Designing Your Home Cinema

Creating the Perfect Home Cinema

With our turnkey design service for home cinemas we can plan, design and install every element of your home cinema room; from flooring to technology to luxury cinema seating.

Our expert designers will be able to create the most optimal layout for your room size and shape, seating requirements, screen size and personal viewing preference.

Home Cinema Room Layout and Design

The layout, technology, design and choice of what type of sofa or seating you have in your home cinema will depend on whether you are designing a true home cinema or a versatile media room.

Both types of rooms, though dedicated to home entertainment, will have different priorities from the design, technology and layout.

True home cinemas might opt for our beautiful home cinema seats in rows on risers to mimic the feel of a theatre at home. Versatile Media Rooms may use our modular sofas to enable you to change the layout of the sofas depending on whether the room is being use for home cinema viewing or entertaining. With both types of home cinema experience we look to create the most optimum viewing and living experience for you.

What is a Horizontal Viewing Angle?

The Horizontal Viewing Angle in a home cinema is the angle created by drawing a line from the nose of the viewer to each edge of your home cinema screen.

This value is important as if it is too small (the angle too narrow) then you will see a lot more of the surrounding room when watching the cinema screen and your cinema experience will not be as immersive. If the horizontal viewing angle is too large however you may feel as if you are too close to the screen and have to move your head to view all corners of the screen.

The viewing angle of all seats in the home cinema room should be calculated to ensure that everyone will be able to enjoy the optimum home cinema experience.

Optimum Horizontal Viewing Angles

There are various schools of thought as to what the ‘optimum’ viewing angle is although it is generally accepted to be between 36-50o.

20th Century Fox advise that their ideal viewing angle is 45O, CEDIA recommend a 43o viewing angle for Cinemascope content. The Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommend an optimum viewing angle of 43.4o with a maximum horizontal viewing angle of 61.8o and a minimum of 33.3o.

As with all home design situations personal preferences come into play. We recommend all looking to create a bespoke home cinema to come and visit our home cinema showroom to determine your personal optimum viewing angle. Our cinema seating is modular enabling you to move the luxury cinema seats to determine your personal optimum viewing angle.

Don’t Forget the Vertical Viewing Angle

The Vertical Viewing Angle is another important calculation when designing a home cinema. CEDIA recommendations are based on guidance from the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and state that for optimum home cinema viewing no viewer should have a vertical viewing angle of greater than 15o.

This means that, in best practice, the angle created between two straight lines drawn from the viewer’s nose to the top and bottom of the screen shouldn’t be larger than 15o.

Best viewing height is to have the centre of the home cinema screen at eye level to the viewer. This placement has to take into account what sofas or cinema seating is being used for the home cinema, if the chairs recline and how many rows of chairs are likely to be frequently used in the home cinema.

Optimum Home Cinema Seating Placement

The placement of seats in a true home cinema room is vital to map out at the design stage as the seats are likely to be fixed in place at installation. There may also be multiple rows of seats that require risers to be installed. Risers are used to lift the rear rows of seats to enable a perfect view of the home cinema screen and are generally each about 30cm tall.

The minimum and maximum distance that seating should be placed from the home cinema screen will depend on the size and resolution of the TV screen as well as the viewing angles detailed above.

If you have to move your head to view the whole screen of the cinema then you are too close.

Getting the Best Home Cinema for your Space

Experts advise that the best shape for a home cinema room is a rectangular. Even with all these ‘best practices’ from the leaders in home cinema technology the team at IQ are experts at designing the perfect home cinema to fit your space.

If you have a pre-constructed space, such as an existing room, in which we are designing your home cinema our experts can take your space, your seating requirements and design preferences and create the perfect home cinema for you.

Simply show us your floor plans and we can do the rest.

Contact Us

Opening Times


Space Modern.

Sky House Design Centre.
Raans Road Amersham, Bucks
HP6 6FT

Monday - Friday 9.00am - 5.00pm
Saturday 9.00am - 3.00pm (Appointments Only)

TRADE SHOWROOM APPOINTMENTS ONLY.

