anyone who knows about projectors?

Cheekykid

Cheekykid

Cheekykid

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Am trying to find a projector but am stuck and in need of some clarifications.

I'll be having the projector connected to my pc and through it ill be playing various usually dvd quality videos. The pc can output the native resolution that the projector has but my concern is that since the videos are not HD then is it better if I get a new model with 720p than 1080p?

Am saying because of an idea in my mind that when I have a picture or video full screen on my 1920x1200 monitor it appears worse than on a lower resolution monitor therefore i assume the same would apply for the 1080p projector when playing SD material?

Is a 1280x720 projector better on SD than a 1920x1080?

My current pick is the 1080p mitsubishi 5500.
 
Generally yes, but the picture processing on projectors is usually good enough to not make a massive difference. Combined with some good software upscaling and you can get watchable dvd's, and so-so xvids.
 
I'd be more concerned about contrast, brightness and room conditions.

Projectors have come so far in the last few years that it makes sense to buy a new model if possible, which as far as I know means 1080p (are new 720p projectors still being produced?). It'll also give you the option for Blu-ray or other HD material down the line. Projectors more than anything else love HD and once you get above 100" you really start to see the benefits of 1080p.
 
I moved from a 720p to a 1080p projector last year (Panny AE500 to an AE1000). Both SD and HD material looked massively better on the 1080p unit.
Be aware that the improvements on newer projectors is not just about resolution. For the majority of the time, it would probably be difficult to spot the increased resolution. What I mainly saw was a substantially improvement in colours, black levels and dynamics.

Having said that, 720p projectors are generally a LOT cheaper, so there's a clear cost compromise.
 
To the OP,

I was in the same boat when building my cinema room.

Do I go 720p or spend the extra 1000+ and get a 1080p...

Well the majority of my collection is DVD and PS3 gaming is 720p (apart from a handful of titles) and Sky HD broadcast's in 1080i.

So I spent £399inc on a Optoma HD700x and £1.89 on a 92" screen.

Leaving me enough money in budget to buy Tannoy F1,F4 and FC speakers and a Onkyo 876 AV amp.

I figured By the time Bluray is completely mainstream and I have watched all my DVD's the 1080p projectors will have come down in price and I will be ready for an upgrade anyway.

I couldn't be happier with the IQ of my projector. And thats in a dedicated cinema room.

All my friends have commented on the IQ and cannot believe how little I paid for the Projector.

One of my friends who teachers Media at Degree level actually thought the projector was 1080p when I showed him Bluray and Sky HD through it and he uses HD projector's every day :eek::p:D

If you have the money By all means go for it.

I had the money for the a 1080p projector but could't justify the premium at this time.

I'm glad I was smart enough not to feel I was losing out, and to see the bigger picture :D
 
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I've owned a 720p projector now for just under 4 years now. I saw the jump in picture quality when I moved up from 480p & again when I began to use an HD source. What concerns me is I'll see little or no difference in the PQ from jumping from 720p to 1080p (this is at 92" diagonal) As there are no retailers demoing 1080p projectors anywhere near where I live & given the amount of use my Projector gets these days, I can't justify the cost of upgrading. I'd like the cost of 1080p projectors to come down to the price of 720p but I cant see that happening anytime soon. :(
 
I have the HC5500 1080p projector, its a good choice for lower res with its built in Reon-VX image processing chip. It replaced a top of the range 720p Optoma DLP and it blows it away for PQ. It also boasts 5000hrs lamp life in low power mode. Blu-rays at the native 1080p 24fps are particularly impressive, the detail is amazing.
 
Grimley said:
What concerns me is I'll see little or no difference in the PQ from jumping from 720p to 1080p (this is at 92" diagonal)
Click to expand...

You'll notice some improvement, but more importantly reap the benefits of the deeper blacks, colour accuracy, and brighter images current 1080p models provide. The other advantage is you can get a bigger screen if you have the room. At 1080p Blu-ray looks perfectly comfortable to me at 12' from a 120" screen.

Where do you live btw? It'd be worth the hassle of arrnaging a viewing to see how far things have moved on.
 
Thanks guys

I need to know if native 16:9 projectors get distorted if you change their aspect ratio to 4:3.


The size of the wall ill be putting it is 2.40cm tall, 3.30m wide. Room length is 4.50cm.

I am thinking of placing the projector on a small shelve as high as possible(not on the ceiling). Would that be ok as far as the position is concerned?

