Why buy a projector screen? It’s a question we’re asked often. Many people mistakenly believe that a simple painted white wall or a plain white bed sheet will do the job as well. While you will see a picture of sorts with either of these options it will be one where detail, contrast and colour fidelity are heavily compromised.
Conventional paint on a wall isn’t designed to reflect light in an even way and, no matter how smooth the plaster on the surface, the light will be scattered. A sheet is just as bad, adding a lack of flatness to that sorry list of failings. There’s no two ways about it, if you want a genuine cinema experience you’ll need a proper projector screen.
Don’t worry, they don’t have to be massively expensive. Decent options start from below £100 with premium offerings just over the grand mark. While we’re not talking about insignificant sums of money, in the context of a typical projector home cinema system, those outlays are reasonable.
The first thing you need to decide is how big you want the screen to be. This depends on how much space you have, but typical sizes tend to be between 96 – 120 inches (measured diagonally). Domestic TV screens may be getting bigger all the time but they don’t compare to the scale of the image you’ll get here.
While it’s tempting to get the biggest screen that will fit in the available space, just make sure that it’s possible to see the bottom edge of the screen from every seating position. Also, don’t go for a size so large that you have to move your eyes to see the whole of the screen. It’s an uncomfortable feeling akin to sitting in the first row of seats in a cinema.
