Driss's Home Cinema Installation in His Living Room

Driss is a talented entrepreneur. The recent owner of a beautiful home near Montmorency (95), he seized the opportunity of his move to finally build the Home Cinema setup in his living room that he had always dreamed of. He naturally discovered our website and used our AiOhc Configurator to design his Home Cinema online. Driss then visited our showroom in Fontenay-sous-Bois, where he was able to see, touch, and hear our solutions, before confirming an AiOhc Premium Home Cinema configuration.

Driss’s father runs a construction business, so he naturally handled all the work at his son’s home. As we often do, we suggested that Driss let the tradespeople already on site take care of the installation — they simply needed to follow the instructions and plans provided by AV Concept Products.

We therefore only charge for configuring the equipment once it has been installed. In this new case study, we share three critically important lessons for preparing your living room Home Cinema installation.

Preparing Driss’s Home Cinema Installation

As mentioned, the house was undergoing a full renovation. Driss visited us while work was still in full swing, meaning all modifications and cable runs were still possible to make. He had already reduced the initially planned ceiling height by a few centimetres. We often tell our clients when preparing a living room Home Cinema installation: 22 cm of false ceiling depth is the ideal minimum.

Below that, every centimetre lost further narrows the range of projectors that can be integrated into your discreet Home Cinema setup. Conversely, every extra centimetre opens up an ever wider choice of quality projectors. This point is critically important: you know which projector you want today — but what about the next one? It would be a shame to rule out certain models simply because of a centimetre or two of ceiling clearance.

The advantage of the Configurateur AiOhc, is that in addition to providing all the technical information you need for your project, it also gives you the overall budget to plan for. It saves you from unpleasant surprises and last-minute headaches caused by a poorly planned project. Driss went straight for a Premium configuration. The tool is simple, fast, intuitive, and completely free to use.

Driss wanted the most discreet projection screen possible at the largest available size, with the best image quality. This called for the Concept Built-In Electrol 2 with our Toile Technique Infinity. This was entirely feasible in terms of space. However, it would have felt quite large if the sofa ended up closer than originally planned. Add to that the high ambient light levels from the large side windows, and you will easily understand why we advised Driss to go with the next screen size down.

Here is the AiOhc configuration as generated by our online design tool:

• In-ceiling projection screen, Image 260 x 146 cm, Infinity
• Definitive Technology in-ceiling Home Cinema audio system
• Denon AVR-X2600H Home Cinema amplifier
• 15 m fibre optic HDMI cable

A Home Cinema installation without the occasional hiccup would almost lose some of its charm. And simply telling you everything that went smoothly would not be the most useful thing we could do for you.

Here is an article focused on the adventures we had while overseeing Driss’s living room Home Cinema installation.

As a reminder: our role was to prepare the equipment layout and configure everything at the end of the build. This typically involves two visits:

• One during the installation phase
• A follow-up visit once the work is complete and the décor is in place. The lighting colour and style of decoration significantly affect both picture and sound quality. This final step is therefore essential for optimal calibration in harmony with the living space. 

First Visit: Home Cinema Installation During the Build

Installing the Projector Lift 

The team of tradespeople on site did an excellent job building an internal housing that provides access to the joists of the floor above. A power supply had been installed to feed AiOcontrol as requested — it serves as the hub connecting the projector lift, the projection screen, and the projector (more information on how AiOcontrol works in this article).

Installing the In-Ceiling Projection Screen

For the in-ceiling projection screen installation too, Driss’s father’s team did meticulous work. They built an internal housing frame that prevents the screen from being mounted directly onto the plasterboard cutout. This neat trick prevents dust from falling during screen installation or removal when necessary. The screen position perfectly matched our recommendations. The power cable had been neatly extended to reach the area of the motorised Home Cinema projector mount AluliftHC. This completed all the conditions required for integrating the AiOcontrol smartphone control module.

Integrating the 5.1 Home Cinema Speakers into the False Ceiling

The in-ceiling speakers in our audio systems are compact, high-performance, and very easy to install

The speakers in our Home Cinema audio system are designed to be easy to install. Once mounted in the ceiling, their grilles can be painted so they blend invisibly into the ceiling. All that remains is to play some audio, and they make their presence felt immediately. The front and rear speakers of the Audio System U feature a closed back enclosure, which allows them to reproduce sound with maximum power and clarity. The technicians here also did an excellent job positioning the speakers in the correct orientation. The front in-ceiling speakers have a square footprint — meaning they can be easily repositioned if installed incorrectly — while the surround in-ceiling speakers have a rectangular footprint. To get the most out of them, these must be aligned parallel to the screen. We did, however, recommend repositioning the left and right front speakers to each end of the screen.

If you pay close attention to their position in the photos, you will notice the difference between the construction phase and the finished Home Cinema.

