Some home cinema enthusiasts go so far as to build a dedicated allowance in the at rest for the theater. These and advanced installations often include sophisticated acoustic design elements, including "room-in-a-room" construction that isolates hearty and provides the potential for a practically ideal listening environment. These installations are often designated as "screening rooms" to differentiate from simpler installations.

In the 1950s, inland movies became popular in the United States and elsewhere as Kodak 8 mm film (Pathé 9.5 mm in France) and camera and projector equipment became affordable. Projected with a small, portable movie projector onto a portable screen, often without sound, this classification became the first practical home theater. They were generally familiar with to show at ease movies of family travels and celebrations but also doubled as a means of showing private stag films. Dedicated internal cinemas were called screening rooms at the time and were outfitted with 16 mm or even 35 mm projectors for showing for sale films. These were found almost exclusively in the homes of the Home Theater Chairs exact wealthy, especially those in the movie industry.