Projector choice - size does matter!

[admin_exported]

I'm looking at buying a projector, but am finding it quite difficult to narrow down the choice, as well as decide on an appropriate budget. I have a freestanding 6.5 feet wide screen (around 100 inch diagonal) and sit about 13 feet away from it (same distance as the projector). Main viewing will be freesat HD, a bit of upscaled DVD (Cyrus discmaster), and eventually Blu-ray. The difficult bit is that we have an old victorian house with lovely coving and ceiling roses, hence needing a freestanding screen, and the projector must be as unobtusive as possible (to be mounted on back wall above picture rail). I was previously looking at the Panasonic PT AE 2000. However, this is very obtrusive, so have moved on to considering an ex-demo Sim2 D80 (albeit costing double the price of the Panny).

Does anyone have any opinions on whether the D80 is a good choice considering the set-up? My main concern is whether I might be splashing out a bit too much considering that I can only use a freestanding screen. The screen is pretty good, but isn't perfectly flat and it is very difficult to judge whether this will impact on the final picture as the dealers' demo rooms have very good perfectly flat screens. My main queries are:

Is the D80 a bit overspecified given the (slight) limitations of a not quite perfectly flat freestanding screen? What would be the alternatives? The budget definately can't go any higher than the £3.5k for an ex-demo machine.

Is 13 feet a good viewing distance for a 6.5 feet wide screen?

Does anyone have any experience of using a freestanding screen, if so any thoughts?

Any views on this would be great!!

 

[Anonymous]

I use a five foot wide tripod screen with my 720p projector and sit about 8 feet away at an angle- so I suspect you should be fine with a 6.5 foot one at 13. The screen has developed a couple of ripples on the lower half, which don't affect focus, but do become noticeable when the scene pans - not sure if sitting at an angle rather than straight on makes this more noticeable - but it isn't annoying enough to make me do anything about it yet - I may eventually try and put a horizontal brace on the back about 3/4 of the way down to stretch it out horizontally a bit to reduce the ripples if I can figure out a reasonable way to do it.

If you're looking at other freestanding screens, our local photo society has a nice one - basically a square frame that the screen material press-studs onto along all four edges, which then attaches to inverted T shaped side legs; both the frame and legs fold to bundles which are easier to store. This produces a much flatter result than tripod screens, but is bulkier and really needs at least a couple of people to put it together, and enough floor space to lay it out on when attaching the screen material to the frame..

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice. Just regarding the ripples in the screen - would you describe them as minor or major ripples, and are they noticeable straight on or just from the side?

I had also thought about putting something on the back of the screen to make it absolutely flat, but wondered whether anyone knows of a freestanding screen that does go completly flat?