[kyoo]

A picture is worth a thousand words.. I took a photo and doctored it up with some measurements. I was hoping to get some advice from all of you gurus.


The TV that is pictured is on its way out. When I built this room, I ran a conduit up to the enter of my room. The 3" conduit comes down the middle of a 2"x8". I also have a power cable up there ran down to my closet so I can plug it into a UPS.. I just have to dig it all out of the drywall we laid over top of it until I was ready to use it..


I was awestruck by the new Panasonic PT-AE7000U.. based on the reviews alone, obviously.. It is very pricey.. I'm certainly up for other suggestions.. but will this beast work well in this room with these dimensions? I will admit, I'm sort of interested in the 3D capabilities.. probably wouldn't use it too much; but I may eventually.. if I ever get ESPN 3D, for instance..


It may sound silly, but I was planning to buy one of the Monoprice Multi-Format projector screens . Thoughts? I can't tell for sure, but it looks like you can manually pull in each of the 4 sides to black out the sections you don't project on.. depending on what format ratio you're watching.. unless that is electric and it automates that.. I doubt it.


I say silly, because if I really spend $3500 on a crazy projector, do I need a better screen than that to really utilize it?


Anyway, I need ideas for a projector mount.. I need to drop it down a foot or so, so it can project UNDER the ceiling fan in front of it.. I'll take ideas for screens and projectors to.


Do I need to widen my front speaker towers? Space them out more? I'm a little worried about doing that..


Thanks everyone!

Here is a shot from when the room was being built.. the left is the back, the right is the front (towards the screen wall).. you can see I have an electrical socket behind the projector area.. All of this is buried under the drywall, so it will be fun to find it.. Luckily I have more pictures to go off of.

 

[mjg100]

The screen that you are looking at, is not four way masking. It is two way masking. One top and one bottom mask. For a 120" 0.8 gain screen, I would look at the Sony HW30. It is much brighter in best mode compared to the Panny and with a masking screen you do not need the lens memory system of the Panny.

 

[kyoo]

Oh, so the Monoprice screens are two way masking.. that is probably just fine.. but I thought they were 1.0 gain... (not that I understand what that means, to be perfectly honest)


Thanks for pointing out the Sony VPL-HW30.. I'll look into that one.


Does anyone have experience w/ the different projector mounts that monoprice sells?

Since I need to project under my front ceiling fan, how far should I be dropping the projector off the ceiling? I see Monoprice has some "extension" bars for their mounts. I don't quite have a good feel for what angle the projector can be at in order to project a proper rectangle on the screen.


Is a 1.0 gain screen good enough?


Considering I have 7.5 feet between my tower speakers, should I get a screen that is as close to but smaller than that width? Or go bigger, and either not use the whole width, or move my towers out a little more?

 

[kyoo]

Doing some quick math, if I leave the tower speakers as is, I have 90 inches between them on the horizontal (as shown in the pic).. if I go with a 16:9 screen, I figure that means I have 50.625" vertical.. which means my diagonal is 103".

sqrt((90^2) + ((90 / (16 / 9))^2)) = 103.261274


So, should I get the 106" monoprice screens? Which fabric, white or gray?

Multi-Format Frame Projection Screen (10cm Aluminum Frame w/ Velvet Wrapped) - HD White Fabric (106 inch, 16:9/2.35:1)
Multi-Format Frame Projection Screen (10cm Aluminum Frame w/ Velvet Wrapped) - HD Grey Fabric (106 inch, 16:9/2.35:1)


Is 13 feet too far to project to a 106" screen?


For the theatrical 2.35:1 ratio, is this the right math for the diagonal? Something doesn't seem right.. what do projectors do when switching between ratios? How do we keep a unified horizonal width?

sqrt((90^2) + ((90 / 2.35)^2)) = 97.8096469


Sorry for all the questions.. I will greatly appreciate any of them answered.. feel free to pick and choose..