hi i'm scott newnam ceo of audio advice we've installed over a thousand home
theaters and support customers all across the nation in designing their
home theaters this video on home theater lighting best
practices is part of our home theater design
series of videos and reviews that you can find at audioadvice.com
along with hundreds of buyers guides how to's and product reviews now let's
get started with home theater lighting
you've been dreaming about your ultimate home theater room for
years after countless hours of pouring over reviews and articles
you've got all your equipment picked out and can't wait to hear and see it
even though it's months until construction finishes
you have the seating all picked out then you get the call from your builder
saying the electrician will start tomorrow and he wants to know
where you want the lights to go while many times
home theater lighting is overlooked to the last minute
hopefully this video will inspire some ideas you had not thought about
and help you add some great finishing touches to your dream home theater room
home theater lighting actually serves several purposes
some fixtures perform more than one task while others are dedicated to just one
purpose i will take a look at the different
tasks and what type of lighting works best for those tasks
starting with the most fundamental and working our way
up to the really cool stuff by the end let's start with task lighting
you may ask what in the world do you need task lighting in a home theater for
isn't a movie theater dark that's true but not when you have to clean it
or if you're doing some other things in the room in our experience the best type
of fixture for theater task lighting is usually a recessed ceiling can most
brands of recessed cans have a dark trim ring that will be perfect for the dark
ceiling in your home theater for the most light
when cleaning a typical home theater will need
three to four rows of cans with the can spaced about three to four feet apart
if recessed cans are the only form of lighting you plan for your theater
due to budget constraints we highly recommend you put your recessed cans
on at least two different circuits so you can dim or turn off the front ones
so they don't spill too much light on the screen while the back ones provide
more light the type of lamps used in recessed cans
should also be considered if you're not going to use separate
circuits think about a narrow beam spread for the ones
closer to the screen and a wider spread for those over the seats
the narrow beam will keep light off the screen of course
if you have all separate circuits this is not as big a deal
let's move on to safety lighting if your home theater has risers
it's very important to make sure the steps are visible
to protect you or your guests from stumbling in the dark
there are many decorative types of step lights available on the market
we highly recommend you choose a type that casts an
indirect light most people will choose to leave their step lights turned
on at a dim level during the movie you would not want to have any kind of
light that shines directly on the screen our audio advice team has come behind
some theater installations where a bright
step light was positioned on the vertical riser shining right at
the screen which you really want to avoid if you
can position the step lights off to the side and make sure they have
louvers or some type of element to direct the light
downward if your seats are not fully blocking a riser drop off you might
also consider using some kind of indirect lighting
under the lip of the riser options here could be rope lights or a
new led strip just like with the step lights you
want to be sure they do not shine on the screen at all
adding a small lip under the riser can help block direct light
allowing them to shine down providing the safety light you need
without hitting the screen in audio advice's
revolution theater seats we have built-in floor lighting that can be set
at different dim levels this can be a great solution if you don't have
other safety lighting check out our video on revolution home theater seats
at audioadvice.com to learn more now let's move on to accent lighting
which is the more fun part of home theater lighting
creative accent lighting can take a mundane looking room
and give it a more natural look with oohs and ahhs
we have a phrase at audio advice that will help you out when planning your
accent lighting go for the glow indirect accent lighting
will give your theater that cool look and keep any of it from
shining directly on your screen one thing i should point out here is
that you should definitely plan to put all of your lights on dimmers
ideally controlled from a remote control no matter how well you plan i assure you
that you will want to play with different levels of dimming for watching
a movie versus a super bowl party etc this of
course means you need to make sure your lighting is
dimmable so i'm going to walk you around really
quickly and just show you in one of the audio advice showrooms in north carolina
some examples of theaters with some sconces and other indirect lighting
okay so i'm here actually in our raleigh showroom if you go into raleigh
and charlotte showrooms just to show you a couple examples
so you see sconces here and the trick is that the bulbs are not exposed
on these sconces and you can actually see the use of down lights
coming as well again the trick is now obviously we've got all the lights on
full blast now which you would not have in a theater just so you can see me
but this is a good example of how you do it let me walk you over to
another one of the theaters and show you another example
you'll see and we're just going to focus on this side wall here
