Front projection or not?

If you watch lots of TV, get a plasma

If you watch lots of movies, get a projector

You could sit 10' from an 8' wide screen without having to turn your head.

Most scope transfers are new movies or restored epics and would look great at that width.

You'd want to run a 2.35:1 aspect ratio screen (IOW, 96 x 41") to keep DBS satellite a watchable size and for 1.85:1 movies to be a reasonable size (76 x 41").

The constant height setup would be easy to mask with curtains.

Ideally you'd use a 9" CRT projector or 16x9 digital with an anamorphic lens to get there (the later may have visible projection artifacts that push you back farther).

As far as stereo imaging, getting box out from between my speakers (4' from the front wall, 7' between a line drawn through the tweeters and the listener) did wonders for it.

The sound stage on movie tracks also comes close to matching the screen (87" wide screen, 96" between tweeters).

I was leaning more towards a 4:3 native aspect ratio, I notice now that there are some projectors out on the market with dual nativity.

There are a couple of problems with 4:3 screens.

1. Source quality

Most 4:3 sources (DBS satellite, bad cable, VHS tapes) are extremely low quality. Most widescreen sources (DVD, HD) are high quality.

If you use a 4:3 screen small enough to keep the bad 4:3 sources watchable the good wide screen sources are too small. If you select the screen for the better wide screen sources the soft picture and compression artifacts from bad 4:3 sources become objectionable.

A wider screen is smaller for your bad 4:3 sources, and bigger for high quality wide screen - the best of both worlds. And the 4:3 image is still a lot bigger than an RPTV on "modest" front projection setups (81" diagonal on an 87x49" 100" diagonal 16:9 screen).

2. Space limits from the room and speaker placement

Disregarding the above if you wanted an 8' wide screen for good scope movie performance a 4:3 screen would be 6' high versus 40" for a 2.35:1 screen. You'd have a hard time getting a good center channel placement on the 4:3 screen without going to a perforated setup.