How to plan a home cinema.
Five things to get right before you spend, drawn from 200-plus residential cinema projects. Read it in five minutes, then use the calculator to put numbers to your own room.
Start with the room.
The room decides almost everything: screen size, speaker placement, seating, how much treatment and joinery is needed. Choose the space before the kit. Get it right and a £15,000 cinema can outperform a £50,000 one that wasn't planned. A dedicated room of around 4.8 by 3.6 metres comfortably seats four to six.
Set a realistic budget band.
UK home cinemas fall into three bands: entry-level at £10,000 to £20,000, mid-range at £25,000 to £50,000, and high-performance from £60,000 to over £100,000. Decide which band fits before you fall in love with a spec, then build within it. The cinema cost calculator gives you an indicative figure in a minute.
Spend where it counts.
Acoustic treatment, the room and calibration are invisible on a spec sheet and decisive in the chair. Spend there before you spend on a bigger projector. Skip what your room doesn't need: Dolby Atmos in a small low-ceilinged room, a starlight ceiling, bespoke seating, a full rebuild. None are required for a cinema you'll love.
Plan for calibration.
Most UK cinemas are never calibrated and perform at perhaps 60% of what the equipment can do. SMPTE-aligned video and multi-point audio measurement are what turn good kit into a finished room. Make sure it's included, we won't sign a room off without it.
Know the process.
A cinema project runs in five stages: consultation and room survey, a written design, a fixed line-by-line quotation, in-house installation, and calibration with a handover report. Fixed pricing comes before the first cable, and the timeline is set in the design document before any kit is ordered.
Cost your own cinema.
Use the calculator for an indicative figure, or book a showroom visit to hear the tiers for yourself.