I know nothing about projectors so I'm looking for some advice.

For those of you who have them what projectors/screens are you guys using?

What do I need to know about screens? What are the pros and cons of White vs Gray?

The HT room I am beginning to plan is 13'x15' The. The distance of the projector to the screen will be 12' I would like to have a 100" screen. Can anyone recommend a decent projector for around $2k? Thanks in advance.

A good starting place is Projector Central. You will be able to research all the best projectors in your price range. You should be able to find an awesome projector for $2000 or even less. When I bought my projector three years ago, the two big names in that range were Panasonic and Sanyo. They were always going head-to-head, making for some interesting comparison reviews. Seemed like Panasonic came out with a new model every six months. I haven't checked the product lines out in detail lately, but I'd start by looking at the latest offerings from those two companies.

When you get ready to purchase, there are many sites that have good deals. I bought a Panasonic AE900 from Visual Apex and was very happy. Here's a link to the Panasonic PT-AE4000U, my projector's great-great-great-grandchild, which lists for $2499 and is $1999 at Visual Apex. I'm sure you could comparison shop for a lower price on the web, but, of course, make sure you're buying from an authorized, reputable seller.

I use a Da-Lite screen, but I've heard good things about Carada as well.

Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress! This will be fun stuff!

Here is a link to a projector/screen thread I started a while back.

If your slightly handy, you can build a screen for $150 or less that will give you the same performance as expensive manufactured screens. I purchased my screen material from Dazian, they sell to the cinema's around the country, built a wood frame, stretched the material around it and fastened with velcro. Total cost for my 130" 2.35 screen, about $110.

Sounds like a pretty hefty savings to me. What would a middle to high quality 130 inch screen normal run, a grand or two?

and if $150 is too rich, you can pick up a nice sheet of Formica for about $30 that works remarkably well... I did that a couple of years ago as a prototype, to get a feeling for what size of "real" screen I should buy, and the Formica has been working great ever since

You really need to choose the screen and projector together... if you have a "bright" projector you can go with a grey screen and get better contrast, especially if there is some ambient light in the HT, but if you have a relatively "dim" projector then you probably want to stay with a white screen. Put differently, if you can't fully control the ambient light then you should look at either (a) bright projector + grey screen, or (b) any projector + high gain screen accepting the narrower viewing angle. Just guessing from your original post that the room will be a dedicated HT that you can make as dark as you like, if so that gives you more options.

In theory the high gain screens (eg VUTEC SilverStar, Da-lite HiPower) are best in rooms where you can't completely control the ambient light, but I have to admit that the most impressive images I have seen so far came from high gain screens in a dark room (duh!, I guess ;)).

If I ever get around to buying a screen I would be tempted to try a high gain screen even if it's just for the punchy image, although you lose viewing angle with both. The SilverStar seemed to have a pretty good horizontal viewing angle, although I never quite figured out how that worked (high gain + wide viewing angle aren't supposed to go together, so presumably VUTEC has figured out how to combine a wide horizontal viewing angle with a narrow vertical, or sth like that).

Great. If I can save some dough to throw at other equipment that's good news.

Thanks for the info.

Did it need to be plugged in and did it sound like a chainsaw when it was? If so, there might have been more going on......

If you have a Menards or other Home Improvement store in your area, there is a product from Parkland Plastics. It comes in a 4ft x 8ft x 5/16" thick piece. Lots of people over on AVS use this as a screen and the company is now thinking about making custom sizes that can be ordered. With this size you get a 2:1 ratio screen, which is fine you just have to use your zoom for 16:9 and 2.35 material. Or, you could cut it down a bit for 16:9 to match the projectors native ratio.

The sheets run about $30 or less per sheet. Hang it on the wall, and your done, instant screen. Or you could get fancy and make a black felt/velvet boarder around it...

I ended up getting some 1" x 4" and made a 110" screen. I took some black tarp paper for gardening and stretched it over the frame. Why I did this is because I want to make sure there was no light escaping to the back wall. My Dad helped me staple it down. We made sure there was no wrinkles.

