Thanks, guys! Everyone really enjoyed it, which makes it even more fun for me. Plus, it's nice having your own screening room, even if it's only open at night and they set the AC a bit too high during the winter. ;)

Laserschwert said:

Looks great! Did you build the screen yourself?

Kind of. It is a kit from Carl's Place, which I learned of at the BackyardTheater.com forums. Projector is an Epson 710HD I got on sale from VisualApex.com. I use a PS3 as the player. The PAs and subs are PW100T and PW112-S from Powerwerks (from a local music store). Super-affordable and great sound for the price. I run everything through a small Behringer Eurorack MX 802A mixer I bought used. I plug the PS3 into one of the mixer's stereo inputs using the PlayStation's RCA outs with a pair of these RCA to 1/4" adapters attached, and I run HDMI to the projector. I've also got a small Rolls HA43 Pro headphone amp from Amazon and 4 pairs of these headphones from Monoprice for quiet viewing late at night

Carl sends the plans, screen, and elbows, and you go to the lumber yard and have the tubing (1" EMT) cut to length. I leave it up except in lightning or high winds, but it can be assembled/disassembled in about 10 minutes with 2 people.

I bought this kit but asked for a custom aspect ratio (~2.085:1), which lets me zoom 1.85:1 movies top-to-bottom or 2.35:1 movies side-to-side and have them take up the same square footage (Constant Image Area instead of Width like a TV). This way, viewing distance is the same for both types of film and black bars are minimized.

Setup in action at watch party

EDIT: Added some links