My Screen Size Options

BIC2 said:

Setting up new Epson 6050. Throw came out to 16'-5" or 6", might depend on depth of screen from wall. I was shooting for 16'-8". Oh well. Viewing distance 11-12 ft depending on recline. Out of the box, widescreen display is 147" wide. My wife & I felt this was a comfortable viewing angle, even though the charts say otherwise. We felt we could comfortably go a little wider, but I'm capped out at 146-147 wide based on existing throw distance.

Since I measured screen at 147" wide (wall actually, there is no screen yet), guessing my throw is 16'-6" to wall. Using the Projector Central calculator, I came up with the following options. I was originally going to do Spandex, which at 0.7 gain, gives me 22fL, and seems a bit short for UHD. If I go to 1.0 gain, that gives me 31 fL, which should be much better.

If you take a look at the calculations, seems I should do a 1.0 gain AT screen, 147 wide & 62 high. Am I missing anything? Opinions desired.

Any recommendation for DYI screen material as well as reasonably priced (say $1000), ready to install screens. Thanks.

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as has been mentioned, charts are 'starting points' not hard rules. i personally find that image height is vastly more important than image width when determining the 'comfort' of viewing. with a 62" height, if you did 16:9 you'd only be about 110" wide, which i suspect is well within what the charts say is acceptable(if maybe even a touch small!). bottom line, if you've tested it, throw the charts away. the charts were created by asking viewers what was comfortable, so if you already know it's comfortable, you might as well create your own personal chart...

the same can be said when you're looking at image brightness. seems like the recommended FL keeps going up(and i don't just mean with HDR). the amount of light in your room will have a big impact on this, but i would again suggest some trial and experimentation before you decide you can't use an AT screen. I've had my screen brightness measured at anywhere from 4-8FL and in most cases i couldn't imagine going brighter. With HDR content, i wouldn't mind if i could get brighter highlights, but that's more about the super limited ~200:1 ansi contrast i'm getting than the image looking dim to me. You may find that 22FL is plenty bright for you, and if that's the case it'd be a shame to avoid spandex, and end up paying more for a screen that shows more texture. But, you might also find 22FL is barely enough, or not enough, and then the decision becomes easy as well.

you just have to keep in mind, that all the charts and guidelines are really designed for building OTHER people a theater. professional installers and commercial cinemas should probably stick to the charts to be safe. or when you have to guess at what will be big enough, bright enough, etc then you can certainly use the guidelines, especially as a starting point. But if you can test it out yourself with your own eyes, don't hesitate to go off the charts.

i don't have experience with ready to hang AT materials from commercial screen manufacturers. I can say that the texture on a spandex screen is pretty darn smooth from 9feet away. with my 1080p projector and content on screen, i can make out the pixel structure at about 6', clearly see pixels at 3', and really can't make out the screen texture until i'm just inches away. with the projector off and room lights on, i can see some texture on the screen from about 4'. Seems like the pixel structure hides the texture.