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Ever go to the drive-in movies when you were a kid? Fun wasn't it? Well, drive-ins have pretty much gone the way of the dodo, but with a few (relatively) inexpensive pieces and parts, you can create your own outdoor theater.

Danny's been the main driver behind this one. He likes his outdoor movie watching (Pat thinks it's a Southern thing — Danny's from Virginia). As we said in Home Theater for Dummies, Danny and his wife used to haul the TV set out to the front porch for evening movies on nice summer nights. But that went by the wayside when the TVs got bigger and Danny got older. And of course they don't have a porch anymore.

So now, he's back at it with something more portable and (in keeping with his motto, “Bigger is Better”), has worked with a number of vendors to create a nifty outdoor theater package you can put up anywhere.

Introducing ... the "Screen on the Green" (or asphalt, or sand, or mud).

Using his portable projector for his home theater, his DVD-equipped laptop as a source (or wireless connections to another source), a screen, some EMT and fittings, and some outdoor speakers, he's created his own ‘Screen on the Green’ (it's really brown in the summer because he never waters it, but let's let him dream). And the price is right — excepting the computer and projector, this is a sub-$300 type expense.

We'll talk briefly about it as an overview first, and then give you the step-by-step details on how to get it all done.

Tip

By the way, if you've read Home Theater for Dummies, you know there are lots of approaches to projectors. Check out Chapter 13 of Home Theater for Dummies if you want to know how to pick the best projector for your needs.

Building a Better Movie Screen — Outdoors!

In general, this application is a great excuse to go for the portable projector for your whole home theater. The big whopping fixed position units are certainly better quality, but pretty much stay put once you've put them in your home theater. Portable ones you can take anywhere, ... like outside to your home theater!

We're not yet sure of the minimum lumens that you need for an outdoor application (we think it is in the 1000 lumens territory). The more ambient light that you have, the higher the lumens you'll need because you're likely not to use a very good screen (unless you have $800 on hand as we say below), so you need to make up for it with more light – sort of the thug approach to throwing an image on the screen. We've tested this with 1100 lumens and that works great. Any less, you simply need to make sure it is darker and you are more protected from ambient light. We'd love to have at least 1600 lumens for perfect outdoor shots, preferably 2000 if we could get it; the projector below turns out to be affordable and at these levels. (If you missed it, we discussed lumens in Chapter 13 in Home Theater for Dummies.)

For Danny's backyard application, we tried out a Toshiba TLP-S70U, which carries a list price of $1399. We can't say enough good things about this product. The TLP-S70U delivers native SVGA (800 x 600) resolution, 2000 ANSI lumens, a 400:1 contrast ratio and 16.7-million color wheel. The projector can throw an image between 2.75' (0.83 meters) to 25' (7.62 meters) wide from distances of 1.45 meters to 11.29 meters. (Danny is doing a 10 foot by 20 foot image from 30 feet, and it looks wonderful.) Granted, if you wanted HDTV quality, this is not the projector for you. However, if you wanted a great quality, portable unit that costs less than $1,400, then this is for you (and Danny). Major kudos to Toshiba for this fine product! More on setting that up shortly.

For sound, portable speakers from your system can work great. The WSP255 speakers from RCA ($200 from www.radioshack.com) are 900MHz wireless speakers that you can disconnect from their power outlets and carry outside on battery power. However, if your property is big, you might be a little farther away than those speakers can reach, so consider permanent outdoor speakers. You can find great outdoor speakers that are shaped like rocks and can put out some great sound (you can even get so-called ‘sub-rocks’ for subwoofer bass). It all seems very Flintstones to us.

You can get Direct Burial Speaker Wire that you can bury in your yard in order to connect these speakers to your home network. Look for the UL rating for burial. (You can check out the Underwriter's Labs Web site at www.ul.com, for more information.)

For the screen, you can sew together some sheets, spend a lot of money on outdoor screens, or do something in between, depending on how much you want to spend. Two king-size sheets sewn together will do — with a seam down the middle though.

You can get inflatable screens (www.blimpsign.com) , real cinema style fabric and foldaway frames (www.da-lite.com), or pay for a real live cinema screen at Harkness Hall. We think that will run you about $800 according to their site.

What Danny did was get a big white tarp from a party tent wholesaler for $25 — just a big white canvas painting tarps outfitted with grommets like you can get at (www.homedepot.com) but arguably a little stronger — and bungee cords for another $15. But you can even use a piece of plywood or a flat side of your house! It depends how fancy you want to get. Our take: Put your money into the projector, which you'll also be using inside in your home theater, and the audio. Don't worry too much about the screen for an outdoor theater, unless you've got money to burn; people will put up with whatever you do for video. It's the popcorn that counts!

Warning

Screens can act like sails on a boat, and catch a lot of wind. Be sure to:

• Check the weather
• Use sufficient ballast or other stabilizing lines to keep your screen from ripping or blowing away

Adding the Drive-In Touch

The above covers a "Sit-In" but what about that cultural icons of the 20th century — the "Drive-In". Remember hiding in the trunk? Or piling as many people into a station wagon as you could because it was one price for the whole car? You can do your bit for Americana by building your own drive-in — it's not hard at all.

Putting aside the playground in the front of the drive-in screen and the snack bar, which you can add at your own leisure, the rest of the drive-in can be built using the setup above, and one more item — an FM transmitter to broadcast the sound to all the cars.

You can find a range of low-cost ($60 to $250) FM transmitter devices that are designed to rebroadcast audio from portable CD players, portable cassette players, or computer audio, to an unoccupied channel on the FM broadcast band. The range of the units can vary from 50 feet to 1/4 mile, so check the fine print.

Most of these units use a stereo mini plug connection between the external sound source and the FM transmitting unit. To decide which FM frequency to use, you must find an unoccupied FM frequency based upon your listening to the FM channels at your location. You then tune the FM transmitter to an unused channel from 88 to 108 MHz, and start transmitting.

Warning

Causing interference to existing FM broadcasts is prohibited by FCC Part 15 regulations, so be sure to pick that spare channel carefully. As long as you use the FM transmitter unit in accordance with manufacturer instructions, you will be in compliance with FCC Part 15 rules and regulations.

We like the FM25B unit available from Ramsey Electronics ($270, www.ramseyelectronics.com). It's got great range and performance at a reasonable price. It connects directly to the line output from your DVD player/laptop, or to one of the tape-out connections on your receiver. Simple as that.

Remember

You're not going to get surround sound out of one of these FM transmitters — just like you don't get it at a real drive-in. But you are re-creating the experience.

Tip

In San Diego, where Pat lives, the houses are pretty much jammed together. If you live someplace like this, you might not be able to even fathom a home drive-in. If you've got some land, however, it is really cool.

Click Arrow Below for More Detail On How To Do This

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