Projector and screen advice for main TV and theater room that doubles as a golf sim

[grantc79]

Ok heres the scenario. I have a 17 x 24 room that will be used for movies, TV, video games, general living room, and if I can pull it off a golf room as well.

My question is how many of you use your golf room as a main TV/movie room as well? Is this practical?

From what I can tell I will likely lose some picture quality using a "golf screen" for movies, tv, video games etc but as long as its "good enough" I'm going to be OK with that.

I will be able to "zone" the lighting in the room to make the rear lights not shine on the screen or projector if that helps any.

So the questions are:

1: Is this practical? Do any of the rest of you do this? If not practical for dual use I will likely not do the golf sim because this will be our daily TV room.

2: What projector and screen is best suited for this purpose? I'm going 16:9 and can go up to 170 or greater inches easy enough. Budget needs to be about 2,500 for screen and projector.

I do have 15 foot tall ceilings so I could potentially mount a projector very high in the air if I need to and if the projector allows for enough adjustment to not warp the image.

3: Reserved for questions I have likely forgotten.


Thanks in advance.

[Kent]

I think it is very practical as long as you are not trying to watch TV and golf at the same time. I built my sim in my 3 year old daughter's playroom. It is similar in size to your room. It is 14' x 24'. Movies look great. I have the Optoma GT1080Darbee. My screen is from DBGolf's second round of screens. I wanted to put movie theater seats across the back, but my wife wouldn't let me. She wanted me to put the sim in our game room, but it would have been more difficult. I settled for a very large bean bag. I would go the full 17' width of your room.

[grantc79]

Problem is I have to fit speakers somewhere Kent.

[Kent]

I put my center, left, and right speakers in the wall behind my screen. I was a little worried that the screen wouldn't be acoustically transparent, but it is. There is probably a little loss of volume, but not really a loss of quality. It looks a lot better than having them show and they are installed at an ideal height.

[grantc79]

What screen do you have

[Snaphook]

I also use my sim room as a home theater. I have the dbgolf 1:st gen screen with speakers behind. It is kind of acoustically transparent. Just place the speakers there and calibrate your system. I did measure a 1 db drop on the test tone from the receiver. For movies it's working fine.

[Kent]

I have the 2nd generation screen from dbgolf, which is very thick. I didn't measure the sound drop, but I did calibrate everything after like snaphook and it sounds great for movies.

[Dan McWhirter]

Check out "Carl's Place" "Premium" impact screens (for my 12 ft by 10 ft screen, about $900). Highly rated picture quality and endurance on "My Golf Spy" site. The Premium screen looks solid, rather than woven, made of three layers.