Screen Recommendations for my Wall

I have a set of three windows, over 80 inches height and 96 in. wide., so its a big opening. Its a flat ceiling, so in my case eclypse blackout window covers from JC Penney did the trick. At some moment I though about permanently convering the wall with panels, but the blackout was a more simple and better looking solution. However, as you mentioned, this may not worked so cleanly for you, but I would encourgate you to pursue it if possible since you mention that would not like to close the window permanently.

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I'd go with a 2.35:1 125" diagonal (115" wide) screen. Mount the screen such that it hides the bottom of the window. That will leave about 10" between the screen frame top and the window top, which you can fill in with short drapes or a cornice for the width of the screen to make it look right. A 115" screen width (121" including frame) should leave about 2' on either end for your speakers. My Easy Calculator (linked below) may be helpful for trying a few other "what ifs".

Hello there:

I have a similarly situation as Jaday, my viewing distance is about 16 feet and the place where I want to put the screen has french door behind the screen area that is about 92 inch width x 89 inch height. Unfortunately my room is a multiuse living room, so I have to deal with the WAF (wife approval factor).

I was planning to make a manual pull down 128 x 72 inch (16:9 aspect ratio) screen with Da-Lite AudioVision acoustically transparent screen.

As I mentioned before my room is not a dedicated home theater and I really don’t want to shut down permanently the French door, and even if I wanted my wife will not allow that, so for shutting down the light coming from it I’m planning to install an electrical pull down hurricane protection shutter, this completely shut down the light and I can open it or close it whenever I want. (Jaday this might work for you too).

So far I have everything covered, but here is something that I don’t know if it will work. The door behind the screen has white glazing bars and frames and the wall behind the screen is painted in bone color. I know that to setup a perforated screen you need to have the wall behind the screen painted with a dark color, the darkest the better, but since it’s a living room my wife (yes, my wife again) will not allow me to paint the wall with any dark color, so what I’m planning to do is to get some black speaker grille cloth and somehow attach it to the screen so it can comes up a down with the screen. I really don’t know if this will work well for either audio or video, so please let me know your opinions.

Thank you guys.

P.S.: Jaday, sorry for borrowing your thread without notice, I’ll give it back as soon as possible.

jmhc- The addition of black speaker grille cloth added behind the screen sounds to me like the perfect way to ruin a good manual pull down screen. Here's a link to a retractable AT screen that comes with a black opaque backing as a standard feature. I'm guessing it's expensive.

In addition, your screen size (147") is way too big for most any standard HT projector I know of. Suggest you get real and stay below 120". That size might even leave room for your main speakers on the sides, with center speaker below, thereby obviating the expensive AT screen.

I see, what would be the problem of doing this?? will I ruin the pulldown mechanism or something like that???

I would worry that it could make the roll too thick to fit into the case. It could also exacerbate wrinkles/waves, which are already a problem in many pull down screens. I could be wrong, but it just strikes me as a very bad idea.

I have 3 windows behind the 120" 1.78 screen in my HT. I need to still have access to use these windows a couple of times a year. I'm using a pull down roller blackout shades (black on inside and white toward the outside) on each window then nearly ceiling-to-floor black blackout drapes across most of the wall. The wall behind the screen as well as the ceiling are painted black. The screen is an electric drop-down with a tensioned screen material (Focupix sold by HTDepot.com). The room is 16 ft. wide x 21 ft. long and my seating distance is about 13 ft. from the screen. I have approx. 4 ft. tall Infinity tower speakers to the right and left of the screen and the center speaker just below the screen. If you go with a 1.78 screen 120 inch would be about the right size for your 14 ft. seating distance. Given the shape of your wall/ceiling above the windows your would need to see what is the max. height up from the floor you could mount the screen (i.e., the case if using a manual or electric drop down). For example if we assume the you need 120 inches horizontal for mounting the case for a drop down screen how far up from the floor can you go before the available width of the wall narrows down to 120 inches. I would probably mount the center channel speaker below or above the screen rather than going for an acoustic transparent screen material (which lowers the gain of the screen potentially forcing you to use a smaller screen size in order to keep the image bright enough).

Given your room width, and if you use a Panasonic AE4000 you could probably go with a 2.35 aspect ratio screen that is perhaps up to 135" diagonal (viewable diagonal size), especially if you find one with a gain of perhaps 1.4 or higher. However 2.35 screens are a lot more common as fixed frame models and you would have far fewer choices, as compared to 1.78 screens, if looking for a manual or electric drop down.

I think I got it, I suppose I can put between the wall and the speakers a cheap black matte cloth (same size of the screen or taller), so I can pull it up or down whenever I want to. The only problem will be that when I want to watch something I will have to pulldown two things instead of one, but I guess it will worth it, maybe in the future I can upgrade to electric pulldown.