I'm working with a custom installer to do a system in my living room. The living room is two stories and for a clean look, we're planning to ceiling mount the Epson 1080UB behind the wall (in the breakfast nook) and make a cutout through the drywall. It will be about 14 ft throw distance and an 80" screen.

I'm trying to figure out how to make the cutout work as well as possible. Current idea is to have a carpenter put a small wood frame around it on both sides, possibly with a door on the front to hide it. Would it make sense to have some black velvet on the channel in between to catch stray light? Anyone done this and have a guess at what the cutout dimensions might be or other wisdom?

One of the the sales guys from the competing offer suggested that it is standard to put a glass window in a cutout. The folks I'm going with haven't done this before and weren't sure. That sounds interesting but I'm not sure what it provides other than sound isolation and something else that can gather dust.

Any thoughts are appreciated. Not sure it matters but it will be about 13 ft from the inside wall to the screen. Going with the SI Black Diamond .8.

Thanks all. You were a great help on my previous question.

I'm working with a custom installer to do a system in my living room. The living room is two stories and for a clean look, we're planning to ceiling mount the Epson 1080UB behind the wall (in the breakfast nook) and make a cutout through the drywall. It will be about 14 ft throw distance and an 80" screen.

I'm trying to figure out how to make the cutout work as well as possible. Current idea is to have a carpenter put a small wood frame around it on both sides, possibly with a door on the front to hide it. Would it make sense to have some black velvet on the channel in between to catch stray light? Anyone done this and have a guess at what the cutout dimensions might be or other wisdom?

One of the the sales guys from the competing offer suggested that it is standard to put a glass window in a cutout. The folks I'm going with haven't done this before and weren't sure. That sounds interesting but I'm not sure what it provides other than sound isolation and something else that can gather dust.

To come up with the aperture size you'll have to do some math based on the size of the screen and the distance of the projector from the screen. It wasn't totally clear in your post, but it seemed like the projector was going to be right behind the wall, so it would be a pretty small opening. I've only done this a couple of times, but both times what we did was install the projector in a temporary way, turn it on, get a lense footprint, draw a box around it, then increase the aperture size by a couple of inches to be on the safe side. You'd just have to cut it out and frame it after that. We never did anything with the edges...just increasing the aperture size a tad did the trick.

Don't use glass. There's really no need to. The door idea sounds workable.

Frank

The glass is used to isolate the theater from all the fan noise not only from the projector, but anything else in the room.

We've put plenty of projectors in the room behind, and we haven't used glass in most of them.

Frank,

The projector would be just far enough away from the wall to allow the exhaust (about 2-3 inches). Your suggestion is what I'd been thinking of. Just hack away at the wall until the light is going where it's supposed to go.

The projector would be just far enough away from the wall to allow the exhaust (about 2-3 inches). Your suggestion is what I'd been thinking of. Just hack away at the wall until the light is going where it's supposed to go.

Well, don't do that exactly...just position the projector where it'll be after installation, then turn it on. You'll see the lense foot print bright as day right there in front of the projector...just draw a rectangle around that, then make in a couple of inches larger. No hacking necessary :D!

Frank