The
quest to build a great home theater is
one of our recurring themes for Engadget's How-To Tuesdays. And as anyone home theater buff will tell you, any HDTV worth its weight in salt will present its viewer with a 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect ratio display, or in some cases, project a 1.8:1 ratio. For todays How-To, though, we're building one of the holy grails of the home theater: a 2.35:1 widescreen. Yep, that's movie theater widescreen, alright.
The most important component is the screen material. Mom's old bed-sheet just isn't good enough (and is actually quite nast). Most fabric stores carry rolls of material called curtain backing or black-out cloth. It's a light, opaque white material used to make curtains actually block light. Made from cotton and polyester, one side looks like woven cotton while the other looks like it's plastic coated. At our local fabric store it was about $5 per yard and 54-inches wide. When buying your fabric, we suggest buying at least 4-inches wider and longer than your planned screen dimensions to allow room for construction. If you want to build a MECHA-screen, it's available even wider.
Shopping list:
- (3) 1 x 4 x 96-inch Douglas Fir boards
- (1) 2 x 2-foot x 13/64 piece of plywood
- 1-1/8th-inch fine thread drywall screws
- Staples
- (3) yards of white curtain blackout cloth
Tools:
- Drill with Phillips screwdriver bit
- Saw
- Staple Gun
- Hammer
- Utility knife or scissors
Our 2.35:1 screen is designed to maximize the materials we purchased. We decided to aim for a 104-inch wide, 44-inch tall screen. By placing 1 x 4 boards at the ends of our 8-foot (96-inch) boards, we achieved 103.5-inches of real estate.
The frame is constructed using theater set 'Flat' construction techniques. 1 x 4-inch boards, some plywood and drywall screws will make a very strong frame. We used Douglas Fir because it was easier to find nice straight boards, and it costs about the same as the more brittle (and bent) select pine. (To visually check the board, hold the end and look down the board lengthwise like a gun barrel. Avoid twisted and curving boards.)
To get started, the 1 x 4-inch boards need to be cut to length. Don't forget that 1 x 4-inch wood is actually .75 x 3.5 by the time it gets to you! Our trick for getting them even is to screw the two boards together and cut both ends at once. Screw two of your 8-foot long boards together and just trim the ends so they're perfectly even. Unscrew them and set them aside. Cut around 45 inches off your last board. Screw the two pieces together and trim one end even. Now cut the two boards down to 44 inches at the same time. (Don't hit the screws with your saw!)
You'll need to cut some 1-foot triangles out of the plywood for each corner. If you don't have a saw, you could just have the hardware store cut out 1-foot squares and use a square on each corner. We cut our triangles on a table-saw.
Lay out your wooden frame on a flat surface. The edges of the 44-inch pieces will be against the ends of the 8-foot pieces. To get the frame square, get a helper and a tape measure. Measure diagonally corner to corner. If the two measurements match, it's square.
Place your plywood triangles on the corners. We uses a scrap piece of 1 x 4-inch to place the triangle evenly off the edges.
Use your screw-driving drill to put the drywall screws in a pattern similar to the picture. (It's generally 3 screws in each corner and a couple along the areas the boards join.) You might want to double check the squareness of the frame as you work just to be safe.
When your frame is done, it'll look something like this. Theater flats usually have a cross bar, but for our light wearing application, it's just not needed.
Now you need a CLEAN surface to work on. Lock the dog in another room and lay your blackout material down on the floor. Carpet or a large clean blanket is important to use. Place your new frame (triangles up) on the middle of the material.
Starting in the middle of one of the long sides, wrap the cloth over the frame.
Apply a gentle tension to the edge of the cloth and staple the cloth about 3/4 of an inch from the outer edge of the frame. Work your way completely to one end. Return to the middle and work the other direction. Repeat for the opposite side. Do the same with the short sides. As you work around, evenly tension the cloth so that there will be no wrinkles. Take your time and it should be fine.
In the corners fold the material over itself and staple everything down.
