I managed to crack the screen on our current LCD moving furniture as part of recent renovations. A techy mate has persuaded me to look at HD projectors and a100” screen.

My family room is a 17”x17” converted double garage with a very flexible layout, large flat walls and easy to shut out the light. I’m planning on ceiling mounting it with a pull down screen.

It is for Netflix, Apple TV, Xbox & sky.

I’m not a major techy nerd, it’s for the kids to use, so I’m not looking high end. What does a £1k machine get me that a base level £200 one cant do?

Projectors are a bit of a novelty really. Depends what your viewing habits are – maybe you only watch stuff thats very special and serve popcorn while you’re watching it (even if its homes under the hammer) but its a lot of trouble to go to, day to day, for something thats not as good as a TV.

I’ve got 5 DLP projectors in the house that I’ve used in the past for art projects – I’ve been bothered enough to plug one of them in to watch a film twice in the last 8 years and aside from the novelty and sense of occasion it wasn’t a better way of watching the film than our cheap old 21″ CRT.

Projectors don’t render dark or moody scenes as well as a TV does and some projection technologies can’t track fast motion well either – with bright object being chased around the screen by a flickering RGB coloured ghost. Not everybody notices it but I’m very aware of the RGB flicker from DLP projectors when I blink and it really distracts from what you’re watching

Projectors are also noisy so you need to have the volume up higher when viewing to mask that. LCD based projectors fade over time with the image becoming bleached and less saturated, bulbs on any kind of projector have a finite life and start to fade before they fail. The lenses, bulb and image processes all get dusty and dirty over time resulting a dull, foggy image.

Is your techy mate prepared to pay for it? 🙂

https://www.richersounds.com/optoma-3d-dlp-projector-1080p-hd-ready.html
Just bought this for £399 on Black Friday. Pretty darn good for money. Sounds crap. But HD great from Apple TV.

He paid £400 for a BenQ in a richer sounds sale, games on it every night and hosts movie nights. He’s also a pro photographer, so not afraid to splurge on expensive kit, and also very picky on quality.

What does a £1k machine get me that a base level £200 one cant do?

When you’re looking at cheaper machines theres quite a lot of pitfalls in descriptions – most particularly with regard to resolution – you need to make sure the resolution they quoting is the output – the actual number of pixels they project – and not the input. Some manufactures quote their machines as HD ready or compatible but that just means they accept an HD signal, what they are projecting is SVGA.

Thanks – I’ll have a good look around. That model linked abov3 from a Richer Sounds looks good

Cheap projectors use a colour wheel and a DLP chip – if you scan your eyes across the picture any white areas take on a pretty but insanely distracting rainbow hue. Once you’ve seen it you can’t un-see it.

Flaperon- what terminology do I need to watch out for to avoid this?

Flaperon- what terminology do I need to watch out for to avoid this?

You’ll see it most on white captions on black backgrounds. It’s called the rainbow effect.

It used to be a problem for me with the early projectors and I don’t see it all on my BENQ w1080st. Most modern DLPs don’t suffer it so much these days but best to view.

I remember viewing a £6000 sim 2 projector and it was awful, not so these days.

Ok – sounds best to pop into my local Richer Sounds & see it in action then. Sounds like you have one – do you think it suitable for kids gaming/Netflix as a semi-permanent set-up?

In addition to the advice above you want the contrast ration to be as high as possible, this indicates the projectors ability to show dark blacks at the same time as bright whites.

Don’t know if LED bulbs are common in projectors now but I’d want an LED blub as they have a much longer life than normal bulbs. Especially if you plan to use it regularly.

Check the throw ratio of the lens. If you can mount the projector any where in the room then its not a problem but some projectors are designed to cast a big wide picture even though they are near the scene and some are designed so that they need lots of space between projector and screen to fill the whole screen.

I haven’t seen a recent projector in action but form around 5 years back they still needed a pretty dark room to get a decent picture otherwise the picture just looks washed out and bland. So in my experience not really ideal for everyday use. Great for the occasional special night.

I do get the impression the tech has moved on a LOT in the last few years. Some say the LED bulbs arent as bright as the standard ones even though they last a lot longer.

I’ve got a cheap Sonly LCD – low resolution and their first HDMI, about 10 years old, but good colour rendition. What I also have is a 208″ Beamax electric screen, and this is fantastic. Room is middle of a Victorian house, so pretty dark, even in daylight.

It’s a bit noisy, but fed an HD signal from my Humax box or Apple TV, the picture is superb. Blue Planet and Volcano have been particularly arresting.

So feed whatever you get with a good signal, project onto a descent screen. And mine is set up permanently, that way it gets used. The kids loved playing PS3/4 multiplay, as they get a full size big quarter of the screen each!

Does anybody have an ultra short throw projector? Some can throw to a 100” screen from 50cm in front!

Bought an Optoma HD142X and a Yamaha AV receiver to route everything through. Finished off with a set of mini Sony surround sound speakers off eBay for £18!!

Hopefully get it all set up prior to xmas (ceiling mounted) and will report back.

Well, I had to just say …….WOW!!

For £700 I have a mini cinema with a 3.5m screen.
Projecting straight onto a plain white wall works just fine, even though it is silk.
Good in daylight, amazing in the dark.
Running everything through my AV amp (4HDMI IN, 1 HDMI out feed to the projector)

I bought a 5m power cable for the projector for £8 and a 8m HDMI cable for £10 enabling me to put my kit somewhere convenient.
Screwfix speaker cable is cheap & spot on. I also bought their cable trucking to run everything (ideally I’d have gone in the walls, but it’s a kids room)

We’ve had loads of movie nights, I’ve just done a HIIT workout, mirrored from YouTube via the Apple TV. I’m contemplating getting a smart turbo & setting it up for Zwift too.

If you have the space, it’s so much better than a tv.