For years Greg Howell dreamed of creating a home theater but never owned a house with the right kind of room. When he bought a spacious townhouse he wasted no time turning the previous owner's basement office into a comfortable home theater.

"We enjoyed picking out the paint and border. It is a fun room, so we could be creative. We built the platform for the seating, painted the sconces, and hung the curtains - and we did it all on a shoestring budget".

Now Greg and his partner host frequent "dinner and movie" nights; "It gives us a chance to catch up with friends, and then later discuss the movie". The theater has been a big hit; "The most common response we get when people first see it is that it is so much better than going out to the movies. They also want to know how we built it and how much it cost".

At the heart of Greg's theater is Panasonic's high definition PT-AE700 home theater projector (now replaced by the Panasonic PT-AE900U). "The Panasonic is extremely easy to set up. My installation basically consisted of sitting the projector on the back shelf, adjusting the offset knob on the front, zooming to the right size and focusing the image on the screen".

To add punch to the movies he screens, Greg also invested in Tactile Transducers which he has mounted on the platform that supports the seats.

"The platform is isolated from the floor by kinetic rubber isolating feet. The entire platform shakes, which gives a more realistic low frequency effect. It actually feels like the ground is shaking under you, which it is. (That) always impresses guests, you can't get that in a normal theater and it adds another level of tactile enjoyment to the movie. Until you have felt the low frequency rumble of an action movie, you haven't really experienced it in full".