Seating Considerations
The best placement for best viewing

Seating layout and screen size are closely connected in any room with AV. There’s some art in seating design, but the rules of thumb are simple.

We know that the height of a projection screen should be 1/6 the distance to the farthest viewer. Conversely, the farthest seat should be no more than 6x the height of the screen.

Ideally, the closest seat should be no less than 2x the height of the screen.

All seats should be within a 60-degree viewing cone: 30° to either side of a line drawn perpendicular to the center of the screen. Most screens and displays will show a good, bright image much farther off-axis, but the image will start to look distorted and text difficult to read. (A 90° cone is your practical, if not ideal, maximum).

If your room is wider than it is deep, consider installing two or more projectors and screens.

Note that these same rules apply in smaller rooms where you might use a flat-panel plasma or LCD display.

Once you know your screen size and seating configuration, you can choose your projector’s brightness.