I'm close to finishing my pole barn, which will be used as an indoor heated space in the winter and occasionally as a garage. The inside dimensions are 31'-3" wide x 62'-8" long x 26' tall (from the top of the floor to the bottom of the finished ceiling). I'd like to put a projector on one wall and shoot it to the other wall in the short direction (~31').
I've done some preliminary research and I'm not completely ignorant of this type of setup, but I'm definitely out of touch with current standards and equipment. I don't need anything crazy and I don't care to have anything close to top of the line, but I also don't want to buy a piece of shit. I was thinking somewhere in the 500-700 range for the projector and, if possible, I'd make the screen given the size. I looked into paint for the screen and I found
this site, which seems reasonable to me, but I thought I'd get more opinions.
I'll use the projector to watch movies and occasionally play PS4 or Xbox. 3D isn't a necessity by any means and 4k doesn't matter to me regardless of the fact that it's way over the budget. I am in front of a TV for probably 1 or 2 hours per month at most. The rest of the time I'm outside, so this isn't a big requirement for my life in any capacity. With that said, it would be cool to use on occasion and that's why I'm doing it. Hopefully that frames the situation appropriately.
The two projectors I've seen on Amazon that seem to be pretty decent are
here and
here. I'm not concerned with sound at the moment as I need to get the video stuff setup first. Any information, recommendations, scathing remarks, or general musings would be greatly appreciated.
So the big thing with having a large screen size is having lots of lumens. As others have mentioned, you risk having a crappy, washed-out, blurry image...in theory. However, especially if you can control the light in the barn, you can get pretty good results with a reasonably-priced consumer projector. My first introduction to consumer projects was at a big BBQ movie party at a college dorm where they shot a projector on the side of the building by hanging a huge white sheet out from like the third story. It worked fine at night! I have outdoor movie parties with my projector on a regular basis using a 12' inflatable screen from Walmart & have also shot on various surfaces from ~20 feet away. 31' feet away will give you a good 275" diagonal screen (like maybe 20 feet wide & 11 or 12 feet tall). Easiest thing to do would be to order the projector & test it just on the inside of the wall at night or with blinds on the windows to see how big & how sharp you can get the picture before committing to setting up a screen & whatnot (while also staying within the Amazon return window if needed). I can tell you that my 2,200-lumen BenQ 1080p projector looks absolutely fine at 200" diagonal indoors, in the dark, and that was from 19' away when testing.
As far as projectors go, the more lumens the better, but you also want lots of contrast. The Optoma has like 10k more contrast than the Epson, so even though the Epson has 200 more lumens, I'd opt for the Optoma just based on specs alone. Another option to consider is an LED projector, which I've found gives pretty good results when you scale them larger because of the nature of the light (laser does even better scaled, although the contrast is crap on the consumer models, so skip those for now). The LED LG PF1500u might be worth considering: (only 1400 lumens, but again, the quality of the LED bulb might do the trick as well)
https://www.amazon.com/LG-PF1500-Portable-Theater-Projector/dp/B00UA8GO3Y
This is actually a question I have myself too because we've been looking at starter homes & I've looked at a couple that have barns on the property...it would be awesome to have a huge home theater setup in there! If you want big sound & don't mind DIY wood projects, check out Bill Fitzmaurice's designs here:
http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/
Lots of great horn-based speakers (mostly pretty easy to build with basic tools), especially room-filling subwoofers. A lot of his designs are oriented towards making speakers for clubs & for outdoor music gigs, like concerts, so you can fill a large space like a barn for a really cost-effective price. Even their jumbo stuff like the massive Titan 48 subwoofer can be built for $400 & is equivalent to a $3,000 pro touring sub:
http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/T48.html
Waveguide speakers also got really big in the DIY speaker community a few years ago (BIG, clear sound in a standard large-sized speaker box); if I ever get a place with a barn, I'd love to build a 5.1 system using a SEOS-12 system like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEK5T7C1UyI
Anyway, regarding screens, normally I'd recommend going with a DIY Silver Fire screen:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/110-diy-screen-section/1311989-official-silver-fire-v-2-thread.html
However, I've also recently played with this gray screen mix with good results, which is a lot cheaper & easier to install: (you can roll it on)
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/110-d...asy-ambient-light-rejecting-screen-paint.html
To fill in the low-end of the bass for a room that size, you might also consider throwing in some bass shakers into your chairs/couch/loveseats for fun. Dayton actually makes puck-sized shakers for around $20 a pop now that might be worth playing with if you're interested (Aura makes $50 bass shakers & Clark Synthesis makes the big boys that are $100 - $550...it adds a lot of fun dimension to movies!).
Anyway, that's just my two cents. The whole appeal of a projector to me, aside from having a freakin'
huge screen, is the ability to take it places like a barn or the side of a building or wherever & have a massive movie party. On a budget, you can get the Optoma projector, throw up some gray paint, and maybe get a nice 5.1 computer speaker set for audio. If you want to do a little bit more of an investment, get the projector, do the Silver Fire screen (they look great!), and build some awesome speakers like the Sentinel speakers in the Youtube video above & a massive subwoofer from BFM. Oh yeah, here's a screen mounting idea, I believe this around 200":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYM7q9Uk3Q0
Good luck & POST PICS!!
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