Projection Screen Tip Friday: Screen Size
Everyone wants to have the biggest screen available, but let’s face it, getting a screen that is TOO big will only wear out your eyes and neck (try sitting in those front-row seats in the movie theater and you’ll get what I mean).
At the same time, choosing a screen that is too small will make seeing it from a long distance very difficult.
To solve this, there is a “rule of thumb” that you can use to choose the screen size based on your audience location.
First, take the distance between the screen and the first row of the audience, and divide by two. This is the maximum height your screen should be – larger than this and your audience will have to crane their necks or search with their eyes to capture the image on screen.
Next, take the distance between the screen and the last row of the audience, and divide by six. This is the minimum height your screen should be – any smaller and people sitting in the cheap seats won’t be able to make out text and details on the screen.
So in summary:
[distance first row to screen]/2 …is the maximum screen height;
[distance last row to screen]/6 …is the minimum height.
So let’s look at an example. Say your first row is 14 feet from the screen, and the last row is 30 feet from the screen. Using this “rule of thumb”, your maximum height should be 7 feet (84″), and your minimum height should be 5 feet (60″). So, it’s safe to say if you chose a screen size between 5 and 7 feet tall, you should be pretty well off.
This rule doesn’t take into consideration the width at all – you should choose your width based on your format (square 1:1, video 4:3, widescreen 16:9, or ultra widescreen 16:10).
This also assumes that your projector has the ability to be installed so that the screen size can be achieved.
Next time, I’ll discuss the different formats – which one should you choose now, and which one should you choose if you plan to upgrade in the future?
I want to install a small home theater in a basement with 8 ft ceilings. The room is 18L X 14W. The first row will be 10 feet back and the last row will be 14 feet back. My calculations show max height of 5 ft and min height of 2 ft. What did I do wrong? (Other than choose the wrong room.
)
As long as you can control the light levels in the room, you’ve picked a good room for your home theater!
With a small room like you have the “minimum” height doesn’t necessarily apply. That part of the rule is more geared for much larger rooms with a larger audience size, such as a last row located 30-50 feet away or more. So, in your case, you can choose the screen size that best fits the maximum screen height rule – a 5 foot high screen.
You can look at the rule-of-thumb the opposite way as well – if you decided to go with a 5 foot high screen, the maximum distance to the last row of the audience that screen size will support is 30 feet: [5' screen] x [6x the screen height].
With a 5 foot tall screen, you can choose anything up to 60″ tall. Two related formats are 60″x80″ (video 4:3), or 58″x104″ (widescreen 16:9). Even the 52″x92″ size in the Model B screen by Da-Lite would fit, since the 60″ measurement is the maximum you should choose.