MDfx Within Making Sure: You Choose The Right Sound And Visual Experience For Your Home Entertainment!

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Home Cinemas and media rooms are certainly a luxury, but when you consider how important home entertainment is, it is definitely worth investing in. Let me paint you a picture; you get to enjoy an evening with your family, sit in comfortable seats, enjoy good food – order any takeaway that feeds an entire family for the price of 2 popcorn buckets at a cinema– no joke – comfortably dressed in loungewear, and, you can actually enjoy an extra glass of wine because you’re not designated driver for the evening. All your streaming channels are synced to the system, so you can take your pick of the mix. Add to that outstanding visual clarity, and an immaculate sound system, accessed with the push of a start button.  You can provide a sociable atmosphere, and intimate family experience that everyone enjoys, not to mention the added value a home cinema adds to your house if you do come to sell!

Today’s technology presents plenty of options for all budgets and spaces. From short throw projectors to 4k projectors and 8k tv’s, soundbars or a speaker system… how are you meant to know what the best options are for you? Not to mention that these come at a hefty price and installation can end up being a nightmare if you are doing this on your own.  

This post is not going to go through how to design a home cinema (you can read that HERE), but rather we will be  focusing on the most important, and obvious, features of an entertainment setup, Sound and Screen.

TV vs. Projector

There always seems to be an unnecessary battle between TVs and projectors and which one is better. Well of course this is subjective, but it depends on your room or your personal preference. Our recommendations at MDfx Within are pretty straightforward, if you have a bright room with a lot of windows then go with a TV, if you have a large space where you can control the light, then choose a projector. Another concern is space, so since a tv can hang on a wall, you’re not really going to get much better than that when it comes to space, and standard projectors need to be several feet away from the wall, so this is not very ideal in a small room. We do have the option of having an ultra-short throw projector, these sit right in front of the walls, so room size does not really matter with these.

Another topic of debate that we see, is that TV’s are cheaper than projectors. NOT TRUE! Not when it comes to size. First consider that the whole point of buying a projector is to project a larger image than you normally get from a TV. On average, most people project onto a screen that ranges between a 120 to 150 inches. To get a TV that big you would need to spend as much as you would on a deposit for a house, this would be substantially lower if you were to invest in a good 4k projector and go with whatever size screen you want. Therefore, when it comes to big screens, a projector is less expensive. Now the thing about projectors is that they work best in a dark room. Even though we have really bright projectors and special screens to help with this issue, it is still mostly true that projectors work best in a room that does not have a lot of ambient light, such as sunlight or overhead lights. This brings me to:

Family Home Theatre Room - Home Cinema Install London
Audio Visual Design & Install​ London

The Ultra Short throw Projector

These projectors are much easier to set up since they sit right on your TV stand, they are also really bright so they tend to work better in a living room than a standard projector. We do still recommend that you draw the curtains before enjoying your movie or series, but if you pair with an ambient light rejecting screen, you can get a bright and very clear image.

Ultra Short Throw 4k Projectors – Over the past four years these have become increasingly popular since they are much easier to set up since they sit directly in front of the wall. They also produce a nice and sharp 4k image and usually have smart TV features built in. That said, these projectors tend to be priced much higher than standard projectors, so you would need to be sure that you are buying the right one for your room.

Home Theatre with big projector screen
Home Theatre with big projector screen. Family home cinema

Another thing to consider before choosing a projector is that most of them do not have a smart tv interface like most tv’s. This is where choosing a service like MDfx Within comes in, as we install software that will allow you not only to control your home cinema or theatre or media room easily, but it will also allow you to connect to your streaming channels and continue watching your favourite series.

The next thing is to make sure you are buying the right projector for your room, as there are five different types of projectors with regards to brightness. We found that when most people are choosing a projector, they tend to prefer a bright projector, because in theory a brighter image looks better than a dimmer image. And whilst this is generally true, what you need to consider is that bright home theatre projectors, usually sacrifice a bit of colour accuracy in favour of brightness, what this means is that certain colours may look a little weird or they might actually be dimmer than they are on the version with less lumens. Basically, make sure you do some research or go to a professional for advice, because the brighter projector is not always better.