Then we took a high thread count white bed sheet and stretched it over the tarp paper. We made sure there were no wrinkles on it either, then we stapled it down.

I think this project took me about 3 hours and it cost me around $50 to $60. I love the picture I have too. Very bright and poppy.

sweet. Looks like I don't have to spend the $500 or so on a screen.

The right type of paint combinations can yield wonderful results as well, or even black-out cloth, which is a curtain liner you can get a fabric stores to block out sun light.

If you have the room and can control your light, I would consider an Audio Transparent screen. You can make this yourself too, in the end the expense will be more than the other DIY options mentioned here but I think it is a great option you should consider.

Going AT allows you to put your speakers behind the screen, where they belong, being able to accommodate identical L/C/R speakers without having to worry about placement issues with the center channel and in my opinion, I like the look of a theatre where you can't see the speakers at all, at least the front sound stage.

The DIY options for AT screens starts with the Sun Shade material Sheerweave 4500 in the Chalk colour.

I like to look at my speakers that I've payed for... If you build your stage correctly, you can still have a perfect L/C/R soundstage.

Grunt and I have added Panasonic projectors to our HT in the last 6 months. I think we both use Carada screens as well. Bright White for me. I have the Panny 3000, Grunt has the new 4000. You can find our threads on the topics. But I will say the 3000 has been awesome, but at 900 hours I just started to get a very noticeable flicker from the bulb. I'm told it will work itself out by shifting lamp modes, but we shall see.

Bought from Projector People, and very happy at the front end. Upon this issue, getting technical help was quick and accurate, but once I asked how I use the extended lamp warranty I purchased the emails went cold. Could be the holiday season, but wanted to raise that flag for anyone looking get the lamp warranty.

In short, $2K (now) plus $700 for screen gives unbelievable results. A movie theater has nothing on this in my 15x13x9 room.

I will be able to control the light in the room since it will be a dedicated HT room. However putting the speakers behind the screen would mean that the screen has to be about 2 feet from the wall. I don't think I would like this look and it would bring the screen closer to the projector and limit the screen size I could use. My distance from projector to back wall will be only about 11.5 to 12 feet as it is.

I'd argue a perfect sound stage... at least for movie watching would have the speakers behind the screen, just like at the theatres. With the voices coming from the center of your screen from your center channel, not above, not below, directly from the the area where the mouths are moving.

I understand the space issue and not wanting to sacrafice screen size. I wasn't sure if your room was built or not and you are in a tight space already.

I can echo the comments on panasonic's I have a pt-ax100u and love it, it's only 720p, but does a great job. There were some production problems with that model and it did have to go back for repair, but I understand the ax200u hasn't had the same issues.

The 3000 is amazing, I've seen that one in action before... on a 120" DIY AT screen and it look amazing... oddly enough with a matching set of M22's for L/C/R's too

In the blind AB testing I've done argues to the contrary.

If you're blind why have a screen at all?

I don't have a critical ear at all and haven't done A/B testing myself, but I'm pretty pleased with the way it sounds for me and really like the way it looks... or doesn't look

As Zimm mentioned I got a Panasonic AE4000 projecting onto a 134” diagonal Carada Brilliant White 1.78:1 screen. Projector is 19’ back and my seating is 14’-15’ back from the screen. I’m using 3 tower speakers L/C/R and because the screen is above them have complete flexibility in placement to get the best soundstage possible. Because my seating is far enough back 8’-10’ I don’t hear the speakers coming from below the screen.

Any projector well reviewed at Projector Central or Projector Reviews will be more than bright enough for your light controlled room and screen size. Which one is best for you comes down to what if any features you want or issues you don’t want. Similarly what style and type of screen will also depend on your uses.

