Well all my materials are on hand (except the screen), prewiring has begun, and pretty much all decisions are made. Well except room colors but lets face it, that might never be my decision except to provide advice that it be dark and flat.
My projector has even arrived. I went for the Epson Powerlite 1080 and will hopefully be putting the money saved from the sweet deal aside for an new couch. I did ask if I could send it back if I was not pleased with black levels and wanted to py the extra to upgrade to the 1080UB. They seemed pleased that I might spend more so that wont be an issue if I do it in 30 days.
Since I don't know if my room will be done in that time, I took it to a friends house and table mounted it to view on his 92" white screen in a completely light controlled room, as mine will be. Even without calibration we were very impressed with the brightness and colors. His lamp was burnt out so we couldn't compare but he believes the Epson to be a bit brighter than his Mitsubishi HC4900 and he says the colors are more full but it might even be overkill since we didn't make any stab at color correction.
Best of all, I was satisfied with the black levels. This is my first projector experience so maybe I don't know what i was missing but I didn't find myself yearning for deeper blacks, although I do wish his had been working to compare. I suppose by the time I figure out calibration enough to muddle a bit myself, he will have his bulb replaced and we can try again.
That being said, I think it's a keeper and leads into my question.
I can easily purchase a bracket style mount but I first had visions of building drop down cabinet of sorts to help shield any residual light (of which I think there will be none to little) and help with fan noise.
My question is, has anybody gone this route and does it encourage heat issues. This unit vents at an angle away from the bulb up front, so at least the vented air would not be trapped in the cabinet.
Ideas, opinions please.
