Projection Screen Size Chart

Measure from the screen to the back of the last occupied row, including any overflow seating that is used at Christmas. Everything else is arithmetic on that one number under the six times rule.

The multiple changes with the content. Churches mostly need the six times rule, but a room that also hosts training sessions with detailed slides needs the four times rule, and a video-only wall can use eight.

Applied to the room geometry this site models at each seat count, so the screen specified here matches the one on the sanctuary size pages. Use it to sanity check a quote.

An honest look at available screens against the requirement. The largest common off-the-shelf sizes serve a smaller room than most churches expect.

The bottom of the image is too low. This is the most common and most fixable fault. If the bottom of the image sits below about 4 feet from the floor, every head in front blocks it for the rows behind, and the back half of the congregation sees lyrics through a forest of silhouettes. Four feet is the minimum and more is better in a flat-floored room. In a room with no rake at all, aim higher still.

One screen where two are needed. A wide fan shaped sanctuary with a single centre screen behind the platform forces the outside seats to view at a severe angle, and it also competes with the preacher for the centre of attention. Two screens flanking the platform usually serve a wide room better, cost less than one enormous screen, and leave the centre free.

The screen and the loudspeakers want the same space. This argument happens in every church building project. The main loudspeakers need to be high and central, and so does the screen. Resolving it late means either loudspeakers aimed around a screen or a screen mounted too low. Settle it at the design stage with both the speaker placement and screen requirements on the same drawing.

Nobody checks the front row. The nearest seat should be no closer than 1.5 times the image width, or people at the front cannot take in the whole screen without turning their heads. On a 15 foot wide image that is 22 feet, which in a small sanctuary can be most of the room. Where the front row is unavoidably close, that is another argument for two smaller flanking screens.

Overflow seating is forgotten. The furthest seat is the furthest seat that is actually used, including the chairs added at Christmas and Easter. Sizing to the permanent back row and then seating fifty more people behind it means those fifty cannot read anything.

It assumes 16:9. A 4:3 or 16:10 screen of the same diagonal has a different height, and height is what the rule actually governs. If you are working in another aspect ratio, size by image height and let the diagonal fall where it does.

Text size can override the geometry. The six times rule assumes reasonably sized lyric text filling the frame. A church using a small font, or projecting dense scripture passages, needs either a larger screen or better slide design. Slide design is free and usually the better answer.

It says nothing about sightlines. A screen correctly sized for the furthest seat is useless to anyone whose view is blocked by a column, a hanging loudspeaker, a chandelier or a balcony overhang. Walk the room and sit in the awkward seats before committing to a position.

Flat floors change everything. All these figures assume viewers can see the screen. In a flat-floored room with rows of heads, the effective constraint is the bottom of image height rather than the diagonal, and raising the screen matters more than enlarging it.

LED walls follow different rules. A direct view LED wall is sized by pixel pitch against viewing distance rather than by the screen height rule, because the limiting factor is seeing individual pixels rather than reading text. See projector against LED wall for church.