I have a squareish room which is 18 feet (5.5 metres) long and about 12 feet high. I would like to have a screen which is about 5 feet wide, to be viewed from about 10 feet away.

Ideally, the projector would be on a stand against the rear wall of the room, next to the DVD and audio equipment. Would the long distance (18ft from the projector to a 5ft wide screen) be a problem? Could this be solved with a suitable lens without compromising quality? I haven't decided on which projector to go for yet, so any views about which one would be good choice for viewing at this sort of distance would be welcome.

Sorry if this is a FAQ and I should have looked further before asking it.

You are looking at a throw ratio of close to 3.7:1. Which is a big ask for a modern small projector, as most of these range from 1.3-2.5:1.

Either look at mounting it further into your room, another lens source, or try and find a PJ with this ratio lens as an option.

Better still go for a bigger screen, but resolution will suffer slighlty

[LV426]

Originally posted by Anders_UK
Better still go for a bigger screen, but resolution will suffer slighlty

Absolutely, not. But subjectively, maybe.

[tonytigerrr]

perhaps you'd be better off going for a plasma if you want a smaller screen - any particular reason for this size or are you worried about quality at this viewing distance (screendoor, artifacts, pixelisation).

My room sounds similar to yours and I have a Panny 300 which has a quite short throw. I have a 6'8" wide screen and sit about 11 feet away. This seemed to me to be about the right size screen for that viewing distance as a compromise between the wow factor of having a big screen and decent picture quality. If I had a bigger room then I'd use a bigger screen but also sit further away!

Impossible to project such a small image from such distance, unless you want to spend half as much as the PJ for an adittional long throw lens. Even then, I think it would be a no no.

Why not a bigger screen? The room certainly seems big enough to warrant a 92" or even 106" screen.

Longest throw PJ currently available (well, one of) is the HS10. Produces a nice picture (110") from about 13/14'. I sit approx 11' from screen.

Nigel, the bigger you go the worse resolution you get!!

Its not just the number of pixels in an image that makes up the resolution figure!

[Messiah]

Surely the resolution stays the same no matter what the distance but it is the image quality which changes (better or worse depending on distance). Surely an 800x600 resolution image is 800x600 no matter how big or small the actual image is? No?

Thanks very much for responses and advice.