Almira Enterprises
E:Mail: info@almiraent.com

What makes movies special at the cinema is, in fact, the size of the screen. By filling nearly all of your field of vision with the picture, it effectively immerses you in the film, allowing you to escape reality and get involved with the plot, the characters, the action. Add surround sound and some tactile effects and you have a truly immersive experience - whether it’s at home or at the cinema.

Given a screen size of 27″, THX recommends a maximum viewing distance of just 4.2 feet - and an optimal viewing distance of just 3 feet!
For a 42″ screen, THX recommends a maximum seating distance of 6.6 feet - and an optimal viewing distance of only 4.7 feet!
So, you can see that for an average sized room with a viewing distance between 10 and 12 feet, your optimal screen size would be between 90″ and 107″.

Since a direct-view (Plasma/LCD/CRT) TV of that size would be very, very expensive, most people opt for front projection with a separate screen - just like the cinema uses.

You’re also misinforming your readers with regard to the “minimum number of speakers” which is not 3 but rather 5 plus a subwoofer. Most DVDs are encoded using a 5.1 algortihm - front left, front center, front right, left surround, right surround. You should at least strive to match a one-to-one ratio for channels encoded to channels decoded. Many modern home theater receivers support 7.1, frequently using matrix technology to fill in the extra two channels even though they may not have been originally encoded.

I hope this helps readers who may have been misled by the original post.