Anyone using a Projector in their setup?

Rowley Birkin QC

I'm looking into getting a projector for watching movies and gaming and looking for information from anyone here that might have one.

Smoggy

do it, you wont look back. Awesome.

Rowley Birkin QC

I'm on a pretty small budget though and the room is also pretty small. Main reason for getting one would be to free up desk space.

Is it doable on a budget of about €250 for the projector? I would consider second hand.

I already have speakers and stuff that I could rig up.

Smoggy

Are you looking to replaced a high def tv with a high def projector ? as i dont think thats achievable on your budget. Also where will you mount the projector ? will you get a pull down screen ? if you dont get the pull down is your wall white ? plain white ? the projectors also dont like direct sun light on the surface you will use as a screen.

Rowley Birkin QC

Smoggy wrote: »

Are you looking to replaced a high def tv with a high def projector ? as i dont think thats achievable on your budget. Also where will you mount the projector ? will you get a pull down screen ? if you dont get the pull down is your wall white ? plain white ? the projectors also dont like direct sun light on the surface you will use as a screen.

Will be replacing an old CRT so I'm not too worried about super hi definition.

Will be mounting it on my roof and getting a pull down screen. That would be seperate the €250 budget.

Smoggy

250 should be ok for none high def.

Rowley Birkin QC

Sweet. Can you recommend any brand or model or what to look out for when buying?

Ideally i should be able to have the sky box and xbox plugged in simultaneously.

Cheers.

mossym

there is a panasonic ae900 on adverts priced at 400 which is way over the top for a SD projector, i was going to put my ax100 which is HD in at that price, i put it in higher because of that one but pulled it as i know it won't get that much


HD projectors can be bought on avforums for 300GBP second hand, have seen a couple go for that,

if you can pick up a panasonic or optoma at that price you'll be doing well. make sure and buy one intended for home cinema use, do not get a business model which will look awful when used with fast moving games

slave1

Pay attention to lamp life, if you game a lot you will eat into a 2,000 lamp very quickly, also your room, if you are talking a small room then you need to make sure you are not overwhelmed by it, think of sitting in the front row in the cinema, not a nice experience, don't forget your cables, is the projector going to be beside the x-box? long/short lead for AV and power, if you use the kinect a project is pretty much out of the question because you'll be standing in the way.
Research and understand the 'rainbow effect' which essentially means avoiding DLP projectors.
I use my PJ with the xbox only occassionaly as it can get to be too much.

soldsold

I would put the money into the projector and forget the pull down screen, you can just paint the wall with magnolia (yuck!) or anything you like and get a really good picture. Much better to have say a 400 euro second hand 720p projector on a painted cream or white wall than a 250 euro projector on a 150 euro screen. Plus the room looks better when not watching movies.

Look up black widow paint on google, its a mix of an aluminium flake filled automotive paint supplied by a paint shop in ballymena, and I think a dulux paint. Was going to use it but I needed more than the 0.89 gain it gave (ie I needed a brighter image) for my projector.

Kind of to prove my point - Ive been using a painted wall for the last few years with my sanyo z5 720p projector and its done the job, Ive had a 1,000 dollar da-lite fixed frame screen (that I bought 5 years ago) assembled (to stop it getting musty in its box) in the guest room next to the tv room for the last four years or so but never bothered even once bringing it into the sitting room to watch a movie, the painted wall was fine. Not worth the 5 minutes it would have taken to move the screen in.

Also had B&W CM4 speakers and a 7.1 amp gathering dust, and I bought a set of logitech 5.1 PC speakers to use as a temporary setup so Im not cluttering the room with AV gear. You really can get the cinema effect for small money.

However Im finally building a dedicated cinema room and just upgraded from a Sanyo z5 720p to a JVC 350 1080p and just got delivered yesterday a roll of acoustically transparent screen fabric from the states so I can make a DIY 3m wide cinemascope format screen and hide my speakers behind it. It will be a far superior setup but Ive still really enjoyed the projector beaming onto the painted wall for the last few years while extending the house. A projector turns a decent film into an epic!

The Sanyo z5 can be positioned to the side of the room as it happens, as it has lens shift to move the picture left or right, so no issues with getting your body in the way of the beam with xbox etc. A used z5 or z4 or even z3 the older models would be a good purchase, or the likes of the projector Mossym is selling.

