This poolside movie theater at the gazebo is the result of quite literally thinking outside the box! It features a motorized outdoor movie screen.
Speaker and projector locations for the gazebo home theater system. Front left and rights (bright blue), subwoofers (green),
projector and screen (light blue), and control components (red).
Outdoor Home Theater Overview
This outdoor home theater project presented us with a broad spectrum of challenges.
Early in the project, a great opportunity presented itself- a home theater outdoor by the pool. A conventional gazebo was already planned for the space, so the challenge was to fit the projector and screen into the proposed theater in a way that was unobtrusive and functional.
Several geometries were considered. It was given that a motorized retractable rear projection screen and projector were the only option. However, because the home is located on the gulf coast, the possibility of hurricane force winds required the gazebo have 4 motorized roll-up doors, one for each opening.
Of course the presence of the storm doors only complicated matters because 
the retracting action of the motorized screen should not interfere with the storm shutters. Ronald Murphy, the project designer and manager determined, “with minimal impact on structural integrity, and no architectural changes, I found that a Blue Ocean rear-projection acrylic screen would just fit into tracks that run in parallel next to the storm shutter tracks. And the whole screen can just tuck into the roof. And by paying careful attention to the projector geometry and placement, the system produces a very nice 105" diagonal image.”
The next challenge was to determine where to locate the Yamaha RX-V1900 receiver- in the outdoor gazebo itself, or in the equipment room. We opted for installing the receiver in the control room. Two factors ultimately made the determination. First, the humid, salty gulf coast summer air is going to be tough on outdoor equipment. Second, there are 10 whole-house video sources that need to be connected to the receiver that are already installed in the control room.
In the end we chose a NeoPro Avalon 8x4 switcher to manage the audio and video switching, and an AudioControl BVD balanced driver, and BVR balanced receiver (located in the gazebo) handle front left, front right, subwoofer, and video transport. Less expensive power amplifiers in the gazebo drive the speakers. A Crestron CP2E also located in the gazebo controls the TV, projector, projector lift, C2N-SDC shade controls for the four roll-up shutters and the screen lift.
The whole project was a great success. All that was necessary was plenty of creativity, ingenuity and experience.
The owner noted “Its just great being able to watch a nice movie or ballgame outside in the beautiful summer evenings, and it is awesome to have access to the DVRs and Kaleidescape system out there. I’m really pleased with how this has turned out.”
Outdoor Home Theater Photos
Photos by Dana Hoff