If the fabric came out nice and even, go ahead and tap all the staples snugly into the wood with a light hammer. Don't hammer so hard that you cut the fabric in the process, you just want the spread the tension of the staple across the fabric.
When you're done, trim the extra material with a utility knife or scissors. Be careful and don't slip and cut your new screen.
Now that the screen is built, mounting depends on you. I used two brass shelf mounting tabs and drywall screws. Just locate some studs (our are part of a cloth covered frame behind the screen). and screw the tab to the back of the frame, and run a drywall screw through the mounting hole.
Voila! Total bill of materials: about $35 US.
posted Aug 29th 2006 7:09PM
I'm probably being dense here but which side of the blackout cloth is facing outward (being projected on)? The rubberized side or the cloth side?
I have a IN74EX Infocus DLP PJ. They are about $1300 now. I simply built a drywall frame and put up drywall that's 10' wide by about 6' high. It's huge. 4" of black curtain on top, right and left sides. I have a aluminum bar that holds up a curtain on the bottom. I can raise this to multiple settings for different aspect ratios for movies. The right and left curtains expand inward to box in a 4:3 picture from an old movie. The PJ is about 17' back. I just painted the drywall with Behr Ultra White Flat paint. 3-5 coats and you are good to go. No wrinkles or nothing. Maybe every once in a while apply another coat, but I haven't and it's been almost 2 years. Easy to patch, clean, paint over marks.etc. HD looks awesome.
Went kinda risky this weekend and decided to just attach the screen by staple gun to the drywall and stretch. Worked very well, had no problem with the staples holding (put a stable every inch basically), but this is a cheap way to do it, just staple it up and then frame around.
now, where can i find a sub-1000$ HDTV projector (that i don't have to build myself)?
Well there is a good reason to BUILD YOUR OWN and NOT buy one. I'll give your a hint...LAMP BULBS
looks great, but I'd like to see a shot from the front after it's mounted (but without the movie image on it). Hard to get an idea of just how huge this thing is otherwise...
I was out in San Diego and ended up at a little lecture in the Data Visualization Lab.. they had a nice screen done like this.. but they used white Spandex.. It doesn't wrinkle, and you can rear-project with it.
I am looking to build or purchase a large 8 ft rear projection screen and spandex idea is great but this needs to be portable. Ideas?
Look for a Sanyo PLV-Z2. Great HD projector for the price.
I picked one up last year for about $850 including tax and shipping.
For a little more cash lazy types can get custom canvas stretcher bars and some ready-made cross braces from an art supply house. Should be a lot easier to make with only a hammer and stapler, and far lighter.
Big bada boom!
>now, where can i find a sub-1000$ HDTV projector
If you are looking for a sub $1000 HDTV projector, I've been using the infocus screenplay 5000 which has a 1280x720 LCD, and costs around $999 with a rebate. I've been using it for 5 months and I love it. Only bad part is the cost of the lamps, $319 at newegg for a 2000 hour lamp.
How about just painting the wall with pure white and nailing the moulding around it for it to be "real" ? With some paints you could even make the screen have positive gain.
I am running a X1.
480P is good enough...until HD-DVD, anyway.
100" With a decent 5.1 system is pretty awesome and
you could do the whole rig now adays for under $1000
Seems like a waste of projector pixels. While some HDTV projectors are actually 16:9, most projectors people use are still 4:3. With a screen like that, you are looking at using only about 2/3 of your projector's pixels to make an image. Why not make a 4:3 screen, then show movies in 2.4:1 or whatever inside of that. Same size image for movies, plus you can use it for games and TV.
take a picture with someone standing next to it. preferably a hot chick.
Instead of asking for a sub-1K HDPJ,is there a 2.35 (CinemaScope) projector available for sub-2K?
The only way I could see the value of this is when you have a correct aspect ratio DVD or HD show (not HBO!!!), you would back-up your projector a bit so that the letterboxes are actually outside the screen. When you watch a 4x3, do you actually need to physically move your projector forward, if this is the case?
The image on the screen is from my circa 1995 Sony VPH-1272 CRT Projector. It's a huge monster... but it cost me $100.
