Projector advice

azibux1

azibux1

azibux1

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Hi all,

Looking at a projector setup at home and had a few questions.

For mainly video use, DLP seems to be the better choice over LCD? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Currently looking at Optoma... Any other recommended brands for a sensible price? Looking for something full HD, 3D and/or a higher resolution is a bonus but not a necessity

Few questions for now...

1. If the projection area is a flat (cream painted) wall... is a projector screen necessary? What advantage will it provide?

2. In a 5m long room (roughly 5m between projector and wall/screen), will a ceiling fan be likely to obstruct the image?

3. Are majority of projectors adjustable in image size? For example I would like a 100" 16:9 image as that fits the space / screen (I will buy if necessary)... But wasn't sure on whether all projectors are adjustable in such a way

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks!
 
A screen is well worth it and will give a better image than you would get on a painted wall, you can also get acoustically transparent screens so speakers can be installed behind it.

Ceiling fan will cause an issue depending on how much it protrudes from the ceiling and where the projector is in relation to it.

All projectors have a throw ratio so you can calculate how big and how small the image will be on the biggest and smallest zoom setting depending on how far away it is from the screen.

Worth looking at the JVC DILA projectors as an option as I can recommend those from the one I've got.
 
I am sure that Sk3lph is right that a screen will be better than a painted wall.

However we have just got our first projector and are projecting onto a painted wall. With nothing to compare it against we are very happy with the quality of the image, and can have it bigger than if we had to put a screen up (as it projects between the height of the speakers - a screen would obstruct left and right).

With the fitment I originally had the projector penciled into a spot which would have been too close to get full image size. As soon as we got the projector I tested it out before finalizing the ceiling fittings so was able to get everything wired into exactly the right spot.

I am not sure what sources you will be using but be prepared to be underwhelmed by Sky Movies (720p) compared to a Blu ray at (1080). Something I wasn't really aware of with the old 37" screen.
 
From what I've seen:
- DLPs are the route in for a decent and relatively inexpensive unit. The only issue's I'm aware of are rainbow effect, which some people suffer from (IIRC, somehting like 15-20% of people). Personally I do, so a DLP was no use to me
- LCDs are slightly more expensive,than DLP, but tend to have worst contrast ratios. No RBE effect
- DILA and the Sony equivalent are the best current technology available, having the best contrast ratios, colour and no RBEs. Downside is their cost as you're looking at probably £1500+ for the cheapest Sony with the technology.
 
Thanks for all responses, please keep any more advice coming! :)

Seems a screen is a sensible choice then... will check them out and do some reading on the various options

DILA looks nice! But considerably more than what I was willing to spend haha... so looks like it is back between DLP and LCD

I never knew about this rainbow effect, I will have a look into it some more and see

The Ceiling fan drops 'down' about 35cm from the ceiling and is in the 'middle' of the room... So 5m square room, projector at one end, screen at the other and ceiling fan approximately 2.5m 'away' in between if that makes sense. I suppose the projector could just be mounted slightly lower if necessary to avoid it
 
The right screen can really help with the blacks/contrast - highly recommend one.

Still a big fan of the DLP Optomas personally for movies just something about that DarkChip tech that really works for me when it comes to movie.

Most you can adjust the size and the fan shouldn't be an issue but that might depend a bit on whether you have the projector ceiling mounted or closer to the floor.
 
Re the fan/adjustments... That's good then. It will either be mounted on a ceiling (I'd prefer this) or on a shelf a bit lower down.. definitely can't be close to the ground though as there is a bed below where it is to be mounted

Ceiling is about 2.5m high at a guess (quite a high ceiling)... I wouldn't mind the projector on a shelf at about 2m, but as mentioned ceiling mounted is preferred
 
For mainly video use, DLP seems to be the better choice over LCD? Correct me if I'm wrong. It really depends on the model and price range. If we say that "entry-level" equals models under £1000 then DLP is the preferred technology simply because there's a lot more choice in DLP as true home cinema/home entertainment projectors. i.e. not business projectors pretending to be useful for home entertainment.

Step up to the mass market products between £1000 and £5000 and it really becomes a question of choosing the best product at a certain budget. There's single chip DLP, 3 chip LCD, 3 chip DiLA and 3 chip SXRD. So unless you narrow down your budget to to a specific price then the question is impossible to answer directly because there's no over all "best".

Currently looking at Optoma... Any other recommended brands for a sensible price? Looking for something full HD, 3D and/or a higher resolution is a bonus but not a necessity See above. What's your budget?

Few questions for now...

