I watched Interstellar at IMAX. It was good, better on blu-ray at home :/ (Both sound and picture quality)
The 35mm sections of the movie were pretty bad at IMAX size, the 65mm parts looked good, but lacked black level and contrast.


10ft from 150 inch is as comically close as 4.33 ft from 65".... about 57 degrees fov

I used to watch my 92" projector screen at 12ft, which was a comfortable distance (fov of 31 degrees, 62 pixels per degree for 1080p content) to watch movies and play games. For the same experience, 8.5 ft from 65", or 1.8 ft from a 14 inch laptop screen.

I quickly found out that my gaming laptop's 144hz panel delivers a much more immersive experience in FS2020 opposed to hooking it up to the projector. (Plus much easier to lean in to read the small stuff)

If I want to have wrap around view, I play VR :) For TV and movies I rather be able to see the whole screen instead of having to scan the action.



As for sound, no dolby atmos for me. I have quality B&W speakers, 5.1 set up with a REL Storm III Subwoofer. Up to 150 watt per channel but don't really go that loud for movies. The biggest factor for good sound quality, after the speakers, is the room itself. I have 2 5.1 set-ups, one in my home theater room and in the living room.

It sounds much better in the living room, open concept, high vaulted ceiling, wood floor, wood/glass walls. Sound needs to breathe.
My theater room has wood floor on concrete, 2 concrete outer walls, and is much smaller, shaped like a box. There's no possibility to get the same sound quality in there as in the living room. The 192khz 24 bit soundtrack from Akira sounds sublime in the living room. I can't say I hear the hypersonic effect but it does sound crystal clear.

That's an irrelevant question to me, since I don't like overpaid tickets that force me to watch way too many ads just to get to the thing I paid too much for.

Great point. Never thought of the pre roll ads, it is quite infuriating now that you mention it but it's tolerated as part of the experience. It could do without them, maybe have a production documentary roll for people in early, some commentary on the film from the director or something. 

The truth is most people have to settle for what they have.

If everyone had a legit high end theater room in their house like what generally rich(er) people have and they had a choice of watching movies on that screen or their TV, I would bet more often that not for movies they would rather watch on the home theater screen. When put side by side, it's just a better experience, there's a reason why filmmakers make films for a big screen format. 

Now people let their resentment of movie ticket prices, concession prices, poor upkeep of some theaters, poor behavior of patrons, etc. etc. cloud the issue, but if you made it a true 1:1 comparison and gave people their own high end home theater inside their home with a display of 150-300 inches, IMO I think that's the room they'd choose to watch the majority of their movies in. 

The other thing is a lot of home video releases are color graded like dog shit. Feature films are color graded for projectors and movie theaters first and foremost, then afterwards someone else does the home video master.

Then you have revised looks for movies which are terrible too, like almost every home video release of The Matrix looks like shit compared to the original theatrical release because they retroactively added a fugly ass green tint to the movie.

The only reason to watch on the big screen nowadays is to watch together with other people. Then a bigger screen gives more people the 'sweet spot' to enjoy the movie in. (I doubt anyone enjoys sitting in a corner in the cinema. To get a good view you need to come early and endure all the commercials)

If you're watching by yourself (or with spouse) then you can simply sit closer for the same effect while sitting in the perfect spot.

Anyway home theaters don't help with color grading on the disc, but at least at home you can calibrate it yourself. From switching between different presets based on the content to fine tuning everything.

Sure, but I would build that theater room with a large OLED TV and not a projector screen. 

Same. If I had the money. A 98" would do just fine for granduer in my perfect imagined theater room and perhaps I'd even go 8k if it doesn't have some soap opera like effect with that much detail and the upscaling doesn't have some disastrous effect on quality. Hell, if you're rich enough you could get a costume screen installed I'm sure that'd beat any TV on the market or one of those concept slTVs from trade shows that are like 8 foot. I'd love to see if these high end projectors actually produce colour and black levels even close to OLED, I have to doubt it but I'm not financially blessed so I may never know. 

OLED all day. I would take a 65 inch OLED over a projector any day of the week, especially for gaming. Lighting looks so much better with infinite contrast.

It depends. Picture and sound (!) quality are better at home (although we have a pretty new and large cinema nearby). But there are some movies like Jurassic World or Christopher Nolan movies, I'd prefer to watch at the cinema because of the larger image area and event atmosphere.

If we're more than 3 people, I'd also prefer to go to the cinema. But one ticket costs 25 $ in Switzerland (4DX costs 30 $), so it's really like an event and nothing you can do everyday.

Most people forget about the sound, when they're watching a movie. We have a calibrated home theater system at home with reference loudspeakers, nothing the usual people have at home (I'm an audio engineer). At the cinema you probably have the louder experience, but at home we have the audiophile experience. ^^ And regarding our TV, our 55" 4K Samsung (even without HDR) is more than enough when watching a Blu-ray (we're sitting close to the TV).

Tl;dr for the average movie I'd prefer watching at home, and for special movies or with a couple of friends I'd prefer the cinema.

You're not going to get equal blacks, but the black levels on a modern laser home projector are very good and 98 inches is a tiny ass screen size for a projector. Once you turn the lights down, you really don't sit there going "oh but the black level is XYZ", you can also go with a gray screen/ALR screen for greater black level. 

I have a setup similar to this with a floor rising screen (Vividstorm mine was a larger one):

You can go 150-300 inches even on consumer grade projectors (obviously prosumer is going to be even bigger than that) which is way bigger than a 98 inch TV, like it's a magnitude of a different kind of experience altogether. 

150 inch OLED I don't think even exists and if it did it would cost like $80,000. 

You notice way more detail on a much larger screen, I have a large screen OLED and I have a roughly $3000 laser projector in my theater room, I prefer watching movies on the projector, have pretty much left OLED only for TV + sports viewing and some gaming but even gaming I don't game on my main TV anymore (sorry PS5). I'll be watching the new Beetlejuice 2 movie on my projector tonight that I ordered on VOD not on the OLED. 

Movies just have more impact on a larger screen and you appreciate more all the details the filmmakers put into a movie when watching it on the larger screen format as they intended. The other cool thing about a projector is it makes watching older films that you've seen before much more fun, they just feel like movies that just came out yesterday and you get the feeling of watching them as if they were new and notice more of the detail in them I find. 

Obviously most people aren't going to be able to have this kind of a setup, I get that, most people don't have the space or the money to spend and if you have a projector you kinda feel obligated to drop some serious coin on proper speakers too. But having both in the home, for movies, not just myself but other members of my family prefer the projector room. It's not really even much of a debate. I have a wall mounted 65 inch screen directly behind my 150 inch floor rising screen, 150 inch is just ridiculously larger.