Screen Masking

Masking describes the process of covering up parts of your screen or areas around your screen to make them not reflect light coming from your projector. As you can see above I chose to mask off the entire wall area surrounding my screen with the same material that I used for the screen border. This really gives a theater feel to the room and I highly recommend it for anyone who has a room that it dedicated to home theater. For this particular projector I also chose to incorporate some sound damping material into the masking. I live in an apartment and the wall that holds my screen is also the wall that I share with my neighbor. I added the damping material to decrease sound reflection around my home theater room as well as to try to keep noise from reaching my neighbor's apartment. It has been very effective at reducing reflections, reducing noise in my neighbors apartment, and being an effective visual barrier.

 

Construction:

The masking is composed of three large panels. One rests below the screen and the others are on the left and right of the screen. I began construction by first taking measurements for how large my panels needed to be. Once I knew the dimensions of each panels I began to construct the frames for them out of 1"x4" slats held together by 90 degree brackets, one on the inside corners and another on the outside corners. Once the frame is complete it is laid over a piece of black felt (Walmart, the same as was used on the screen border) cut about 5" longer in both length and width.

At this point the black felt it pulled tightly and stapled to the back of the frame on all four sides, then the corners are cut off.

You could place these around the screen as they are and they would provide a nice visual barrier, but I decided to add some insulation to make them acoustic damping panels as well as visual barriers. I used Owens Corning R-13 mini-rolls to line the inside of the panels. The roll is about 3" thick and 15" wide. I didn't wear gloves while working with it, but it did make me quite itchy. Once you roll the material in place you should staple the paper flaps on the side to the frame and tape the seems with duct tape. After this is done the panels can simply be pushed into place around the screen. If any gaps develop in between the screen and the panels they can be filled with folded piece of the black felt.