Outdoor Movie Screen - Page 3

Back in my more youthful days (last year), I used to go to that LifeTime Fitness (I also lived on the south side of Crystal Lake at that time--we have since moved to the north side, and I rarely venture down that way anymore, except to use the drive through Starbucks when I have my three kids in the car...)

Anyway, back to the discussion. My screen is tensed by a rope across the top of the screen, and sits within a hem on my screen. The rope slides through two large eyelets that sit on the top of my two poles. The rope then comes down at about 45 deg., wraps around a hook, and is tied onto itself with a rope ratchet. I can then make it very, very tight, and it holds the screen up very nicely. However, the weight of the screen, and the rope across the top tend to make the poles on either side to bow ever so slightly inwards, so I have ropes attached to the poles themselves, coming down at 45 deg. and tied off on my fence (although I could probably use rope ratchets here, as well.

Any wrinkles tend to pretty much disappear with this set up, especially when the movie gets started--you don't notice a single wrinkle (or for that matter, stain on the screen, caused by me trying to steam iron the canvas--the iron sprayed out steam that then stained the screen--doh!)

In essence, the screen is like a drum--very tight, and very secure. sdspga--When we finally get things up and running (stupid weather...), I'll pass along an invite, and you can come and check it out. (There's another forum member from Woodstock who wants to come out and check it out as well).

I would agree about size. 100 inches looks huge inside, with a relatively small room, sitting 2x from the screen. But outside, it is going to disappear.

Although I like the canvas material that I am using, I am exploring BOC that would be wide enough (96 inches high, or so) that is still economical. I'll post if I find anything good...

Sorry, Roger--I wasn't clear. I was responding to jsloyer's post above about bringing a 100 inch diagonal screen outside.

And, actually, I am assuming that 100 inch diagonal screen is a square screen (or 4:3)--the screen would be about 7 feet wide. But once you work in widescreen images, you are only dealing with an image that is about 4 ft. high in 1.85:1 aspect ration (and 3 feet high at 2.35:1).

Art canvas is what I am using. My screen is cinemascope, 16 feet wide. I got 6 yards of unprimed canvas (96 inches wide) from Dick Blicks for $60, online. I use a Benq6100, which is a light cannon, and the image is very good, even with the darn iron stains (see post above).

With my system (steel pipes on the sides, screen material wrapped around each like a scroll, line across the top that is ratcheted and tightened, and lines down from each pipe to pull the tops of the pipes apart), my screen has no sag problems whatsoever, and is tight as a drum. Wish I had taken some pictures last time I had it up. We are looking to do a Memorial day showing, so hopefully the weather cooperates, and we get it together.

My screenshots in the link in my signature are to the 2005 version of the outdoor screen. I have significantly changed things around this year. If you look at my pictures, you will see that I hung it from my deck, and yes it folded up into a petty messy package that I stored in the garage. That was the screen that was very thin. I used a very thin cotton fabric (only one at the fabric store wide enough to use as a screen without a seam--but then had to line the screen with two Home Depot painters tarps (white cotton on one side, plastic film on the other).

Now, I am using 10 ft. long pipes (3/4 inch steel gas pipe), and the whole screen theoretically rolls up like a scroll. It is a bit big and unwieldy, even when rolled up, but is serviceable.

With respect to the canvas, I think it will be fine. Once it is set up, and dark enough, no wrinkles are evident at all (with the canvas, there are prominent wrinkles throughout in the daylight), and my ironing stains are not noticeable whatsoever while the movie plays. The image was very good, but I tested with some pretty high quality disks. I put in some pixar animated ones (can never go wrong with that), and they, of course, looked excellent. But I also tried the opening scene to SW:EP 3 (space battle) and it also looked excellent. I was afraid the off-white (almost tan color) of the canvas material would make the image look too dark, but it had no problems at all.

So why go with the BOC? Well, with a white screen, I think I might be able to get an even better and brighter image. (I suppose it's more of the DIY bug than anything--always pushing to squeeze that extra performance out...)

One thought I had--primed canvas might be a little better, as I believe the primer is white. I don't know how that affects the "pliability" of the material, though.

I honestly don't think the fabric pattern will have any effect on the image at all. If wrinkles don't show up at all (which are fairly prominent) then the almost miniscule fabric pattern won't make a difference at all.


I went with the heaviest grade of canvas, because I wanted to minimize bleed-through to the other side. As it is, I also lined the other side with black weed fabric. I don't think any image gets through that screen (this was more for the neighbors whose house is directly behind where the screen is.

This is the stuff I used:

http://www.dickblick.com/zz073/22/