Yes to all that Samnart said. Dont underestimate the need for light control. I had poor light control and so during summertime was somewhat constrained on the times I could watch movies. I picked up an Optoma DV10? a few years ago on Black Friday. Super deal and have loved it. It is not HD, but does have DVD player built into the unit, so was real handy. Not all projectors will ceiling mount (need mounting holes and/OR the ability to flip the image). If you plan to always watch in a particular room, I encourage you to mount it so that you are not tweaking the aim and focus everytime you use it. If you see a BF deal on a projector and there are no details, projectorcentral has technical specs and opinions on most projectors. Mine did not ceiling mount (indoors I sat it on a coffee table), but was so portable that I often took it and the screen outside to hold kid-movie nights in the back yard. It actually helped sell my house - I had left the screen down one evening, buyer viewed the house the next day and part of his offer was for the projector and screen to stay. LOL - it was a black friday deal for less than $400 4 years ago ... um, OK !  I had a pretty good picture at about 7ft diagonal (that was the size of the screen that came with it) but suspect it would have still been good at 12 feet. YMMV depending on the projector, the screen/wall, ambient lighting. A screen is NOT required. Especially if you have good light control and a white wall. However a highly reflective screen _can_ compensate a little for light and the square borders also help you verify that the projector is pointed squarely (drives me crazy when movies look sorta like Hitchcock filmed them <grin> due to a skewed screen). Flat screen TVs are coming down in price now. Not the 7foot ones, but good sized ones. These TVs usually have much better tolerance for ambient light, so I am thinking I might not replace my projector - might get a bigger TV instead. Some of my bookmarks ...
http://www.projectorcentral.com/diy_screen.htm (I did not build one, instead I carried my pull-down screen outside and attached it to my trampoline)
http://www.projectorcentral.com/Toshiba-TDP-T9U-projection-calculator-pro.htm
http://backyardtheater.com/ |