Am looking for a projector that can cover as much of the wall as possible. Would the mitsubishi throw beam prove big enough if I choose 4:3 ratio?
16:9 seems too short to cover the wall height wise. Is a 4:3 projector screen also suitable for 16:9?
 
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fornowagain said:
I have the HC5500 1080p projector, its a good choice for lower res with its built in Reon-VX image processing chip. It replaced a top of the range 720p Optoma DLP and it blows it away for PQ. It also boasts 5000hrs lamp life in low power mode. Blu-rays at the native 1080p 24fps are particularly impressive, the detail is amazing.
Click to expand...

mitsubishi website for the 5500 says: PC Compatibility: Resolution ; 640 x 480 (Expand) - 1600 x 1200 (Compress). what does this mean? it cant ouput full hd from a pc?
 
Cheekykid said:
How do dvd quality videos appear on this projector when its feeded from a graphic card? Also any idea if having a projector screen really helps?
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As I said the HC5500 has a particularly good Reon scaler and di-interlacer inbuilt, to use that you'd need to send the DVD signal via component. If you're sending it via graphics card it'll get scaled by the PC, which with the right codecs and filters etc is just as good. But generally if you mean how does DVD 720x576 res look at 1080p? Well, as with anything the 'bigger' and more detailed the display the more artifacts you could potentially see. Having said that I use it with many sources some lower than DVD res and it handles them all very well indeed.

As for a screen, yes its a must. I've been through the painted wall>self made>retractable screen lark and now only use a proper fixed screen (think stretched latex skin) with velvet border. My image is now literally pixel perfect to all 4 edges with convergence and focus perfect over the entire screen, all without a ripple or bright spot in sight. Makes a surprising difference I find, especially in panning shots. So I would say yes do get the biggest 16:9 screen you can get away with.
 
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easyrider said:
So I spent £399inc on a Optoma HD700x and £1.89 on a 92" screen.
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1.89??? you mean £189?

fornowagain said:
As I said the HC5500 has a particularly good Reon scaler and di-interlacer inbuilt, to use that you'd need to send the DVD signal via component. If you're sending it via graphics card it'll get scaled by the PC, which with the right codecs and filters etc is just as good. But generally if you mean how does DVD 720x576 res look at 1080p? Well, as with anything the 'bigger' and more detailed the display the more artifacts you could potentially see. Having said that I use it with many sources some lower than DVD res and it handles them all very well indeed.

As for a screen, yes its a must. I've been through the painted wall>self made>retractable screen lark and now only use a proper fixed screen (think stretched latex skin) with velvet border. My image is now literally pixel perfect to all 4 edges with convergence and focus perfect over the entire screen, all without a ripple or bright spot in sight. Makes a surprising difference I find, especially in panning shots. So I would say yes do get the biggest 16:9 screen you can get away with.
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Many thanks.

Can you explain to me what the zoom actually does? it just makes the image look bigger?

Given the size of my room do you think I could place the projector on a shelf in the middle of the wall and as high as possible? would that be an acceptable position for its beam?

I should also mention that currently my graphic card alone doesnt do any upscaling work with my dvd videos on my pc. Is there a program that would upscale them?
 
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Cheekykid said:
Can you explain to me what the zoom actually does? it just makes the image look bigger?
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The zoom is mechanical/optical (and powered on the HC5500 along with focus and lens shift), that is, nothing to do with the digital image. It changes the size of the projected image within a range. For a typical installation the throw to the screen maybe fixed, with the zoom this will give you a maximum and minimum diagonal image size.

Try this calculator . Put in your likely throw distance (front of lens to screen) and get the screen range. Say you had a 4m throw the range is 104"-125" diagonal. Typical screens in that range for example Draper 106" or maybe a 119".
Cheekykid said:
Given the size of my room do you think I could place the projector on a shelf in the middle of the wall and as high as possible? would that be an acceptable position for its beam?
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With that particular projector you get vertical lens shift, unlike cheaper DLP's that are fixed usually with an offset. Basically means that as long as the projector lens centerline is lower than the top of the screen edge then you're all good. So yeah a high shelf is good, better than ceiling mounting tbh. Getting the exact centerline to the screen is not easy, with a shelf you can at least nudge it over until its spot on.
Cheekykid said:
Also does a projector work on smaller resolutions and if yes does it behave like lcd monitors?
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The Mitsi will take pretty much anything and scale it up to 1080p. It will always project a rectangular image at its native res. Even if the image is square, or 4:3 or whatever, you'll get two black bars either side. Or say you had a 1.85:1 (or wider) movie then black bars top and bottom. But a bit like a monitor, it does have anamorphic modes that stretch the input to fill the 16:9 (1.78:1) screen.
Cheekykid said:
I should also mention that currently my graphic card alone doesnt do any upscaling work with my dvd videos on my pc. Is there a program that would upscale them?
Click to expand...
If you're watching your DVD's which are 720x576 on a typical PC monitor then unless its in a window or displayed 1:1 so less than fullscreen then it's getting upscaled somewhere. Probably not very well, so something like ffdshow to interpolate pixels along with a few filters to clean up noise would a good place to start. Not using DVD's much anymore, but I used to love TheaterTek 2.6 along with ffdshow.
 
