Home theater tools & calculators
Reference tables built from the catalog we already maintain, a TV size calculator that answers for your own seat, and a short interview that drafts a starting system. Each table answers a planning question with arithmetic over stated manufacturer figures — no estimates and no scoring. Where one of them ranks, it ranks on a single stated number and says whose claim that is.
Projector throw distance calculator
Image size at any mount distance, or the distance a screen needs, per model or by ratio.
A calculator for one projector or one throw ratio — the image width and diagonal at your mount distance, or the distance a target screen needs — over a table of how wide an image every projector we track fills at each ceiling-mount distance from 8 to 20 feet.
TV size and viewing distance calculator
Enter your seat: the viewing angle each TV size fills, with the TVs we track at each size.
Enter any seat distance from 4 to 25 feet and get the viewing angle each standard TV size fills from there, against the SMPTE 30° minimum and the immersive 40° end of the THX range, with the TVs we track at each size and their tracked prices. Below it, a 6-to-16-foot reference grid places every TV and projector screen we track, computed on image width so a scope screen is handled correctly.
Projector brightness table
Every projector we track, ranked by its maker's stated ANSI lumens, with the price.
Every projector in our catalog listings, ranked by the ANSI/ISO lumen figure its maker states, with the price beside it and ultra-short-throw models ranked separately. The models whose makers state nothing are listed too, marked as such rather than dropped from the ranking.
Speaker placement calculator
Each speaker's angle from Dolby's ranges and its wall or ceiling spot, 5.1 to 7.2.4.
Enter your room and seat, pick 5.1, 7.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.4 or 7.2.4, and get an angle inside the range Dolby's home Atmos guideline publishes for each speaker and the spot on a wall or the ceiling where it lands in your room, with anything the room cannot hold flagged.
Guided setup
Answer four questions about your room, budget and viewing; get a starter system drafted.