I went with a 1.78:1 (16x9) screen because most of the material I watch is 1.78:1 or 1.33:1 (Xbox games, anime, and 16x9 HD shows) and the width of 2.35 screen I could fit would have severely limited those screen sizes. By going with a 1.78:1 screen I not only get the largest 2.35 screen I could fit but also the largest 1.78:1 and 1.33:1 at the same time so it was a no brainer. So far dark bars aren’t an issue for 2.35 movies because I can turn a dial to shift the image down so the only bar is up on top and not even noticeable compared to all the light bouncing around the room from the screen. That may change when I get black curtains up but then all I have to do is make some DIY masking for the top of the screen.

I also got a screen with a slight positive gain because of the screen size and distance from the projector two issues I don’t think you need to worry about. I considered and ditched the AT idea because it would have eaten up to much of my room to put the speakers behind it. AT would also have compromised my speaker positioning in relation to the walls and seating. And though I haven’t tried one I read to much about possible audio quality and especially picture quality issues that I didn’t want to risk that either.

My projector choices came down to a Panasonic and Epson:

I went with the AE4000 because I play a lot of video games and watch shows with lots of dark scenes and wanted better shadow detail over black levels. Also the Epson’s were not yet shipping at the time and last years models had issues with noise from the dynamic iris. Also the AE4000 is suppose to do a little better with frame interpolation which I find a fantastic feature on the AE4000. Mode2 eliminates almost all motion judder and also blurring during panning w/o introducing problems.

One thing to note is that while the Panasonic is cheaper out of the box bulb replacement costs could make it more expensive than the Epson in the long run.

Best thing you can do is read the various reviews and identify the projectors that have the features/performance you want.

Grunt How much are the bulb replacements on the panasonic? How often do they have to be replaced?

At your price point, your options are fairly limited. At that budget, I’d get the 4000. I recently read a thread at AVS where someone had access to a Sim 2 Lumis and the 4000. He installed them both and was very surprised that the gap in performance between the two was not nearly as large as expected (keep in mind that the Lumis is a + $20,000 projector that the majority of videophiles consider the holy grail of digital projectors). This little experiment just goes to show how far digital projector performance per dollar has gotten the last couple of years. It seams as if $2000 will get you about 85% of the way to “best performance possible”, and you have to pay through the nose to get marginal improvements above 85%. Here’s the thread - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1206133

Considering you have a light controlled room, go with a white screen. Grey aids in rooms where stray light is an issue, or rooms in which you want to have light present. The screen reflects whatever light is present in the room, including stray light from sources other than the display device. Grey tends to reject stray light, which in turns improves overall contrast. However, grey detracts from shadow detail. This is also why it is recommended to paint your walls and ceiling flat black, and preferable to use black velvet. By painting flat black or using black velvet, stray light is not reflected to, or from the screen. This may seem overly fussy, but if you’ve ever tried to take ANSI contrast readings, you will soon understand just how important this is. ANY stray light in the room, regardless if it is reflected to the screen or from the screen into the room has a negative effect on ANSI contrast. ANSI is what gives that POP and 3D look that everyone wants. You can improve shadow detail if the display allows you to tweak the gamma curve, but unless you want to invest in the equipment to calibrate the machine, you will be stuck picking out a pre-programmed gamma curve and these tend to come with compromises. At your price point, you’d be better off just sticking with a white screen with a neutral gain and use one of the pre-programmed viewing modes that appeals to you the best and don’t mess with calibration. Once you head down the road of calibration, you might as well suck it up and zero out your checking account because you will never be happy. – I speak from personal experience.

High gain screens come with penalties. Because of the screen make up and the method in which they reflect an image brighter than the source of light, you will see hot spots, sparkles, and have a narrow viewing cone. Most also require the project to be specifically mounted either above, or below the screen at a particular offset, and if you deviate from this, the result is a negative gain. From what I have read, Carada appears to have the best screen on the market right now under $1000. Stewart is arguably the best, but you pay for them. You can attempt to make one yourself, but it’s doubtful that whatever you make will perform as well as the Carada. I suppose it really comes down to how much your time means to you and how picky you are.

