Quote (cypressg on Jan 25, 2015 3:50 PM): Hi, I'm looking to start up a mobile cinema business. I'm looking to find out info about what type of screen I should use and lots of other questions but I can't really find anywhere online that addresses these issues, maybe someone knows somewhere I can go for info?

You really will need to build a business model of some sort and list what your goals are for this.

There are dozens of different markets for outdoor projection from showing movies, to concerts, and other events. Screen sizes may vary from 10 feet or so, to 40 feet or larger.

All of this plays into your model, because the projector which hits a 10' screen size and looks good, won't have nearly the horsepower needed for a 40 foot screen size.

There are plenty of places which make truss frame screens and large inflatable screens, etc. This is all, once again, customer specific. So, if you just want a large 'blow up' screen, then they are easy, and they are out there. If you want to fly a 30' screen 100' off the ground and project onto it... Well, you really better know your stuff.

Projectors falls into the same boat.

You can NOT project during the daytime, and even at twilight it can be difficult. Front projection is almost exclusively ideal for after dark viewing in a place without a lot of uncontrolled light.

It is recommended that about 25 advertised lumens be available for each square foot of screen space as a minimum, with after dark viewing only. So, a 50 square foot screen would need about 1,250 lumens. That's not much, but that's a pretty small outdoor projection setup. Double the diagonal to about a 20' diagonal, and you have about 200 square feet, which needs no less than 5,000 advertised lumens.

I would stick with LCD projectors in this type of work.