paint or screen? (1 Viewer)

first projector, whats the very best outcome? paint the wall with gray or white base? & screen paint or make a screen with material? if make screen whats the very best product and were to find?

Thanks:suzzie

My personal experience has been that it depends on seating distance in feet. If your seating is past 10 feet or so, then painting should work fine. As long as there is no ambient light striking from a side angle, imperfections will be invisible.


Try this experiment. Take a powerful flashlight in a darkened room. Aim it straight ahead at the screen location. Slowly back up until the wall appears perfectly smooth. I found this to be 10 feet in my room. If your seating is beyond that point, then paint should work OK. I used Kilz2 latex primer and imitation wood grained trim, double sided taped to the wall to make the screen looked framed..


Closer than 10' and you will probably want a screen. DIY is probably OK if you can manage to keep it perfectly flat. Blackout cloth (fabric store) can be used if you are on the cheap, but have them roll it on to a tube when you buy it because wrinkles will be very hard to hide. Its cheap and can be used later to make light shields for windows if you decide you don't like it.

thanks steve for the info. some seating will be closer than 10ft so i will go with a screen. is there a difference in quality on blackout cloth sold online,ebay? is there a name of the best cloth available?

im thinking on a 1&1/2" frame with 1" cross brases to eliminate bowing in when the cloth is streched. with 1" cross brases it should hang flat without touching in the center,i think. does this sound rite? i hung the projector were i wanted it to be and it shines a 71"x56" picture. how much bigger should the frame be so it can have a boarder?how wide a boarder?

thanks:suzzie

My screen is 144" diagonal, 10' wide and I only use about a 2" strip around it. I got a color and pattern that matched the window, door, and baseboard trim.The stuff is usually sold around the paneling sections of home improvement stores and I believe it is called cove molding or crown molding, Go for the cheap plastic covered foam stuff for the light weight.


Some people use black felt or cloth as a border. Some use movable cloth to change the size to match the content's aspect ratio but that's a bit much for a first screen.


Blackout cloth comes in 54" width and whatever length you need. (you are going to stretch it sideways) I'd suggest changing the zoom slightly to yield a 54" height. The cloth is cheap, even in a fabric store and you want it without any creases. You'd be surprised how much you would have to stretch it to remove a fold mark. That's why you would ask to have it rolled smoothly as they measure it out.


However: It sounds like you may have a 4:3 multimedia projector rather than a 16:9 home theater projector. You are going to waste a lot of that 56" height when you show movies. I would experiment with a sheet on the wall and actual content before picking a final screen size. You may need to adjust the brightness considerably also. Multimedia projectors tend to be quite bright and harsh.

If your wall is in a nice flat condition, just paint the wall with a bright white, flat finish. I used blackout cloth before, and the white paint will give you a better image. The blackout cloth is too "dull" white. I'm just trying to save you a lot of work and some money. I recommend "Behr" Ultra Pure White, flat finish, from Home Depot. If your wall is in poor condition, you can paint a sheet of MDF and hang it or attach it on the wall.