Newbie - total home cinema setup advice needed please!

ptardivel

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I am in desperate need of your expert advice. I've done some research online but still find myself confused as to the best options to go with on a number of fronts. Apologies in advance for the length of this post and the number of stupid questions within it!

OVERVIEW: I am completely gutting my lounge area (stripping back to bare walks a ceiling joists) and want to install a projector into the ceiling and have 5.1 surround sound. I have bought a BenQ W1070 projector which has a red and white stereo output. I have a bluray player, sky HD, BT vision box all of which I can watch netfix through. I plan to put them in a low lying cabinet at the base of the projector screen. I don't listen to that much music and am not too worried about perfect sound quality. I have attached a layout for the room with dimensions in case that helps. We'll likely lie on the sofas with our heads furthest away from the projector screen. My budget for the remaining components is around £1000.

Now for the stupid questions!
1. Can you recommend a ceiling lift?
2. The ceiling height is 2.7m , will this cause issues with the projecting angle? (I read elsewhere on this forum that you should avoid adjusting keystones?).
3. How far away from the projecting wall would you put the projector?
4. Would you use an HDMI cable or Cat6 for that distance?
5. What audio setup would you recommend? Use of an AV receiver, HDMI switch, amp or other component? Any make/model recommendations?
6. Whats the best audio out cabling to use from my devices (sky box etc)? Optical?
7. What speakers / sub should I get, where should I place them and will they need power?
8. Do I need a screen or could I project straight onto the white wall (possibly use the special projector screen paint?)?
9. What cables should I use to run to the speakers?

Advice gratefully received!

Many thanks in advance

P
 

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Hi, I have the same projector as you and have a few pointers.

2. apparently the lens of the projector should be about level with the top of the screen (might be wrong but I think that's right) when putting my projector up I mounted it too low and didn't want to drill more holes in the wall so I use a little bit of keystoning as the top of the image is wider than the bottom without it. I have to honestly say that I can't see a difference with keystone on or not, and I have looked intensively to try and see some form of difference.
4. I have a 7.5m HDMI lead that cost about £10 on eBay and fingers crossed has worked perfectly so far.
5. definitely AV receiver for me, you can plug everything into it via hdmi then have one hdmi output into the projector and control everything through the receiver. I have an Onkyo tx-sr333 and I can't fault it at all.
6. Again, with a receiver everything will work through the hdmi, so all sound will be through the receiver.
7. Can't comment to much but I bought some Cambridge audio sx60 speakers and they sound brilliant!! Other than that I use a pair of big old Akai speakers that I love, and my sub is a cheap one I found on eBay which I think sounds brilliant. Compared to expensive subs I imagine it's a lot worse but I haven't experienced any expensive subs so this is the best I can go off.
8. I bought a screen that I am in the process of painting grey, how dark is your room? Mine had slight ambient light and light walls thus my decision to paint it grey. If you decide to go grey I have gone for Dulux grey steel 2 as it has a lot of recommendations.
9. Any old speaker cable for the speakers, be sure to buy an active sub as this will power itself then the one I have connects with a phono y cable I had made for me.

Any questions just ask :)
 
Answers to your questions in no particular order..


5. AV reciever.. especially if you want 5.1.

4. I use a 25ft (roughly 7.5m) hdmi cable with no issues in a years of use so far.

3. distance from wall is determined by your screen size.. If you have a 100" screen, you're looking at about 10ft from the wall, if you're looking at a 72" screen, its gonna be closer to 8ft (sorry for the units of measure.. I'm too lazy to go and google the conversions for every measurement.. )

1. If you're talking ceiling mount, I use this one. It does the job well enough for me.
Amazon.com: PCMD Projector Ceiling Mount for BenQ W1070: Electronics If it wont work for you because you need more drop (hard to get much less really), they make all sorts of universals that will do you justice.. you can literally mount them at any height as long as you're not afraid of modifying the standoff..

