Home cinema with 159" screen?

[PC_112]

Hello,

I am now in the architectural design phase for my new house and I am planning to have a home cinema/living room in it. (it will be more home cinema than usual living room).

Currently in my small apartment I have a 92" screen, and I thought of going big with a 159" screen for the new house. Would that be OK, or you would suggest going with a smaller screen?

What I am worrying about is if by the time the house will finish (almost 2 years from now) I will be able to find good and not very expensive (<$7000) true HD projectors that will be bright enough for such a big screen.

Also can anybody tell me how much black border is required at the top of screens like this one:
http://www.da-lite.com/products/prod...?cID=32&pID=47

I know that the case is about 20cm high, but I don't know if to that I will have to add some required black border. I need this to calculate how low the screen will reach, since it is 1.98cm high.

Thanks

[inzaman]

Moved to screens as not DIY related.

[Zag]

Originally Posted by PC_112

Hello,

Currently in my small apartment I have a 92" screen, and I thought of going big with a 159" screen for the new house. Would that be OK, or you would suggest going with a smaller screen?

Depends on how big the rest of the room is, planned on seating distance and your own personal preferences.

IMO bigger is better provided the projector can cope with it in terms of lumens and SDE.

[AV Nik]

Hi PC_112,
You could take into concideration how you will view the screen.
I receive many complaints about neck and eye strain from guys who buy a 120" screen or a screen too big.
What they say is that the screen is so big, they are constantly looking left and right to see the action.
My advice to others since has been to buy a screen you can encompass in your perifial view. Basically, have a screen which you can see the whole of, from where you sit.
Some people want to be closer to the action but predominantly, if you can see the whole image, you should avoid neck strain.
With regards to top border length, if you know how high the bottom of the screen will be from the floor, and how high the bottom of the case will be from the floor, betweeen these two equals your whole surface length. Obviously, once you know how big your image will be (Visual Area example: 244cm x 137cm = 110" Diagonal), then you can ask for that length of top border from Da-Lite.
Da-Lite only add extra top border length to certain screens so you need to check they can do this with the model you pointed out.
Hope this helps.

[PC_112]

Thank you for your replies.

AV Nik, I will not need any extra top border since I will want the screen to start from as high as possible. Can those tensioned electrical screens be adjusts to only have a tiny top border (say 3-4 cm)?

IMO bigger is better

Thats how I think also, this is why I want the largest screen possible. I am just not sure if I will be able to find a projector that will be able to cope (and be good) with such size of screen for less than $7000. What do you think?

[AV Nik]

Most Electric Screens can be adjusted or programmed to start/stop at any desired height.
For example, if you only want the white area showing, you would adjust the stop setting so that when the screen unrolled, it stops just where you want it. Likewise for retracting.
Most of the time, the long top black borders are a benefit to those who need the screen to roll down further than the standard screens without top black borders. In your case, you just don't need it.
Something like the Da-Lite Cosmopolitan or the Projecta Cinema Electrol's would be the top choices.