Screen size for Pana PT-AE900U.

[Michael r]

Hi all, I have a wall 9 feet long by 8ft 6 inches high. What proportions of this wall should I use to get the best from my Panasonic PT-AE 900U Projector at 12/14 feet distances - I will be seated about 12feet from the screen. I will have to leave room at BOTTOM of wall for 2spkrs plus centre spkr. I feel I should stick to the 16:9 format but surely that'll leave white vertical bands when viewing a 4:3 film format from my cable tv service? Whats best for general use? Regards Michael r. ps The wall has been plastered in a "dimpled" fashion - my friends simply say "use an 8 x 4 mdf sheet and paint it and make the projected picture fit that size" - what do u think.? Has the 900U got the necessary controls to make this "fit"?

 

[BMXTRIX]

You want a 16:9 screen that is no larger than .66 times your viewing distance in width. If you plan to do a lot of non-HDTV viewing, then you should probably make the screen a bit smaller than that - perhaps only .5x the seating distance.

So, if your seating distance is 12 feet, you want a screen about 8 feet wide in 16:9 format. (96 inches). But, you may want to drop down to a 92 or 87 inch wide screen instead if you won't be viewing much HD material.

If you haven't yet, spend a few hours over at www.projectorcentral.com doing some reading on projectors. The AE900 is great, and you should really enjoy it.

 

[Paragon Pro]

Screen a must

Just a little note:
Do some research and absolutly get a screen! The painted wall, MDF sheets, all of that stuff will not make a good surface for projection. Screens are specifically designed to reflect the light back for proper viewing. Sounds like you'll have a sweet setup. Don't diminish it by not investing in a good screen; that's half your projection system.
Hope this helps,
D.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Just a little note:
Do some research and absolutly get a screen! The painted wall, MDF sheets, all of that stuff will not make a good surface for projection. Screens are specifically designed to reflect the light back for proper viewing. Sounds like you'll have a sweet setup. Don't diminish it by not investing in a good screen; that's half your projection system.
Hope this helps,
D.

Actually, only some screens do this. Those with positive gain usually are using some optical elements in the screen material to help with reflecting the light back towards viewers.

The closer you get to a 1.0 gain screen though, the less this occurs and the more dispersion is created by the screen surface. A matte white screen, which is typically ideal for many, should include no optical effect, offer the widest viewing pattern, and is very comparable to many do it yourself surfaces.

Yes, I have real world experience with this when I made a screen out of blackout cloth for a neighbor on a budget. For about $200.00 total I made a 100" diagonal screen. Then I dropped my $4K Draper screen and turned on the projector. My screen is a .8 gain grey screen.

Compared to the BO cloth, my screen definitely was producing a slightly darker/dimmer image the lacked the pop that the BO cloth screen provided. No image quality difference at ALL was visible. The viewing angle for both seemed nearly identical and produced an excellent image well off-axis.

All this said, there are times when the best way to go is with a pro built screen. Draper, DaLite, Stewart, Screen Innovations, Carada, Severtson... the list is long.

Photos (not that they really help much):
http://www.bmxtrix.com/gallery/photo/main_frames.cfm?folder1=theater&folder2=screen&imageName=theater_17&galName=screen&image=theater/screen/theater_17.jpg

Projector Central also did a shoot out which included Goo Systems painted screen technology and the AVS Forums go pretty deep with paint formulas for the 'ultimate' painted screen.

Read:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/home_theater_screens.htm
and
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=110