To get the best level of Space Service we ask you to make an appointment so our specialist team can assist in the right way

To find out about how we process your data, please read our privacy policy.

Send

Home Cinema Room Layout and Design

The layout, technology, design and choice of what type of sofa or seating you have in your home cinema will depend on whether you are designing a true home cinema or a versatile media room.

Both types of rooms, though dedicated to home entertainment, will have different priorities from the design, technology and layout.

True home cinemas might opt for our beautiful home cinema seats in rows on risers to mimic the feel of a theatre at home. Versatile Media Rooms may use our modular sofas to enable you to change the layout of the sofas depending on whether the room is being use for home cinema viewing or entertaining. With both types of home cinema experience we look to create the most optimum viewing and living experience for you.

What is a Horizontal Viewing Angle?

The Horizontal Viewing Angle in a home cinema is the angle created by drawing a line from the nose of the viewer to each edge of your home cinema screen.

This value is important as if it is too small (the angle too narrow) then you will see a lot more of the surrounding room when watching the cinema screen and your cinema experience will not be as immersive. If the horizontal viewing angle is too large however you may feel as if you are too close to the screen and have to move your head to view all corners of the screen.

The viewing angle of all seats in the home cinema room should be calculated to ensure that everyone will be able to enjoy the optimum home cinema experience.

Optimum Horizontal Viewing Angles

There are various schools of thought as to what the ‘optimum’ viewing angle is although it is generally accepted to be between 36-50o.

20th Century Fox advise that their ideal viewing angle is 45O, CEDIA recommend a 43o viewing angle for Cinemascope content. The Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommend an optimum viewing angle of 43.4o with a maximum horizontal viewing angle of 61.8o and a minimum of 33.3o.

As with all home design situations personal preferences come into play. We recommend all looking to create a bespoke home cinema to come and visit our home cinema showroom to determine your personal optimum viewing angle. Our cinema seating is modular enabling you to move the luxury cinema seats to determine your personal optimum viewing angle.

Don’t Forget the Vertical Viewing Angle

The Vertical Viewing Angle is another important calculation when designing a home cinema. CEDIA recommendations are based on guidance from the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and state that for optimum home cinema viewing no viewer should have a vertical viewing angle of greater than 15o.

This means that, in best practice, the angle created between two straight lines drawn from the viewer’s nose to the top and bottom of the screen shouldn’t be larger than 15o.

Best viewing height is to have the centre of the home cinema screen at eye level to the viewer. This placement has to take into account what sofas or cinema seating is being used for the home cinema, if the chairs recline and how many rows of chairs are likely to be frequently used in the home cinema.

Optimum Home Cinema Seating Placement

The placement of seats in a true home cinema room is vital to map out at the design stage as the seats are likely to be fixed in place at installation. There may also be multiple rows of seats that require risers to be installed. Risers are used to lift the rear rows of seats to enable a perfect view of the home cinema screen and are generally each about 30cm tall.

The minimum and maximum distance that seating should be placed from the home cinema screen will depend on the size and resolution of the TV screen as well as the viewing angles detailed above.

If you have to move your head to view the whole screen of the cinema then you are too close.

Getting the Best Home Cinema for your Space

Experts advise that the best shape for a home cinema room is a rectangular. Even with all these ‘best practices’ from the leaders in home cinema technology the team at IQ are experts at designing the perfect home cinema to fit your space.

If you have a pre-constructed space, such as an existing room, in which we are designing your home cinema our experts can take your space, your seating requirements and design preferences and create the perfect home cinema for you.

Simply show us your floor plans and we can do the rest.

Contact Us

Opening Times


Space Modern.

Sky House Design Centre.
Raans Road Amersham, Bucks
HP6 6FT

Monday - Friday 9.00am - 5.00pm
Saturday 9.00am - 3.00pm (Appointments Only)

TRADE SHOWROOM APPOINTMENTS ONLY.

To get the best level of Space Service we ask you to make an appointment so our specialist team can assist in the right way

To find out about how we process your data, please read our privacy policy.

Send

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