Goal: I thought it would be a good idea to have a unique thread where people could post their Projector specific home theaters setups, problems, recommendations, or other related material.

Reason: Projector setups are vastly different than other typical display methods (ie plasma, LCD, DLP, CRT, LED, etc.). It is the only method of getting a LARGE picture,... sorry folks, 60" is not large. However, it is also the most sensitive to things such as ambient light and artifacts induced by poor scalers.

It would be great if people could post their setups (preferably with pictures) and this way they can help others optimize their setups. Also, it allows for feedback from other members who may have experience with projector setups.

I encourage anybody with a Projector setup to post some pictures of their home theater including Equipment Lists, places of purchases that they have had good/bad experiences with. This is not limited to the projector itself but also the screen, room treatments for proper lighting conditions, etc.
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So I'll guess I'll start with my setup:

Setup:
Pioneer Elite CLD-97 Laser Disc Player (with AC3 output mod and DNR Auto-off mod)
Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8700UB Projector
Onkyo TX-SR875 Receiver (using a Reon-VX HQV video processor for upscaling to 1080p)
Elite Screens - Home Cinema - 150" Diag. Projector Screen
Dedicated 24 x 23 feet home theater room with complete ambient light control (ie 24 hour darkened room).

General Recommendations:
1. Buy from a respected source if possible. I bought my projector from Visual Apex and they have very competative prices and unparalled customer support. They not only take your order but you can call them for questions about setup or general recommendations. Their staff is highly knowledgable and all they sell is projector related things so customer service really know what they are talking about.

2. Screen size should be calculated using optimal viewing angle and distance. I strongly recommend the THX viewing angles.

3. You really should have complete light control if you are thinking about having a projector system. Don't put a projector in your family room when you know you can't completely blacken out the windows. Ambient light reflected off the screen makes the projector experience terrible.

3. Don't skimp on the scaler! Some artifact may be minor on some 26" CRT, but when you blow that up to 150" diagonal, it will be a huge eye sore. Invest adequate funds into your scaler.

4. DON'T USE A BED-SHEET FOR A SCREEN. No, it's not "almost" the same. And once again, don't go cheap. Your screen should represent a fairly large chunk of your projector setup budget.

Gallery:
Front View


Ceiling mounted Epson 8700UB and room lighting


Original plan and 3D mockup prior to construction of room


Bias/back lighting (poor quality photo)


Onkyo receiver utilized for up scaling (Reon-VX HQV video processor for upscaling to 1080p)

this is a great idea.
the one thing that i was told when i bought my projector and screen was the amount of light that the
projector gives.

mine has 900 lumens and works great.
also when i bought my projector BH told me i needed a glass bead screen
i am so glad i didn't get that.

i gave Da-lite a call and they are also very helpful, and have great screens etc.
unfortunatly i only have a small screen 80" but live in an apartment and can't get anything larger.

when i was in my last apartment i had pull down black out shades for each window.
VERY little light came in, but it was perfect. but if i were to watch anything after 6:00pm it didn't matter in that room.

make sure you do your research first on what type of projector you get and what type of screen you will need etc.

also if you are getting one for the first time make sure you can return it if you don't like it or have
any issues etc.
i don't know about newer ones but the older DLP projectors will give some people a "rainbow" effect when watching.
i have it very little but got over it very fast and it dosn't bother me at all now.
no one else that has watched my projector ever mentioned any sight issues.

but some people do notice it and get headaches, so make sure you can return it if you have issues.

my screen is an 80 inch on a tripod so i can set it up and put it in the corner, it was about 120 i believe with UPS shipping, so like invenio says don't do a sheet.
and if you use the paint on a wall, your wall has to be perfectly FLAT, or you will see all the issues of your wall.

I agree with your statements above. Some additions from personal experience are don't always trust the lumen ratings that are published. The amount of lumens rated is highly dependent on the distance the projector is from the screen, the size of the screen, and how you run the bulb (temperature as well as economy settings). It is also notoriously known that the lumen rating on the box is quite different than actual measurement. I liken this to the wattage ratings on receivers, almost completely useless unless you are talking about very high end and expensive models or high end amplifiers. Also, the overall perceived brightness will be greatly effected by the gain rating of the projector screen. One great website for really thorough reviews of projectors is http://www.projectorreviews.com/. It is a great resource and I recommend people do their research on there (as well as other sites) prior to any purchase.

And a comment on rein-o's "paint the wall screen." I have never seen a good picture on a painted wall. Glossy paint gives horrible glare, matte finishes bring out the lumpiness of the wall. I know some people say "it's ok" but in my experience even the cheapest of screens is preferable to the wall. The only thing worse is a bed sheet which I would never recommend. IMHO. Invest in a good screen, don't go cheap. I would say the projector screen should cost at least 20% of the projector, if not more. In other words, if you have a good projector, you most certainly should spend a few hundred dollars on the screen.

