Mounting a projector on the ceiling help

[Chibouk]

I'm going to mount my projector on the ceiling next week and I wondered if there was a clever way to work out how long a pole I need to order.

The ceilings in our house are very high and a normal length mount won't do it, so I'm going to order one with an extension pole. The thing is, I know the projector will be mounted upside-down, but does that affect the way the image is projected? How do I work out how high (or low) I need to mount the projector?

Any help would be appreciated.

[TheBigApple]

Does your projector have lens shift or keystone correction? If it does, the pole mount length shoudn't be much of an issue.

[LV426]

If no lens shift (etc) then in general, projectors are designed so that when mounted upside down, the centre of the lens should be level with the TOP of the screen. However, your projector manual will probably confirm this, and may even offer an illustration.

[Chibouk]

I've looked in the manual and it does indeed show a little illustration of the way the 'beam' is projected. Thanks for pointing that out.

I have a Panasonic AE200, which has vertical (I think) keystone correction. I wanted to avoid using this, however, as I heard that it dramatically affects the picture quality. Is this right?

Thanks for the help, it's always appreciated.

[Zone]

Originally Posted by Chibouk

I have a Panasonic AE200, which has vertical (I think) keystone correction. I wanted to avoid using this, however, as I heard that it dramatically affects the picture quality. Is this right?

I have the 300 and managed to set it up square on to the screen which is recommended.
I did have a play with keystone correction though, just to see what effects it had on the image and to my eyes I couldn't see any noticeable degradation in picture quality.

[LV426]

Very small amounts of keystone correction have a minimal effect, but an effect nevertheless. Best avoided, if you can.

So......

Laterally, the centre of the projector LENS should be central to the screen.

Vertically, the centre of the projector LENS should be level with the top of the screen.

[Chibouk]

Thanks once again for your help everyone.

All I need to do now is order the mount and get it all fixed up.