Every Home Cinema is different, we all watch and enjoy a diverse variety of movies in numerous ways.

You may want to watch the film exactly or as closely as possible to how the Director intended. Or you want a movie to shake the room like the very best Hollywood blockbusters. The 4 questions at the bottom of the article will help you to get a better understanding of the choices you will need to make.

There are some basic details that you need to work out before you plan your home cinema, the very basics. It’s one thing to dream about your cinema, but sometimes it can be complicated to know where to start. Read on for a cue on some of the main questions you will need to figure out the answers to.

A home cinema is great fun, it’s also expensive so it’s best to get it right, first time. If a big screen is important to you, make sure you get one – but be aware of the seating distances, too big and it will strain your eyes to watch, too small and you will feel sad that it does not have that cinematic feel.

Here are the 4 Important questions you should be asking yourself before you actually spend any money or get down to the planning.

1. Do I want it to be projector or TV Based? – Large screen TVs can be watched in daylight but screen sizes are smaller. Projectors allow bigger screens and a more cinematic experience

2. What about the screen size? – TV’s run from around 60″ to 104″ whilst Cinema Screens start at 80″up to around 150″. For HD seating distance of 1.6 x the screen size, so around 4 metres from a 100″ Screen for example.

3. How many speakers should I have? – Surround starts at 5.1 – Front (Left, Centre, Right) Surround (Left, Right) and a Sub. 7.1 adds two rear speakers. Atmos adds two ceiling speakers.

4. What am I going to be watching, what is my source? – all your equipment is only as good as it’s source you should have at least 1080p High Def components as source, Blu Ray is great quality, Netflix has 4k content and Kodi is a media player that plays anything, choose one, two or all of them.

Once you’ve asked yourself (and answered) these questions, you are going to have a much better feel for what your home cinema is going to need to provide.

Ben Hobbs