Salle de Cinéma — Home Cinema, Megève, France

One of the Best Home Cinema Rooms in France

It is a bold claim, but we strongly believe this will be one of the finest home cinema rooms — salle de cinéma privée — in France, certainly in the Megève area. This 600m² eight-bedroom chalet has everything a client could need: ski-in ski-out access, an indoor pool and spa complex, a heliport and a huge garage. Its private cinema room, currently in build, is designed to rival commercial cinemas: a 4m curved projector screen, a Sony BRAVIA Projector 9, Trinnov Altitude16 processing and an 11.4.2 Dolby Atmos system of Artcoustic loudspeakers hidden behind wool-lined fabric walls.

The Technology

The hand-stretched wall fabric is fitted to a custom track system creating a shallow void around the entire room. This void houses the 11.4.2 Dolby Atmos speaker system and carefully positioned acoustic treatments. The audio comprises five front channel speakers behind the acoustically transparent screen (including two wide speakers), surround speakers level with each row, a further pair on the rear wall, and four subwoofers — each with three 10″ long-throw drivers. Two ceiling speakers provide Dolby Atmos height channels. The room has been extensively acoustically modelled and will exceed reference levels at all listening positions.

The fabric walls follow the construction we use on every cinema we build: stud work across the treated walls, acoustic fleece in the voids alongside the concealed speakers, our engineered track system fixed to the studwork, and a mineral wool or fibreglass acoustic core behind the stretched fabric. In front of the speakers and behind the screen we specify an open-weave acoustic cloth, chosen alongside the speaker specification so it doesn’t dull high frequencies on their way into the room. Where a panel conceals a speaker that may need future access, it is built removable, so a service visit never means cutting into a finished wall. Every element of the room — screen, projection, processing, loudspeakers, acoustics and seating — has been designed as a single system rather than a collection of individual products, drawing on each of our core cinema services.

Trinnov Altitude16 Processing

At the heart of the system is a Trinnov Altitude16 processor. It provides up to 20 discrete audio channels, which accommodate the full 11.4.2 layout, and decodes every current immersive format: Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro and Auro-3D. Active crossovers and bass management are handled inside the processor, and Trinnov’s WaveForming bass technology is exclusive to the Altitude platform.

The Trinnov Optimizer uses a tetrahedral 3D measurement microphone to map the position of every loudspeaker to within a centimetre and a degree of arc, builds an acoustic model of the room and applies three-dimensional correction. Crucially, it calibrates for multiple listener positions — the best possible experience from every seat, not just the central sweet spot. For a cinema room in a chalet that hosts a constantly changing roster of guests, this is a critical feature. As with every system we install, full calibration is a mandatory part of the handover, not an optional extra: speaker levels, distances, crossover points and equalisation are measured and set in the finished room, and the Atmos height layer is calibrated with the same care as the main channels.

Sony BRAVIA Projector 9

Projection is by Sony’s BRAVIA Projector 9 (VPL-XW8100ES): native 4K SXRD panels, a Z-Phosphor laser light source rated at 3,400 lumens, and Sony’s XR Processor handling dynamic HDR tone mapping. That brightness headroom matters on a 4m acoustically transparent screen, where image size and screen material both eat into the light reaching the audience. The motorised 2.1x zoom lens with lens shift and picture position memory gives the flexibility to set the image precisely to the curved screen. Native 4K panels mean every one of the 3840 × 2160 pixels is resolved directly rather than shifted, which is what holds fine detail together at this screen size and seating distance. Video calibration to the screen and room is carried out alongside the audio calibration once the room is complete.

Artcoustic Loudspeakers

The 11.4.2 array uses Artcoustic loudspeakers. Their high sensitivity makes reference-level dynamics achievable with comparatively modest amplifier power, and Artcoustic’s array speakers meet and exceed the Dolby Atmos output requirement of 105–115dB at the reference listening position. Hidden behind the fabric walls and the acoustically transparent screen, the loudspeakers disappear entirely, leaving nothing on view but the room itself. The pairing with Trinnov is deliberate: every loudspeaker is affected by the room it sits in, and a reference Artcoustic array calibrated to its specific room can be corrected to perform with extraordinary precision. The five-speaker front stage behind the screen, including the two wides, gives the soundfield a continuous sweep across the full width of the 4m screen.

Seating for Eight

Custom-designed and built seating for eight, all fully motorised. As on every cinema we design, the seating was specified as part of the room design rather than selected afterwards: row positions, row heights and seat configurations are fixed during the acoustic and layout design phase, ensuring correct sightlines to the screen from every seat and enough spacing for each seat to recline fully without impacting the row behind. The seating layout also sets the surround speaker positions, level with each row, and the listening positions the Trinnov calibration is optimised for. Finish and mechanism are agreed before the room is built, so the seating arrives ready to install into a space designed to receive it. More on our cinema seating →

Alps Cinema — Megève

Custom Controls has been delivering ski chalet cinema and smart home installations across the French Alps for over a decade. Megève, Courchevel, Méribel, Val d’Isère and Les Gets are all within our regular installation geography. For clients with Alpine properties who want a cinema room at this level, this Megève installation is our reference project for the region. Our Alps team is based in Montriond and works in French, and chalet projects are specified for the realities of mountain properties: equipment that operates reliably through winter shutdowns and rapid reheating, thick timber and stone construction that needs a specialist cabling strategy, and owners who expect everything to work the moment they arrive. Remote monitoring means we can often resolve an issue before the owner has even landed. More on our Alpine chalet work →

Frequently Asked Questions — Megève Chalet Cinema

Why does a multi-guest chalet cinema need Trinnov processing?
Trinnov’s room correction calibrates audio for multiple listening positions simultaneously, rather than optimising only for a central sweet spot — essential in a chalet like this one, hosting a constantly changing roster of guests across every seat in the room.

Which processor, projector and speakers are specified?
The room is built around a Trinnov Altitude16 processor, a Sony BRAVIA Projector 9 (VPL-XW8100ES) native 4K laser projector and Artcoustic loudspeakers, in an 11.4.2 Dolby Atmos layout.

How are speakers concealed within fabric-lined walls?
Hand-stretched wool-lined fabric is fitted to a custom track system creating a shallow void around the entire room, housing the full 11.4.2 speaker array and acoustic treatments completely out of sight.

What else does this Megève chalet feature?
The 600m², eight-bedroom chalet housing this cinema room also includes ski-in ski-out access, an indoor pool and spa complex, a heliport and a large garage — one of the most comprehensively specified alpine properties we have worked on.

Is the Megève cinema room finished?
Not yet — the room is currently in build. The acoustic modelling is complete, and the design is set to exceed reference levels at every listening position.

Alpine Smart Home & Cinema → · Trinnov Home Cinema → · Artcoustic Speakers → · Home Cinema Installation → · International Projects →

Project Gallery

The cinema room as designed: fabric-lined walls concealing the speaker system, a timber-clad ceiling, timber shelving and custom motorised seating for eight. The fabric finish runs uninterrupted around the room, with no visible speakers or cables. Seating, wall finish and ceiling have been designed together as one scheme, so the technology reads as part of the chalet’s interior rather than an addition to it.