Can I have a 12 foot screen? (1 Viewer)

[Len Cheong]

My room is 30x16x8. I'm thinking of the Infocus 7205 which is supposed to be very bright. I've calculated that if I want a 12-14 foot screen my projector should be between 19 and 27 feet away. The height of my screen will be around 6 feet and the width about 13 feet. Since I need to be about 1.5x away from my sceen I'll be sitting at about 18 feet away.

My main question is, will my image be ok or do I need to wait for a better projector that's cabable of higher resolutions. thanks.

 

[Mitch Stevens]

While the projector is very good, I don't think that you want to sit that close to it.

It's native resolution is still quite low at 1280x720.

You want an image size of exactly 180"? If so, you'll have to sit VERY far away, because screen door will be much too obvious no matter from what distance you are at.

I borrowed an Infocus projector from the 14-day trial period on their website. I can't recall the exact model that it was, but it had the exact same resolution as the one you want to buy.

I displayed an image that was much smaller than the one you want. My image was only 125" (which is a whole 55" smaller than the size you want) and I could literally see screen door from 25 feet away! Since I was sitting so far away, the picture seemed too small, so I sat 16 feet away from the image, and I had to defocus the hell out of the image in order to make the screen-door go away. And since the picture was defocused so much, everything looked extremely blurry.

In the end, it's totally not worth it, unless you have REALLY bad eye-sight, that you can't see the Screen-Door effect. That way, you won't have to defocus the image so much to make it go away - but then again, if you have really bad eye-sight, the picture would be defocused enough to your eyes anyway.

I suggest waiting for the projectors that have a native resolution of 1920x1080. Then you'll be able to sit as close as you want, but I still wouldn't recommend a screen that big, as I'm sure screen-door will STILL be a problem, even at that resolution.

 

[Sankar]

I'm also in the market for a new projector and have only seen one in a friend's house. It was an older (3-4 yrs old) dlp machine projecting 120" and we were sitting quite close (I'd say less than 1.5 screen widths). I could see no SDE whatsoever. Maybe Mitch has significantly better eyesight than me which allows him to see them, but my experience is consistent with many others in this and other forums ... minimal or no SDE at 1.5 screen widths.
I'd suggest that you go and see one setup to judge for yourself ... this could be something that varies from one person to another (just like the rainbow effect).

 

[Len Cheong]

Aaak! Qualia time! Somebody at the avsforum is viewing a 10 ft Qualia image at a 12 ft distance. That's almost 1x screen distance. Mitch, would you know of a screen attribute that would minimize SDE?

I probably should test-watch a larger image. The difficulty is all the dealers I've been to don't have such an image since their rooms are small to medium sized. I'd have to take the proj. home and actually test it out.

 

[Mitch Stevens]

Len,

I noticed you're in Canada. The Infocus website allows you to borrow projectors from them, even if you live in Canada. I suggest you borrow a projector from them, that is very close to the one you're planning to buy, that way you'll know more/less exactly what to expect when you finally decide to buy it. It's totally free, and you don't even have to pay for shipping. You can keep it in your house for a whole 10 days, and that's more than enough time to evaluate it, and find out if you're willing to take the plunge.

As for me, I just can't get into LCD or DLP. Both have horrific screen-door effect at that resolution (unless you defocus the image significantly). I want to get a CRT FP instead, since that does not use pixels to create the image, but they are far more expensive (unless you buy a used one).

There are supposedly some screens that will hide or mask the SDE, but I don't know any. I have heard people say that certain colors will also help minimize SDE (I think Gray was one of them).

If you want to borrow an Infocus projector, then go to this website:

Infocus

 

[Len Cheong]

Thanks for the tip. Will do that. I agree with you on the crt being ultimately the better choice for pq currently.

I don't see the 7205 on the eval website. I guess I will have to put it under other. Thanks, Mitch, I don't think people know this info!

 

[Jamie]

Len, if you want a 12 foot screen, why not check out CRT? A 9 inch or 2500x2000 resolution 8" EM CRT could get you that screen size at that viewing distance. I think at that size though, source material is more the obstacle. 480 is going to need a lot of help. Will you be watching any HD content? If you are willing to do a little research on the options you have at your given budget, your request is reachable.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

While you can push projectors to very large screen size, you are going to sacrafice PQ a lot. 12 foot wide is a *very* large screen, and you really need to be using one hell of a light cannon to light up a screen that big enough. We're talking 3-chipper or such.

A CRT *could* do a decent job of that, but you're really way beyond ideal use of a CRT projector, and you will be forced to drive things pretty hard. There are CRT users who use very large screens like this, but I personally would not go for such a large screen unless you had a stack, and even then...

The 2500x2000 specs for an 8incher are electronic input capabilities, not resolving capabilities. An 8incher setup well will resolve around 720p in 16:9, that's a good benchmark point. I am running just such an 8inch EM unit (Marquee 8500) on a screen which is about the proper size for this projector, if a litle on the small side, I'm about 80-85 inches wide. 80-86 inches wide is what would be a 'reference' target for a good 8incher. One user has a 8inch Marquee on a 14foot screen(i think diagonally), and he pulls it off, but I would never do that with mine unless I were stacking 2.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Jamie,

I doubt that any CRT PJ could produce enough brightness to really satisfy a 12 foot screen. Most CRT projectors look best on screens less than 100" diag. Not to mention that only really *good* 8" and 9" CRT PJs really resolve the detail of a true 1080P signal. Most 7" and even 8" CRTs only get you about 1280 x 720P effective resolution due to beam-spot-size and focus.

I used to sell some very fine CRT machines and I'm always amazed at how sharper and more detailed my little BenQ 8700+ machine looks than many of the $$$ CRT projectors I used to sell.

Len, as long as you're watching from 1.5 screen widths (or greater) away, you won't see any more or less pixels on a larger screen. It's the viewing ratio that counts here...not the screen size. So ignore the posts here telling you that you can't go with a screen that big because of the resolution of the PJ. The real question is, will you see screen-door at 1.5 screen-widths distance or do you need to sit farther back?

For me, I can't see pixels, but I can see a *slight* "haze" from the screen door on my HD2+ DLP PJ at about 1.5. But it doesn't bother me. If I move back to 1.6 or 1.7 screen widths, the image becomes "smoother".

Will you have any wiggle-room with your seating distance?

That infocus is very bright and will have no trouble with a 12 foot screen...especially if you get anything with gain.

-dave