The idea of creating a home theater with your own hands is very tempting. Especially if you do not have the funds to buy it, but there are hands that can work wonders. Let's say you already have some skills and craftsmanship for assembling a home theater, but where can I get a diagram and at least a superficial assembly manual that would serve as a kind of cheat sheet? The answer is here. We will look at how to make a home theater with your own hands and not go broke on the details.
Home cinema: concept and description
Home theater from the point of view of household appliances is a kind of connecting element that combines speakers, TV, projector, etc. into a single whole. It contains input and output ports through which peripherals are connected. The complete set of home theaters, which are produced from the assembly line, can be very diverse: withacoustics, with or without DVD player, projector. One way or another, you can purchase additional equipment with all the necessary functions for almost any home theater.
There is another interpretation of this phrase. Thanks to the ingenious Japanese who came up with the mini-system, a home theater made by one's own hands is understood as a device consisting of a cardboard box and a multimedia device. Therefore, in the domestic Internet space, there are more and more questions about how to make a home theater with your own hands from a phone and a box. To decide which of the devices you want to make, we will consider several options.
What do you need to create a home theater?
To make a home theater with your own hands in its classical sense, you need to decide on the package. The simplest and most uncomplicated system should consist of the following elements:
- devices for watching movies (TV/projector);
- devices for sound reproduction (acoustic system);
- signal source.
Of course, all these devices are simply impossible to assemble by hand. Of course, if you are an unrecognized appliance assembly genius, then anything is possible for you. But for the average user, you will need some components that you still have to buy. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and consider all the elements of a home theater in order.
TV or projector?
Toto decide how to make a home theater with your own hands, you need to choose a device through which the image will be projected. There are only two options here: a TV or a projector. If the task is to bring the cinema atmosphere as close as possible to home conditions, then, of course, you should stop your choice on the projector. On the other hand, a wide-screen TV is available in almost every home, so why buy or make other appliances? To make it easier for you to make a choice, here are the advantages and disadvantages of both devices.
Projector: advantages and disadvantages
It is impossible to imagine what would happen if the cinema screened films through huge TVs. Probably, the atmosphere of watching a movie in a specially equipped hall would be completely spoiled, and rare trips to the cinema would completely lose all meaning.
Projector benefits at home:
- compact;
- the size of the projected image is limited only by the size of the wall on which the image will be displayed;
- high image quality;
- due to reflected light, the load on the organs of vision is reduced.
To be frank, this equipment also has its drawbacks, which are more numerous than advantages. Therefore, the practicality of this device can be questioned.
Flaws:
- for high-quality image transmission, you need tothe room was in absolute darkness;
- low image clarity when watching some TV channels due to their poor broadcast quality;
- impossible to watch video without audio equipment;
- projector lamps need to be changed regularly;
- in DLP projectors, light scattering (rainbow) can be seen in white areas of the image;
- compared to new generation TVs, it has a small viewing angle, low brightness and contrast of the projected picture.
Given that projectors do have enough flaws, they are installed only by people who have a personal attachment to this equipment, or ardent cinema fans.
The pros and cons of installing a TV
Assembling a home theater with your own hands is much easier when you already have a modern wide-screen TV at home. In addition to this factor, there are a number of special advantages of the TV over the projector:
- quality, bright, contrast and clear image;
- lighting in the room does not affect the picture quality;
- you can watch movies without sound system;
- ease and ease of setup and management;
- durability.
There are no comments on the functionality of the TV. Modern devices cope with their intended purpose perfectly well. But there are other aspects in which they lose to projectors:
- widescreen TVs –expensive pleasure;
- heavy load on the visual apparatus compared to the projector;
- TV screen takes up a lot of space;
- limiting the size of the image by the diagonal of the TV;
- limited viewing angles.
It is also worth choosing equipment based on what it will be used for. If you are planning to assemble a home theater with your own hands for watching TV, then you should opt for a TV. And if the home theater will be mainly used to watch movies from satellite TV or from Blu-ray media, then it is more expedient to purchase or make a projector.
How to make a DIY projector?
Here is a step-by-step instruction on how to make a home theater with your own hands from a box and a magnifying glass. In fact, the projector is a fairly simple device that is very easy to make yourself. For this you will need:
- shoe box;
- 10x magnifier;
- stationery knife;
- pencil;
- duct tape;
- paperclip;
- device from which the image will be emitted (smartphone).
After all the necessary materials are prepared, you can proceed directly to the assembly itself. It includes the following steps:
- Cut a hole for a magnifying glass in a shoe box. It should be located exactly in the center. Toto determine where the center point is, you need to connect the corners of the plane diagonally. The point of intersection of two lines is the center of symmetry of the rectangle.
- Install the magnifying glass in the hole made and fasten it with electrical tape.
- Making a stand for a mobile phone. To do this, you can use a regular paper clip or the remaining pieces of cardboard.
- Looking for a place to install the projector. Remember that when working with the projector in the room must be absolute darkness. It should also be taken into account that the picture will be fed from a smartphone, so choose a place for the projector that has an outlet next to it.
- Download a special application on your smartphone that allows you to manually flip the image. If this is not done, the projected image will be displayed upside down on the surface.
- Make a hole for the cable from the charger.