To liven up the thread a little...

I was wondering if people using projectors are using back/bias lighting. The idea of this is to reduce eye strain, but this is much more common with direct view (plasma, lcd,..). I have lighting installed (as you can see from the pictures in the first post) but I don't use it as I have never had eye strain watching movies in my home theater and the picture I feel is more vivid. I have to admit that it does "look cool," but ultimately it comes down to picture quality.

Any opinions on the matter? Post some pictures if you guys have them, I would like to see what other people are using.

I have a question invenio, white or gray screen?

Ah. Well personally I use a white screen, gain of 1.1. I have nothing against gray screens but I think you have to have a very bright project/smaller screen to really pull off using the gray screens. The advantage of the gray screens is better reproduction/contrast of the dark areas of the picture. I think the white screens "pop" more (although I don't particularly like ones above gain of 1.4) and are better suited to larger screens (I use a 150" diagonal). I think people are going to argue back and forth and there is no one right answer. Movie screens are more white, but once again, big screen and hard to get the brightness up to a high enough level. If I was using a smaller screen, say 80-100" I would probably re-evaluate the situation and may go with gray.

my screen is white, but that's what Da-lite told me to get.
it is smaller at 80 inch and i see no issues, but personally i didn't know about gray.
i believe it will all depend on what type of projector you have, LCD, DLP or CRT.
isn't that correct invenio?

Yup, sounds right. As far as I know the gray screens are specifically designed for low contrast DLP and LCD Home Cinema Projectors.

I have a coupleof HT setups, one in my bedroom and one in the dining room (HT/2 channel)

In the bedroom I have:

Elunevision 92" pull down screen
Infocus IN76 DLP projector
Pioneer CLD-D704 ld player
Bedini BA-803 power amp
Threshold T3 preamp
Faroudja DV1000 DVD player
Luxman T210L tuner
Thorens TD-146 turntable
Tetra 406 speakers
M&K MX-70 sub

I love to lie in bed watching a ld movie, it is so relaxing!

The main system has many sources so here goes:

Elunevision 92" motorized screen
Mitsubishi HC5 projector
Ray Lumley M-100 tube mono-blocks or Jeff Rowland model 5 SS amp
Jeff Rowland Consummate preamp with phono stage
Pioneer Elite ld-s2 (coming soon)
Pioneer Elite F-91 tuner
Oppo BDP-95
Stax Quattro II CD player
Lenco L75 (heavy plinth) turntable with ADA MG-1 linear air bearing arm, Denon DL-103R cartridge
Studer A807 reel to reel
Akai GX-630d reel to reel
DVDO LScan vp50 pro (coming soon)
Acoustat 2+2 electrostatic speakers
Axiom EP500 mkII sub

Geez, I think I'm an Audioholic! Oh well, I really do love to watch movies and listen to music. They are my number one hobbies. I tried to upload some pictures of the setups but it didn't work. I will try again later.

Hello all,

I am fortunate enough to have two projector set ups. You can click on the HT link below to see pictures.

My HTs

My Equipment;
Main HT - Mitsubishi HC6500, Samsung 32" LCD, Oppo BDP83, Pioneer Elite BDP62, Marantz LV520, Yamaha APD-1, Panasonic LX1000U, Pioneer CLD-D703, Toshiba A35, DirecTV HR21-100, CElabs HDTV tuner, PS3, wii, Pioneer Elite VSX53, Def Tech SM 450, SM 350, CLR 2002, BP2X, B&W DM601, Klipsch KSB1.1, Polk PWS125, Infinity PS12, Pro-Ject Debut III, Harmony Smart Control

Living Room - Mitsubishi HD4000 w/ 92" screen, Samsung 40" LCD, Panasonic DMP BDT310, DirecTV H21-100, Yamaha RX-V765, Polk CS1, RC80i, Klipsch Sub10, URC RFS200

Nice!

Indeed, very nice setups. Definitely great home theater gear as well as audiophile level audio! Congrats bguzman and albert!

I've always wondered what LD would look like projected after some experiments in film school, so I took some dead hours at work and tried out some of our data projectors...whoa!
For my simple home setup my dream unit has been an Epson in the $1,000 range, (an 8350 for example) but after trying out LD via my D702 workhorse on Panasonic conference room units and doing some simple calibration, my question is how in the heck can a non-HT designed projector look this good? Is it the lumens being around 4K?
And is there any kind of less expensive unit that works really well with LD? I'd try any old projector.

from what i have experenced it will be a lot of distance and how you can control your light.
if you can make it dark then you don't need to worry about lumens that much, you will get a great picture.
my space went from about 22ft to 13ft so now i have to sit way too close to my screen and its a worse picture.

all cables and everything are the same, only thing changed was the size of the room, it was great before now not so great.

so make sure you can sit away from the screen a good distance and it should look great.
it will also depend on the mastering of the disc.

