Like most people setting up a home theater, my front projection choices are limited by room placement and budget. When review units come in, I typically set them up on a short table for as long as I have the device, but for my personal unit I want to ceiling mount it out of the way. My ceiling is extremely low (7'), so projectors with extreme offset angles (the image ends up projected several feet below the lens) - like some of Optoma's recent DLP's - simply won't work. The new crop of budget LCD 1080p projectors look like good values, so I narrowed the field to Sanyo's PLV-
Z2000 ($2200 after rebate), Panasonic's PT-AE2000U ($2700), and Epson's Home Cinema 1080 UB (an upgrade to the current Home Cinema 1080, price unknown). Since the Epson appears to be delayed, no price has been announced, and I needed to place an order sooner rather than later to appease the contractor doing the installation, that was out of contention. Both the Sanyo and Panasonic have good color modes that sacrifice brightness for accuracy, but the Sanyo is noted to be relatively dim even under the best circumstances, so I bought the Panasonic despite the higher price, since I intend to use it primarily in the lowest brightness mode. I'll post a mini-review when it arrives.
The other big decision was on upgrading the screen. First, I needed to figure out how big I could go. 100" diagonal (87" wide) looked like an ideal size for the seating distance (12'), but not for the room, which has low ceilings and a cutout on one side for an electrical closet. Centering the screen in the middle of the room means getting mighty close to the closet, and with the low ceiling, a 100" screen wouldn't leave much room for speakers underneath. Therefore, saving a few inches in all directions with a 92" diagonal (80" wide) made the most sense. (Going with a larger acoustically transparent screen and in-wall speakers wouldn't work well in this situation; there's going to be a TV behind the screen, so the center channel will need to be mounted fairly low regardless. I plan to tilt the speakers up slightly towards the listening position using angled stands.)
Choosing a screen is madness - there are thousands of permutations. Choosing a screen material is just the first place to drive yourself nuts; once I chose the brighter of the two projectors I decided to stick to a basic white matte material. There are several good budget options for fixed screens, but I want a recessed screen, with a motor, with tab tensioning. The last requirement adds considerable expense and means that the screen is pulled taut in all directions eliminating ripples. My wife never noticed ripples on my old pull-down SharpVision screen, but during pans I could see them and it drove me crazy.
That set of requirements did narrow things down sharply to screens from Elite (which imports screens manufactured in China) and several U.S. manufacturers (which make the screens in the good old U.S. of A.) such as Da-Lite and Stewart. The difference in cost is staggering - the Elite Cinetension2 costs under $1,000, while models with similar features from Da-Lite and Stewart cost two to five times as much, depending on options. Feedback on the forums suggests that you get what you pay for - Elite's quality control is notorious among the super-picky home theater afficianados who post on home theater forums. I've ordered from a reputable dealer who denied any QC problems with the Elite at all, but should readily take it back if there are issues. I'll just have to take my chances - the savings are simply too overwhelming to pass up.
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