The speaker question naturally leads us to cabling. And more broadly, to all the cabling involved in Driss’s living room Home Cinema installation. This is where the adventures begin…

Routing Audio and HDMI Cables Through the False Ceiling

Routing audio and HDMI cables is the sensitive part of a living room Home Cinema installation. Visible elements are very rarely positioned incorrectly — partly because we prepare thorough plans before installation begins, and partly because a “visible” component instantly catches the eye if it has any imperfection once it is mounted. Cabling is deceptive in that it tends not to receive much attention until you actually need it. Put another way: by the time everything is finished and making changes is difficult and costly.

In Driss’s project, the audio cables had been routed correctly, but the available length at the Home Cinema amplifier end seemed a little short. Same for the HDMI cable run. Our fibre optic HDMI cables are incredibly thin, flexible, and robust — but even with all these qualities, the cable was genuinely stuck at one point along the route between the lift area and the amplifier. The result: not enough cable length on the amplifier side, plenty on the projector side, and no way to pull it in either direction.

Our Tips for a Simple, Safe, and Future-Proof Cable Run

• Always run your cables inside conduit rather than loose inside the walls.
• If you cannot use conduit, make sure at every stage of the build that the cables remain free to move. In other words: if you pull it on one side, you should see it move on the other.
• If you do use conduit, make sure it is wide enough for the cable (particularly one with a connector, such as an HDMI cable) to be pulled through and replaced.
• Beyond avoiding potential headaches at the end of the build, you are future-proofing your Home Cinema installation in your living room. When technology moves on, you simply replace the old cable with the new one. 

As you can see: there is every reason to plan your HDMI cable run through walls and false ceilings properly. And as Murphy’s Law dictates, what had to happen, happened. We just had to wait for the next visit for it to do so.

Second Visit: Home Cinema Installation at the End of the Build

Being personally in charge of Driss’s project, I had come away from the first visit broadly reassured. The slightly short cable issue had come up on other jobs before. We would simply need to limit how far we moved the Home Cinema amplifier and accept that connecting everything would require a bit of contortion inside the TV unit.

Connecting the Home Cinema Amplifier 

Arriving at Driss’s home, I was confident that all the elements were correctly in place. And indeed they were. The in-ceiling projection screen and the AluliftHC motorised projector mount were perfectly installed and the decoration was essentially complete. I had already installed the AiOcontrol unit to give the technicians a hand during the previous visit. All that remained was to squeeze into the TV unit and connect everything up. But that plan was quickly derailed.

What Was Missing? 

An internet connection and a source device to connect to the Home Cinema amplifier.

More precisely: there was no way to find the Wi-Fi access credentials for the Freebox, which had been lost somewhere in the moving boxes. And the only available source was the Freebox TV box, which couldn’t get a network signal where it needed to be. In short, everything looked good in theory, but there was no way to properly verify anything. The inability to connect to the Wi-Fi network also prevented AiOcontrol from being connected to the home network for normal use. I explained to Driss how to use the direct connection mode to operate AiOcontrol without a local network. It works well, but the process is considerably simpler when everything is configured the standard way.

Our Recommendations for Your Home Cinema Network

• If you are moving home : get yourself some Google Wifi nodes (at least one). Set up your network in advance at your old home. Google Wifi replaces the Wi-Fi from your internet router. You become completely independent from your ISP’s home network. Changing your network name and password is effortless with the free Google Wifi app (Android or iOS). The key advantage is that, as soon as you move into your new home, you have exactly the same network as in your previous one (meaning no password updates needed across every phone and tablet in the house).

• If you are not moving: the ease of use and effectiveness of these compact units surpasses every Wi-Fi system we have tested so far. So if you don’t have them yet, get some. You will make your home network considerably easier to manage. 

Our Recommendations for Audio/Video Sources for Your Home Cinema Setup

If, like Driss, you are starting your living room Home Cinema from scratch, here are some top-tier options for a Home Cinema 3.0 setup. I have included links to the manufacturers’ websites in case you want to order.

Chromecast Ultra

The Chromecast Ultra is compact, incredibly easy to use, and remarkably effective. Stream content directly from apps on your smartphone (Android or iOS) — Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and many more. There are countless other uses, but that is a topic for another article, which we will cover independently very soon.

AppleTV

 If you are comfortable in the Apple ecosystem, it is an absolute must-have. L’AppleTV is just as intuitive to use as your iPad or iPhone, and it syncs seamlessly with your Apple account apps. It is the perfect replacement for your traditional TV box.

If you are more of an Android user: similar products have since been developed. We have tested the Nvidia ShieldTV, which is excellent.