I did spend another $40 to replace one of the tubes - but it took a year of shopping around to get it that cheap.
for the blackout material, which side is facing out for the projector image, the plastic side or the cotton side?
Which side of the cloth?
It doesn't really matter. I chose the slightly plastic side. Both are the same white, so it's up to your preference.
Now can you come up with cheap ways of hanging a projector from the ceiling?
A better approach (fancier too) is to build a remote controlled retractable screen. I built one some time ago, check it out here:
http://www.webweavertech.com/ovidiu/weblog/archives/000429.html
The problem with using a piece of regular old fabric for a screen is three-fold. 1. You're going to loose a ton of lumens (brightness) because the fabric, no matter how white, isn't meant to be reflective. 2. You're going to lose a ton of contrast because the fabric will reflec certain colors/values more than others. 3. Becuase of the way fabric has threads oriented in certain ways, you'll lose more in off-axis viewing.
The solution? Screen Goo. It is a custom formulated acrylic paint that is designed to dry and harden into a highly reflective screen. You can essentially paint it on, and it will turn in to a pro-level screen. The offer different products for different applications, and they offer a true screen grey (believe it or not, grey is better for screens reproducing all shades of white to black). You can roll it on, etc. I work for a production house, and we paint tons of stuff with this goo to turn set pieces into screens. It ends up looking as good as a high end stretched screen.
For home theatre, just paint it on your drywall, and use some moulding to trim it out...
I think the link is http://www.goosystems.com
I project my Panny 900U onto a bare wall. I considered buying or making a screen, but the problem is the projection size varies. Sometimes depending on the material, I'm content with the minimum 92" diagonal. Most of the time, I prefer something about 1.75x that. And while I rarely go for the full 2x that literally is 10' high, sometimes I pull that out too.
The projector is in my basement with full light control, and I had already painted the walls a light coffee color. Probably with the right material it could retain more light or whatever, but it looks pretty darn good the way it is.
I can personally say that heavy weight White Nylon/Lycra (Spandex) fabric works great for this DIY project. I believe that the image is much brighter because the fabric has a shiny reflective quality.
This is why I read engadget, Thank you.
post about screen goo, PRICE $35 (engadget) vs. $300 (for paint)?
anyone used or seen the DIY CANVAS MATTE PROJECTOR SCREEN MATERIAL on ebay? wonder if that would work as poster pointed out the contrast and brightness issues with fabric.
Why is everyone talking about 4:3, There aren't even any 4:3 Home Theatre Projectors that you can buy, 4:3 projectors are for data.
What flick is that screen shot a capture from?
You don't necessarily have to use the expensive goo paint. Of course, it is best, but if you're just looking for a decent screen, a cheap can of flat white primer paint works just fine. With the brightness and contrast ratio of most projectors now days, the image is just fine for the average user. I've used it in two home theaters now with great success. The added bonus: when your three-year-old decides to walk up and shake hands with Barney by touching the screen with his chocolate-covered hands, a quick job with the roller and you're good to go again. (Try that with your fabric screen Engadget!).
I'm here to tell ya that "curtain backing or black-out cloth" works amazingly well. Most who have tried it say they don't see the need to go the more expensive route, once they see the results.
And the approx $35 price mentioned in the article is accurate.
Mine is awesome!
one more thing, here is what has got to be the BEST place on the planet for anything related to DIY screens and anything home theater...
A terrific user's forum: http://www.avsforum.com/
"AVS Forum > Display Devices > Screens > DIY Screen Section"
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=35a20fe2194bdaefcc4bd24c65f11694&f=110
Woot (http://www.woot.com) has a DLP projector today for under a grand. It'd go great with this project.
Our living room was a deep orange and we wanted to go white with it. I don't know why, but I got the idea to use flat ceiling paint. It worked like a charm and I even left one wall totally bare for the projector. Looks great! Very sharp, lots of contrast, couldn't be better.
Wow, so you wind up spending $35 and a lot of your time not knowing what the reflective properties might be compared to your white drywall surface. If you are that poor then simply chalk it up to not being well-enough financially empowered to get the best results from your projector in the first place.
