i have always thought that i would be able to have a 100″ tv screen. sure, it’s true that the room that my tv is in isn’t very deep and a 12′ throw might be a little short to project out to a 100″ screen, but…maybe it’s still possible.
it turns out that after some research, it is indeed quite possible. it would be a pretty interesting to see how that would eventually work itself out, but there are many projectors out in the market that are quite capable of doing it.
now, the next question is…would i get motion sickness from a screen that big and that close to me? that is a good question. i guess i’ll need to go sit up close to a tv and see if that happens or not!
the numbers i gave you re: my set up were off. I re-measured and from my rear wall to the actual screen material itself it’s about 13ft 2 inches. my actual throw distance (lens to screen) is about 12ft 2 inches. 12ft is about where we sit on our couch.
[motion sickness] a rule of thumb is you should sit back a minimum of 1.5x the diagonal screen distance. so if you choose a 100″ that would be ~12.5 ft back. as reference, we have a 106″ screen and the rule of thumb would suggest that we sit back 13.25 ft back but we sit at 12 ft and it’s fine for us – no nausea / motion sickness from me, viks or guests. and we’re the type of folks who typically sit 3/4 back of the room in a theater. now, i’m not saying you won’t experience nausea. just saying that the rule of thumb is not a hard number that can’t be broken.
with the above said, i would suggest going to a B&M with a measuring tape and demo a PJ setup at your home viewing distance. This would be more telling than sitting up close to a TV.
also…from my experience it’s not unheard of that a person’s perception of screen size shrinks over time. when I first got our 50″ TV i thought the diag screen size was pretty big but over time the diag size seemed to “shrink” (I wouldn’t mind a 60″ today). I experienced the same thing with our 106″ screen. the eyes adjust. of course YMMV.
so what you’re telling me is that i’m basically always gonna want something bigger over time. =P
[want something bigger]. not necessarily. bigger is not always better. all preference + your room will cap your size anyway. my screen downstairs is as big as I can go and I’m very happy with the size and do not want any bigger. but for my upstairs TV, I feel I can go bigger but did not go bigger at the time due to budget considerations. all of the above is cause I try to push the limits of my room. the size of the viewing room influences how big / max you wanna go. sometimes people are afraid to go too big but it’s possible (not always, i know) that the eyes will adjust. the “1.5x min” rule is actually a pretty decent guide. also the width or how “open” your viewing room may influence screen size. say you can sit far back enough but if your room is very narrow, a larger screen could possibly make you feel claustrophobic.