Basement Home Theatre options?

[SportTwin]

Cheat sheet for a home theater (from someone who is working on it now):
Monoprice for cables and connectors. Keystone jacks are awesome, I didn't appreciate them until I ran them in my last two places. I'll never go back.
Get 4K capable, active cables even if you aren't using it today. The investment will save time and probably money in the future. *** Make sure you run them in the right orientation. There's a source and a destination for active cables: accuracy counts.
Run Cate5e minimum or Cat6 for the projector. If you are running one, then run two and 1Gbps is the minimum, Cat5 will disappoint if you want to run any UHD stuff in the future. The cost difference on the actual cable is really small, even if you leave it curled up in the wall. If you run into problems with the original run it will save lots of time and money to just use the second cable.
Conduit is awesome. Use it if its in the budget and the ceiling is open. I picked up some 2" conduit from home depot for like $12/10' and pvc glue for like $7 a can. Grab a bag of brackets and run it as much as you can. It will seriously make any future work super easy so that it doesn't matter what you want to run in the future. Add $5 for a length of mason's string and run 4 or 5 strings through the conduit so that you can pull in whatever you need in the future.
As mentioned, be sure to run an outlet to the ceiling.
If you are in doubt, buy extra cable and run it. I'm not expecting to run composite for my HT, but I have run it. Component too. 4k HDMI, check. CAT6 x2. Anything to prevent having to work inside drywall in the future. In ceiling/in wall work once the finishing is done is a major hassle.

[eblend]

Get an automated screen. Most projectors have a hookup which will allow the screen to drop once the projector is turned on, and go back up once you turn it off.

I build my basement about 8 years ago and just have a 1080p, but I got two HDMI and two CAT6 back there already just in case, with power plug and everything for a clean install. Conduit wouldn't work in my situation but definitely look into that if you can run it without too many corners. When I did my in-wall speakers I got them from Monoprice as well, but I build boxes for them which are hidden in walls. Not sure if needed but they sound great and no vibration. My boxes are just 2x4s, with MDF backing, and completely covered in BQuiet material I had laying around from my old car audio days. I prewired for 7.2 but just run 7.1. Make sure you do sound deadening insulation, the more the better really. There is a whole science if you want to go hardcore, but I just did roxul stuff. You can buy special green (if I recall correctly) glue and double up on drywall, sound isolating channels for drywall ect. Lots of options if you want to go hardcore.

Here are some pics of mine:

[b_t]

I got an Anthem receiver. They are expensive and seem like they don't have much wattage and bells and whistles compared to other receivers, which is probably true. Except you will literally go deaf cranking any receiver these days, the wattage ratings are conservative (vs. hugely inflated as is typical with, say, Onkyo), and you probably don't need that extra shit anyway. The sound quality of an Anthem is just way, way better than any other receiver I've heard, and the room correction is leagues better than pretty much any competing algorithm too.. it's so good they sell it for use in audio studios too as a separate module.

+1 to the Benq 1070 recommendation

The performance for your dollar in a dark room with the 1070 is just unbeatable. You have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars more to get a better picture... putting that money towards a screen or better light control will probably go further than stepping up to a more expensive projector.

However, on giant screens you really can appreciate the extra detail of 4K. prices on 4K projectors just dropped hugely - availability still sucks, you'd be an early adopter, but on my 100" screen I find myself wishing it was 4K more and more these days.

[imranm]

Thanks.

I'm deciding between a budget optoma 142x on sale at Costco for $650 and the benq1070 For $899 put the benq2050 for $950

Thoughts?