Optoma GT1080Darbee vs Benq TH671ST

[intrinsic]

I currently have the Optoma Darbee (ultra short throw) The Darbee has been good to me and I can't complain about the quality when I had a 7 foot wide screen. In this case though, my projector was set to 4:3 (due to square impact screen) and the distance was ~5 feet.

However, as I'm looking to build out a larger simulator screen (14.5 screen with 9ft height), I need to re-position my projector mount and switching to 16:9'ish screen. My intent is to consume as much of the height as possible and using Window settings, modify the resolution width to conform to the screen. This would make my screen about ~1740x1080.

However, due to the configuration of my garage (2.5 car garage), I am running into an issue and looking for guidance. The Optoma GT1080Darbee gets me to 8ft and due to the garage door opener positioning, it seems enough. I'm not able to move the projector screen much further than I already have without the garage door hanger kit blocking the lamp projection.

I really want to upgrade to the Benq TH671ST due to the great feedback everyone has been sharing on this forum. Unfortunately, it's not an ultra short throw but a short throw. To achieve a height of 108", I have to position the projector 12ft away from the screen (4 feet further back). Using wide angle, I could get this down to 11ft but this doesn't seem to work for my space.

I have attached some pictures to see if someone else has run into the same issue and whether the Benq was still okay for them. I prefer not to the route of removing the garage door opener with a wall mounted garage door opener if I can help it.

[GungHoGolf]

What height are those rails, and where is your 16x9 screen going... towards that door, or away from it? If away from it, you could have the opener mount modified to have a big enough gap in the middle to allow the light beam through it.

A garage door company would also be able to move your existing rails and opener up flush with the ceiling, or close to flush, at a nominal charge (little new hardware would be needed) - might look into that, as getting the rails up higher would have many benefits.

The Optoma 1080darbee, GT1080HDR, and GT1090HDR all have 0.50 throw ratios. But I've had more success with the BenQ TH671ST than with those three for most installations.

[intrinsic]

Thanks Ron. The screen would be facing away from the garage door against the wall. The rails are about 24 inches in height. Good call about raising the rails though looking at preliminary costs, I may as well switch to a wall mounted opener.

Also appreciate the guidance on the BenQ. If I move the rails, it certainly makes more sense for me to consider the BenQ since I can mount further back against the garage door

[timsiegle]

What about installing a side-mount garage door opener? Would be cheaper than buying a new projector if you install yourself
Edit: sorry I didn't read the last sentence of your post