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fornowagain said:
The zoom is mechanical/optical (and powered on the HC5500 along with focus and lens shift), that is, nothing to do with the digital image. It changes the size of the projected image within a range. For a typical installation the throw to the screen maybe fixed, with the zoom this will give you a maximum and minimum diagonal image size.

Try this calculator . Put in your likely throw distance (front of lens to screen) and get the screen range. Say you had a 4m throw the range is 104"-125" diagonal. Typical screens in that range for example Draper 106" or maybe a 119".

With that particular projector you get vertical lens shift, unlike cheaper DLP's that are fixed usually with an offset. Basically means that as long as the projector lens centerline is lower than the top of the screen edge then you're all good. So yeah a high shelf is good, better than ceiling mounting tbh. Getting the exact centerline to the screen is not easy, with a shelf you can at least nudge it over until its spot on.
The Mitsi will take pretty much anything and scale it up to 1080p. It will always project a rectangular image at its native res. Even if the image is square, or 4:3 or whatever, you'll get two black bars either side. Or say you had a 1.85:1 (or wider) movie then black bars top and bottom. But a bit like a monitor, it does have anamorphic modes that stretch the input to fill the 16:9 (1.78:1) screen.
Click to expand...

Many thanks for clarifying things.

What will happen if my graphic card is set on 1024x768 but my projectors native resolution is full hd? will it just take it and scale it to full hd?

Basically am looking for the best possible solution to display dvd quality videos. My graphic card doesn't do a great job with upscaling it and on my full hd monitor when full screen dvd videos don't look that great. I have an idea that a 720p projector might be better for dvd videos?

fornowagain said:
Basically means that as long as the projector lens centerline is lower than the top of the screen edge then you're all good. So yeah a high shelf is good, better than ceiling mounting tbh. Getting the exact centerline to the screen is not easy, with a shelf you can at least nudge it over until its spot on.
Click to expand...

When you use the word centerline what exactly do you mean? Just wanna make sure we are on the same boat. I know am a complete n00b.
Am I going to need a calibration disc?
 
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Cheekykid said:
Many thanks for clarifying things.

What will happen if my graphic card is set on 1024x768 but my projectors native resolution is full hd? will it just take it and scale it to full hd?
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Yep, when my HTPC boots it goes through a few different resolutions over HDMI, from the initial 480 boot screen. Scales them all up, not that you'd use anything but the native 1920x1080.
Cheekykid said:
Basically am looking for the best possible solution to display dvd quality videos. My graphic card doesn't do a great job with upscaling it and on my full hd monitor when full screen dvd videos don't look that great.
Click to expand...
Try a dedicated DVD player like TheaterTek then start with the codecs like ffdshow and filters e.g. limitedsharpen to process the image.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/dvd-...dvd-s-720p-all-filter-tricks-like-liited.html

Cheekykid said:
When you use the word centerline what exactly do you mean? Just wanna make sure we are on the same boat. I know am a complete n00b.
Am I going to need a calibration disc?
Click to expand...
Centerline just means the exact center of the lens. There are two centerline planes to think about, looking directly at the front of the PJ. Vertical and horizontal. First assume the PJ is horizontally level. Then you need to ensure the projector sits dead center of the screen. If its not you'll have to rotate the PJ to get the image within the vertical screen edges, but then you will find the image will taper horizontally. Likewise if the PJ is not entirely level front to back, i.e. making it 90 degrees to the screen. Then you'll find the image tapers from top to bottom. Getting it lined up properly means the image is in focus over the entire screen. Helps a lot if the PJ has some lens shift.

Don't worry to much about that, sounds worse than it is, a bit of fiddling and it soon makes sense and its a lot easier with a shelf believe me. Calibration disks are ok, had one used it once I think. I now use a few apps to set the brightness and contrast and my eye for colours.

Try this Nokia app for convergence and focus as well as brightness and contrast. Has a nice grid for alignments as well.
 
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