Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater anyone know a lot about projectors?

any idea on what sort of angle we would be talking about for probably an 18" adjustment?

hehe... That's a good trigonometry exercise for my 10th-grade daughter.

Seriously, for a 10-feet (120") throw distance,

tan^-1[18/120] = ~8 degrees

You will need a beveled spacer of 5-6" thick along the top edge of a 40"-high screen.

Twopecks,

May I suggest you leave the ceiling fan as it is and install one of those glowy bulbs for lighting. Get yourself some cane furniture and smoke if you so wish. Put on a black and white movie and sit back and imagine yourself to be in one of those Humpfrey Bogart movies - Casablanca!!

Enjoy....

hah! sounds great.
i just want to see the fifth element on a 7' screen in my house.

I think that is the definition of happiness =)

Saturn or Sushi, do you have any strong feelings for or against either the x1 or z1?

In reply to:

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Saturn or Sushi, do you have any strong feelings for or against either the x1 or z1?

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I really don't. It all depends on how sensitive you and your family members are to the rainbows. If you don't see/suffer from them, then the X1 may provide marginally better picture quality than the Z1, especially with respect to shadow details and blacks (and less obvious pixelation). But don't expect a "night and day" or "earth shattering" differences. A few months ago, someone posted in the AVSforum a very careful instantaneous A/B comparison (on the same screen, same signal feed) between the X1 and Z1. He reported that the overall difference was very, very subtle.

Sushi, may I tap your well of projector knowledge as well? First off, thank you for your role around here as 'head front projection advocate', your postings fired up my interest in investigating this option.

I am again considering these two projectors (X1 and Z1). I orginally discarded the idea of front projection because of ambient light issues but after reading quite a bit on AVS about the difference some commercial and even home made screens can make, I'm again beginning to see the light. Toss in the added flexibility and cost and I'd really like to find a way to make this work.

My room is 17 feet long and I too have the ceiling fan problem. I live in Arizona and removing the ceiling fan is not an option, not concerned about the effort, just an issue of survival :-)

I'm thinking of building a box type shelf on the back wall that would house the projector, probably be about a 15 foot throw. I'm guessing that it'll need to be a couple feet down from the ceiling to prevent fan interference. Would either of these projectors given their throw offset and, forgive my ignorance, distance-to-image-size ratio be a more obvious choice?

Would either projector better perform in moderate ambient light? I'm guessing that the screen would likely be more of a factor than either of these projectors.

Ideally I think I'd prefer the 16:9 aspect of the Z1. I watch a lot of satellite. I'm afraid projecting a HUGE sd picture would just heighten poor image quality. Then the image would be 'widened' for DVD or future HD programming. Ultimately I want the projector that will produce the smallest image at that distance (no I'm not insane), it'll be huge anyway and I can't have a 120" image in a 12x17 living room - I need to leave some room for the M60s on the front wall :-)

Please forgive the novel, but any input would be greatly appreciated.

Toby,

The Z1 won’t work for the setup you described, because its lens is too short. The smallest possible screen at a 15’ throw distance is over 120”-diagonal (16:9). So, if you really want the Z1, you will have to ceiling-mount it more upfront.

With the X1, the smallest screen size at 15’ is about 90”-diagonal in the 16:9 mode -- a nice size for the 12’-wide room.

As for the ambient light issue, you may want to consider what I did (our “living-room HT” doesn’t have a perfect light control, either): Use the retro-reflective Da-Lite High Power screen with the projector shelf-mounted at close to the eye level. My projector is sitting about 42” from the floor (at the lens-center) along the back wall, right above and behind the best seat. This configuration maximizes the screen gain (close to 3) and ambient-light rejection afforded by the High Power screen. With this setting, we can comfortably watch brighter materials such as TV programs in fully lit room at night.

Thanks for your help. Given the performance for the $$$ I'm hoping I can make the X1 work. The money I save I can invest and wait for prices to drop on a future HD projector :-)

Mounting as you suggested will avoid issues with the fan too. I can't wait - plasma like image at twice the size for a third the price!

Will projection work in daylight hours in my situation? I am wondering about the ambient light issues for daylight viewing (my living room has windows on the north wall--so no direct sunlight, only indirect light and no curtains.

Our living-room HT also has large windows on the north wall, with no shades/blinds/curtains. The front projector is essentially useless until after dark (at least 1-2 hours after sunset in the summer). We don't care because we don't use the projector during daytime anyway. If you want to use the projector during daytime, you'd better have some blackout shades.

Another option is to get a true 2000-lumen light cannon such as the Sanyo PLV-70, but it is rather expensive, big and heavy.

The ambient light control is the single most important factor for the front projection.