Winery/DIY Dinner Theater needs a projector: Suggestions???

I was tasked with building a theater in our winery's "ballroom" with a budget of only $15,000. I built three of Wayne Parham's upgraded 4pi speakers for the mains, and twelve of his 1pi speakers for the surrounds. I built four F20 horn subs (thanks lilmike) using Daytona's Reference HF driver. It is designed to be a 7.2 system. Today I installed a Center Stage XD screen from SeymourAV over a 30" deep baffle wall that contains the mains and the subs. The screen has an advertised gain of 1.2. Right now, the screen is 168" x 100", but will be getting a 5.5" velvet border that will alter these dimensions to 157" x 89", or ~ 180" measured diagonally (see below).

I originally budgeted $5,000 for the projector, but having gone over budget on the audio portion, need to scale that back to $4,000. The room is 45" long and 30" wide. The rear of the space has a balcony that is also 15' deep. The area that does not have a balcony has 19' ceilings, the space under the balcony has 8' ceilings, and the area above the balcony has 9' ceilings. Overall, the room has volume of about 20,000 cubic feet. There are many glass doors and windows in the space that allows a lot of natural light in. I plan to have heavy drapes on the windows and doors, but the projector needs to do well in all lighting environments...probably in the 4,000+ lumen range.

I have been looking at the BenQ SH960 and the BenQ SP891, but am needing feedback on what projector might best fit our needs at that $4,000 price point. I should note that the projector will be mounted under the rear balcony at 27' from the screen.

My build thread is located here: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1342983/building-a-dinner-theater-w-diy-speakers-subs-etc


Edited by dutchswan0311 - 12/5/12 at 6:53pm

I also noticed the BenQ SH910 for $1,800. But, I am wary about spending so little, as though it will not do our space justice. Have you heard anything about the SH910? Am I just not being a savvy buyer; spending more than I need to?

I have thought about the BenQ W7000, but thought maybe it was not bright enough? At 27' from the screen, the lumens are not going to do as much for us as they might in a home theater application in which the screen is only 10' - 15' from the projector. If I remember correctly, if you double the distance...you quadruple the "dimness".

Further research has revealed that rather than focusing on the lumen output of any given projector, it is more effective to look at image brightness on your actual screen (measured in fL). Using Projector Central's calculator, I have calculated the image brightness on our screen for several projectors (with consideration to a 27' throw distance, a 180" image size, and a screen gain of 1.2). I read that the ideal image brightness for a light controlled theater is 16fL. The source went on to say that rooms with increased ambient light, such as a living room, need an image brightness of 25fL - 30fL.

BenQ W7000: 11fL
BenQ SH910: 20fL
BenQ SP890: 22fL
BenQ SP891: 25fL
BenQ SH960: 30fL

Epson 5010: 9fL
Epson 5020: 18fL

Sony VPL-HW50ES: 9fL
Edited by dutchswan0311 - 12/5/12 at 9:40pm

@dbals....Thanks for talking with me today. I couldn't find the above posts you mentioned, but then realized that I opened a second thread just for the projector (I am used to only having to check my build thread). My build thread and lilmike's F20 thread are pretty much the only two I have frequented as of late.

For more views of our space, here are a few pictures from one of our albums on our winery's facebook page:

Standing about 15 feet into the room, and approximately 27 feet from the screen. The projector gets installed right above my head from where I am standing when I took this photo. We are looking West in this photo. We left some of the rafters exposed because we thought it looked cool, and I figured it might help with acoustics a tad too.


This is a photo taken while standing in the middle of the "ballroom" (looking East). You are looking up at the balcony. The ballisters have bags over them to project them from the mudders when they were doing the sheetrock. There is a fireplace on the east wall of the balcony. The rectangle sheetrock at the top of the image shows where the eastern most chandelier was later installed. The middle of the eight can lights above the stage will have a ceiling fan installed.


This is an angled view of part of the South wall. You can see two of the three 8' french doors, and three of the four left surrounds (1pis).


This is a view of the north wall. You can see it is broken up by a stage that also has three large windows, and a couple more of the 1pi surrounds.


This is another view of the balcony from before the sheetrock was installed. This photo was taken while standing on the stage. This view gives you a better idea of why we want to install the projector on the edge of the overhang of the balcony.


This is a view of the ballroom ceiling. I took this photo standing next to the screen on its right hand side. We are looking up and to the Southeast in this photo.