No, no, no!! I am not going to give any technical ‘gyan’ on setting up a home theatre system. Most of you would know it much better than me. I am certainly not going to endorse a brand of home theatre system nor am I going to ‘crib’ on the fact that despite 3 years of working I failed to own a world class ‘personal movie theatre’ system dedicated for the sole purpose of screening movies and TV serial for me (though the idea is tempting… :P).
What would you do if you are filled with an ‘emptiness of sort’ towards the end of a weekend? Well!! It doesn’t really matter (for this post at least) what you would do – what matters is what I did. I (as any well-educated guy would do) thought of intellectually analyzing the problem. To be honest I owe my bread & butter to the profession of ‘analyzing’ and hold my degrees (both graduate and post graduate) in areas which are deemed to be ‘closely related to Analysis’. Needless to say that I have claimed this personal trait as one of my ‘biggest strengths’ in almost all the interviews I appeared since graduation days. So, after much deliberation it dawned on me that the sudden bout of emptiness was just because I did not watch any movie in the weekend. I revealed this terrific insight to my dear friend Mithilesh (Yeah, yeah!! He is a superstar to all those who know him) and as a compassionate friend he immediately quipped – ‘Chal, kaun si movie dekhni hai (Which movie do you want to see)?’ This exercise also calls for deep analytical skills especially if all the movies being screened during that time are insipid to say the least. I had carried out this exercise on Friday itself and knew that none of the movies ‘Cocktail’, ‘Bol Bachchan’ & ‘Abraham Lincoln – Vampire Hunter’ has the potential of taking away that feeling of ‘hollowness’ from me.
‘Let’s watch some movie from your collection then. You have so many movies on your hard disk.’ He suggested.
‘Yeah, but watching on laptop would not give that kind of thrill which I seek right now.’ I said ‘grimly’.
‘Who said we are going to watch it on laptop?’ there was a twinkle in his eyes.
And hence we started with a recipe of creating a very own personal movie theatre.
Key Ingredients:
1 Projector (Though we have made rapid strides, projector still is slightly out of reach for common man. Not so much for Mithilesh as he belongs to the media community)
1 Good quality speaker system (Again no difficulty in finding it out at Mithilesh’s place… :P)
1 large wall or white sheet to screen the movie (Considering the realty scenario in the country, a desirable screen dimension may be difficult especially in Metro towns)
High Definition movies collection (I am fortunate to have some good movies in HD print on my hard disk)
Key Steps:
Step 1: Switch on the laptop
Step 2: Connect it with the Hard Disk to ensure that hard disk still has life in it … :P
Step 3: Connect the Projector to the laptop and adjust the settings and focus to create a great visual experience
Step 4: Connect the ‘High Quality’ speaker system to complete the setup
Simple steps!! Aren’t they? (especially when you have all the ingredients ready). We decided to watch the twin movies of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) in the run up to the ‘Epic Conclusion’ releasing this weekend. We had created the perfect setting – but before the sense of satisfaction crept in, Murphy’s Law took over the control. My ‘office issued’ laptop suddenly became ‘moody’ and developed a snag – the audio would not become ‘loud enough’ to create the cinema experience despite the deployment of the ‘High Quality’ speaker system.
We immediately switched to another laptop but that also failed – the slot where we fit in the cable of the projector was found to be defective and hence though the sound quality was excellent, the visuals were restricted to the laptop screen thereby defeating the purpose. We sweated out to find the solution. At one instance I thought of improvising one of the strategies we used to employ while in college – in case of lag between video and audio, we used to play the same file on two media players to adjust the lag (video on mute complemented by sound of another). I fascinated using the same ‘jugaad technology’ – to connect the projector to my laptop while connecting the speaker to the other – I dropped the idea considering the crudeness of the idea.
With Murphy’s Law playing the script to the perfection, we struggled to find a decent workable solution for more than an hour when the good old charming 'luck' entered the arena. In came an old laptop (of a ‘good for nothing’ kind of type) as an act of desperation and voila it worked in a truly filmy style. We started watching the spectacular ‘Batman Begins’ and to tell you the truth were very mighty pleased with the entire effect – there is a consideration of having screenings of good movies every weekend.
However, the story does not end here – Murphy’s Law came back to take the take the revenge. The ‘emptiness’ could not go completely as the screening could not be continued after the arrival of a few ‘non-filmy’ friends. The pilot phase was not exactly successful but has given enough learning to make it right the next time.
P.S: ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is on – First Day Last Show… :)
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