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Family Home Theatre Room - Home Cinema Install London

MDfx Within Project – Transform multi use living room into a Home Cinema. Includes TV, Projector, Projector Screen, High end Sound System, Smart lighting scenes, Electric Blinds for complete blackout. 

Soundbar Vs. Speakers

So how do you choose the best sound for your media or cinema rooms? Starting with some of the differences, the main benefits of a soundbar is easy setup, cost, convenience and that it fits well in most rooms. It is a simple setup, plugs into the wall and if it comes with a subwoofer, it is usually wireless. Anybody can set this up, no problem. Now the other factor is cost, and if all you want is slightly better TV Sound, then invest in a soundbar as it will deliver better sound than your tv speakers. You can easily play music, use them for Bluetooth streaming, some of them come with voice control, whilst some can easily be expanded with additional wireless speakers!  and some high end soundbars even have advanced audio. Then there is the obvious. A soundbar fits well in most rooms, it just sits under the tv, in most cases you barely even notice that it is there.

So, after all that, you might be asking, then what is the benefit of having speakers? Why should I Invest in them when there is such a good cheaper alternative?! Well there are a lot of benefits to speakers, you will have better sound quality, they are louder, they have a wider sound stage and you have better options for bass. Now unlike a soundbar, which is an all in one piece, if you want speakers, then you are going to have to buy a receiver or an amplifier to connect the speakers to, and considering the amplifier is much bigger to the one inside of a soundbar, it will give you better sound quality. Also, as mentioned, speakers are able to give you a wider sound, that is because you can position the speaker further apart, which gives you a better surround sound experience, especially if you have a bigger screen. You can also improve the bass response with home theatre speakers since you can use a subwoofer that matches the environment or even multiple subwoofers if you have a Larger room. So overall, home theatre speakers provide a full listening experience that you simply can not get from most soundbars, especially when it comes to movies and music, but speakers can be a fair bit more expensive, which brings us to the budget topic.

There are various options that we offer to our clients that are related to budget and room size, in order to create the best cinematic experience for you. We provide a range of soundbars, some that come with a subwoofer that give a powerful sound for their size. This should be enough for you if your aim is to update your current media room. Soundbars are particularly recommended for smaller media rooms rather than open plan spaces. If you have a larger entertainment room, or a bigger tv or yet, a projector screen, this is when we would recommend a more expensive soundbar that has enough power to fill the space or get a set of home theatre speakers, that again, sound better in most cases.

There are clearly pros and cons to buying both soundbars or speakers, but it all comes down to the space and your budget. Here at MDfx Within, we can assure you that we can accommodate both!

If you are thinking of investing in any type or home entertainment room, it needs to look right, feel right and sound right. MDfx Within constantly strives to design and create the very best customised Media Room and Home Cinema Installations.

Whether you are looking for a solution to fit into an existing space, or prefer a completely new customised design, one thing is for sure, a project from MDfx Within will create the perfect Home Cinema or Media Room to assure an eye opening, spellbinding experience.

Editor’s Note: This post was inspired by Chris Majestic’s Various You Tube Videos published in 2019 and has been updated for MDfx Within’s Purposes.

Have a look at how MDfx Within can help you!

Enjoy your favourite films in spectacular surroundings with your very own bespoke home cinema. We can design the perfect space to integrate your audio-visual technology and blend it seamlessly into the style of your home.

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Contact Information

Full Home Automation, Home Cinema, Lighting Control, Networking, Fire & Security, Telephony, Cloud Control, Electric Blinds & Curtains, Consultancy – All areas covered.

Adress: Unit 1, Dolphin Wharf, 3 Rockingham Rd, Uxbridge UB8 2UB

Phone: +44 01895262600 

E-mail: info@mdfx.co.uk

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