.
A bunch of the problems of the past like keystoning (the image not being perfectly square) or being out of focus are now all automated away and the picture straightens it self out automatically on startup. Very nice and looks great.
If you don’t want to pay that much for a projector Yaber still has a great 1080p model for $350.
The screen: This is the other huge leap forward. Our ancient farmhouse has plaster and lathe walls (read “nowhere near smooth”). I also made the mistake of painting it with a semi gloss so there were some hot spots. In moving to the new room (we swapped the Living and Dining rooms), we repaired the new wall with sheetrock so it’s perfectly smooth. I used a flat gray this time and it’s just perfect.
I did not order a special projector paint. You can pay anywhere from 70 to hundreds of dollars for paint, some with silver in them. I did a lot of research and results were mixed. Between the price and the odds of having a broken or open container of paint show up at your mailbox, I decided to try a paint that gets a lot of love in the AV Forums that can get made up at any Home Depot.
For $32 I got two quarts and did the whole room: Home Depot Color: 770E-2 | Silver Screen. Ultra Pure White Flat Low Odor Interior Paint & Primer. I ordered the Behr Premium Plus Flat Matte. Maybe some day when I have too much time and money on my hands I’ll try different paint (and the hardcore insist you need to be spraying it on), but I love what I’ve got right now.
The media: AppleTV is still the streaming king. Which might explain why the price hasn’t gone down in five years. I’ve found the picture quality to beat other streaming boxes, and I like that it has a wired internet connection to reduce drops.
Upgrading to a 130 inch screen also showed me new limitations in streaming. I noticed that the “4k” stream didn’t look as good as the same movie that I had as a blu-ray disk. This led me down a rathole that I will write about separately, but the short version is: streaming services have a financial incentive to try and send as little data down the wire to you as they can. They need to compete with the other services, but overall, none of them will push you as much data as you can get off a disk. It’s noticeable in the color and detail, and in the soundtrack (the missing bass is obvious).
That gave me the excuse I needed to buy a Sony PS5. My local warehouse club had a good price and I scrambled to buy one in front of TarriffMania tm. It plays Blu-Ray and 4k Blu-Ray. It does have all the streaming services but I found they were not as good as AppleTV. Also, for reasons beyond the nerd level of this post, it’s not worth the extra money to buy 4k Blu-Ray given my screen size and distance sitting from the screen.
This also opened up all the video game options which are amazing. It adds the wrinkle of occasionally having to kick my son off so the rest of us can watch something as he has a TV over in the play room.
Sound: I am still using the Bose TV Speaker. For an 18×18 room it’s enough sound and I got it for less than $150 years ago. Originally I got it because it was cheap and has bluetooth, I am not running any wires for speakers if I can help it. The Bose TV Speaker 2 is now available for $300 if you are looking for a no headache answer. I did level up though by adding a Sony Subwoofer and it’s a complete game changer. Everything booms now. It’s a little wonky though, I had to solder together a cord to connect it to the Bose speaker. They have it set up so that normally you can only connect a Bose subwoofer because the cable is looking for power confirm it’s on. After digging around on Reddit I got the specs and made the cord and it’s worked fine for years. I’m happy to help anyone but I will not make them, I’m constantly checking mine to make sure I’m not going to burn down my house.
If I were building from scratch now I’d got to the warehouse club, you can check Wirecutter to verify the brands are ok but for $200 you can get something that sounds great with a subwoofer and bluetooth if you have the same aversion to wires everywhere that I do.
Remote Control: This is one area that has surprisingly gotten worse. Logitech has end of lifed the Harmony remotes so once I had some buttons fail that was the end of the road. You’ll notice that the $70 Sofa Baton looks like a twin of the last Harmony Remote. Mine works ok but I tend to reach for the Apple Remote or a PS5 controller. This is all currently a sore point as people occasionally get stuck not being able to get something to work.
Oh, and one more thing: This winter I finally said I am so sick and tired of running on the treadmill that I had to change it up. I got an excercise bike and run Zwift on the AppleTV. Instead of smelling my local gym I am now doing virtual bike racing through Europe for the winter. With the huge screen it’s as good as any video game. I’ll write more on that later too.
Good luck!