Great Media room-But 1 MAJOR issue to resolve! (1 Viewer)

Hi,
I was visiting this forum as an outsider and followed all the great info that gets passed around and was wondering if any of you experts can help me.I am building and buying a home for the first time, which is in its final phase and will be completed in the next month or so.

I was very keen on 2 things when I chose a house: The media room and a bar in the media room. To cut the long story short, I found an inventory home(structure was already in place when I bought it) in my price range with a pretty huge media room 20x16 with a storage at the back(I will be converting this into the bar and to store the receiver,etc).

I want to use a projector and screen and the room is setup for 7.1 speakers.

Since it is a long media room, I wanted to use the entire wall in the picture below to setup the screen but that is proving very difficult as there is a door on the wall to the bar,that opens inside the bar, and the room is not a rectangle-it's a hexagon. This is where I need your help to suggest the most effective way to make sure I use the entire wall space.As of now only I can probably setup a 100'' screen on the wall,but if I can use up the space in an effective way it has way more potential.

DIY is not something i am good at but i'm sure others will be able to help you out, all i would say is make sure your side walls, especially the ceiling and the floors are all made dark, the darker the better, projection works best when you do this.

What is the distance that wall...opposite wall?You could do a 2nd wall, of sorts, and if it were AT, it could be bigger.And why can't the screen go where you are standing?

The size of your screen will be determined by the lens on the projector you will use, the throw distance (distance of the projector to the screen) and the aspect ratio-width to height. You can go to a web site that sells projectors, like Projector Central, and they have applications that list projectors with the specifications you want. That, or the owners manual you can usually download will allow you to make an approximate calculation. I'd suggest buying or building your screen once you have the projector in place-there can be slight differences.

You can exceed the room dimensions in your throw distance. I project 16' across the width of a 14' room by projecting through a port of optical glass, and mounting my projector in the next room.





You can also project the image into and off a front silvered mirror-I've only seen this on a business AV application, and it has downsides in a home theater, but it might be a consideration.

You need to consider how you will be viewing, in terms of ambient light, and what your viewing distance will be for a screen. You can find some guides about size and comfortable viewing distance, but remember they are only guides. I have a 12' wide 2.4 aspect screen (135") that I view from 10'. That exceeds the guidelines on things like the THX site, but nobody has complained.

^He sits closer than I do. 2.40 on mine works out to 108. I sit just around 9 feet.

The opposite wall,where I am standing has a similar door leading to the game-room.

Here's the latest picture, the door frame will make the screen size even smaller. I setup the projector 16' away from the wall in the picture.

Consider that you will also need room for speakers near the ends of a screen as well.

What do you plan the final result to be? Are you thinking of something that will be used by a few people most of the time, or by groups of 6-8 or more? A large group may need more than one row of seating. A few people can do quite well with a single row, without risers. 16' would allow a throw distance from the lens of around 14'-if you project across the width of the room, and allow room for the size of the projector and for ventilation, if the vents are in back (less if in front of the projector). The slope of the ceiling will also limit your screen size-I'd guess from your images that the vertical portion of the long wall is about 6'.

If traffic through the room during use isn't an issue, you could consider using a retractable screen if you are projecting across the length of the room. With a retractable screen, you could use the width of the doorway as well.

At least with this room, You can do the proper "perfect circle" speaker placement...as you have no other choices.

Or... you could put in a retractable screen that would cover the door while in use but roll up above the door when not being used.Edit: I see that Bobofbone already suggested that before me.

Thanks everyone for your responses!

I did think about the retractable screen as well, but as you can see the top side of the ceiling is only so much(and I don't think i can drop it down from the sides).There is more room to the right of it wall which will be left out vs retractable screen.

On a different note, I just bought the Pioneer SC-1523-K receiver that is on sale at $799 today on Amazon. I must admit since this is my 1st house, I haven't done much research yet. Can you please pitch in? I will be asking for a good 7.1 speaker set suggestion for around 4-5k soon as well

I am still looking for the perfect way to utilize that wall but am almost settling for the 108' screen idea(max that can fit), sadly.