Do you like your front projection TV

axle hongsnort

axle hongsnort

250+ Posts
We're buying a house with a large media room. It has no windows and a giant wall that seems to suited to a projector set up. Besides bulb replacement, are there significant drawbacks? How does the picture quality compare between front projection and flat screen plasma?
 
We use a front projector in our bedroom to watch DVDs at night and love it. The picture is a decent size (a little more than 100") and still plenty bright. We don't use it during the day due to having windows, but since you don't have any in your media room you're set. One minor thing to think about is where the jacks are in the room. For some reason builders still like to put the cable jacks on the wall you are facing which is the opposite one of where the projector is. It's a minor inconvenience (running cable along the ceiling or along the wall), but just thought I'd mention it.
 
With a room like that, go for it. Yes bulbs are going to cost you between 250-500 depending on the projector and you should get 2500 hours out of a bulb. But you aren't going to be going in there to watch the 6o'clock news. Other then being at the game there is nothing like sitting back in your theater room and watching football on a 100"+ plus screen.
If I can help you out send me a pm.
 
I have a ceiling-mounted front projector in my studio. I have enough light control that daytime viewing is possible, although sitting in the near-dark to watch CNN is a little odd.

If you buy a screen (or even if you just paint your wall with "screen paint"), be aware that different screens have different amounts of gain as well as an optimum viewing angle. The screen I bought bundled with my projector works best when the projector aims up at the screen, because it reflects back along the incident light path. It's the opposite of "pool table" physics, where the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Because of this, I don't get a super bright picture when seated, since the projector is ceiling-mounted, and so the screen is best viewed . . . from chairs on the ceiling?

I just don't have the room to table-mount the projector, so I live with it. When I upgrade the screen, I'll make sure I get the kind that reflects a ceiling-projected image down towards seated viewers.
 
why dont you just buy a big *** plasma? sounds easier to me. Then again all i have to watch is a 20" memorex from wal-mart. My Sony HD has been ill for quite some time. Wont turn on. HLAustin or jimmyjazz, any idea as to why?
 
I know about 10% of what hlaustin knows, so take this with a grain of salt:

I wanted a giant picture. I got the projector + screen for about $800. I'm cheap.
 
what type of sony HD set do you have.
Thanks for then nice compliment. This board has a lot of people with a lot of experience to this subject matter.
 
Mine is actually less-than-HD (probably "ED"), but it looks significantly better on HD broadcasts than the equivalent DVD. It seems similar to a Sony Bravia HD LCD I have in another room. Honestly, I have no complaints, and when you consider "giant image, way less than $1K, seems like movie theater sharp", it would be silly to get too wrapped up in the minutiae of image quality.

Then again, I'm the guy who spends WAY more than that on audio equipment, so go figure. What floats your boat?
 
The projector that I did have was 1280x720 so it was 720p. I did do away with it for a 60" Pioneer. Had it set up in my family room and wife was tired of sitting in the dark all summer to watch TV. You can get projectors in just about every resolution, the most common that we are selling now is 1920x1080p. Depending on you seating distance back and screen size, the difference that you will notice can be screen door effect, where you notice the lines of the pixels. Depending on the quality of the projector and what you are running through it means a lot to the performance of it as well.
 
hl- i have a sony 32hs something 510. Made in 2003, it is a 32" hi-def tube tv. It had a great picture when it worked. I looked yesterday at new tv's and can get a 37" 1080p for $999, or a 720p for $750. Is it worth the money to get a 1080p? I just might by something off of craigslist for $150 and plop it in my armoire. I am too impatient to be plugging all kinds of czables in and stuff. I wont ever use half the inputs. ANyway, if anyone is selling a working 32" tv for around $100 let me know.
 
So you have a 4:3 tube that sounds like it is probably having issues with the power supply. At the size you are looking at you won't notice a difference in the resolution between the two unless you are sitting right on top of the TV. So save the money and get the 720p. Or if you are just trying to get a bang for the buck go the craigs list way. I will see what my delivery guys come up with in the next few days and let you know as well.
 
Oh, I thought you were kidding.

I don't know if it would be an improvement, but it's an impossibility, anyway. It's a pull-down screen, so I'd have to figure out a way to suspend/hang the chassis 3 feet off the floor and pull the screen up (and hold it in place).
 
For those of you that got your front projector in the <=$800 range, what model did you get?

I don't want to spend much on one because I would only use it for dive-in movie nights in my backyard around the pool. I need a floor mounted unit (I guess that's what it's called) and it needs to have the keystone adjustment functionality that lets you adjust it to view a rectangular image when the projector can't be placed directly in front of the screen.

I've probably butchered the terminology. Apologies in advance.
 
I have an Optoma XQ17b47#$)(*.

OK, it's an Optoma. It works. It's not exactly high-end. It's not even true HD, but it has a great rep for picture quality. Pixel count ain't everything.
 
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