CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

wowchad · Joined: 29 Oct 2009 Posts: 53 Location: Milwaukee'ish, WI

Can a Marquee 8500 do a 12' dia screen comfortably?
If so about how far back would I need to be mounted from the screen? I know CRT's don't have the lens zoom capabilities a digital PJ has.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 6:51 am Post subject:

Definitely can't do a 12-foot diagonal... More like a 8'-wide screen (110" diag) or so max.

You can go larger, but you'll either need to go with a higher-gain screen, or you'll sacrifice way too much brightness and lose what some of us call "pop" - meaning whites get dingy, colors lose their richness, and the picture just looks flat.

Throw is usually about 1.1-1.2x screen widths, or about 9-10' from a 8'-wide screen.

SC

JustGreg · Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 3098 Location: Kenosha, WI

Yeah a single 8500 just doesn't have the ooomph to light up a 12 footer.
I don't have an EyeOne or the like so can't quantify it, but it seems to me that more media (movies and games) is/are being produced at lower IRE since I got my first 8500 4 years ago. I figured it was because of the low cost and high adoption of brighter digital display technologies (plasma, LCD, etc). It just seems I'm working harder to get good shadow detail these days, even with new tubes.

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

I never understood the need for a 12 foot screen unless your HT is really huge with 3 or more rows of seats? In a typical HT 18 to 20 feet deep the second row of seats winds up approx. 14 feet back assuming a bar or shelving on the back wall. that puts the front row about 9 feet back from an 8 foot wide screen, directly under the CRT.
any bigger than and you'll be doing the "tennis match" thing while trying to watch a movie.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 5:59 pm Post subject:

Drags,

The "tennis match" effect is over-stated. I sit about 9' feet back from my 8-foot wide 16:9 screen, and I love it. I like it so much, in fact, I'd love to go to a 9-foot wide scope screen for about a 45-degree viewing angle. It would also make the 16x9 image a little smaller (which would be good for sight lines), and make the scope image a little more enveloping than it is currently. It would be awesome. Unfortunately, there's no way in hell I'm moving the projector, and I don't really have enough width to accommodate the speakers, nor the depth to accommodate a false screen wall, anyway.

Besides, he was talking 12-foot diagonal... That's just over a 10-foot wide 16:9 screen. Not that bad, actually from a width standpoint if you have a nice wide room. However, the height is a problem for most people - that's almost six feet tall. Most of us don't have the ceiling height for a riser to accommodate that much screen height.

Once you go much beyond an 8-foot wide screen, you really need to go scope in most rooms.

SC

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

I had an 8500 on a 12 foot wide, about 159 inch diagonal. It was a bit dim but still watchable. I had that for a couple years and then stacked for a short period.

Look for a second one and do an over under stack.

Athanasios

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 6:27 pm Post subject:

Athanasios, a 12-foot wide 16:9 is almost 7-feet tall... Didn't that pretty much wipe out any possibility of a second row, or did you have like 14-foot ceilings and a 4-foot tall riser. Wink

SC

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

My theater is about 8.5 feet tall I think, I have a 13 foot 2.4 aspect in there now but am only using 140 inches of the width for the 8 inch blend. I will move the PJ's back and use the full 13 feet when I go to 9 inch tubes.

Athanasios

jeffslife · Joined: 17 Apr 2010 Posts: 4190 Location: ohio usa

I would love to see that.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 3:46 am Post subject:

wowchad · Joined: 29 Oct 2009 Posts: 53 Location: Milwaukee'ish, WI

Nashou that's the quantity of wall space I'm talking about!! But you're using two 8500's to light that?

Look I've waited in this house 12 years for this project so when I designed a basement HT specific room I sunk it lower than the existing basement. We even poured in full entry length (12' wide) rounded concrete theater steps so you -step down- into it.
I have 19' of width, 27' deep with 8'9" hight ceiling. After the HVAC soffit my screen hight can be a maximum of 6'4" (which ironically is exactly how tall I used to be lol)
If I have to back off the size I wanted with this Vision II so be it, but being a newbie right now I'd take the extra Quantity over quality...to a certain extent.

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Sorry, I don't understand diagonals. Wink

Are you doing scope or 16x9?

ecrabb · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:06 pm Post subject:

Yeah, but quantity of what? As you increase the quantity of screen area, you decrease the quantity of reflected light. I know you're talking size, but seriously... Regardless of aspect ratio, I don't think you want to much beyond an 8-wide screen. 9 would be pushing it, you'll need a fully dark room with dark walls and ceiling, and you'd better use a screen with a little more gain.

What kind of seating configuration are you planning? Multiple rows with riser? Because like I said in my earlier post, the height will probably be a problem before anything else; not the height of the room necessarily, but the height of the screen relative to the viewers' heads, i.e. the sight lines.

For instance, in my room, I've got nearly an 8-foot ceiling... My screen is only 96" wide by 54" high, so you'd think I'm golden... But, I have two rows of seating, not much height to work with for the riser, so if I'm watching 16:9 material, the front row folks' heads cut into the bottom quarter of the picture for the back row viewers.

SC