this is another great way to do sconces again you can see it's
ambient light coming from them and here we've even got an uplight which as you
saw in the last theater we had a downlight
the whole concept is we're not shining the light
on the screen but we're providing accent lighting so let's go and
we'll actually go into our third theater here
and again obviously if you're in raleigh or charlotte come to our
showrooms you can see a lot of examples of this this is the largest of the three
and you'll see examples both of our sconce lighting on the sides here
we actually have rope lighting if you can see a little bit behind these chairs
here you'll be able to see rope lighting that's lighting it's
safety for the stairs and then also you'll see we have
traditional lighting these front ones as i said should actually
be on a separate dimmer than all of the rest these recessed ceiling ones which
they are so when we turn down the lights in this room those
go completely off and then there's a little bit from the
top the sconces are on and then the rope lighting on the floor
indirect column lights can also be a very cool lighting feature they require
some planning but imagine a column that has a soft
glow coming from both of its vertical sides this kind of
accent can even run up a side wall across the ceiling down the other side
the new types of led strip lights have made it possible to do
all kinds of neat things with indirect lighting
cove lights are another great way to add some wow to your home theater
and you can actually see this in the theater i'm in right now
cove lighting can be done with either rope lighting or led strips and is a
great way to give your ceiling a soft glow
cove lights are also one of the most effective ways to add some light
into a room when you do not want it fully dark
without having any light spill onto the screen
finally there is star field lighting this type of lighting can give your
ceiling the look of a starry night and in some cases you'll even see
shooting stars starfield lighting adds very little
light to the room as it is created using fiber optics
however the cost of a great system can be more than your front projector
so we would only recommend this if your budget is not limited
it is a super cool look but just bear in mind
it's a big expense and in most cases you are better off putting that money
into a better projector speakers or electronics
there are a few other lighting considerations we always bring up with
our installation customers and those purchasing from
audioadvice.com for diy the first is keeping light out of the
room you've never walked into a movie theater
with windows so bear that in mind when planning your home theater
if your theater room will have windows in it consider a way
to totally block out the light coming in this can be done
with heavy blackout curtains or shades motorized shades can also add a cool wow
factor to your room if you program them to darken the room
as you start the movie the next thing to consider is light
reflections if your movie theater has a front
projector you'll want to be careful about what you have around the screen
itself if your screen is just mounted flat to a
wall you'll not have much to worry about
however if it's recessed in any type of cabinet
or just has a cabinet or any type of surface directly under it you'll need to
think about those surfaces a front projection screen reflects light
back to our eyes and it does not just go straight out the
light bounces off the screen at a pretty wide angle so that even
sitting to the side of the screen you still get
a great picture the downside of this is when your screen has anything around the
sides this reflected light could also hit
i walked into a theater one time where there was polished black granite on top
of the cabinet just under the screen the entire piece of granite looked like
a mirror which was a huge and terrible distraction
if you surround your screen make sure the material is a matte finish that will
not reflect or use some sticky out felt like
material on the surfaces around the screen
let's talk about wall color briefly this gets into personal taste
but the darker you can make your walls the less light will reflect off of them
giving your picture more pop go for dark grays blues browns or
blacks for the best result we also like to see the ceiling painted a dark color
as well sometimes one shade down from the main
color of the room will give it a great look the paint
should not be gloss or eggshell but a flat or matte finish
if possible have your electrician put all of your theater lights
on a different breaker than the circuits that will be used for your home theater
equipment this will help prevent any fixture noise
from making its way into the audio of your system
if at all possible you want all of your lighting loads to be controlled
with dimmers from your remote control imagine this
when you turn your theater on all of the lights come up to a nice glow
after a couple minutes they fade to a completely dark room
except for a very soft glow from your step lights
if someone needs to get up for a break you push a button on your remote
and the cove or sconce lights light up enough for them to see their way out
when the movie ends you push power off your lights fade up
then after five minutes all the room lights shut off there are
just so many cool things you can do with lighting
when you add control to the system i hope this brief overview has helped
you understand how well-planned lighting design
can take your home theater to the next level if you have any questions give us
a call or chat with our experts at audioadvice.com
or drop by one of our super showrooms in north carolina
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