What It Costs to Set Up AtmosFX: Projector, Screen and the Bits Nobody Mentions

A $40 collection of animated ghosts is useless on its own. It is a video file. What turns it into a display on your front window is hardware, and that is where people get caught out on cost. Here is the whole bill, using AtmosFX's own listed prices.

The projector: $229.99 to $2,499

The cheapest route in their own store is the HoliScapes Projector Kit at $229.99 — a bundle aimed squarely at people who just want a display running without researching lumens and throw ratios.

Above that sits the illumibot Projection Mapping Kit at $400, for anyone who wants to map animation onto an irregular surface rather than a flat window. Weatherproof enclosures for leaving a projector outside run $350 for the regular size and $450 for the large.

At the top end they stock BenQ units: the LH750 at $1,799, the AH500ST at $1,999 and the LK830ST at $2,499. These are proper installation projectors — the right answer for a commercial display or a haunted attraction, complete overkill for a suburban window.

The honest advice: if you already own any projector, start with that. Point it at a wall indoors, play a $4 sample, and see whether the brightness holds up in your room before spending anything.

The surface: $25 to $70

This is the part that quietly makes or breaks the effect. Projecting onto bare glass does not work — you need something for the light to land on.

• Decorating Disc — $25. The standard rear-projection material for a window display.
• Decorating Disc XL — $35, currently listed at $15. The larger size, and at the sale price it is cheaper than the standard disc.
• Hollusion Projection Material — $35. For the floating, semi-transparent look rather than a flat screen image.
• 3DFX Form — $70. A shaped form so a projected face or figure lands on something with volume, which is what sells the illusion up close.

If you buy one thing beyond the projector, make it a disc. A $40 collection projected onto a proper surface beats a $60 collection projected onto a bedsheet.

Lighting the rest of the display

Projection wants darkness, which leaves the rest of the house looking dead. Their string lights fill that gap: 17ft four-packs at $44.99 in blue, cool white, green, multicolour, red or warm white, and 33ft four-packs at $79.99 in the same colours. The Gumdrop Christmas Pathway Lights are $119.99 if you want the path lit for December.

A realistic first-year budget

Three ways to start, all using listed prices:

• Testing the idea — $4. One sample decoration, a projector you already own, a white wall indoors.
• A proper window display — around $290. HoliScapes kit at $229.99, Decorating Disc XL at $15 on sale, one $40 collection such as Ghostly Apparitions or Jack-O'-Lantern Jamboree.
• Going further — $500 and up. The illumibot mapping kit at $400, an enclosure if the projector lives outdoors, and several collections.

Two things worth knowing before you buy

First, the projector is the reusable asset and the decorations are the consumable. Buy the hardware once and the yearly cost afterwards is whatever collections you add — Christmas Carolers at $35, Happy Thanksgiving at $15, Hoppy Easter at $25.

Second, ambient light is the enemy. Street lamps and porch lights wash out a projection faster than any spec sheet suggests. Test your actual window on an actual evening before deciding the projector is not bright enough.

Hardware, materials and decorations are all listed at atmosfx.com.