The reason for a 2.35:1 lens is so that the movie fills up the entire screen when watching 2.35:1 movies (90 to 95% of all the movies). This way you can purchase a 2.35:1 sized screen so that it is as large (height-wise) that you feel comfortable with. Going this route the screen will fill up most of you peripheral vision. When you come across a movie is shot it 16:9 or 4:3 you can just flip the anamorphic lens to pass through and you will see the movie at the same height with black bars on the sides. If you want to mask the sides then you can buy some inexpensive sliding curtains to cover the black bars rather than some expensive masking devise.
If you buy a 16:9 screen to watch movies on and try to have it so that it fills up most of your peripheral vision and is a good sized height (in 2.35:1) then when you watch a 16:9 movie the height will be much too overwhelming. It seems that it is more overwhelming for the screen to be too tall than to be too wide. We shouldn't have to move our head up and down to see the whole image but it is okay if the screen is wide enough to take up some of our peripheral vision.
A good way to see what height is comfortable for you is to go watch some blu ray's on 1080p tv (since you are planning on getting a 1080p). Try to watch a blu ray that is shot in 16:9, Crank is one example. Move the seat up as close as you can so that the height seems like a big but comfortable size for you. Just the height not the width. Now measure the height of the screen and the distance that you are sitting away from the screen. If you divide the distance away by the screen height you should get some number between 1.5 and 4, call it x. Now that you know x, you can figure out how big of a screen that you want in your room once you know where you are going to sit. This is found by dividing the distance away from the screen by x. Just make sure that you measure everything in the same units (inches for example). Now that you know your screen height for the 2.35:1 screen you can get the width by multiplying it by 2.35. This is the dimensions of the screen for your room.
- Nick
