Temporary Setup - Advice and Experience Sought

peterwalkley · 18 Feb 2017 at 18:40

I’m looking for some advice or experience from people with a temporary home cinema set up, which boils down to how much of a faff is it all to set up for ‘movie night’.

We don’t have somewhere I can dedicate to a permanent set up, so have been thinking along the lines of a floor-standing screen, projector and soundbar that can all be set up in the main living room when needed and put away when not. The sound bar can fit on the existing TV stand (and probably live there permanently as they are discrete), screen put up in front of the TV and then projector roughly in the middle of the room. We’d be sat behind and to one side of the projector to watch. I’m assuming only a trivial amount of sound lost from the projector screen being in front of the bar.

Image sources are all by the TV already, so just a case of running cables across the floor and not tripping over them.

Is this a workable idea or am I missing something crucial ? Putting a screen up and plugging cables in shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, but I’ve no idea about the setting up of the projector part such as getting the image to the right size and in focus.

I have a rough budget of £1500 to £2000 to cover the screen, projector, soundbar and assorted spaghetti. Input sources already exist (blu-ray player, virgin TiVO and Amazon Fire with kodi side-loaded). Not looking at 4K or 3D at all. Budget can go up if something really justifies it.

Martynt74 · 20 Feb 2017 at 18:45

It shouldn't really take very long to set the picture up i wouldn't have thought although my only experience is doing it years ago with an office type projector for big fifa nights.

Once you do it once re-doing it shouldn't take long as i imagine you'd always put the screen/projector in roughly the same place so would just be a bit of tweaking required.

Have you considered ceiling mounting the projector and a pull down screen though and then just connecting up a source. It might be easier and would mean you'd like use it more as it would be less of a hassle each time.

peterwalkley · 21 Feb 2017 at 07:47

Hi Marv. Anything permanent will never get past the wife as its the living room and I'd have to agree to be honest, it would all stick out like a sore thumb.

danoliver1 · 21 Feb 2017 at 13:35

You need to be careful of throw distance and offset distance , if the projector is too close to the screen then the image will be too small too far away then it will be too big. Its all projector dependent though as some are short/long throw and have different zoom ranges. Most manufacturers have throw calculators on their websites.

Richeh · 21 Feb 2017 at 14:21

Only thing i'd say is that it will be a pain re-setting up the projector each time, making sure it's aligned etc If anything try and make some kind of template once its all set up, even just a few bits of tape on a table marking the position.

Understand the wife issue and I don't know the depth of the room but perhaps consider a shelf on the back wall to place the projector assuming it has the throw distance. Cable trunking to match your walls/skirting board and it would look very tidy. The screen can be moved in and out as you wish (again remembering exact position) but you could move up to an inline ceiling screen eventually if the wife appreciates the setup, that way built into the ceiling and retracts all the way in but much more costly