Time to go print the 'Lambo' stickers and slap them on my Toyota Tercel.
What Movie Is the Picture From? It has been annoying me all day!
For Bonus points, frame the screen with 2-3 inches of black felt to suck up any over shooting of the projector image.
I used a "masonite" board for my screen, painted with matte white primer. The wooden frame was painted matte black to suck up overshoot light and avoid distraction.
I can't remember the total cost, but it was cheap ($30 - $40).
Ralph Lauren makes a paint called 'Oyster' or 'Oyster Shell' that I used on my wall. Has great reflective properties (from ground-up oyster shells?) but needed to be sprayed with an HVLP gun. Looks great both as a screen and in the daytime as a regular wall. Couldn't be happier. Plus it was an excuse to buy a cheap HVLP gun
Here's a simpler solution:
1/2" sheet of MDF from Home Depot - $15.95
16oz bottle of Titebond III wood glue - $7.99
1qt Sherwin Williams enamel primer $7.99
1qt Sherwin Williams blend $5.99
8oz Sparkling White Pearlescence $11.00
Cut MDF to 48"x83" - this will give a 1.5" perimeter border leaving 45"x80" final screen window with a 92" diagonal. Put whatever border you'd like on it.
Spread Titebond III glue all over one side.
Stick it on the wall(assuming wall is covered with sheet rock)
Paint with primer, then with blend mixed with 8oz pearlescence.
Not much construction, Home Depot cut the dimensions for me so I didn't even have to cut it.
Less than $50 and it works great!!
What color you used? do you have name/number? Thanks
That's a nice simple plan for a movie screen.
I did something similar, though I used dry-fitted 1.25" PVC pipe as a frame so that I can remove the side rails and roll the whole thing up to store it away.
We don't have a dedicated room for media, so we quickly and easily covert our living room and kitchen island into an instant home theatre whenever we want to watch a movie.
I installed 3 plant hanger hooks on the ceiling where I want the screen to be, unroll the screen, insert the side rails and then hang the screen from those hooks.
We have an Optoma MovieTime all-in-one projector... (DLP projector, progressive scan DVD player, powered speakers all in one unit). We sit in the coffee table and we're good to go.
Within literally 3 minutes we are ready to watch a movie on a 7 ft. diagonal screen. When the movie's over, the projector is put away, the screen is unhooked, rolled up, and stored. The only trace remaining are the 3 hooks in the ceiling. :)
do you have pictures of this? I want to do the same thing with spandex to create a large portable rear projection screen for our church gym.
Hi. If you happen to have any poictures of this set-up and how you've implemeneted it, I would greatly appreciate it! Also using an Optoma Movie-Time setup. Thanks!
Regards,
Tom
thomas_h01@yahoo.com
The "easiest" screen, not necessarily DIY is a motorized drop down. Thats what I am doing and building a window box around it with a couple can lights. That way you put a piece of art on the wall with lights on it and noone will know there is a screen hiding in there until you press the button and voila you have a 103" screen.
@Sami: It's "The Fifth Element"
Sami: Fifth Element. Near the beginning.
I still would like to try some of those paint recipes on avsforum. I have a Infocus ScreenPlay 5000 I have had since last december and now have about 1500 hours on it. It just projects onto a flat white wall. My room is hard to conrol light in the afternoon so something with a bit more reflectivity would be nice.
2 liters of Screen Goo Digital Gray Lite base paint, and 2 liters of the Screen Goo Digital Gray Lite topcoat make for a *beautiful* 9-foot by 4.5-foot screen. After painting the rec room wall, we then framed it with brushed steel curtain rods and 12-foot curtains from IKEA.
For the overall effect, you can see our home theatre at:
http://innospyre.com/v3.0/archives/2006/08/playing_in_our.html
As said in the above comments, you'll get much better return by using a semi-reflective paint than using a cloth that wasn't meant for projection. You're losing some of the lumens put out by your DLP projector as they're absorbed and scattered, rather than seeing them reflected back for the full quality and clarity of your projector.
