What are my options for home theater screens?

The size of the screen we determine based on the wall that we are going to place it on, keeping in mind that we are going to have the center of the screen at correct levels.

Home theater screens are one of the important decisions to make for your home theater. The proper measurements will need to be taken and compared to preferences that are available for home theaters. When making decisions about a screen for your home theater, it is best to consider what options are available for receiving the best effects for the movies that are being watched.


The factors that should be considered for home theater screens are best stated by Dave Tovissi, vice president of Systems and Design Engineering for Tweeter Home Entertainment Group. He states, 'The size of the screen we determine is based on the wall that we are going to place it on, keeping in mind that we are going to have the center of the screen at correct levels." In relation to this, is the area where you want your eyesight directed to with the screen. This is related to the side of the room, where the sitting area is and how large the screen should be.

Tovissi states that your eyesight should be about one third from the screen. "If I was sitting down in my chair, I am going to take a measurement over to the wall and I want the bottom third of the screen to be at eyelevel." The first option to consider will then be the size that you can get according to the measurements of the room and the area where you are placing the screen.

The next part of choosing a home theater screen is how you will respond to the picture on the screen. A screen can be too big or too small on the wall, depending on the measurements of the room. As Tovissi states, "Your brain can determine whether the screen is too big or too small and you will get fatigued if you make the screen too big. If you make it too small, you've got to deal with the fact that it's not really giving you a movie experience."

Knowing what the average will be in order to create the best home entertainment experience without losing the impact of the movie is important when choosing a screen.

One other important consideration to make is the way in which the movie is filmed. Most movies that are created for a movie theater will have specific dimensions to the film that is created, known as widescreen. When it is moved to a television, it will change from wide screen to smaller dimensions. If you are watching television or home movies, then you may want to consider a roll down masking, which will allow you to change the effects of the vision from the screen into what is known as a 4/3 format. This will allow you to still have the effects of the movie without having a full screen.

The complications of screens and how they are perceived is an important decision to make when setting up a home theater system. "One thing you need to know about the screen is it reflects images and you cannot make the picture any brighter than where it originally starts. So we try to make the image to be about the same lighting as you would see in a typical movie theater."


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