As you can see, making a home theater with your own hands from a phone and an ordinary cardboard box is quite simple. There is no need to spend money on expensive equipment, components, etc. to recreate the atmosphere of a cinema at home. If you want to improve the quality of the projected image, it is better to use a tablet or laptop as the image source. The problem can only arise with finding a lens of the right size, since the display of these devices is much larger than the screen of a smartphone.
Speaker system
When old and long-forgotten speakers gather dust at home, why not use them to create an acoustic systemhome theater? Many do not know how to make a good home theater 5, 1 with their own hands (we are talking about sound) from old wooden speakers, since they need to be adapted for a modern digital output.
Let's start with the fact that the device that needs to connect the speaker system must have an optical or coaxial output. This can be a TV, digital tuner, etc. If there is one, then you need to prepare the appropriate cable for it. For the coaxial output, this is an RCA cable with a resistance of 75 ohms, for the optical output, a fiber optic cable. Then look at the back of your speaker system. On it you should see 6 speaker outputs (2 for the front, 2 for the rear, subwoofer, center speaker) and 3 3.5 mm jacks. You will need an audio decoder to connect your digital device to your old speaker system.
What is an audio decoder?
This is a device designed to convert digital audio to analog. As a rule, there are three outputs on the front panel of the device: optical, coaxial and USB. It is clear that from this side the decoder is connected to a TV, tuner, and so on. On the rear panel there are six outputs to the speakers of the speaker system and a video output to the TV. Sometimes the coaxial output may not be on the front of the audio decoder, but on the back.
The process of connecting a speaker system can be summed up in a few simple steps:
- Connect the sound sourceto an audio decoder using a fiber optic cable through the appropriate output.
- Using six RCA cables, we connect the decoder to the speaker system.
- Select the desired input (optical, coaxial or USB) with the remote control that comes with the audio decoder.
- Testing the speaker system and enjoying high-quality sound.
An old speaker system can last for years to come. Moreover, the sound quality in it is much better than in Chinese plastic speakers. Therefore, the age of some electrical appliances is not at all a reason to drag them to a landfill.
Home theater from a computer
If you can make a home theater out of a smartphone, then you can build an entire entertainment center out of a computer. A home PC allows you to connect together a game console, music center and satellite receiver. If you decide to make a home theater from a computer with your own hands, then you should be prepared for the fact that it is not so simple. First you need to collect all the necessary accessories that will be needed to modify the PC:
- personal computer;
- TV tuner cards;
- Linux distribution;
- software.
The following is a short guide on how to make a DIY home theater. At home, creating a media center from a computer is possible only with the help of special software, such as TiVo or MythTV. Paid software (TiVo) is much easier to install, butthen you will have to pay for a subscription and additional features of the program, if any. Free software will allow the user to save a lot on refurbishing his personal computer, but it will take a little work to install it.
Step-by-step guide to converting a PC to a home theater:
- First, you need to purchase and install a TV tuner, taking into account the performance of the processor. For example, for 2006 processors with a power of 600 MHz, you should choose a single TV tuner model Hauppauge PVR-150.
- If, in addition to the practical use of a PC, its aesthetics are also important, then it is worth additionally purchasing a case for a future home theater. Special cases for HTPC (Home Theater Computer) are available for sale.
- Next, configure the BIOS. In its configurations, you need to assign a timeout for the system in standby mode. This will save energy in the future and extend the life of your PC.
- Download and install the Linux distribution. For example Ubuntu. It can be found on the Web and downloaded for free.
- Reboot the system and make sure Ubuntu recognizes the installed TV tuner.
- Install the complete MythTV software package following the installation instructions strictly.
- Set MythTV to launch offline when the system is turned on.
Thus, you can easily and quickly assemble a home theater with your own hands. Photo, video, audio fileswill now be seamlessly displayed on the big screen, creating a cinematic atmosphere at home.
DIY mini cinema
If you have not yet found a suitable way to assemble a home theater with your own hands, then we offer you the simplest and most original option. This method can even be given its own name - a home-made cinema for the lazy. To assemble it you will need:
- cardboard box;
- smartphone;
- four screws;
- two rubber bands for money;
- scissors;
- scotch.
As you can see from the set of items, this method allows you to make a home theater with your own hands out of the box. The assembly process usually takes no more than five minutes and includes the following steps:
- Glue the edges of the box with tape.
- At the bottom of the box, cut out a window for your smartphone. To do this, attach the smartphone to the center of the box and circle it with a simple pencil. Then cut a hole along the contour with scissors or a clerical knife.
- Cut out a semicircle with a radius of about 20 cm from the bottom of one of the sides of the box.
- From pieces of cardboard to make a frame for a window for a smartphone in the inside of the box.
- From the reverse side, screw four self-tapping screws and fix the smartphone with rubber bands so that it fits snugly against the frame.
The mini home theater is ready to use. This funny invention was invented by the enterprising Japanese, who are famous for their extraordinarythinking. Therefore, if it was not possible to make a projector out of the box, you can use it for this device. Especially when you already know how to make a home theater with your own hands without a magnifying glass. You can use it anytime and anywhere. But it is better, of course, not to get carried away, because after all we are not in Japan. In our country, not many will be able to appreciate such a homemade device. Therefore, you should not lie in the park with a box on your head - they will not understand.
