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When building a home theater or movie theater it is important to keep in mind the size of your family or the audience you plan to entertain. There are several elements to consider when designing home theatre seating for multiple people. Buyers should keep these elements in mind when deciding among the traditional options of movie theater sectionals, sofas, loungers and gliders to complete their home theater. Below are a few of the things to keep in mind when designing a home theater for multiple viewers.

Design of Home Theater Furniture

The traditional couch is not recommended for your home theater. Theater seating for multiple viewers consists of movie theater sectionals and sofas that are curved to allow all viewers the best view of the screen. Individuals designing their home theater for multiple viewers should ensure their movie theater sectionals or sofas are arranged in an arc, this limits the amount of neck twisting and turning necessary to watch the screen and optimizes the comfort of the viewers. All of Theater Seat Store media room sectionals and multiple person seating options are designed in an arc to best facilitate comfortable viewing for your audience.

Floor Space

living roomThe floor space requirement for your theater seats depends on the number of seats you plan to put in. The actual requirement will depend on the model and size of your selected movie theater sectional or seating.

The rule of thumb is that if you will be making use of home theater chairs designed to be mounted in a row, you should allow for a minimum of 24 inches per seat plus the extra requirement for each row to include the armrest for the end seat.

As to the spacing between rows, allow for approximately 20 inches clearance between chairs. So if you are making use of a movie theater sectional whose overall dept is 28 inches, then the spacing between adjacent rows measured from identical points on two rows should be 48 inches or 28″ + 20″ clearance between rows. If you are pressed for space, the clearance between rows may be reduced slightly but aim for no less than 14 inches between theater seat rows.

Allow for at least 30-inches aisle space on either side of your movie theater sectional or seating to access each row of seats. An aisle behind your back row is not necessary. Using these guidelines, you can design your home theater for multiple viewers while maximizing the space of your home theater.

Screen Visibility for Multiple Viewers

home theaterHaving multiple viewers can also change the dynamics and design of how your audience views the screen. The issue here is that there is an optimum viewing distance within which the viewer’s visual experience is maximized. A sort of a de-facto standard are the recommendations by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers  (SMPTE) – which if translated in practical terms, would yield the twice-the-screen-width or 2D where D is the screen width, as the optimum screen to seating position distance.

Basically, this 2 D viewing distance corresponds to a 30 degrees horizontal angle of view and 15 degrees vertical angle of vision.

The only minor reservation is that this optimum viewing distance is most suited to an HDTV signal.  The closer you get to the screen, the more likely you will be able to see the ‘image build-up structure’ – scanning lines or image pixels.

This means that in the case of a standard definition video signal unless you employ line doublers and depixelization filters you will be better off sitting at three times the screen width even though this corresponds to a smaller angle of view. When dealing with multiple viewers it is important to not implement seating that obstructs another’s view. Many home theaters implement a tiered system to ensure everyone has a clear line of sight to the screen.

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