Have a large rectangular basement and we're gearing up to finish it out.  Will update OP with dimensions later.   9' tall ceilings.

Theatre Room time. Need a projector.  I can mount the projector to my ceiling anywhere from 2' to 20' or further away.

My main factors are:
1) less than $1000
2) NO image smoothing/interpolation/Soap opera effect!!!!
3) 1080i/p full HD
4) whatever else.

Will be watching a lot (primary) of tv on it and movies.  Some gaming on PS3.

Whatcha recommend?

Thanks all.

Projectorcentral.com is what you seek.  They have a whole section of < 1000 projectors.

Do you have any experience with projectors?  I ask because you are going to be presented with two basic options; DLP and 3LCD.  Some people have an adverse reaction to the color wheel on DLP projectors and see what is referred to as the 'rainbow effect'.  You need to make sure you and your family do not fall into that group.  If you do, that eliminates a whole group of projectors.  The more expensive DLP PJs have faster color wheels that help eliminate the problem, but in the sub 1000 market, it could be a potential issue.    If you have never seen a DLP projector, I'd recommend taking the family to demo one first just to make sure.  It's a small group of the population that is effected, but you don't want to get your PJ mounted and someone say "Dad, why do I see all these colors on the screen!"

Conversely, LCDs have the screen door effect.  All LCDs have it, but it can be more pronounced in inexpensive projectors and further induced by sitting too close to the screen.  My new 5040UB has almost zero screen door effect compared to my old 1080UB. But there is a big difference in price and years between the two.

You say basement so that leads me to believe you have full light control or is it a walk out basement?  That's going to play into your decision also.  If you have full light control, that's going to open up your options on both projectors and screens.

For gaming, you'll want to pay attention to the input lag.  As an example, the new Benq 2150ST has an input lag of only 16ms...for a $999 projector.  Some PJs get up into the 50+ms range.  Depends on the level of gaming, if it's just putzing around in Minecraft it won't matter.  Competitively playing Battlefield online with a bunch of shit talking punks...you're going to want sub 20ms input lag.

From a mounting perspective, it sounds like you are g2g since you have a wide throw range to work with.  But projectorcentral has a calculator with every projector known to man in their database that will help you plan on where to mount your PJ (distance from screen) for your desired screen size.  

If you can possibly double your budget, I'd recommend the Epson 5030UB.  You will not find a more beautiful picture for 2000 bux. The input lag is a bit high on it but the picture is absolutely spectacular for movies and TV.  It took a big price plunge when the Epson 5040UB came out.

Thank you sir for your thoughtful response.   That definitely helps.

ETA-no experience with projectors.

Walk out basement so there will be some light but I believe we can mitigate most of it.

My room is 22' wide
29' long

Given those dimensions, I wouldn't be worried about the projector/screen size.  I'd be worried about being able to fill that space with acceptable sound.  That's a lot of cu ft to contend with.

I'm listening (no pun)

Planning on going with 7.1 surround sound using the monoprice 3 way-8" in wall speakers and their 5.25 center channel speaker.  

What else ya got?

Thanks

Given your dimensions provided, you have a 5742 cu ft room to fill.  Anything over 5000 cu ft is considered in audio terms as a large room.  Therefore, you are going to have to shop for speakers that fill the large room role (as well as amplification.)

Basically, you are matching the energy of your audio to the size of the room.  If you have a small room (under 2000 cu ft), you won't need large speakers and amplification to drive them.  In a small room, you can get buy with an AVR with say 70 watts per channel and some small bookshelf speakers.  Conversely, in a large room, you are going to need an AVR that can go 100+ watts per channel--possibly external amplification for LCR (left right center)--and large speakers.

If you took those bookshelf speakers which sounded wonderful in the small room and put them in the large room, they would sound completely anemic and the sound would get swallowed up by the volume of the room.  Or if you have large speakers in the large room but they are being driven by an undersized amp, then you are going to again have a very thin sound in the room.  You'll have this beautiful 110" picture from your projector but the sound wont match.  Big picture, little sound leaving you with an underwhelming experience.

I don't have any experience with the monoprice speakers but I can say that most in-wall speakers do not perform well in a large room.  They simply lack the driver size (and the cabinet) to produce the required sound.

And that is only half the battle.  The other thing you'll have to contend with in a large room is the LFE.  In a room that size, you are going to need at least two subs.  With your speakers, you can at least remedy some of the loss by pointing the speaker directly at you since those frequencies they are responsible for producing are directional.  Low frequency waves below 80Hz and especially below 50Hz quickly breakdown in large areas.  An example of this is if you have a sub in a room in your house and it sounds great--lots of meaningful bass that you can feel in your chest.  But you take that same subwoofer outside and it loses all of it's punch.

While that's an extreme example, you are going to be fighting that same battle on a smaller scale in your theater room.  To get around this you'll need a much bigger sub with a lot more amplification than you would for that small room of 2000 cu ft.