These devices are affordable (between €79 and €250) and let you enjoy your content simply by connecting them to the internet. They perfectly replace your TV box without its drawbacks (such as requiring a powerline or direct Ethernet connection to the router). Navigation is more intuitive and you can access the same content via the various apps. In short, when you move home, there’s no need to wait for an engineer’s visit to enjoy your TV and Home Cinema in the living room. And if you change internet provider, you no longer have to endure learning a completely different interface.

All of this to say that it is vitally important to have your internet connection and at least one source device available as early as possible for testing (especially when we are handling the setup). Otherwise, just as with cabling, you only discover potential problems once everything is completely finished — and making changes at that point is inevitably far more complicated.
Having completed the tests and adjustments possible with the equipment available, we left having agreed on a next visit date for when everything would be ready.

Third Visit: Final Calibration of Driss’s Home Cinema

On the next visit, Driss had had his (very) large TV installed in the dedicated wall recess. He had also set up his AppleTV and Google Wifi network. We began testing the signal from the AppleTV to the projector. No image. Testing to the TV worked fine. Paul and I spent a good while going back and forth between the amplifier and the projector. Nothing worked. The projector refused to display any image. The Infinity technical screen fabric of our in-ceiling projection screen remained stubbornly grey.

We had seen the projector working on the previous visit, as the Denon Home Cinema amplifier’s menu had displayed fine on it. So there was no doubt that the fibre optic HDMI cable had been functioning correctly. We thought through what had changed since our last visit. Was there something obvious we were missing? The only option was to investigate through a series of systematic tests.

Resolving the HDMI Routing Issue

After testing each connection independently, one by one, and with different cables, we worked out what had happened: the fibre optic HDMI cable had snapped. We know exactly how our cables are made and how they work. They are incredibly robust — inside the sheath sits a fibreglass protection layer that surrounds the optical fibre. Breaking one of these fibre optic HDMI cables is, for all practical purposes, nearly impossible. One of the advantages of this type of cable over a traditional copper HDMI cable is that the connector is also far less susceptible to breaking at the junction point, thanks to its slimness.

The most logical explanation is therefore this: whoever mounted the TV on the wall between our two visits must also have squeezed into the TV unit and pulled out the Home Cinema amplifier. The very short cable length caused resistance when the amplifier was pulled out, and a connection gave way inside the HDMI connector.

We left having found no other solution than to return on a future visit with a wireless HDMI transmitter. For this, the DVDO Air 4K is the reference product (and I believe they are practically the only ones too).

Fourth Visit: Final Calibration of Driss’s Home Cinema

This visit was supposed to be the one. I arrived at Driss’s home alone, the DVDO Air 4K box under my arm, ready to sort the whole thing out in a matter of minutes. These wireless transmission systems really do work incredibly well. The 4K version costs €479 but remains far more economical than having a channel cut into the wall, plastered, and repainted. All you need to do is power each of the two units and connect one to the source and the other to the projector. Pairing happens almost instantly, and that is all there is to it. Of course, Murphy struck again. 

The Epson TW9400 Projector’s USB Power Output

There was no power outlet available in the false ceiling. I had therefore connected the receiver unit to one of the projector’s USB ports. The indicator lights were flashing as expected. Nothing to report, seemingly. Except that, once again, no image was coming through.

I then tested different conditions by moving the receiver unit elsewhere in the room. The image came through. In short, as soon as the unit was near the projector lift, the signal dropped out.

Tired and puzzled, I wondered whether there might be interference from the aluminium lift and its finishing kit — some kind of Faraday cage preventing the wireless HDMI signal from transmitting. Unable to identify the cause or find a solution, I packed the DVDO Air 4K wireless HDMI units back into their box and headed back to the office.

The Solution 

Wireless HDMI transmitters like the DVDO Air 4K draw a lot of current. And although they come with USB cables, they absolutely require a proper power outlet to function. The projector’s USB ports were just enough to light up the unit but not to power it properly. That is why my tests away from the projector were working: I was connecting the unit to a wall socket on the floor, not to the projector’s USB port.

Fifth Visit: Final Calibration of Driss’s Home Cinema

This time, it was Paul who went to Driss’s home to finalise the living room Home Cinema installation. He installed a junction box on the AiOcontrol power cable to connect the DVDO Air 4K wireless HDMI receiver unit. And there was light. Paul could head home relieved and happy, knowing our client was delighted.

Conclusion

This article ended up longer than planned. But it is one of the best examples of cascading problems triggered by a single small mistake at the outset. Had that cable been run through conduit, and had it been possible to pull it in either direction, none of this would have happened. We would not have learnt all of this to share with you either. So thank you, Driss 🙂

I hope this story has been just as valuable for you. Leave your questions in the comments — we will be happy to answer them. And if you are an audio/video professional or are planning a Home Cinema installation in your own living room, leave your email and let’s stay in touch.

Ready to take the next step? Read our complete guide on designing your take it further with a private cinema room with AV Concept Products.