[southleft]

On my occasional visits to the forums i see some wonderful home theater rooms. Most of them use a front-firing overhead projector. What i'm wondering is this - if you are building or converting a room for home theater and you have plenty of money, then why not have a "screen wall" with plenty of depth behind it and locate the projector back there? It would be out of sight and the fan noise of the projector would surely be less audible to listeners. Another benefit is space behind the speakers which can help with imaging and smooth bass response. Granted, most of us don't have a room so long that it has an extra 6 to 10 feet of length beyond the desired theater size. But, with enough budget and enough elbow room, wouldn't you prefer the benefits of this type of room design?

 

[weaselfest]

Two of the nicest theaters I ever put in were both rear projection setups. One with mirrors, one with a large closet behind the screen wall to allow adequate throw. Love that someone can't get between the projector and screen.
I suspect some of the reason you don't see many on these forums is that they aren't usually a DIY type of project. Haven't cruised the home brew screen forum in a while but I don't recall too much discussion of rear projection. It's not like you can buy fabric or paint and make do. (OK, you can make do with some fabrics, guess it depends on how critical your eye is and what magic fabrics are out there I'm completely oblivious to.) The glass or plexi is pricey and hard to handle without the proper tools. And forget about being acoustically transparent, which is pretty darn advantageous in its own right.
A hush box or projection booth can be every bit as quiet and is "just like the pros".

 

[LarryGM]

I retrofitted my basement family room six years ago and was able to do rear projection. For me, it was easier to do and, aesthetically, more pleasing. I have been very satisfied and while there wasn't a lot of information at the time regarding how to best do this, I took the plunge. Most of the advantages are obvious and a few were personal preference, but they include the following:

1) I had 20' of unfinished basement behind the planned screen wall position. I was lucky. In the finished portion of the basement, drywall was already on the walls and ceiling. Opening up finished walls for power and cable was something I didn't want to do. I could easily see my home theater project becoming a bigger basement renovation project.

2) I don't like equipment in the room. It's a personal preference. I was able to wall mount the AV equipment in the back of the room, but there are no large speakers on the floor at the front of the room, there are no shelves with rows of CD's/blu-rays, no projector hanging from the ceiling, and no signs of equipment manufacturers that I often see. Large bookshelf speakers were positioned on shelves behind the screen wall. People could walk in front of the screen without interfering with the image. Additionally, there are were no concerns regarding projector light leakage or fan noise. Why tear into the ceiling then have those issues.

3) Virtually no limitations on projector placement. The projector mount could be mounted on an unfinished ceiling behind the screen and could easily be moved forward/backward, left/right, up/down as necessary. Future projectors could be bought having different installation requirements without any of them being a concern.

Again, I realize I was lucky, but I've been so pleased that I can't ever imagine this design not being my first preference if I were to ever do it again.