I am in the process of finishing my basement into a HT room. And i am a little bit of a projector noob...

The room is 24X13 with 8' tall ceilings. I have a steel beam splitting the room at 12' and duckwork right along side it. This is going to drop the ceiling down to roughly 7' in those locations.

And i would prefer not to hang the projector behind the steel beam...i can see someone just running into it or something...that would be no good.

So will my screen size be really small if i have to move it infront of the duck work...that would be roughly 8 1/2' to the wall.

My other option would be to shelf mount it in the back of the room...is 24' to far away to get a nice picture?

Also if i shelf mount it and the seating is somewhere between 12' to 15' away from the screen will i run into problems where the screen would project onto the seating or the drop where the duck work and steel beam is?

I would really like a nice 100" or so but i dont want to go spend a few grand on projector if it will not work out well.

I guess it depends on the throw distance of the projector you plan on getting. I know my Epson 720 will throw at least 100" at 8.5 feet.

yah i have not locked down what unit i will be getting yet budget is around $1500 or so...

But good that is what i was hoping for. I want to mount it in front of the duck work...

You need to get a list of projectors in your price range and then go to Projector Central www.projectorcentral.com/Epson-PowerLite_Home_Cinema_720-projection-calculator-pro.htm and use the throw calculator. With what you are wanting to do (100" @ 8.5 feet) I am not sure there are many/any that can do that.

You could hang the pj from the ceiling just behind the beam/duct and drop the pj just low enough for the lens to clear the beam? That would be good for everyone under about 6'7".

Yah that might be my best bet. Looking on the screen throw calculator most PJ will shoot 60"ish at the 8'-6" mark...thats just not big enough.

behind the beam would put it basically dead center of the room...I just have a little worry about the little ones hitting it with there toys or something. Eh what ever ill just go wire it for behind the beam...thanks guys

If you look at Chiefmg, they do sell "cages" meant for security in commercial applications.

I guess it depends on the throw distance of the projector you plan on getting. I know my Epson 720 will throw at least 100" at 8.5 feet.

No it won't. The HC720 takes a minimum of 10.4 feet to throw 100" image. At least that is what Projector Central and the HC720 Owner's manual say.
www.projectorcentral.com/pdf/projector_manual_3952.pdf
www.projectorcentral.com/Epson-PowerLite_Home_Cinema_720.htm