Tips and Tricks - Part 1

Media rooms come in all sorts of shapes—big and small, long and short, tall and wide. The key is to making your room work for you. Tha Media Room has a couple tips and trucks up our sleeves to share with you to help achieve the best setup.

Make the screen the focus. This is a great rule to follow, especially if for any reason you’re unable to incorporate a supersized TV or projection screen. Use what you have and put it in a prominent position in the room.

Curtains are your friend. If black out shades aren’t on the menu—or simply aren’t your style—consider using heavy curtains on any windows in your media room to block out light. The same curtains and style can be used to frame your screen, which also imitates those used commonly used in cinemas.

If you’re intent on using your media room for watching only, then don’t be afraid to go dark. Black leather seating like media chairs or sofas and black or charcoal walls will make the space seem dark and quiet—perfect to kick back and watch your favorite film. Keep the theme up by incorporating dark accents in pillows, lamps and more.

Stay tuned for Part 2.....

Snap, Crackle and Pop

Today’s post is all about the fun part when it comes to media rooms: the snacks. Tha Media Room presents a tasty trio of recipes for munch-worthy treats in front of your big screen.

Popcorn Balls

Ingredients

2 cups sugar

1 1/3 cups water

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

18 cups popped corn

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, water, syrup, vinegar, and salt. Cook over high heat until mixture reaches 255 degrees F (hard-ball stage) on a candy thermometer. Stir in vanilla. Pour over popped corn, tossing gently to coat. When mixture is cool enough to handle, press popcorn into 3-inch balls with lightly greased hands. Cool completely on waxed paper.

Chex and The City Mix

Toss 4 or 5 cups Chex cereal and 1 1/2 cups goldfish crackers in a roasting pan with 1/3 cup teriyaki sauce and 4 tablespoons melted butter. Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on paper towels and cool slightly, then toss with wasabi peas and chow mein noodles.

Parmesan Popcorn
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Toss hot popcorn with oil to coat evenly, then toss with Parmesan mixture.

Now that you’ve got the popcorn, contact Tha Media Room to start on or finish up your perfect media space today!

Light Me Up!

Media rooms often focus on the screen, the seating and the size. But one of the top ways to personalize your media room is with lighting. There’s an abundance of ways to accomplish this, so Tha Media Room “lights in” to a two-part blog series with illuminating ways to brighten up your space.

If you aren’t interested in completely overhauling your current media room lighting system, that’s okay. There are other ways to reinvent the bulb just enough to make it feel cool and customized for your next big movie night. At the top of the list are dimmer switches. These bad boys make mood lighting a cinch. Bright, dim or dark, you can adjust these easily-installed switches to achieve the perfect luminosity for the occasion. If you’re snacking while the movie’s on and need to see your food or if it’s a lights-out occasion, dimmer switches are a great way to personalize your space.

Preset lighting is another viable option for media rooms. Similar to the idea of dimmer switches, programming your lighting to immediately switch to a pre-determined level (other than simply on or off) saves time and effort when you’re ready to flip on the show. Remember, natural lighting isn’t media friendly. It inhibits the view of the screen and doesn’t tend to add to a theater ambiance. If you have windows in your media room, consider black out curtains to avoid unwanted rays.

Seeing in 3D

It’s all the rage in today’s high-tech world, and the local movie theaters are peddling 3D tickets right and left. Every other film being released out of Hollywood is coming in a 3D version—and you’ve actually started keeping those flimsy plastic glasses for your next trip to the Cinemark.

That’s where we’ve got good news. You can have your own 3D theater experience right in the comfort of your own home! Tha Media Room is no stranger to keeping up with the times. After all, we specialize in tech-savvy materials every day. Plus, keeping up with the latest demands spurred on by all those glitzy movie stars makes our world go ‘round.

Take Samsung, for example. Their whopping 65-inch 8000 series television screen (pictured) comes in cinema-quality 3D and full HD 1080p 2D. What an amazing view! The impressive LED picture quality is just the beginning. Not only will your films swoop into real life, but you can also sync other media devices to the system as well. Samsung provides a series of apps (a rage we can thank the iPhone for!) that allow you to stream movies from Netflix or Blockbuster, YouTube videos, Pandora music stations and even view the latest updates on your Twitter account. A little blue birdy told us so. But don’t take his word for it. Contact Tha Media Room today and place your order for the next experience in TV enjoyment.