I'm pretty happy with the Infocus ScreenPlay 4800, and I'm looking forward to upgrading to the Infocus ScreenPlay 5705 or another 1080 projector once the PS3 comes out.
Not sure about CinemaScope and 2.35, but I've been using 16:9 for everything. In the case of 16:9 and 4:3, you can keep the projector in one location, but you going to have some wildly varying projection sizes as you switch video sources and screen ratios.
In my case, I'm using an Infocus ScreenPlay 4800, a 9'x4.5' projection wall, and fixed location of the wall & projector. I changed the settings on my video sources to use 16:9 (widescreen in DVD and on the PS2). With standard-definition coming off the DishPVR, shows look a little stretched, but I quickly came to like it.
Eun Yang of NBC4 in DC looks a little hefty at 16:9 off an SD signal. :)
Been there.. did that. 92" Diag. 16:9 fixed screen for $88.00 for a hard screen I can wash and it is paintable! I looked into a fabric screen, but I wanted a sturdy screen. The Next update, A High Contrast paint.
http://www.grossmeier.com/blogs/cgrossmeier/articles/HOWTO_Theater_Screen.aspx
I did a similar screen with a wooden back and painted the screen an off-shade of white. The frame is covered in black felt to absorb light. I also made some detachable blinds for adjusting the screen size between 1:85 and 2:35. Here are some photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shieldss44/sets/72157594165801536/
How bout painting the fabric with screen goo? Wonder how the fabric handles paint and if it would alter any charteristics of the screen goo paint. This situation would be ideal if you can't or do not want to paint your walls.
If you want to do the paint, I'd use muslin instead of blackout. It's the usual theater flat fabric. Initial painting must be crosshatched and allowed to dry to shrink the muslin tight. I'd use a good primer, then goo if you must.
(or some of the mixtures out there.)
I built a 12'x8' screen that can be dismantled
and assembled in less than 15 minutes.
Used PVC tubing, reinforced by steel rods.
Then used screen material and set grommets
every 1'. Used bungee cords to stretch.
works beautifully for my outdoor ampitheatre.
m
Black velveteen is an ideal material for the
black out border. I just built an additional
1 x 4 frame outside the screen frame and nested
them together with mending plates.
the fifth element
i was lookin @ Sony's screen with the filter that bounces back only RGB. are there any other materials out there that would do that and could be used in a screen? true theirs is 80" and for a commercially made one @ 1,300$ online thats not TOO bad but outta my range.
would be interesting to see if there are other materials that are well suited to absorbing as much white light as possible.
Last time I checked white light contains all colors, so if you want to absorb as much of it as possible you are going to have nothing left to look at :P
I made the screen in this article and it turned out great. Only thing is it made very little difference in the picture, Shining the projector at the wall was just as bright. More of a cosmetic upgrade. Luckily I enjoyed making it anyway :)
I build a variation of this screen over the weekend. I was previously using an old lecture style projection screen that was about 12" 4:3. It was old and had discolorations, not to mention it is ugly as hell. Built this one in about 2 hours and the results are incredible! the image is brighter, the colours are crisper and it looks a hell of a lot better than the old one ever did. Because of the layout of my theatre room, the screen is actually mounted in front of the window, which I've blacked out using a roll down blind and some cardboard. I've never had such a clear picture, and the screen is also girlfriend approved, which rocks!
Thanks for the tutorial!
I also built a screen similar to this. Used 54" remnant blackout cloth I bought from a local fabric store for $1.49/yd. So my total cost was about $20 for a 100" screen. I bought enough to make a portable screen made with PVC to take outside or on the road as well. Bought black faux suede drapes at Wal-Mart for $13 per 54x84 panel to put around the screen for the finished look. Total cost: Approx $60.
Am also going to make a blackout screen "cover" to fit over the one window I have to deal with. Right now I just drape it over the window and it works great, but a custom fit cover will work even better.
where can you get a 2.35:1 projector?
im in the market and all i can find is 16:9.
im looking for a 720p widescreen projector for under 2 grand.
know any?
which is beter: DLP or LCD?
