For builders who don't recognize the value of enlisting an electronics integrator and a designer early in the project, consider this: Could you create a room modeled after the Titanic without help?

Okay, that need probably won't come up much. Still, this room design by Hendersonville, Tenn.-based Casa Cinema Design with integration by Nashville, Tenn.-based Professional Audio Video Engineering (PAVE) demonstrates the potential of collaboration.

The homeowners, apparently, were big "Titantic" fans, and they wanted their 20-foot-by-14-foot room to reflect that adoration. Interior designer Donny Hackett decided to include 1,230 fiber-optic light strands in the home theater's dome to give the effect of night sky.

PAVE's Mike VanParys doesn't deny that the ceiling looks stunning, but says, "Inherently, domes are terrible for sound." His solution was to place acoustic panels around the room to absorb sound.

The video in this home theater is titanic itself, featuring a Vidikron CinemaScope projector and a 120-inch custom-made screen. In addition, most of the electronic components in the room are hidden, showing themselves at the press of a button on a Crestron controller. Similarly, a bookcase in the room can be swung open, to reveal an adjoining pub room.