I have a contractor who will be setting my HT riser into concrete tomorrow morning and am hoping to get some feedback from those of you with PJs (this will be my first PJ) before I make a decision on the room configuration.

My HT is 18'x12'. The riser currently has a backwall with a bar surface hanging off the back to seat 4 on barstools in the rear of the HT. In this current configuration the room would seat 11 (3 rows of 3, 4, 4 including the bar stools) but it would put the front seats at about 9 feet from the screen. I really like the idea of the bar seating in the back, especially for HD sports but I worry that 9 feet for the front row is too close for a decent siae screen. The second row of seats will be at about 13 feet.

My other alternative would be to scap the bar which would reduce the seating to 7 (two rows of 3,4) but allow the riser to be pushed back and put the front seats at 11 feet.

Any thoughts would be appreciated! Obviously, I would probably have to sacrifice some screen size for the first configuration. My PJ will be a Mitsubishi HC3000 and the screen will be a fixed 16:9.

My screen size is 92" and the first row of seating is at 11'. No SDE at that distance and the picture is plenty large enough without being too much visually to take in. At 9' I would not go any larger than 92" and at 11' I would try to stay around 100-106" at the maximum.

The closer you get to the larger screen the more you chance being distracted by pixelation. I don't ever notice any pixels, even during rolling moving credits.

IMHO, 18' is way to small for 3 rows.

Also, 4 feet between rows is a little tight as well, especially if they are recliners.

I appreciate the feedback so far.

The riser is 4'x8' and will seat four cinema style seats. The front row will be three berkline 088s. Everything I read on the seating indicated that would allow enough room between the first and second row. The last "row" would simply be three of four people on bar stools, almost against the back wall.

I know it sounds tight but the contractor has it framed out and it looks reasonable if I am willing to live with the first row at 9 feet. A 96" diagonal screen would give me a viewing ratio of 1.3x the screen width.

I couldn't see sitting in bar stools for 2+ hours for a movie. That would be uncomfortable. And, those seats are going to miss out on rear surround.

Here's what we did with similar room size. Ours is 14x19. We have two rows. The platform is 7ft by 14 ft wide (which includes the platform step on the side for the side door). The first row of seats are about 10-10.5 from the screen. We have 3 recliners in front and the same style couch for the second row. To increase seating, we add up to 5 directors chairs... one on each side of the recliners and couch....and we fit a 5th one on the platform too...hard to describe that location. We are also using the Mits 3000 projected on a Stewart Firehawk 110" screen. No screen door from either row. As you can see we can accomodate 11 ppl seated. Most of the time the directors chair are stored away since we don't normally have that many ppl.

I think with a 96" screen you are going to wish you went bigger. That is probably the single most quoted regret as it relates to screen purchase.