This is what I use. I haven't used anything else but am wondering if there is something better or just as practical. After reading all the insightful comments I think I'll augment what I use with some of that Goo paint and see what happens. I just use a white pull down window shade. You can get them in various sizes. Prices and materials vary. I spent like $30 on a 74 inch retractable window shade. The cheap ones are of a dotty material. More expensive ones are very smooth. Then for light control, I very precisely measured all my windows, went to a local fabric store, got several yards of the wide roll black vinyl fabric. I also picked up a few rolls of half inch velcro sticky back tape from the hardware store I bought the window shade from. I cut the fabric to size, applied one side of the sticky back velcro to the fabric and lined the window trim with the other side, and wallah, I have a decent home theater. My buddy is going to air brush some pictures on the vinyl too. I think it'll be cool. Thanks for the Goo tip.
Hi,
I am not sure if you made the screen yet, but a good tip would be to use snap-on buttons to fix the fabric onto the frame. Fix the buttons to the front, as this would be easier when setting it up.
Some usefull tips on portable screens can be found here: http://www.beamax.com/Portable-home-projection-screens
This will give you some ideas to think about when constructing the screen.
As for the frame, if you use aluminium, it will give you a lightweight construction. 6 to 8 cm wide should be enough to hold the pressure from the tension of the fabric. (You don't want it to sag in the middle).
Using corner brackets and pre-drilled holes will allow you to set it up relatively quickly.
For the fabric, use proper projection screen fabric which can be stretched (PVC based) and carry it in a protective bag, so it doesn't get damaged.
Good luck!
Otto
So, is this fabric somethign that can be sewn?
I am trying to do a full dome theater setup and looking for inexpensive fabric that will work well and I can use to make a dome cover.
thanks
Sophia
you could try using white acrylic gesso on any material,this is used as a primer before you paint your picture and is quite effective and also solidifies the material once it is stretched on to the the frame.
hop the idea helpsm all out.
hope this helps
Can anyone help me with information about how i can build double side projector screen. I really don't mind to buy one. ( A screen that when projector send a picture to the screen the picture will be seen on both side of the screen. PLs. help.
Hi,
This is possible with rear projection fabric. Even though one side will be optimal, the other side will still display an image, as the rear projection material is translucent.
Another thing in to keep in mind, you need to set your projector to rear-projection otherwise the image will look as if it was projected in a mirror.
The fabric can not be used in all screens, but this range of electrical projection screens can be used with the rear projection fabric: http://www.beamax.com/projection-screens/M-series-projection-screens
Rear projection fabric normally does not come with a black border.
If you need any other information, please let me know.
Good luck
I have tried Screen Goo & other acrylic paints before and spent a couple hundred $$ in the process. I ended up getting a couple HDTV format screens from http://www.projectorscreenstore.com , cut the fabric and hung on my wall. I spent like $400 on Da-Lite Model B's, High Contrast Matte White's (3 of em!), and mounted htem to my wall. Worked way better than any paint setup and was just as easy to cover up.Using a Sharp XR series Projector, the system is the best I've had, and for under $1,000 total! (with sound!)
Went out today and picked up everything in the post, and followed directions verbatim to make my 72" diagonal 16:9 screen (yeah, I know I could make a 104" but my throw range is small and I dont want my eyes to bleed when I want to watch tv).
I can honestly say that vs my white bare walls, the "blackout" curtain cloth that I bought at Hancock Fabrics looks INCREDIBLE. I spent sub $40, and about 2 hours to save hundreds of dollars.
Seriously, awesome.
http://www.projectorscreenstore.com has over 70 screens for under $100. Cheaper than making your own!
These Guys at Projector Screen Center, www.projectorscreencenter.com, have a good solution which involves painting your screen on the wall directly with some special paint, you'll have to call them about more information though as it's pretty new.
These Guys at Projector Screen Center, http://www.projectorscreencenter.com, have a good solution which involves painting your screen on the wall directly with some special paint, you'll have to call them about more information though as it's pretty new. (Sorry for duplicate comment, I left out the HTTP!)