Basement Home Cinema Installation — Baker Street, London

Crestron Digital Media Basement Home Cinema

This basement home cinema room sits within the same Baker Street townhouse as our award-winning whole-home Crestron installation — the project that won Custom Controls the Crestron Integration Award for Most Innovative Control Solution, and the first Crestron Digital Media installation in the UK. The client has access to a full range of centralised sources — Sky HD, Kaleidescape DVD server, ArabSat, Apple TV and radio — all displayed on a Panasonic 50″ HD Plasma with a Bowers & Wilkins CM9 speaker system providing the audio. This room reportedly has the most daily use of any cinema we have ever installed: when the family is in residence, the children use it every day, and after bedtime the clients use it for films as a couple.

The System

Although closer in design to our living room cinema systems, this dedicated basement room genuinely performs. Its compact scale allows the speaker system to create an immersive experience that a larger room with the same equipment would not produce. The Bowers & Wilkins CM9 speakers, with front left, centre and right channels anchored to the screen, deliver a full, rich sound stage well suited to both film and music. The Kaleidescape server stores the client’s DVD and CD collection for instant access, and the Denon AVR decodes and distributes all sources cleanly.

Even in a compact room, the result depends on the disciplines we apply to every cinema we design. Room layout, speaker positioning, source selection and control are specified together rather than as separate packages. Today, room correction calibration is standard on every London cinema we install, and it is carried out in the finished room as part of the handover.

Why a Basement Works

London basements are acoustically ideal for cinema rooms: the structural mass of the surrounding soil provides inherent isolation, and the depth below the living areas gives bass energy a significant buffer before it can reach any shared surfaces. That makes the basement the natural place for a family cinema used by the children during the day and by the clients late in the evening. The sources themselves are held centrally and delivered over the same Crestron Digital Media system that serves every other room in the house, so the cinema has exactly the same content available as the rest of the home.

Crestron Control

A Crestron 6″ radio touchpanel controls all audio video sources alongside full heating and Crestron lighting control. One button press switches all equipment on and routes the correct source automatically. The same touchpanel philosophy runs throughout the rest of the property — this cinema room draws on the same centralised Crestron sources and control system as every other room in the award-winning whole-home installation. The system has been mastered easily by non-English-speaking family and staff — a measure of how well-designed the Crestron interface is when programmed correctly.

Across the house, the interface proved so intuitive that the client turned down training altogether. That is the standard we still hold every Crestron programme to: a well-designed programme is self-evident, so a guest or a member of staff who has never used the system before can operate it correctly. Programmes are written around how the client actually lives — how the cinema room is used, what the household staff need to operate and what the children should be able to use without instruction.

Part of an Award-Winning Installation

This cinema room is one element of the wider Baker Street whole-home Crestron system — eight audio zones, eight HD video zones, full lighting control, Axis IP CCTV and the first UK installation of Crestron Digital Media, all integrated into a single interface. Digital Media distributes any source to any of the eight TVs simultaneously over Cat5e cable, while an audio matrix plays any source, including DAB radio, through ceiling speakers in each room. Hitachi air conditioning across multiple zones and the Axis cameras are controlled from the same touchpanels, and iPhone control allows audio video, lighting and heating to be managed from anywhere in the world.

The installation won the pan-European 2010 Crestron Integration Award for Most Innovative Control Solution and became an official Crestron case study. It is one of the projects behind Custom Controls’ standing as 5 x Crestron Integration Award winners — a record unique in EMEA.

Where It Started

This Baker Street installation is one of Custom Controls’ earliest documented bespoke home cinema case studies. The Crestron system in this basement was built on exactly the same philosophy as the Crestron systems we install today: one interface for everything, programmed bespoke for how the client actually uses the room. Reportedly the most heavily used room in our entire portfolio, it has become part of the family’s daily routine rather than an occasional indulgence. For clients who want evidence that Custom Controls has been delivering consistent-quality, award-winning Crestron installations for longer than most of our competitors have been in business, this basement cinema is one of the earliest available reference points.

Frequently Asked Questions — Baker Street Cinema

Is this cinema room part of the award-winning Baker Street installation?
Yes. This basement cinema sits within the same townhouse as our whole-home Crestron system, which won the pan-European 2010 Crestron Integration Award for Most Innovative Control Solution as the first UK installation of Crestron Digital Media.

Which sources can the cinema room play?
Sky HD, a Kaleidescape DVD server, ArabSat, Apple TV and radio. They are held centrally and distributed over the house’s Crestron Digital Media system, so the cinema draws on the same sources as every other room.

Can a compact basement room deliver genuine cinema performance?
Yes. The smaller scale of this room actually works in its favour — the Bowers & Wilkins CM9 speaker system creates a more immersive experience here than the same equipment would produce in a larger space.

Is a Crestron system easy to use for the whole household?
Yes. This installation is used daily by both English and non-English-speaking family members and staff, with one button press switching on every piece of equipment and routing the correct source automatically.

Can you update an older cinema room like this one?
Yes. For cinema rooms that have fallen behind current audio and video formats, we offer full takeover, renovation and recalibration, as well as ongoing service and remote Crestron programming updates.

Baker Street Whole-Home Crestron Installation → · Home Cinema Installation → · Crestron → · Home Cinema Installer London → · Crestron Installer London → · London Office →

Project Gallery

The basement cinema at Baker Street, with a large film-quote artwork running along the side wall and deep, comfortable seating facing the screen. The Panasonic plasma sits within timber-panelled joinery, with the centre speaker directly below it and the equipment housed in the cabinetry beneath. The second image shows the Crestron handheld touchpanel that runs the whole room, resting on the arm of the sofa in front of the screen.