6. As for audio out, optical or hdmi works fine (as long as the device supports it)

8. Since you're going down to stud's, its all your preference.

9. Cables to run the speakers.. cable is cable. Its analog. Keep it away from power sources, shield it from interference if you cant. The whole HIGH purity copper, gold tipped, continuous strand stuff is pretty much all hype. Just make sure you use an appropriate gauge for what you're pushing.

2. Since you're building in from the get go, find out where your projector is going to project, then build the screen there....

7. That is a very personal matter.. I love klipsch, some folks think they're no good.. The 5. of a 5.1 setup will all be powered by your AV receiver. The .1, (the sub) will have to be plugged in.
 
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You'll find that the projector lift will cost far more than your projector, So, I would try to figure another solution. Lift are usually over £2k for the most basic ones.

Use an AV Amp and Speakers to with HDMI inputs and outs. Connect everything to the Amp via HDMI where possible and then its a simple click of a button to switch between devices. Try to keep the HDMI down to below 10m is possible. HDMI Cables are only certified to 5m and any that are longer is like playing "Russian Roulette".

Once you have sorted these little areas out, using a projector is the only way to fully enjoy movies in the home and like everything you will only get out of it what you put in.

But first, work you budget out, can you include an amp and speakers into the mix? Can you get away with placing the projector somewhere else and does it effect the throw?

The biggest piece of advice I can give you is do not plaster or fasten down those HDMI cables. Make sure you can use the old cable as a draw if it fails. Trust me. This will save you far more money in the long run.

Regards, Shane.
 
sounds like Shane has done some telecom work lol.. Yeah, make sure your cables aren't glued in place or inaccessible. There may come a time when technology leaves hdmi behind, or your cable goes bad, or you upgrade to a projector that uses a different set of connectors, and you will want to remove and replace that cable. I recommend leaving a pull tape secured in there instead of using the old one as a pull, but either works. Then again, if I were doing it all from scratch, I'd be using pvc heated and bent into shape or EMC or possibly even cable tray behind the walls (its not necessary, just the old telecom installer in me.
 
Oh, and to calculate drop for image projection, go check out projector centrals calculator. Mounting the PJ lens level with the screen will cause problems.. The PJ, when mounted upside down on the ceiling, will lower the image x% at a given distance..

Hold on, let me get a link
BenQ W1070 Projection Calculator - Throw Distance and Screen Size

that will get you a lot of what you need to know. Looks like it doesnt do drop though, so give me a few
 
Thanks for all the advice guys, really appreciate it.

One question is if I went for projecting straight onto the wall, what colours should I choose or avoid? Grey is mentioned above, but I assumed white would be the way to go? Also does special projector paint make a difference?

Thanks
 
White will give more brightness, but less dark blacks. Grey will appear dimmer, but have better blacks.

I'm happy with a white screen for now, but I drool over some of the black screens
 
I have just tested my grey screen yesterday as I finally got around to painting it, my room has light walls and ceiling and that's why I decided to go for grey.

First impressions, the W1070 has more than enough brightness for my screen (80"), I think it may have been too bright before. Blacks look black, when using a white screen the blacks always looked grey, like you could see the whiteness of the screen in the black in a weird sort of way, I get none of that now, this weekend is when I'm going to fully test it, but I think with a lightly decorated room, grey is the way to go.

I painted my pull down screen, I used Dulux difficult surface primer and a top coat of Dulux tinted matt grey steel 2. I can't comment on special projector screen paint, but I have no issues using plain old Dulux, same would apply for a wall, only you probably wouldn't need difficult surface primer. Just make sure you get the paint as smooth as you possibly can to avoid texture showing up whilst watching things, that's the main reason I painted my screen as my screen is cheap and had a lot of sparkles showing up that put me off what I was watching. Very little of that now with matt paint and I still need to do a second coat which will hopefully get rid of it completely
 

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