Creating a cinema in the garden

I have decided to build a cinema in the garden. As of today all the me trials necessary have been ordered so work should begin tomorrow.

The first stage will be to build the screen. I have some leftover plywood from a crate which will give me 125inch screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

The area where the screen will be situated is on a slope and there is a trench below the desired site with power and water supply for the tiki bar making construction harder.

Building the screen will be the biggest challenge of the whole project.
I have ordered some special white matt spray paint which should give me a nice surface on which to project on to.

The screen is being positioned so that it can be viewed from the hot tub (for films and TV) but so that it also can be seen from the top terrace (outside the bar) for music videos and animation.

The next challenge this project will involve is me building a permanent outdoor AV cabinet that is water and insect proof. The projector and laptop will permanently be housed in this and it will be setup all year round.

The audio visual equipment used in this project is as follows:
Projector: Optoma MovieTime DVD Projector (old one I found in garage) | This projector will give me the ten foot screen needed at a push. Operating at the upper acceptable limit. This projector is also 480p but as I will be viewing from around 15 metres away I shouldn't' see any pixels.
Audio: I will be using the speakers built in to the hot tub as they are relatively decent for what they are, water resistant and at the right height to minimise the noise that the neighbours can hear. I had considered using the outdoor sound system but the speakers are located too far away from the hot tub.
Media source: An old laptop will be stored in the outdoor AV cabinet and run Windows Media Centre which will connect into the media server inside the house. Also the projector supports the playback of DVDs.

Over the course of this weekend I will be posting some pictures of the progress. Hopefully all goes well but for now this remains and experimental project.

 

Blimey, that'll keep you busy

 

That sounds brilliant. Take loads of pics and post them up here.

 

Wow sounds fantastic, i dug out a new flower bed and thought that was cool

 

Hope your neighbours love your idea.........

 

Work has started, but progress is quite slow due to the weather.

1) Turf has come up for digging.


2) Posts have been primed and painted.



3) Digging has begun but progress has been slow due to the rain. Luckily I haven't burst the water pipe which was very close to the surface.



Hopefully the weather will improve so that digging can be finished and the concrete poured.

 

Here are my original diagrams and me testing out the projector to see whether screen size was possible.

Screen plan



Seeing whether projector could reach desired size.

 

I would have built my own speakers personally. Don't cost much either.

 

We shall see how the hot tub speakers perform over the long term. The issue with building my own speakers is getting power to them and also making sure they are water resistant. They also need to be at the correct height above the ground which the hot tub ones are.

 

it all sounds fabulous! cant wait to see pics

 

Are you in the UK? Electrical equipment doesn't like to get damp, don't want to rain on your parade but I think if you are in the UK this will be extremely difficult.

 

I am in the UK although I am 2-3 miles from the driest part of the country, none the less the weather issue is going to be a big challenge.

I have consulted my neighbour who was an electronics technician for Xerox and my regular electrician. I have been advised what I want to do is possible but it will limit the life of the equipment.
The AV cabinet is going to be insulated and fibre glassed on the outside so it is completely watertight. The door was also feature a seal to help achieve water tightness. The insulation should help with the increase/decrease in temperature to reduce condensation.
Both the projector and laptop are both old bits of kit I have lying around so if they do die it is not the complete end of the world.


Progress update 1st Dec (pictures to follow soon)

Both posts have ben cemented in place. I was able to locate the water pipe and the electric cable without doing any damage to them.

I have finished building the frame that goes on the rear of the screen.

I have largely finished painting the posts/support and the back of the screen along with the support frame.

I have run the audio cable and wired it up to the hot tub.

Laptop has been wiped with a new clean install of Windows 7 along with a number of modifications so it boots right in Windows Media Center and can play .MKVs.

 

Okay here is a quick update.
The screen is now up (hoorah) but it still needs a little more work. I am going to give it it's final coat of paint when the weather permits and I will screw it into the supporting posts. I also need to trim the conifer a little.
I have also started work on the AV cabinet, all of the wood has been cut so all I have to do now is assemble and paint. I have also run an Ethernet cable into the garden from my lounge.
The laptop I was going to use for this set up has decided to be a little bitch and it's VGA port has stopped working. So now I have got to refurbish another old machine to take on this role. I had contemplated using a Windows Media Centre extender but I am retiring those as they are legacy technology and causing to many maintenance issues on the HTPC and my network.

 

I had that on a media PC I commissioned someone to build. It crashed more often than a ZX81 with a RAM pack and I ended up installing Linux on it instead. That was Windows XP Media Centre Edition though. Probably not what you're planning on using.