I have the optoma gt750 and love it. It easily can reach 322 inches and bigger but loss of quality will start to become visible. Plus it's a short throw projector meaning it can be about 120 inches from just 5ft away.

I'm not sure what 3.5m is converted to ft if that's what your saying.

It's 10 ft now that I check 322 inches is about 26 ft As far as throw, sometimes gotta take what ya can get for whatever price

I can recommend the JVC D-ILA X30. We use it in our studio. 60/50Hz, color space, setup ... no issues so far. Brilliant image. 3D option. Since there is a successor (x35), there is a price drop for the x30. Grab one quick!

Btw, DLP projectors are, in fact, mechanical devices. After some hours DLP chip starts to fail (individual mirrors). This is espcially true for small sized projectors.

projector quality is only part of the equation. make sure your screen is worthy of the projector you use.

Thanks All!

@Vitaliy_Kiselev - this unit looks good and to hear + feedback from you is even better. I see it has provision for anamorphic front attachment, which could be fun. Interesting about the dlp units. Moving parts, eh (sounds like my old 16mm Bauer)

@kellar42 - Good to know about the optoma. They are quite popular.

@Alex - With the projector in your studio, I imagine you find aspects to your shots you might not have noticed on the desktop monitors, both good and bad.

@htinla +1 on screen quality. Bed sheets don't cut it.

@GravitateMediaGroup - 300 inches is pretty good! Those optomas seem great for the $.

Again, thanks folks for the input. I think I'm off to refurbishedland and grab a viewsonic. Seems quite pro for the money.

Cheers!

I used a black pigment to get a slightly grey paint in the wall. I dissolved 15 drops from it to each 1 liter white paint gallon. You can find it in paint stores. you can use spackling paste before painting to get a smooth surface in wall. The grey in the wall gives deeper blacks and avoid too bright whites in projection. The wall gets a little darker than a white paper sheet.

@beheath - yeah, 322 is what they advertise but I can go a little bigger. To put it to the test I had to take it outside and project it on my garage and it was at least 300 inches from just roughly 13ft away. Here is a video I found that shows it off, this video is what led me to making the purchase.

obviously at this size it's not going to have the same ability as a IMAX project, but still impressive for the average consumer. I actually believe the price has dropped quite a bit from the original as well

@Dazza

I think we need to move our discussion about screens into separate topic.

What is the best 1080p Home Theater Projector for less than $1,000 (USD)?

I doubt that such thing as "best" exist in this world.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=1080p+refurbished&_osacat=0&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313&_nkw=1080p+refurbished+projector&_sacat=0

You can just choose. I prefer to get better projector for small price being factory refurbished. Both Viewsonic and Optoma have few models on ebay.