The Panasonic AE4000 lamp is $400 USD and the Epson 8500UB is $300 USD. The estimated lamp lives are, for the AE4000 2,000 hours in normal mode and 3000 hours in eco-mode and for the 8500UB 4,000 hours in both modes. I’ve been using eco-mode exclusively and don’t see any great improvement using normal mode so I don’t see switching. Please consider that lamp lives are statistical averages. One lamp might last 5,000 hours and the next one dies after 500.

Another projector you might consider is the:

Epson Home Cinema 8100 Projector Review

Michael knows a hell of a lot more about this than me but after reading about projectors for a year and a half I came to the same conclusion he has stated. That $2,000 gets you to 85% of the best possible performance. So unless you have nothing better to spend your money on . . . .

I was seriously considering buying a JVC with an MSRP of $5,000 since it was one of the best out there for under 5 digits. But the more I read the more I realized that like music the room plays a pivotal role in HT projector and screen use. So instead of spending all the money on a projector I split my budget between a projector and curtains. Might seem crazy to buy $2,000 light absorbing curtains to cover all but the back wall but as I see it those curtains will enhance the PQ of every projector I ever own. I’ve already painted the ceiling flat black which is good enough for now because even burgundy walls shine like beacons in the reflected light from the screen. But when the curtains are up if the flat black ceiling has to much sheen I will for about $150 order some sheets of telescope flocking to line the ceiling out 5’ or so from the screen.

Even if you can’t or don’t want to make the whole room black at least doing the area nearest (say 5’ out) to the screen is a big improvement. Also dark curtains surrounding the screen can create a very nice “movie-theater-like” look.

I considered a DIY screen but from everything I read people who went the DIY route and later switched to a dedicated screen would never go back. Not to say a DIY screen won’t get you a great picture and for the size your looking at there are lots of options (I was limited by size) so if paying $150 for a DIY screen helps you get the projector you want it would be a good choice. However, if you start paying upward of $500 then you really should consider getting a screen you won’t ever want to upgrade and I think the best bang for the buck is Carada.

Cheers,
Dean

Thanks a lot guys. Michael and Grunt that is exactly the type of information I was looking for. Thanks a bunch.

This will be a dedicated HT room so I guess I could paint it entirely black. I was considering some dark reds before, but after reading this I guess it will be all black.

No reason you can’t paint most of the room a dark read. The most important area to have completely black it that nearest the screen and as Michael said black velvet (or another light absorbing cloth I would add) is preferable to flat black paint because if you get the right type it will have less sheen than even the flatest black paint you can make.

This makes painting the room a dark red and curtaining the area around the screen and several feet out a nice option. That’s the route I’ve taken except the curtains go all the way back to the back wall to minimize reflections in my peripheral vision. The only thing painted black is the ceiling and surprisingly (well to me at least) a black ceiling and burgundy walls actually looks nice.

Though painting black will cost less and likely be less hassle than curtains having tested both I would go with low sheen black curtains over paint any day. It’s less reflective. Cuts down more on visual distractions like light swiches. Gives the option of opening them revealing more “friendly” coloured walls should you want to have a sports party or something. And just plain looks more “theater-like.”

How far out to go with curtains depends on how big your screen is in relation to your room and how much you want to minimize visual distractions in your field of vision.

My screen wall is done entirely in black velvet. Nothing like a wall to wall, floor to ceiling frame around your screen



I need to a take a new picture, that door isn't white anymore, it is the same colour as the walls.

I'm currently using normal white paint for my projection area. I also have a 92" screen which I used for testing. The image quality was a lot better on the wall. I used a bluray and paused a scene. I placed the screen over the wall and was able to compare the two at the same time.

My setup cost me around 80$ to do the whole wall. Projection area is 117"

link to HT room

Ah yes, I remember seeing pictures of that room. Gorgeous!

I miss Cam.
I was reminded of him because Micheal's post gave me a sudden inspiration that we need another picture of Teri with a custom made T-shirt that says "Hey Axiom Boys, wanna check out my room?"

Sorry Terri, I joke with you with respect. You're a class act!

I miss Teri, err...I mean Cam, also.

Cam's all over the place, guys!