The second part of the LFE you'll have to worry about is bass nulls. Basically, its pockets of the room that the low frequency waves cancel out.  Generally, the seating position in a room that size happens to fall in the middle.  This also happens to be a prime spot for cancellation.  One sub simply cannot cover all the areas of a room that size.  So in order to provide an even bass response across all areas, you introduce multiple subs.

There are ways around it with one sub.  You can do the subwoofer crawl (Youtube) and see if you find a spot in the room to place the sub in order to cover the entire seating area.  Sometimes a room that size is impossible to cover.  


This all might sound like bad news above.  But it doesn't have to be.  You may have to increase the audio budget a little bit, but going in with the knowledge of what you need will cut down on any mistakes and therefore save money in the long run.  But most importantly, you'll have a rewarding experience every time you fire up a bluray.  And there are a ton of Internet direct speakers that have awesome in-home demo policies.  You order them and listen to them in your space, and if you don't like them you pack them up and ship them back no questions asked--many times with free shipping.  I would definitely take advantage of this.

And this is all from personal experience.  I have a very large open floor concept basement that I use as my media/theater room (considered large room very close in volume to yours.)  My first attempt fell flat.  I had Polk RTi speakers with horrible sensitivity driven by an undersized Yamaha AVR and a single 12" Velodyne sub.  No matter what I did, I could not wring out the sound from those components that the room required.  I'd place the sub so that at least two seats had decent bass response.  But the far right seat was completely flat.  I always felt sorry for whoever got stuck in that chair.    

I learned a lot from my mistakes and quick2k3 Theater 2.0 is much better.  It's finally at the level I envisioned from a picture/sound perspective.  But I had to dramatically step up the game in ordered to do so.  I went with a much bigger AVR (Marantz 7011), powering LCR and SR/SL with an Emotiva XPS Gen3 amp (using onboard amps of Marantz to power SBL/SBR and 4 atmos speakers in ceiling), Goldenear speakers with a high sensitivity (don't need as much power to drive them) and (2) 15" HSU subs.  

The difference in Theater 1.0 and Theater 2.0 isn't even in the same ballpark.  Same room but this time with components that are able to fill that space with the appropriate energy.  



Note:  The Goldenears weren't really required.  I hooked the Polks up to the new Marantz/Emotiva combo and finally was able to get the appropriate sound level from them.  My main reason for upgrading to the Goldenears was their sound.  They have a ribbon tweeter in them that is to die for.  And I was never happy the slightly muddy sound of the Polks-which didn't go away with an increase in amplification.  The center channel always sounded like someone had their hand over the speaker.  Same with LR for 2CH listening.  They were just missing that bright clean sound.  The reason I brought the Goldenear/Polks up was because of the speaker sensitivity.  I'm convinced the Polks are mislabeled/misrepresented when it comes to their sensitivity.  You just about have to overload them to get them to come to life.  (I also think the Goldenears are very conservative with their sensitivity numbers.)  Conversely, with a higher sensitivity like the Goldenears, you won't need as much amplification to push them.  I say this because if you shop for the right speakers with a high sensitivity, you can save some cash on the amplification.


ETA sorry for the wall of text.  Just wanted to give you as much info as possible.

Thanks for all the advice.

Pretty much set on the Denon AVR-S920W that offers 90 watts per channel.  The speakers I'm looking at have 100 watts RMS.  

The HT/AVR receiver offers a mode where you can select or input your room size and it supposedly calibrates for that room.

Based on the reviews I've read-this is supposedly quite the capable little unit.

ETA:
Furthermore, I'm installing soundboard underneath the drywall so I won't rock the rest of the house while downstairs watching this thing.

I'm hoping that will quasi-"encapsulate" my theatre room and it's sound thereby giving me the effect I'm after.

Double Edit:

My seating area for this setup will be much closer to the screen than further back.  I'll be sitting within 11-16 feet of screen.  Further back will be a pool table.

I can't say for certain because every room is different, but you may have problems filling the space with that AVR to an acceptable level.  I love Denon/Marantz but you have to be careful with their numbers (and most other manufacturers, too.)  That 90 watts is for 2CH at 8 ohms.  But you aren't going to be driving 2 channels, you are looking at 7.  Numerous bench tests show that in order to stay under the industry accepted distortion level, that 90 watts is going to drop to about 40 watts per channel when driving all seven channels.  

Audyssey (the room correction software) does an excellent job of setting delays and EQing on all the channels to your listening space.  I'm a huge Audyssey fan and think it's much better than competition--never been a fan of YPAO on the Yamahas.  But any room correction software isn't going to be able to work magic and overcome an under-sizing issue.

Just an FYI but Fry's keeps running specials on the Denon  AVR-X3300 for 599.  It's 100 more than the S920 but it's most definitely worth the 100 bux to jump from the S to the X series.  It's worth the $100 alone to jump from Audyssey Bronze to Audyssey Multieq XT 32 (huge difference.)  You would also get the upgraded amps in the X series and pre outs so that if you ever decide to add more power in the future, you can just add an amp and not change your AVR.  The special appears to be hit or miss in timing but Ive seen the special posted 3 times now on AVS.

Excellent advice.  Thank you sir.  Didn't understand the ohms/speaker ratio. Now I do.