1. If the projection area is a flat (cream painted) wall... is a projector screen necessary? What advantage will it provide? If your projector budget is £500 and all you're really interested in is chucking a big image up for a bit of console gaming and some football then sure, use a cream wall. If the prime activity is watching movies from Blu-ray then a decent screen (not the cheap manual/electric rubbish) will give you a brighter image with better colour saturation, more even illumination and better focus.

2. In a 5m long room (roughly 5m between projector and wall/screen), will a ceiling fan be likely to obstruct the image? That does depend on the relative height of the top of the screen and the projector compared to the fan.

3. Are majority of projectors adjustable in image size? For example I would like a 100" 16:9 image as that fits the space / screen (I will buy if necessary)... But wasn't sure on whether all projectors are adjustable in such a way For the most part, yes. But the amount of zoom varies quite dramatically depending on the quality (price) of the lens as does its ability to focus sharply. For example, I've just rigged up a temporary projector in a lecture theatre at one of the Cheshire museums while their main projector is being repaired. Both projectors are exactly the same resolution (XGA), and roughly the same brightness. The stand-in costs around £600 which is less than 1/10th of the lecture theatre model's prices when new 8 years ago. The museum staff expected similar performance but the stand-in just can't focus as sharply at the same image size. The lens isn't anywhere near as good. That's where a big chunk of the money is. Good glass is expensive. It's the same in home cinema projectors.

A small zoom range of say 1:1.05 (5%) or 1:1.1 (10%) probably signifies that a lens has some other limits besides having only a small zoom range. A lack of focus is one, and the other is a lot of colour shift if pushed beyond a certain range. This is called chromatic aberration and in projectors it causes a blue edge on one side of images and a red edge on the opposite side. Better quality projectors have less of this colour shift. It's one of the differences that isn't apparent from a spec sheet but is noticeable during a demo.
 
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Thanks for the detailed answer! :D

Not sure on budget, but ideally for the entire setup (projector + screen, already have the rest)... no more than £750? Ideally closer to £650.

What do you think of the following screen? As I say I have had the idea for a while, but only started looking into it recently so it's just from a quick search...

The specific one (can't seem to link to it) is the 100" 16:9 221x125 cm... Either matt or glass bead

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Luxburg®-10...48&sr=8-19&keywords=electric+projector+screen

I'm guessing fan shouldn't be a problem / is a problem that can be worked around by simply mounting the screen and projector slightly lower (by the amount the fan obstructs the image) if necessary

I will do some more research into the zoom range and lenses available
 
A decent projector screen is as much (and often more) than your entire budget. When I wrote about steering clear of the "the cheap manual/electric rubbish" then the Luxburg and similar screens are exactly the type I was saying to avoid. There's no way to produce a motorised screen, ship it from China, and then chuck in free courier delivery plus pay all the taxes selling fees plus make a profit out of an £80 screen without cutting a lot of corners.

The first corner cut is the surface. It's cheap vinyl so it will be thin and light weight which means it will curl down the sides and ripple easily. Any panning shots will have an "up hill, down dale" undulating look. Next, the motor will be a low torque unit to keep costs down, so it's a good job the screen surface is thin and flimsy otherwise the motor won't be able to haul it up. It's definitely a case of "you get what you pay for". There's nothing in the spec that says anything useful about quality. Most of what's written is either irrelevant or just sales BS such as 1080p/4K. If it was me, I'd save the money and not waste it on something so very cheap. Keep your eyes open for a decent used electric screen from Owl, Screenline, Draper or Da-Lite when funds allow.

Projector-wise you need something with a long throw lens. 100" 16:9 diagonal is roughly 222cm screen width (125cm high, 254cm diagonal).

Allowing 20cm behind the projector for ventilation, and presuming the projector body to be around 30cm front to back gives a rough throw distance of around 4.5m. Divide that 4.5m by the screen width 2.22m means the projector needs a throw ratio of 2.02:1. IOW 2x screen width equals throw distance. For the budget you're talking about there's only really a couple of options worth considering. However, your throw distance is going to rule them out. Optoma HD26 and HD141, and the Benq W1075 all have shorter throw lenses. At your 4.5m projection distance they'll make images 3m wide. The closest match for you is the Optoma HD50 but it is well over your budget at around £1000.
 
I have a 92" optoma screen and a Epson TW5900( no warranty left) and celing mount which I'm looking to sell if your interested I will start a thread in the MM
 
lucid said:
A decent projector screen is as much (and often more) than your entire budget. When I wrote about steering clear of the "the cheap manual/electric rubbish" then the Luxburg and similar screens are exactly the type I was saying to avoid. There's no way to produce a motorised screen, ship it from China, and then chuck in free courier delivery plus pay all the taxes selling fees plus make a profit out of an £80 screen without cutting a lot of corners.

