Is my basement too small for a front projector?

A short throw PJ is all you need. You'll have room to spare.

+1
My setup is very similar. My ceiling height is 7'. It was a tight fit but it worked. Xlnt view.

EDIT: My PJ is an Optoma HD70. Just over 12 feet from the PJ to the 100" screen. We sit 8 - 10 feet away.

That's the exact same size screen I have and almost the same throw distance. I use two projectors (Panasonic AX100 for TV, Epson 1080UB for movies) and everything works perfectly.

That is a good room for a projector. One thing I would do though is center the screen in the 11' wide viewing area of the room. Shift projector and screen to the right. No reason to have the projector it's self centered in the alcove that you have it located in. This will help with seating, sound and light reflections from the walls. At 14'-6" of throw a lot of projectors will work for you. The Mits HC1600 at 14'-6" gives 100" to 122" image size. I would also go with a 106" screen rather than a 92". Trust me on this. You may think the 106" is too big, but it is not. With your size room 106" is a better fit. 1.5 x screen width is a good starting point for seating distance. A 106" screen is 92" wide. 92 x 1.5 = 138" or 11'-6" for seating distance. I sit 11 feet from a 106" screen and I like to sit in the middle of the movie theater. If you like to sit near the back row of the movie theater then a 92" will be fine for you.

14 ft throw is plenty for most projectors.

We use a Panasonic 900U with lens-to-screen about 12 ft. and our diagonal is about 120 inches. We sit about 12 feet eyeballs-to-screen and IMO I wouldn't want to sit any closer. Your room looks just right for a front projection system.

What are the other uses for your basement? If viewing is to be dark or very dim room projector perfect - no tv available can compare to a BIG projected image in a properly darkened room.
enjoy!!

I agree w/mjg100 on all counts, except I'd go with an even larger 2.35:1 screen eg. closer to 10' wide since that 27' wall will accommodate it.

Plan to get a front projector. Put your equipment in that rear alcove where it looks like you'd have some nice options for a shelf-mounted pj along w/your gear, and room behind to fiddle with cables. Take a look at my back wall here. My pj's on one of those shelves, not ceiling-mounted.

p.s. If you do decide to make that back alcove a projection booth/closet/equipment rack put an A/C duct into there also to cool-down your equip in the summer. Unless you live "up north" and don't need A/C!

I am throwing 100" at 12' so throw shouldn't be an issue for you. Just double check your pj you wnat with the pj calculator before buying.

Get the biggest screen that will fit. Most screen manuf have size charts on their websites. 92" is nice but it will get small on you. I would move the speaker wires if necessary.

Just install your pj and see what the max screen size will fit.

I would still go with a 106" screen. The viewing area of a 106" screen is 52" high with 2" borders. It will not fit with your speaker box locations. You can do two things. One move the boxes or two build out your screen so that you have room to plug in the speakers. What speakers were you planning on using? If you are using speakers mounted on floor stands or tower speakers then the boxes should be down low so they are not in the way for any size screen. If it was me I would relocate the boxes down low out of the way. 92" is just too small for that size room.

Yes the projector can be offset. This will probably limit you to an LCD projector. I am not sure that you can find any entry level DLP projectors with horizontal keystone (look for that feature) and I know of none with horizontal lens shift.

I think you should try projecting on the blank wall and test a size bigger than 96". Watch it for a while and see how you feel. Then buy the appropriate sized screen.

I think people always overestimate how much farther they need to sit to be comfortable. You get used to the size VERY quickly!

If you have speaker wire already in place in those boxes and lower would make the wires too short then I agree. If you do not or only have pull strings then I would install new boxes. It is real easy and will not mess up your wall. Can even be done after the wall is finished and painted with out messing up the wall. Just go right below the existing boxes at height that you want and cut new holes (find edge of stud and use new box to mark hole size), then drop a pull cord or speaker wire down to the new hole. Place an existing wall box in the new holes and install blank plates over the old holes. All of the old holes will be covered by the screen. You are looking at less than $10.00 of material and less than an hour of your time.

LCD projectors are the most flexible with both horizontal and vertical lens shift and very long zoom. You can project a 100" image from as little as 9 or 10 feet away! (Take a look at the Epson 1080UB, Sanyo Z2000, Panasonic AE-2000U and Mitsubishi HC4900).

I have an LCoS Sony VW40 1080p projector. It has a very good vertical shift range, but is less flexible on horizontal lens shift (you really should mount it in the middle of your screen - but looking at your layout diag this is probably not an issue), The zoom is great. I can project 100" diag. from only about 10' 3" away right up to 17' 6".
See http://www.projectorcentral.com/proj...calculator.cfm

DLP projectors are much less flexible in general, usually having little or no lens shift and limited zoom. In my case, the placement of a 1080p DLP projector would have been inside the wall! (For example: min throw on a BenQ W5000 is 13'5")

For the best placement flexibility you're probably looking at an LCD projector.

Note that ideally you don't want to be doing any keystone adjustments. Lens shift physically moves the lens parallel to the screen without distorting the image. Keystone digitally adjusts (distorts) the shape of the picture when you are forced to tilt the projector up or down to get the image where you want it on the wall or screen.

As others have said, you should have plenty of room for a pj setup. Our viewing area is not that different from yours -- 19'2" x 12'5, with a low (7'6") ceiling. From a viewing distance of 13', for 16:9 we set the image at 88" wide. For 2:35 films we use the pj's zoom to set the image at 104" wide. That's what we find comfortable: in theaters, we like to sit about 3/4 back. Sorry, make that, when we used to go theaters.....

I agree strongly with Barth2K that you should project on a wall for a while before you make your screen size decision. See what's comfortable for you with 16:9 and 2:35 content.

Also agree with those who suggest that you offset the projector placement in order to center the image within your 11 foot wide sweet spot.

As for the image size "shrinking" over time due to habituation (and therefore, going with a larger screen now than you've currently chosen), I'll say two things. First, when I began floating the idea of a home theater room/pj to my wife, I took my her to an upper end A/V store. In their smallest showroom they were projecting an "upscaled" standard dvd on a mere 72" wide screen. I had her look at it from roughly 13' and she said "No way," the image was too big and scenes with motion made her dizzy. Now she's watching standard ("upconverted") dvd content at 102" wide and sometimes sits on the floor in front of the couch, so from a distance of about 11'. And whenever I ask her if the picture is too big, she says "No."

Second, your mileage may vary. For 16 x 9 HDTV with a 720p projector neither of us would want a bigger image than 88" to say 90" wide. It's the image height that seems to make us feel this is the limit (and our low ceiling height). But there are plenty of pj owners who would say our image is too small for them. So try it out for a while on your walls and see what works best for you.

Good luck.
Mike W.

I'm looking at a 100" from 9 ft away and I won't go back. I started with 73" then went to front projection at 84", finally went to 100".

Save yourself some money. Go big or go home.

Red, The projector type and lens shift is not going to solve the problem that was discussed in my post. See post number 8 in this thread. The actual space between his center channel speaker outlet and the bottom of the soffit is 55". A 106" screen with 2" borders is a minimum of 56". There fore the screen will cover part of the center channel speaker box if he placed the screen against the bottom of the soffit. He can't go higher and placing the screen against the soffit is not a good idea. He needs to lower the screen which will cover the speaker box completely. Hence my suggestion that he lower the speaker boxes.

At 92" from a 10' throw distance an ax200 panasonic would work nice.