[Hack]

Well, the time has come to begin this righteous passage of building a projector, but I have several questions before beginning.

My room that I will be setting up the "theater" in is 23' square and 7 1/2' tall (old 2 car garage). I would like to sit back as far as possible from the screen, and keep the projector behind me. Seating will actually be about 14-15 feet from the screen. I am under the impression that this is to far away to place the projector and keep the size down? What do I need to do the make this possibe?

Keystoning - Considering both ceiling mount and also table top. At what degree angle of projection do you need to be concerned about keystoning?

Wiring - What I want to do with this screen is to watch DVD's and TV on it. No games. I have read about a box that I will need to use for the TV part. Can someone please tell me what this is and where to get it. Also, I would like to run the video from the dvd player & tv to the projector via RCA cable. is this possible or do I need a computer video card in there some place? I am just having a hard time figuring our how everything goes together (receiver, dvd player, vcr, etc, etc)

Thanks all

[DeathRay64]

With the standard lens kit the projection will be too large from that distance. To get a reasonable seating ratio you need to place the projector in front of you. You can get a little better with a smaller panel but you lose (usually) some resolution when you do that. The pro lens (ETA still unknown) will have a longer throw and you can place the projector behind you. The best place to start on figuring this out is the focal length calculator (just keep in mind that it is an estimate as it does not consider the magnifying effect of the fresnel)

http://www.lumenlab.com/focal_calc.php

With the standard lens kit you will need to angle the projection more to keep it out of your way. Up to 15º has been successfully done but the more you do the more trouble you will have getting even focus. This isn't as much of a problem with widescreen movies but it becomes apparent when projecting a 4:3 image. If your angle is large you can tweak it fairly well by tilting your panel and triplet in addition to the fresnel angle. Plus you can get a couple of more degrees if you tilt your movie screen a little.

The best picture can be achieved by a HTPC and a couple of programs (dscaler and ffdshow) via the VGA output. If you don't want to do that you will need a transcoder/scaler that has various inputs and VGA out. The most commonly used one is the Viewsonic N6(some love it, some hate it) but there are lots of other choices and we are always looking for a better box.

Your picture is only as good as your source, so if by RCA connection you mean composite video, your picture will suck. Any ugliness in your picture will be magnified 10X so you really need component out for DVDs and video games.

[Hack]

So really what I guess I am looking for is a converter with dvd inputs, acts as a tuner for my cable connection and has VGA outputs? That way I can hook up the cable directly (get rid of my current vcr - it only acts as my tuner and eats tapes anyways), hook up the dvd directly, and output directly to my projector when I build it. Any suggestions as to a good converter for under Say $100.00

I notice the manual recommends Kworlds TVbox. Does anyone have a website that I can check out with this for sale? Any other converter suggestions?

Thanks all