The first corner cut is the surface. It's cheap vinyl so it will be thin and light weight which means it will curl down the sides and ripple easily. Any panning shots will have an "up hill, down dale" undulating look. Next, the motor will be a low torque unit to keep costs down, so it's a good job the screen surface is thin and flimsy otherwise the motor won't be able to haul it up. It's definitely a case of "you get what you pay for". There's nothing in the spec that says anything useful about quality. Most of what's written is either irrelevant or just sales BS such as 1080p/4K. If it was me, I'd save the money and not waste it on something so very cheap. Keep your eyes open for a decent used electric screen from Owl, Screenline, Draper or Da-Lite when funds allow.

Projector-wise you need something with a long throw lens. 100" 16:9 diagonal is roughly 222cm screen width (125cm high, 254cm diagonal).

Allowing 20cm behind the projector for ventilation, and presuming the projector body to be around 30cm front to back gives a rough throw distance of around 4.5m. Divide that 4.5m by the screen width 2.22m means the projector needs a throw ratio of 2.02:1. IOW 2x screen width equals throw distance. For the budget you're talking about there's only really a couple of options worth considering. However, your throw distance is going to rule them out. Optoma HD26 and HD141, and the Benq W1075 all have shorter throw lenses. At your 4.5m projection distance they'll make images 3m wide. The closest match for you is the Optoma HD50 but it is well over your budget at around £1000.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

As I say I wasn't sure how good that screen was, but I was also dubious after seeing things like 1080p in the spec of the projector screen :D haha

Looking at another option, if it will open up more choice of projectors... What is a typical throw distance? I am thinking maybe I could install it either in front or behind the ceiling fan but 'below' it so it is not obstructed by the fan of course. So if in front, it will be approximately 2m from the screen, approximately 3m if behind the fan

Thanks for the details with regards to throw and dimensions etc, quite useful :)

What do you think of the below projector in the quote??

woppy101 said:
I have a 92" optoma screen and a Epson TW5900( no warranty left) and celing mount which I'm looking to sell if your interested I will start a thread in the MM
Click to expand...

Thanks :) How old is the projector? To be honest I was looking at a screen a bit bigger than 92"... Is it 16:9 screen?
 
azibux1 said:
Thanks!

As I say I wasn't sure how good that screen was, but I was also dubious after seeing things like 1080p in the spec of the projector screen :D haha

Looking at another option, if it will open up more choice of projectors... What is a typical throw distance? I am thinking maybe I could install it either in front or behind the ceiling fan but 'below' it so it is not obstructed by the fan of course. So if in front, it will be approximately 2m from the screen, approximately 3m if behind the fan

Thanks for the details with regards to throw and dimensions etc, quite useful :)

What do you think of the below projector in the quote??



Thanks :) How old is the projector? To be honest I was looking at a screen a bit bigger than 92"... Is it 16:9 screen?
Click to expand...
Yes it's a 16:9 screen http://www.optoma.co.uk/ScreenDetai...ual&ShowMenu=SC&PTypedb=Screens&PC=DS-9092PWC
and the projector is about 3 years old
 
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Looking at another option, if it will open up more choice of projectors... What is a typical throw distance? I am thinking maybe I could install it either in front or behind the ceiling fan but 'below' it so it is not obstructed by the fan of course. So if in front, it will be approximately 2m from the screen, approximately 3m if behind the fan. There isn't a firm and fast "typical throw distance" because it depends on the capabilities and design of the lens being used as well as the size of screen.

For example, Benq's W1080ST has an extremely short throw ratio (0.69-0.83). For every 1m of screen width the projector requires as little as 0.69m of throw distance. This is with the lens set at its widest setting. At the other end of the range it is 1m of screen width requires 0.83m of throw. So in your case the 2.22m wide screen (254cm diag) would give 2.22 x 0.69 = 1.54m throw and 2.22 x 0.83 = 1.84m throw. The Benq W1075 has a 1.15-1.5 ratio zoom lens. Repeat the same calc but substituting 1.15 and 1.5 gives 2.55m and 3.33m. The Optoma models HD26 and HD141X both use a 1.48-1.62 ratio zoom lens.



What do you think of the below projector in the quote?? [Epson 5900] Detail-wise it'll be superior to the Benqs. If budget is tight then I think you're better off with the used Epson
 
Thought I'd update this (sorry for late reply, been very busy)

Thanks very much lucid for your advice and calculations... I actually measured my room and did some more calculations and an Optoma HD141x will give me around a 106" image with the space I have (it was actually less than 5m, closer to 4)

Purchased an Optoma HD141x in the Amazon black Friday sales (a genuine discount of over £50 and the cheapest price it has ever been on Amazon)

Arriving tomorrow :D I just hope that the ceiling fan isn't going to be in the way haha... I will have to work around it if it is (lower the projector and/or screen)
 
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