Home cinema options?

[Event Horizon]

Are PC projectors any good for watching DVDs do they have defined enough colour or are they opaque? Am i better of spending the money on a wide screen TV when space is at a premium?

[TiG]

My personal experience of projectors is unless you've got a decent wall to put the image on, preferably not too light and not too dark. Unless you want to struggle watching films. Its not worth the effort.

However a 42" plasma screen like the new sony one in the showroom in town. YES please. sadly its rrp is 7000!. i think you can find it online for 3500 tho.

IF you are going to spend say £1000 on a projector there are a few options that you could considure, a very nice 100hz widescreen tv, but i believe that there is a very good valid plasma made my some lesser know manufacturer that What Hi-fi or dvd or one of the magazines has listed as superb.

TiG

[Event Horizon]

Thanks for that, i will have a look at a cheaper plasma or a MHz widescreen. The projector sounded like a good idea but i was worried about the quality.

[Jiff Lemon]

I'm not convinced yet by Plasma screens.

My mates just spent 4k on the lastest panasonic 42" screen. Whilst it's nice, i can still pick faults in the display. Can't help thinking that 4k would have bought a superb projector and screen, but he wanted Plasma and nothing else.

[Howard]

If you have a white wall or a screen, projectors are second to none. True, the image quality might be a bit "cleaner" and sharper on a TV screen, but you don't get the whole cinematic effect. Dark room, projector, and a nice hifi = win.

I'd still spend your money on a decent CRT (100Hz, Widescreen, flatscreen, etc) TV if I were you. Plasmas aren't yet as good. LCD is gonna be the way forward I reckon.

But at the moment, CRTs offer the best image quality.

[TiG]

I disagree about a white background, I couldnt' stand watching projectors on white background, it lost all the edge to dark films say like matrix, It just didn't work.

I found the best colour to be similar to the hexus grey box that i'm writing in a the moment, didn't spoil daylight shots and kept a good colour contrast, but also worked spendidly on dark moody shots.

TiG

[5lab]

i would NOT use a pc projector. for about £1200 you can get a reasonable home cinema (ie 16:9) projector, but then this'll be rather crap for normal tv and so on, plus you have to change the bulbs. a better option imo would be a really nice 32" widescreen 100hz telly

[Aaron]

Plasma TVs still have a long way to go.

The best I've seen was a Japanese-only Mitsubishi unit which retailed for around £14,000. Jaw-droppingly good picture, I really was stunned by it.

But once you get into even vaguely sensible money (< £5,000) the quality really starts to drop. For the same price you can get a very good projector and there's no comparison really. Unless you only buy stuff to impress your mates, of course.

[Rave]

My friend picked up an old DLP projector on ebay for £500. It's a big beast and not that bright, and the bulb will cost him a mint if it blows, but the picture quality is stunning. He actually imported some projector screen material from America which IIRC is light silver/grey. No contrast probs at all. He runs it from the VGA output of his PC (I think so anyway, he has a Sigma Designs X-Card, not sure what its outputs are).

It's 800x600 I think, he just masks it to get 16:9 and the quality is fine on his screen which is 60-70 inches or so.

Of course, it's useless unless you turn out the lights, but if you're after the home cinema experience you'd be doing that anyway.

I can't wait until I can afford to move into a bigger house and get mine setup.

Really, it's no good just taking our word for it, get to a dealer and review the options yourself. I wouldn't get a Plasma or LCD personally, I think they look crap.

Rich :¬)

[5lab]

or, another option would be to get a rear projection telly - they've really come on leaps and bounds recently and you can pick up a 42" 100hz job for under a grand. take up lots less space than a normal telly too

[Bindibadgi]

I so want a projector, but the only problem is the bulbs cost 10-20% of the cost of the unit!! I dont know why they dont use a cluster of ultra hyper bright white LEDs instead - itll last 10x longer and probably be cheaper!

[5lab]

wouldnt be anywhere near bright enough, the light source has to be very focused and i doubt an led can do that yet. probably sometime in the future thou

[Flibb]

Are people seriously suggesting paying around £1000 on a projector and using a wall as the screen???? Right have a look here
http://www.avforums.com
Loads of info on projectors and reasons not to get plasma, including ghost images that take ages to get over and just plain old crap picture quality. Have a look in the diy section someplace inside is info on making a screen using blackout material from ikea, which is dead cheap. Deffinately do research on bulbs and how long they are gteed for, also think some projectors havea counter for how long the bulb has done. I have used a couple of models including Toshiba and proview, the proview was better than the Tosh, although Toshiba are now re-badged proview (think this is right). Some bulb life spans are scarey short so be very carefull and never touch it with your pinkies. Also watchout for 100hz crt TV's, some people just cant stand them, 100hz isnt allways better and you cant beat a 8ft diagonal screen, especially when you plug a console or PC in to it.
Hope this helps
Flibb

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by 5lab
wouldnt be anywhere near bright enough, the light source has to be very focused and i doubt an led can do that yet. probably sometime in the future thou

Sure you can, a bulb isnt exactly focused either and it produces a LOT of heat. You can get 1mm LEDs too - cluster them in a 5x5cm square (400-500 in that space!) and use lenses