If you’re undertaking the endeavor of creating a dedicated theater room in your home, there’s some industry-specific terminology you should probably be familiar with. If you’re worried you’ve just opened a Pandora’s Box of movie theater and tech terms; don’t. We only picked our top 20. Ever heard of a pocketbook dictionary? This is kind of like a digital version of that, for home theater stuff.
- 4K Resolution: Currently the second highest-quality image resolution available, 4K resolution is 4096×2160 pixels, whereas Ultra HD is only 3840×2160.
- 8K Resolution: The best of the best – 7680×4320 pixel resolution.
- Ambient light: Any light in the room that isn’t from your audiovisual tech or lighting.
- Active Speaker: A speaker that has an amplifier built into it.
- Anechoic: Meaning sound doesn’t bounce around the room. The desired result of quality soundproofing.
- Bass Shakers: These are usually found in the bottom of bass theater seats. They’re integrated with the sound system and add a tactile experience to sounds via vibration.
- Class 2 & 3 Cables: The correct types of cables to run through your walls when installing your sound system.
- Comfort Index: A proprietary analytic method of determining the quality of comfort in a home theater recliner. Takes into account postural support, pressure distribution, ergonomics, and material resiliency.
- Contrast Ratio: The range of lightest to darkest shades of color your projector can achieve.
- Decibels: A measurement of loudness. 0dB is the low threshold, 130dB is where sound starts to hurt.
- Full-Grain Leather: Our favorite leather for home theater seating – especially theater loveseats and couches – full-grain leather is natural cow hide that’s only been tanned. Highest quality type of leather.
- HDMI Cords: They make life easier. HDMI cords translate all the audiovisual info from a device to your projector or TV digitally.
- LED Lighting: Used as ambient light either in the base of home theater chairs or as theater seating accessory accents like LED-lit cup holders.
- Leggett-Platt Mechanism: A solid wood and steel, ergonomic reclining method used in wall-hugger theater furniture design. Saves horizontal space when reclined and distributes support evenly across the body.
- PQ: Picture quality.
- Short-Throw Projector: A type of overhead mounted projector able to cast a large image onto a screen from a short distance away. Good for small home theater rooms or basement media rooms.
- Tactile Transducers: A fancy term for the bass shakers in theater seats.
- Vegan Leather: A non-leather fabric alternative for multimedia chairs and couches. It looks and feels like leather, but is not an animal products.
- Viewing Cone: The ideal “cone” of angles where your theater seating should be arranged, so every viewer has the same quality viewing experience.
- Weight Capacity: The max weight the frame of the movie chair can safely hold.