Try to go for 720p and stay away from the really bright 2000 lumen data projectors. I had one originally, a Mitsubishi xd200 which was very sharp and detailed but little contrast compared to the modern ones. Still did the job though, and gave a very impressive cinema picture at the time (10 years ago) and is still going strong as a training room projector at work, in use every week.

mossym

while i agree with much of your post, especially about spending more on the projector on the start rather than compromising to have a screen, to disprove your point about screens, i have seen several setups where the user went from having a painted wall(in two of the cases painted specifically for the projected image), to a proper screen, either fixed or retractable, and in all the cases the improvement with the screen was huge. in one of the case the guys wife decided she hated the screen housing even when retracted. so i helped him take down the screen, he got rid of the projector a few weeks later and moved back to a 60" tv to try he was so disappointed with the picture with no screen, and decided a tv was the only way he as going to get back to the projector + screen performance.

if you (and i mean people in general, not you soldsold, i know you have a screen) can't afford the screen at the start don't scrimp on the projector to get one, but keep in mind you will likely get a huge improvement moving to a screen. it's not just about the surface area either. the frame focuses your eye on the screen area itself by giving it a boundary, while also stopping light bleeding off the side of the images, you want that wall dark with the only light area being the projected image, if you paint a wall a light color to get good performance in the area the image is projected, the problem is the rest of the wall is bright too and your eye takes in the whole wall rather than focusing on the image...

if you can at all get a demo of a projector with a screen and see for yourself.

just as soldsold brought it up, to save any pms i might get, my projector is sold

Vic Vinegar

mossym wrote: »

while i agree with much of your post, especially about spending more on the projector on the start rather than compromising to have a screen, to disprove your point about screens, i have seen several setups where the user went from having a painted wall(in two of the cases painted specifically for the projected image), to a proper screen, either fixed or retractable, and in all the cases the improvement with the screen was huge. in one of the case the guys wife decided she hated the screen housing even when retracted. so i helped him take down the screen, he got rid of the projector a few weeks later and moved back to a 60" tv to try he was so disappointed with the picture with no screen, and decided a tv was the only way he as going to get back to the projector + screen performance.

if you (and i mean people in general, not you soldsold, i know you have a screen) can't afford the screen at the start don't scrimp on the projector to get one, but keep in mind you will likely get a huge improvement moving to a screen. it's not just about the surface area either. the frame focuses your eye on the screen area itself by giving it a boundary, while also stopping light bleeding off the side of the images, you want that wall dark with the only light area being the projected image, if you paint a wall a light color to get good performance in the area the image is projected, the problem is the rest of the wall is bright too and your eye takes in the whole wall rather than focusing on the image...

I agree with you here. I have a 720p projector that i got last year. The screen didn't arrive until a week later than the PJ so i just projected onto a wall while i was waiting. It was nice on the wall but improved a shed load with the screen! definitely worth the extra outlay. The screen is only a smallish black bar near the ceiling when it's put away too so it's not really much of an eyesore either.

Cactus Colm

I'm using this:http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5645881/art/acer/k11-video-projector.html
at the moment, on to a screen. I couldn't tell you how big it's displaying ... easily twice the size of my 32 inch. It's 1080i, so not full hd, but for my purposes it's grand. It's LED so lamplife isn't really as much of an issue. It's tiny too.
Only problem with it, is that there's no audio out, so I had to remove the casing from the av cable provided as shown here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FptCB_3DOz4
to use with hdmi.

Was originally projecting onto a white material wardrobe thing I have, got the screen (free), and the difference is amazing. If you can get a screen, then get one. Have seen a few on adverts.ie from time to time.

mossym

Cactus Colm wrote: »

I'm using this:http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5645881/art/acer/k11-video-projector.html
at the moment, on to a screen. I couldn't tell you how big it's displaying ... easily twice the size of my 32 inch. It's 1080i, so not full hd, but for my purposes it's grand. It's LED so lamplife isn't really as much of an issue. It's tiny too.

not trying to knock your projector, but it's not 1080i, or HD. it can accept 1080i on the input, but the output is 1280 x 1024 or 858 x 600, neither of which are a HD resolution. because it can take 1080i on the input doesn't make it a 1080p projector, however in that style of projector i'd be surprised if you got a hd output. You won't find an LED projector with interlaced output, progressive only

however, that's irrelevant, it'll still give you great bang for the buck, and you would never find a tv at that screen size for that price

Cactus Colm

mossym wrote: »

not trying to knock your projector, but it's not 1080i, or HD. it can accept 1080i on the input, but the output is 1280 x 1024 or 858 x 600, neither of which are a HD resolution. because it can take 1080i on the input doesn't make it a 1080p projector, however in that style of projector i'd be surprised if you got a hd output. You won't find an LED projector with interlaced output, progressive only

however, that's irrelevant, it'll still give you great bang for the buck, and you would never find a tv at that screen size for that price

No knock on either ... I thought I read it somewhere ... either way I'm pretty happy with it! (And now I'm curious about to how good a 1080 hd would look projected!)