I know, but I didn't want to actually say "I miss Teri" even if I do.

I am using a 6500 UB, and a Carada 110" 1.78:1 screen. Very happy with all of it, other than Epsons rebate program . Performance wise the product is great. Movie theatres are useless to me now, unless I just can't wait for the movie to hit video.

Potatohead that looks awesome.

I currently played a lot with QS8 speakers placement and I find your configuration to be wrong. Don't know if you're willing to try something. Keep your couch at the same distance but center it in your room to have the same distance on each side.

Move them 18" each in front of your back couch

I'm not suggesting that you move the speakers permanently, put them temporary on something to try out.

see the picture, when I listen to a movie, I move the couch beside the lamp near the wall. Between the side QS8 and the back QS8. I could live hapilly without the ones in the back but the ones on the side are really in the sweet spot.

[img]http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showimage&id=530&type=f&IMG_1534.jpg[/img]

Another suggestion:

Since you room is dedicated to your home theater, I would suggest moving your couches. Put your couches one in front of the other instead of having one of the side. Build a step for the one in the back. This way you would have a configuration exactly like a real theater

Dolby and Axiom both recommended placement of 90 - 110* angle from you, while looking directly at the screen. The QS8 manual states placing them beside or slightly behind and a foot to five feet above your ears is ideal. The picture may be deceiving, but they are about 8" behind my head while seated. It is also not necessary to have them equidistant from the listener, as the receiver and Audyssey take care of delay and level settings, to have the sound arrive to you from each speaker at the exact same time. You can have one 12" away, and another 10', and you will be able to match them with a decent receiver. Of course not every seating position will be ideal, but you set it up for the main position and go from there. Audyssey helps a lot, along with an SPL meter.

I only live here with myself and my wife, the loveseat is really just left over from our old place and we always sit in the larger couch. I did not really consider the loveseat at all when I setup the room audio - wise. If I wanted to go the actual theatre route I would have built a riser and bought theatre style seating as well. I prefer to be able to lie down from time to time so I stuck with the couches.

The only reason I would ever move them forward was if there were two rows of seats, I would move them slightly forward, about 12" and put some more in the back and run 7.1. This room is small enough however that I don't think that is necessary, it sounds fantastic.

Thank you

That’s a really nice looking setup. I love having such a nice big image when using 1.78:1 sources.

I would have considered going with a 2.35 CIH setup if my room was wider, but it's only 11.75' wide or so. I didn't want to give up so much 1.78 viewing size with a 2.35 screen at that width. I play too many video games and watch too much sports/HDTV for that :). I don't mind the bars with a 2.4 movie anyway, the black levels are good enough I don't even notice it.

I was in the same boat as it turned out the highest 1.78:1 corresponded to the widest 2.35:1 I could fit. I also play lots of games and watch more 1.78:1 and 1.33:1 content going with the largest 1.78:1 I could fit gave me the best of both worlds.

The bars weren’t bothering me with burgundy walls but I put up some temporary curtains (old stuff from the apartment) until my new ones arrive and can already tell that once I’ve got full black curtains around the front of the room I’m going to need to make some masking because with everything else so dark even the slightest boarder is now becoming visible.

The masking will be easy since for 2.35:1 stuff I shift the picture down to the bottom of the screen so I will only have to mask the top.

Does your projector have a 12 volt trigger for when it's in anamorphic mode? You could have a motorized mask triggered by that.

Without double checking the specs I believe it has two 12v triggers. I’ve looked at various DIY masking techniques, the pre-made ones are just to rich for my taste right now. My initial plan was to make masking for both 1.33:1 and an adjustable one for 2.35, 2.40, etc. . . .

Probably going to go the cheapest and easiest route first and just make them from velvet covered foam insulation that just hangs from the top of the screen. Later once I’ve actually got everything else finished I’ll start looking at what improvements I can do to make things more user friendly at which point some form of automatic masking may be in the cards.

Most of my resolution changes right now are between 1.78:1 and 1.33:1 with only a small percentage of my viewing in the 2.35 range.