Projector position and pre-wire question for new construction

I'm building a new house with a dedicated media room that will be windowless and fully light controlled. The room is about 20' x 14', and I'm planning on putting the screen on the short wall. Initially I'll be using an RPTV, so it'll be a while before I put in a projector but I am at a point that I need to decide on the wiring location. I'm thinking of doing a constant height screen about 10' wide using a projector with lens memory like the Panasonic PT-AE8000.

I'm planning on a 16" riser of between 6-6.5 feet deep with a single step up putting the primary seating position between 12' - 13' from the screen. So my question is, where should I have them run the wiring? I was leaning towards having it about 15' back, which would still give me some leeway in placement. But now I'm wondering if perhaps placing it on a shelf at the back wall would be better. It might look nicer, put it further away from the primary seating, and allow me to mount it a little lower thus being more flexible about lens shift. Unfortunately I don't really have a lot of time to do more research on this before I finalize placement, and since it may be a year or more before I actually buy a projector it's kind of pointless to get too caught up trying to choose a specific projector model now. Is a 19' - 20' distance too far for proper light output for projectors like the Panasonic? According to Projector Central I might be looking at 13fl at that point. Is that enough in a light controlled room?

Well technically I'm not supposed to do any wiring myself, and it's $700 for an additional projector pre-wire. And unless electrical was already being run in that same space between the studs getting power there is also an issue if I did it myself. While being prepared would be nice, I'm better of making the decision now.

I think I will tell them to place the power outlet and projector run a few inches below the vault on the rear wall and when it comes time to buy a projector I'll just get one that works.

By the way, what is an HP screen? Hewlett-Packard? I've seen a few references to them and I don't know what the deal with them is.

Ah, thanks for the clarification on the screen, that makes sense. I assume the screen has some structure to it, almost like a lenticular lens on an RPTV, that directs the light back to the viewer and so the closer to straight on the better. I wonder how far off you can be. I'd rather not have the screen too high and I'd like the projector high enough to be out of people's way. Although with the rear seating near the back wall I guess I could put the shelf at 6' or 7' high and it won't be in the way of anyone. The room is 10' high, with a vault down to 8' on most walls, so that does affect placement of the screen.

As far as the cost, it's a bit of a mixed bag. I paid for a media wiring bundle in my contract, and for the cost of that I'm getting a lot, a total of 25 drops split between coax and ethernet, as well as wiring for two surround sound setups and stereo to the patio, plus the projector and a few other bits and pieces, and security wiring. But adding stuff ala carte is expensive. Also, they run 16ga speaker wire and CAT5e. To upgrade to CAT6 they want $1,000! But they said I could supply them 500' of speaker wire and 1000' of CAT6 and they'll use my cable. They don't discount for using my cable, but they are running additional speaker runs for the theater.

I could possibly run some stuff myself. My salesman says that's not allowed, but perhaps the builder will have a different view on that. However I know I better not try to run my own electrical in a place where it might stand out. And I really don't want to have a lot of extra wallplates for stuff I'll never use.

I hadn't thought about the whole house surge protector. Do you know if I need to do it during construction or can I do it later?

I met with the builder today and we went over everything that is going in the house. He's going to get back to me on a dedicated circuit and ventilation for my gear closet. What I may end up doing is cutting a hole in the closet wall to the adjacent room and perhaps wire up some exhaust fans that turn on with the receiver to keep the temperature in there under control.

One of the most frustrating problems I've had with planning all this out is most of the stuff I see shows you what you can do with the equipment you've chosen. In this case I'm choosing the equipment based on the room. I can choose a screen and projector that is suitable for the size and position of everything in my room, rather than make the size and position of everything in the room fit the equipment. After all, the room is constant, it will be there long after I die, but the equipment has a relatively short life. I won't have the house until February at the earliest, and I won't have the money to do anything probably until later next year, after the next generation of equipment comes out. So it's kind of silly and pointless to choose a projector and screen now and wire for that.
From what I've seen the box is plenty big so that shouldn't be a problem. But I'll send an e-mail to my salesman asking him about it.

I heard back from my builder on the surge protector. They want $1,000 to install it. Eeek! From what I've found online it's not a terribly complicated job, although I'd best have an electrician do it. Still, I don't think it'll cost $1,000, perhaps just $200 - $300.

That's interesting Ben, I've never considered talking to my electric company. I'll look into that.

As it is, everything comes in underground in my neighborhood, which I believe helps a lot. Also I'll have FiOS, so that's fiber to the house, which I'm sure is beneficial also. I've lived in the same area that I'm building in for 10 years now, and have yet to have any issues with lightning and haven't heard of any from my neighbors (aside from a house a few blocks away that was hit and gutted). Still better safe than sorry.

About 12 years ago, when I was in my last apartment, there was a nearby lightning strike that appeared to come in via my cable modem. My cable modem, network switch, network cards, a printer, and a stereo connected to one of the PC's were fried. The PC's were mostly ok. My TV was fine, but my TiVo's modem was fried as was the home theater receiver. And my thermostat was fried. It was weird.