Budget friendly projector for movies?

Soldato
Joined
29 Aug 2011
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UK
Does anyone have recommendation for a good 1080p projector to watch blu ray films on? As well as not being too expensive. Cheers
 
:cry::cry: Gotcha, I would consider anything £400 as long as picture and sound is decent. Thank you

£440 for the Optoma HD145X is about as low as you can go in an entertainment projector. This means it is both bright enough for some lights-on viewing when gaming or watching TV/sports/music vids, and yet still has a good enough (dark enough) black level to be convincing for movies. Below that price point you start to dip in to projectors that are either heavily compromised to achieve a price point.

For example, the LG PH510P is just £40 lower in price, and it hits your target of <£400, but the paperback-sized machine with its LED light source is aimed at a very different buyer. Yes, it includes a battery, but the image resolution is only 720p, and worse than that is the brightness. The HD145X is quoted at over 3000 ANSI lumens. The PH510P is listed at UPTO 550 ANSI lumens. Neither projector delivers a watchable image at its full quoted brightness. They're both balls-out maximum figures rather than realistic watching levels. However, the fact that the LG is so far behind the Optoma means that side-by-side you'd laugh at the difference in picture brightness.

Much of the sub-£400 projector market is either aimed at being cheap business portables (poor video performance and noisy fans), or gimmick/toy projectors which are okay for a 30" image. Neither type is going to be much use for movie viewing.

Something else to consider is sound. Many entertainment projectors include a speaker, but they're limited to mono from a single driver. This is not Hi-Fi quality, and if you think the average bedroom TV sounds poor then just wait until you hear a projector's speaker. You really should budget for a better sound system, particularly if you want big sound to match your big pictures.

Secondhand vs New:
Whether or not this is a good idea generally comes down lamp costs, projector age, price (of course) and location. A good used projector that requires you to travel to the other end of the country isn't going to be a viable deal, so obviously there's an element of luck involved.

A 1080p projector that was top gear for its price point when new is still likely to be a decent 1080p projector as a used buy today. Buying something that was at say £1500-£2000 new when launched means that the lenses and optical path are still going to be several steps up from today's £400 projectors. Lens grinding is a precision business, and that takes time and skill. These aren't thangs that can be commoditised easily. Better lenses means a crisper image, particularly towards the edges of the screen, and less brightness variation from the centre out - we call this uniformity.

Whilst projector manufacturers have been able to hit lower price points thanks to volume production in China, and lamps have got cheaper in some respects, some of these gains aren't solely from volume production; they're also from setting the quality bar lower too. Today's £500 projector is not the same performance equivalent of the £1000 projector from five years ago.

Keep your eyes on the classified ads at AV Forums. There was an Optoma HD81 with screen and the upgraded external video processor all for a (IMO) bargain £200. The unit had 400 hrs on the lamp. That would have been a great starting package for someone in your position. The saving against a new £400 projector would have been enough to fund a better sound system.
 
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