Projector question always rings twice

April 8, 2023 8:56 PM

This is just a kind of thing I am bad at! I'd like to mount a shelf on the wall of a small room in my house to project movies on the opposite wall. I'm not sure about things like "throw."

The room (well, part of a room) is a rectangle that's about 5' x 11'. A 5' love seat is against one wall, above which I hope to mount the projector. I'll put a sheet or something that's 5'xsomething' on the opposite wall.

How do I know if a projector mounted 11' away from a 5' wide screen will work? There's a throw calculator on the one projector site but I ended up finding it confusing to use because...this is a kind of thing I"m bad at.

Might it work? Does it affect the kind of projector I need to get? (My impression is "short throw" is shorter than this.)

posted by less-of-course to Technology (2 answers total)

Best answer: This is actually quite simple, though you'll find a lot of calculators that seem to make it more complex than it really is (in service of referral revenue by showing you projector models with links to purchase).

Throw ratio is equal to the distance from the projector to the screen, divided by the width of the screen. Your distance is 121" (assuming your projector is about 12" deep) and your screen is 60" wide, so your throw ratio is 2.02. Any projector that has a throw ratio range that includes 2 should work fine.

You are right, this is a long-ish throw ratio, not a short one. Some projectors won't go as long as 2, but you still have plenty to choose from.
posted by ssg at 9:25 PM on April 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I saw some posts out there saying that with a throw distance of that size, get a TV unless you can fit a 100" diag screen. Your 5ft width means you have a max of about 68" diagonal for a 16:9 screen. You could just as well get a 65" TV, which, whatever you get, means you can move your viewing position up to about 5ft away from the screen and have some room for surround speakers.
posted by rhizome at 2:14 AM on April 9, 2023