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People who own, sell, or install home theaters in the region point to a growing interest in creating separate rooms for watching movies:

• Nationally, sales of items commonly used in theaters are up more than 30 percent in the past year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

• Richard Freeman, an architect from The Design Alliance, Downtown, says he is designing a home theater that might amount to $400,000 when it's finished.

• Dr. Greg Long of Jackson, Butler County, had a home theater in mind when he began planning his home. His $30,000 entertainment venue has been in operation since "day one" of the house, he says.

• Chris Leonard, installation manager at The Stereoshop in Greensburg, says 75 percent of his company's work is connected to home theaters, from "adding $500 surround sound systems to dedicated rooms that go to six digits. You can go as crazy as you want."

And there is a variety of ways to approach the jobs.

"Everybody wants the same thing, but everybody needs something different," says Mark Mawhinney, owner of Northern Audio and Home Theatre in Ross.

For many people, home theaters are a way of going to the movies without worrying about getting there on time.

"People don't want to leave their houses," says Tom King, owner of Custom Audio in Carnegie. "They're too busy and they want it all right there in the house with family and friends."

Mawhinney agrees.

"You just don't want to sit next to eight kids chewing gum and talking on their cell phones," he says. "There is something out there for everyone, it's just finding out what."

The big picture

Tom King from Carnegie's Custom Audio says simply "business is booming."

Home theater installers and dealers say the advent of high definition television -- commonly called HDTV -- can be given the most credit for spurring interest in the projects.

An HDTV-ready monitor is made to accept broadcast in a mode that sends pictures using more than twice the number of lines of light, thus creating a more sophisticated image. More programs are being broadcast this way, which uses a range of the digital broadcast band.

"HDTV really got the ball rolling," says Carl Sandulli, vice president of engineering sales and service at Cine Tech in Forest Hills.

It's difficult to determine the extent of home theater popularity because the jobs range from adding a large television in the family room to installing dedicated theaters that have screens, snack bars and non-working ticket windows. In that total sweep, the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association in Indianapolis estimates 28 percent of U.S. households have one.

Sean Wargo, director of industry analysis for the Consumer Electronics Association in Virginia, agrees home theater popularity is hard to measure. He says, however, sales of two items that often show up in the jobs indicate growth.

Flat-panel television sales nearly tripled from 2003 to 2004, he says, going from just under a million to 2.7 million.

Componentry known as "home-theater-in-a-box" rose 34 percent to 4.9 million units in that same time, Wargo says. That colloquial name refers to packages that most home theater owners use to provide sound for their installation. It generally consists of speakers, a video disc player and a receiver.

The entertainment rooms not only are providing fun for their users, they are becoming a strong element in the sale of homes.

"If people are looking at a home and don't see the media room, they are often disappointed," Sandulli says.

Howard W. Hanna III, CEO of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, says home theaters have become, "like kitchens or master baths," home additions that bring back the amount of money that are put into them. Not only are they cost-effective, they sometimes make a house sell faster, he adds.

All of the options

Anesthesiologist Long is comfortable about the value his home theater has added to his house -- so he's adding another viewing area.

"I have no reservations whatsoever," he says. "People are looking for these things."

His theater, with an 11-foot screen and reclining seating for 12, was ready for operation when his house was complete in 2001. He is adding another front-projection system to a room in the basement that will be a bar.

King, from Custom Audio, says all the options make home theaters tempting for homeowners. He and other video experts talk about the rivalry between plasma and digital light projection.

Plasma sets use gas heated in tiny cells to create images, while digital light projection uses a light source reflecting off tens of thousands of microscopic mirrors to do the job. Then there are the liquid crystal display systems that create cells of color and the cathode ray tube machines, which are greatly updated traditional TVs.

A large cathode ray set will provide a home theater image in a small room, Sandulli says.

For a large, theater-like screen, experts point to the projection system.

While some of those high-end projects can cost upward of $100,000, Mawhinney says the price of equipment is making the jobs more reasonable. The technicians agree $15,000 is an average price, but Mawhinney has a projection system he shows off at his headquarters he says he can install for "just under $12,000."

Leonard believes the best home theaters involve projection images, and an efficient one can be installed for less than $10,000.

Whatever price, the purpose seems to be the most important element. Mangan says owners want to "make movies a family event. There's more cocooning going on."

Long says he has favorite movies of his sister and mother electronically filed and easily accessible for when they visit. He also says he has had great response to use of the theater at parties, when friends drift in and out of screenings.

Home theaters are more than just room for viewing, Freeman says. Most of the owners are simply trying to make their houses more comfortable.

"Call them TV freaks, movie geeks, it doesn't matter," he says of theater owners. "They're home."

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