r/CinemaAtHome

Finally circling back to the living room setup and I'm stuck on screen size again. Room's roughly 11x13 with 8ft ceilings, open-ish layout, not a sealed theater by any means.

I keep flip-flopping between 120" and 100". 120" sounds amazing on paper but I'm lowkey worried it'll just dominate the wall and look kinda goofy when nobody's watching. 100" feels like the "safe" pick but I know myself and I'll be second-guessing it within a week.

The other thing bugging me, I don't love the idea of a permanent screen bolted to the wall 24/7. Feels like it'd make the whole room read as "home theater" even when we're just, idk, eating dinner or whatever. So I've been eyeballing motorized stuff that tucks away, but not sure if that's overkill for a room this size or if people actually like living with it.

my Epson Home Cinema 2040 (picked it up ~2015 for like $650) finally gave up the ghost last week. Did a quick look at what's out now and man it's a different world, everything's either a giant laser box, a UST that sits 6 inches from the wall, or a $69 thing with a name like BLORPTRON.

I was fine with 1080p for the occasional movie night, maybe open to 4k if it's not crazy money. Room's a normal living room, some ambient light in the evenings, not a dedicated cave.

The thing I can't tell from spec sheets: for someone who just wants decent movie nights without turning the place into a dark room, is the move now a UST + a proper ALR screen, or am I overthinking it and a basic 1080p replacement still does the job?