my projector was/is cheap and lower end, i didn't want to spend too much to find out i didn't like it.
i think you can find them on ebay for 100-300 depending on how much use.

but again, i would make sure you get a lower lumen so it won't be too bright when you have all the lights out
and give your eyes fatigue from too bright of a projector


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the rein-o official signature:

There is nothing wrong with a conference projector for displaying films. The reason that it most likely looked "really good" was that it was a better (most likely more expensive) projector/screen than the one at home. There is a huge difference in quality among low end and high end projectors (a $500 and $3000 projector have vastly different picture quality.... it's not just "a little better"). Also, with laserdiscs, I find that the scaler used is one of the key components to make the picture look nice. When projecting a standard definition analog signal using a modern projector, there is a large digital up-conversion to 1080p which will introduce terrible artifacts using a low end scaler.

My original post had some "general recommendations" and one of them is "don't skimp on the scaler." My personal opinion is that if you want to go big screen AND have a good picture with laserdisc you should be prepared to spend a little money. Going with a cheap setup on a 30" CRT hides the imperfections of laserdisc while a upscaled large projection screen will reveal them. The outcome is cheap quality components on CRT look pretty good, BUT mediocre quality components on projector setup looks pretty bad.

My recommendation is that if you truly want to go large screen (ie projector), make sure you have a good projector, screen, upscaler, and complete control of the lighting environment. If you sell yourself short on any of these critical components you will most likely be disappointed. Think of it as the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.

I can say that with a really nice setup properly calibrated, there is nothing like seeing laserdisc movies on 100+ inches! It's large, detailed, still looks analog, and very cinematic!

First, let me say how I love that this thread is getting some love! I think a properly done projection setup with laserdisc is such huge difference in viewing experience than watching something on a tiny 32" screen. You really feel like your at the movies on a big screen.

I am going to offer some other opinions concerning your comments. It is very unusual to have a projector setup as "too bright" in terms of actual light bouncing off the screen into your eye. It's usually more of a question of relative brightness changes from dark and bright scenes during a movie. A 55" plasma/LCD will be much brighter than even a projector screen 4 times the size with a high lumen projector. If you are getting eye fatigue or discomfort with your viewing, I would recommend a few things:

1) Different screen = You may need a lower gain screen. You don't necessarily want to drop the brightness of the projector (which you can simply do with settings by the way, just adjust brightness/gamma). Just go with a lower gain screen. If you find it still too bright with a white low gain screen, you can get a grey screen. Unless your using a $10,000 projector on a small projector screen and sitting really close, there is no chance that this would be too bright with any projector as the grey screens really do cut down on the brightness (but they will improve contrast which is why some people use them).

2) Bias lighting = Projectors or even TV's never give off more light than you eyes can handle. If you go outside on a bright sunny day, your eyes will have 50 times more light enter them than the brightest TV's or projector setups. Eye fatigue and sensitivity is caused by your pupils being dilated in dark scene and then when a bright scene comes on they still dilated and that can get uncomfortable. The solution to this is bias lighting. I have pictures of this in my original post in my setup (although the truth is that I never really use it as my setup doesn't seem to give me any discomfort, but always good to have if you have somebody come over any their eyes are more sensitive).

With the advice above, I think you can tame any kind of eye discomfort issues. The bias lighting is the cheapest and easiest way to go. With some bias lighting you pretty much should be ok.

thanks for posting that, it was late last night and i wasn't too clear.
the TVs will be brighter than a projector but you will also have more light in the room and it "may" cause eye fatigue or may not.
that's what i was told when getting stuff years ago, or what i can remember.

i was also told to get a glass bead screen for my DLP projector so you just have to make sure you
double and triple check with everybody before you buy it, some won't take the screens back for return unless there is damage

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the rein-o official signature:

invenio you are quite correct about getting a good scaler. I am lucky enough to have two at my disposal. My projector has the HQV Reon-VX processor and my receiver is equipped with the Marvell Qdeo. Both have excellent scaling and de-interlacing abilities that would have cost thousands just a few years ago but I was able to score them both gently used for much much less than they cost new. I send composite to my receiver which I can then either process and send via HDMI to my projector or send unaltered and process at the projector via composite. It makes for some epic marathon geeking and tweaking sessions.

Sorry guys but receivers and projectors are not scalars. A video processor is not all about the chip in it. It really is a small part of it.

Yes I realize that it will not be the same as a stand alone costing thousands of dollars from the likes of Lumagen or Faroudja etc. However I have directly compared the Marvell Qdeo chip to a couple of scalers, DVDO iScan plus and Extron DVS304, and the scaler in my receiver performed better on my 106" screen. It has noise reduction and picture adjustments plus I can output any resolution from 480i to 1080p/24. It gets me pretty close without the extra $, something else in my system to plug in, all the extra wires, and video switch box. Unless someone has a spare Lumagen Radiance XE-3D, I might be able to live with that.