momashi

Your main problem with the view angle of the IR LEDs stems from the fact that you are probably ordering random no-name ones from eBay which have typically view angles of 50 degrees. After doing doing a bit of research I found some IR LEDs that have view angles of 180 degrees made by Panasonic: Model LN152-ND: http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&itemSeq=112869699&uq=634690579595502559 They're a little more expensive (about 2$ per diode as opposed to 4 diodes for 2$ on eBay) but who care (you only need 3...). If for any reason, you're viewing this posting several years later and this model is off the market, digikey has a great search engine (where you can filter out the view angles you don't want and list by unit price).

Wide Angle LEDs Very good link and tutorial but I'm not very big on display lamps. I don't know about you guys but I have projector at home and I play in a dark room. I personally would find the glare of the visible light from the side of my head to be annoying.