Projection Screen

Since this was home theater on a budget, I hardly bothered to look at an authentic, pre-made screen. At the size I wanted, I knew that the cheapest one I could get was going to run me $400+, so that wasn't even an option. Maybe in my next theater, but not now.

So I looked at a variety of DIY options, but the one that I was attracted to the most involved building a wooden frame and covering it with blackout cloth. That's what I ended up doing, and I am very pleased with the result.

I found a fantastic "How-To" article on Engadget that explains how they made a custom projector screen - I basically followed that article in building mine. I used Douglas Fir boards to make my frame, 1/2" plywood that I had to hold the frame together, and blackout cloth from a local Jo-Ann fabric store. It took me less than an hour to assemble everything; as long as your measurements are right, you should be fine.

Engadget built theirs a 2:35:1 format; that was too wide, so I had the brilliant idea of going for a 1:85:1 format. Not a good move, since my projector throws in 16:9. So as of now I'm left with wasted space on each side of the picture, since my screen is wider than my projector image. I plan to take the screen down and shorten it later on, but for now, it's fine.

UPDATE: I did trim the sides of the screen, so it's now a pure 16:9 size. It looks a lot better now. I should've researched a bit before I tried the 1:85:1 idea.

Rather than build a border for my screen, I decided to paint an area behind the screen black. This had another advantage as well - since I have on-wall speakers (that are black), I painted the area to cover the left, right, and center speakers as well. From a distance, this effectively hides the speakers; it really helps to allow you to focus on the image when watching a movie. If you have on-wall speakers, I highly recommend this approach.