Now that I'm moving to a house with a basement and a dedicated home theater area, I'm wanting to move to a larger screen. I'm currently running a 106" DIY black-out-cloth screen with my Sony VPL-AW15. I'm wanting to go to a bigger screen, something between 120 and 133 inches, but that's probably going to be pushing it since the AW15 is not exceptionally bright.

My question is, how should I place the projector to maximize brightness? The Sony has a large zoom range, and I know there is a relationship between the zoom and the brightness, but I'm not sure how it works.

If I'm going with a 120" screen, will I have a brighter picture when I have the projector as close to the screen as possible, or as far away as possible? Intuitively, I would think that it should be as close as possible, but I would like to know for sure.

I'll probably be getting a Dalite High Power screen eventually, but in the meantime I may just use a painted screen.

Thanks!