[JP]

I apologize for the cryptic subject heading but I just didn't know how else to put this. I am about to get married and here is the good, the bad, and the ugly for my future. The good is I am getting a dedicated home theater room as I wanted for a while now. The bad is that we are still going to rent for a year until buying a house. The apartment we have decided on is nice but not condusive to a home theater environment. There are 12 foot ceilings and hard wood floors. Needless to say some sound absorbing material will have to be put everywhere. The ugly is that this is an old house with plaster walls. The owner has requested that we not bolt anything into the walls or the ceiling. There is picture molding that we use to hang pictures but I sure wouldn't trust it for mounting a projector.


So now I have to figure out a way to somehow get the projector up high and inverted due to the seating area. Of course I don't want people having to shift their bodies around to make sure they are out of frame. Does anyone out there utilize some kind of stand for a situation such as this? Any ideas are greatly appreciated. The only thing that I have come up with is to buy one of those large metal racks that are about 6 feet high and mount it from underneath one of the shelves. However, I still don't like this option because I don't like the way the rack looks and it is so wide it would take up quite a bit of space. Any thoughts out there?

 

[Petey]

JP,

What kind & brand of projector are you trying to mount? The weight difference will probably factor in on the eventual solution.


Petey

 

[dbldare]

JP,


There's no way to hide it under a custom made coffee table??



Mike


------------------

Let's go out to the lobby.

Let's go out to the lobby.

To have ourselves a snack!

[email protected]

 

[JP]

Petey, I can't believe I didn't post that. It is an NEC vt540.


The coffee table idea is VERY good. However, I worry about the focus. I know you can do keystoning and such but I still prefer like a straight on approach.


Thanks for the replies.

 

[dbldare]

Hoist in the 'ol ladder from the garage for movie nights.....


------------------

Let's go out to the lobby.

Let's go out to the lobby.

To have ourselves a snack!

[email protected]

 

[Petey]

JP,

With roughly 9 pounds of camera weight, I would get a couple of 2X4's and wedge them side by side between the floor and ceiling leaving enough space between them to build some kind of shelf or bracket at the height you would like the camera placed. It goes without saying that you should pad the top and bottom of the wood so as not to scratch the finish of either the floor or ceiling. As a bonus you can also cover the 2X4's with some paneling or similiar material to hide the cabling. While your at it, add some additional lower shelves for your DVD collection http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif


Petey

 

[Mark Hoy]

If you can place a bookshelf at the back of the room you can build a shelf that takes the projector in an inverted fashion.

-=-

Mark

 

[Scott Gammans]

JP,


I have a VT540. Although I installed my projector to a wall-mounted shelf 84" above floor, my setup is still adaptable to the bookshelf approach that Mark Hoy suggested. (By the way, in case you were wondering my shelf-mounted VT540 is sitting on four adhesive rubber feet that I bought at the Home Depot for about $1.19)


The important thing to remember with the VT540 is that as you zoom in/out the lens for different aspect ratios you will also need to tilt the projector up/down a bit (the degree of tilt is dependent on the distance of the projector to the screen). This is why I came up with the hinged shelf-and-eyebolt mechanism illustrated at my website; it allows me to raise/lower the projector the 1/2" or so that is the difference between full-zoom 2.35:1 shots and no-zoom 4:3 viewing. (Before, I was using paperback books to raise/lower the projector to the proper angle.)


------------------

Scott Gammans
DFAST is EVIL! BOYCOTT ANTI-CONSUMER 5C/DVI/HDCP MANUFACTURERS!
The Scooterplex Cinema 1


[This message has been edited by Scott Gammans (edited 09-02-2001).]

 

[Gary McCoy]

JP, I mounted my VT540 7.5' above the floor inside a hushbox using a commercially available mount made by Chief. I can adjust and tilt the projector freely through all three axis. This is the approach I reccomend for you as long as you have at least a 12" wide shelf. The mount is $120 but can be used in your house, in addition to bolting to the top inside of a box, it offers pipe threads for a conventional ceiling mount. In my installation, a 13' throw produces a 90" diagonal image with the bottom 33" off the floor, great viewing from 11' back.


My hushbox is elaborate and described in this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum10/HTML/008100.html


A simpler approach lacking the HEPA filter could be acheived by bolting the adjustable mount to the bottom of a shelf.


Gary