My First Home Theatre Setup!

[cheezcake]

Hi there guys, as the title says this is my first home theatre setup and I really don't feel like I know what I'm doing at all. I'm posting here so hopefully someone can guide me on my purchasing decisions from here on out!

What I'm looking at buying right now is the following:

Projector: Sony VPL-HW50es from the VideoPro ebay store

Screen: 110" Majestic Evo Ultra Grey fixed screen

The home theatre unfortunately has fairly light coloured walls which is why I've opted for the grey screen as I've heard that's better for situations where you cant completely control the light.

Seating distance will be about 5m from the screen and the projector will be mounted at about 4.5m from the screen

In particular I'm not so sure about the choice of screen and so critique on that would be much appreciated

Thanks in advance!

[Barco Cine 9 CRT]

The screen will be fine for that projector, it should easily be bright enough for that.

I would sit closer though so you have your rear speakers further behind you, i sit at 4 meters for a 125" 5:4 screen, i notice others here seem to sit closer than that.

Im going to switch to a majestic 16:9 120" screen when i get around to it, i have tried the samples and very happy with the smoothness of the material.

I have not had much time dealing with Rich from Oz Theatre screens, but the small time spent dealing with him has been somewhat exceptional, and that made me choice to purchase one of his screens considerably easier.

[Quark]

Agree, you'll probably be better off moving closer and/or going to a larger screen - say 120". Perhaps try projecting on a wall for a while - so many people find that what seems large at first, soon looks small.

Given light control is an issue, keep the projector closer to the minimum distance distance from the screen, to keep brightness to a maximum (it drops away substantially as the projector gets further from the screen). You can calculate the throw distance for different sized screens here.

[Chadman]

I only jumped into the deep end with my first projector half way through the year and followed everyone's wise words here on the forum and projected onto the wall....l actually almost watched entire movies even without the surround speakers setup, l was so excited. But the process of measuring via trying different widths is great...just use some electrical tape on the walls as corner markers for say 110" as your reference, then try bigger screen sizes...use OZ Theatre Screens website for screen size details, Richard's site is great for details of what your purchasing. My heart said 120' at 3.30m seating distance cos l knew scope films loose some height on a 16:9 screen which l went for (manual zoom with Epson 9100) but my wife was being conservative seeing 16:9 films. I went back and forth testing over a couple weeks and then went yes 120" order...scope is perfect and 16:9 is just more enveloping. The worst thing l didn't want to do was go "I should of went bigger" But try for your self and look through this forum and any others and look for details of peoples setups & take note of room size and seating distance relevant to screen size but take note if it's scope or 16:9.

Hope this helps

[Barco Cine 9 CRT]

Moving the projector further away will have little effect on brightness if the screen size stays the same via a zoom lens.

Try zooming the lens in all the way or out all the way and youll see exactly what im saying. Without moving the projector, zooming all the way in will increase size and brightness will decrease.

[Highjinx]

Moving the projector further away will have little effect on brightness if the screen size stays the same via a zoom lens.

Try zooming the lens in all the way or out all the way and youll see exactly what im saying. Without moving the projector, zooming all the way in will increase size and brightness will decrease.

That's not correct, as the iris within the zoom lens closes down the further away the the projector is away from a given image size.

Unless the zoom lens is a constant aperture design(not on consumer projectors)

Further away dimmer but more on/Off CR, closer brighter but less on/off CR.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Highjinx

[Barco Cine 9 CRT]

Have you measured it? I havent, but ive moved a fair few low to mid range commercial grade LCD projectors and the difference was not noticable on any of them. The only domestic type digital ive used alot of that had zoom was an InFocus DLP, terrible lens design on them anyway, but again cant say it had any effect moving forward or back with a given screen size.

If it does improve on/off contrast as you suggest ( and id really want to see measurements to support that ) id be moving it back as far as i could, digitals need all the help with contrast ratio they can get.

[Quark]

The Sony isn't as bad as some, but using this calculator, the difference between min and max zoom for a 110" screen with 1.0 gain is 18fL to 24fL

[Barco Cine 9 CRT]

Sony commercial LCD sets are mostly what ive delt with in terms of digital. I put one on a 240" screen once

[Highjinx]

Check C4H site...there should be some detailed charts.

The beam spot needs to be smaller the further the projector is away from a given screen size, thus the lens aperture is smaller...less light...etc.

[Barco Cine 9 CRT]

I dont really have the time to research it, it seems as though you both know what youre on about, i dont have enough experience with consumer grade digitals to comment any further on it, and you both seem quite sure.

I know its a fact without question with CRTs, which is where the bulk of my experience lies. Its also a totally different technology too, being emissive instead of transmissive, where moving the machine closer to the screen will use a larger area of phosphor, however on some sets the astigmatism suffers more than others due to the beam hitting the phosphor at an angle causing triangular dots... Not that any of that is relevant to fixed pixel devices.

[Quark]

I'm sure you're right on CRTs and commercial gear - they're way outside my limited knowledge.

[Barco Cine 9 CRT]

Yeah mate, out of all the projectors ive worked with, most have been CRT, and theyre alot of work!! The image quality is somewhat beyond compare though when they are set up right, very natural and smooth.

[Owen]

Unless you have experienced LCoS digital (Sony and JVC) you haven't seen digital at its best. Smoothest and most analogue of all the digitals without loosing any sharpness or detail.

The E-Shift JVC models are completely pixel and line free as are the 4K Sonys, great for stupidly huge viewing angles.

You can predict how much change in light output will occur over the zoom range by looking at the lens specs. There is an F stop spec for each end of the zoom range.

The iris (aperture) setting obviously also affects the F stop. The smaller the iris opening the larger the F stop number (less light throughput), the wider the depth of field, greater the contrast and less critical the focus, all standard lens behavior.

CRT lens system have by necessity very wide apertures (low F stop number) and very shallow depth of field, therefore focus is critical.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Owen

[Barco Cine 9 CRT]

Yes focus is very critical for higher resolutions on CRT, but again its very easy to get it perfect on a decent machine.

There are so many critical factors involved in CRT image quality, when they all come together, the depth to the image is quite exceptional.

Im looking forward to throwing the brand new tubes into the Barco and with get a few boards modded to improve the bandwidth, which is an area the Barco machines really seem to struggle.

2048x1536 is very easily readable though. They do alright for 12 year old machines