Recommendation for Screen Size, Projector, and Adequate Light Output

Hello all

I am beginning my home theater design as my home addition has broken ground. I will have a dedicated room 30' long x 18' wide, stadium seating style room with the floor to ceiling height at the screen being 11' and at the other end of the room being 9'.

The room will not have any windows and I will have total control of the lighting. There are three rows of seating, with the first at 12-13', second at 17-18', and third at 20-21'. The third row is a counter with bar stools so it's close to the eye position of the second row.

I want to do a CIH setup with A-lens to a 2.40:1 screen.

My real question at this point is what size screen properly fits the room and what projector will adequately drive the screen? I want to be able to drop the lights to almost nil for movies, but have some lighting when watching sports/shows/etc. during the day. To me, the room size and seating locations would call for a 144" wide 2.40:1 screen. I think anything smaller will look to small in the room that width and depth.

Should the screen be even larger or smaller? If the size of the screen that properly fits the room will dictate a projector that's just too costly, I would build the screen to the ultimate size and mask and frame down to what affordably works now. Then when the price works, just unmask and build a new frame to support a bigger screen.

Give the screen size, what projector will fit the bill? I'm good with paying enough to drive the screen, but not crazy dollars. In other words, a $7K-$10K projector is in the budget. That being said, if I can do it with lower dollars, I'd rather go cheaper since the projector will be upgraded as technology gets better. Hopefully my investment in the A-lens and slide would keep going through a few projectors.

Lastly, I'm looking to do a DIY curved screen possibly with the Seymour AT fabric which as a gain of 1.2.

Please give me your recommendations and poke holes anywhere you want in my thoughts. I really appreciate the input.

My desire is to have an AT screen, which limits my gain to 1.2 based on the material I have found. I also wanted to place the projector at the rear of the room in a hush box, so it would be approx. 29' away from the screen. That's 2.5 times a 12'/144" inch screen which seems to fit in the throw range for projectors like the JVCs. That would help eliminate the pin cushioning that will occur with the A-lens if I decide not to do a curved screen. These requirements would rule out the Da-Lite HP screen.

According the Bale calculator with a 1,000 lumen projector 1.2 gain, 144" wide 2.37:1 screen the screen brightness would be 17.8 foot lamberts with 16-30 being acceptable in a completely dark room.

So is the real problem with my design that I want to have some ambient light during the day?

What projector would I need to go to in order to make this work?

Also, what is the foot lamberts in screen brightness that I should be looking for in order to run the lights for TV/Sports/etc.?