Choosing a Projector
Projectors provide the ultimate home theater experience. Nothing else comes as close to truly re-creating the viewing experience of a movie theater. Imagine the leathery hide of a Tyrannosaurus rex, up close and personal. Or a tight shot of Norah Jones at the piano that reveals her freckles. Picture a 240-pound linebacker barreling straight at you. Or a video game villain swinging a sword big enough to splinter your coffee table. Front-projection TV delivers all that and more — images bursting with cinematic detail and color across a larger-than-life screen measured in feet, not inches.
Projectors: The basics
A front-projection TV is a two-piece system: the projector and the screen. Today's digital projectors use LCD or LCoS technology. Many projectors are compact and lightweight enough to be considered portable. They're a snap to set up and use, and best of all, they're much more affordable than old CRT projectors.
You can place a digital projector on a coffee table or out of view on a bookcase, or you can mount it to the ceiling (we have custom mounts for most of the models we carry). Projector screens come in a variety of sizes, and can be free-standing, wall-mounted, or retractable (manual or motorized). Displaying images on a wall can look OK, but a screen delivers a smoother, more consistent image, and helps any projector perform at its best.
Since the image is projected onto a separate screen, everything inside a projector's compact case is dedicated to creating the sharpest, most realistic picture possible. You'll find a high-resolution imager (DLP, LCD, or LCoS), an ultra-high-intensity lamp, superb scaling circuitry, top-grade optics, and a wide selection of video inputs. What you won't find is a built-in screen or stereo speakers. Also, a projector has no built-in TV tuner of any kind, but it will display signals from an HDTV tuner, satellite receiver, or cable box.
Projectors not only deliver the largest — and some of the highest-quality — images available for home theater, they're also frequently a better value than other display types if you figure the cost per inch of screen. Most projectors can display signals from a video game console as well as a PC — it's an unbelievably engaging gaming experience. And because you're projecting an image onto a wall or separate screen, there's no glass involved, so you'll see absolutely no reflection or glare from the screen.
So pass the popcorn, dim the lights, and get ready for real home theater.
Is a projector for you?
There are a couple of key things to be aware of if you're considering a projector. First, your room lighting: for the best projector performance in a home theater, you should be able to substantially reduce or eliminate light in the room, whether it's daylight or room lights. Rooms with few windows are good candidates. If you plan to use a projector in a room that gets a lot of sunlight, you may need to limit your viewing to after dark, or consider installing blackout shades on the windows. Because of the lighting issue, projector owners generally use other TVs for some or most of their everyday viewing, and reserve the projector for "event" viewing or gaming.
Second, your viewing habits and the life of your projector's lamp: LCD and DLP projectors typically have a lamp life of 2000-4000 hours, compared to 8000 hours for digital big-screen rear-projection models. The hour rating actually represents the lamp's "half-life" — the point where its brightness has diminished by half. A lamp will still work past its half-life, but it will continue to gradually lose brightness. When you replace the lamp (it's easily user-replaceable), picture quality returns to like-new brightness. But you won't be able to simply run to the hardware store for a lamp. These projectors use special high-pressure lamps that cost between $200 and $500. Projector owners who primarily watch movies and special events run their projectors an average of about 8 hours a week. For a projector with a 2000-hour lamp, that translates to 4-5 years of use. But if you use a projector as your main TV, logging say 4 hours per day, you'll be looking at lamp replacement in under a year and a half.
Projectors provide the ultimate home theater experience. Nothing else comes as close to truly re-creating the viewing experience of a movie theater. Imagine the leathery hide of a Tyrannosaurus rex, up close and personal. Or a tight shot of Norah Jones at the piano that reveals her freckles. Picture a 240-pound linebacker barreling straight at you. Or a video game villain swinging a sword big enough to splinter your coffee table. Front-projection TV delivers all that and more — images bursting with cinematic detail and color across a larger-than-life screen measured in feet, not inches.
Projectors: The basics
A front-projection TV is a two-piece system: the projector and the screen. Today's digital projectors use LCD or LCoS technology. Many projectors are compact and lightweight enough to be considered portable. They're a snap to set up and use, and best of all, they're much more affordable than old CRT projectors.
You can place a digital projector on a coffee table or out of view on a bookcase, or you can mount it to the ceiling (we have custom mounts for most of the models we carry). Projector screens come in a variety of sizes, and can be free-standing, wall-mounted, or retractable (manual or motorized). Displaying images on a wall can look OK, but a screen delivers a smoother, more consistent image, and helps any projector perform at its best.
Since the image is projected onto a separate screen, everything inside a projector's compact case is dedicated to creating the sharpest, most realistic picture possible. You'll find a high-resolution imager (DLP, LCD, or LCoS), an ultra-high-intensity lamp, superb scaling circuitry, top-grade optics, and a wide selection of video inputs. What you won't find is a built-in screen or stereo speakers. Also, a projector has no built-in TV tuner of any kind, but it will display signals from an HDTV tuner, satellite receiver, or cable box.
Projectors not only deliver the largest — and some of the highest-quality — images available for home theater, they're also frequently a better value than other display types if you figure the cost per inch of screen. Most projectors can display signals from a video game console as well as a PC — it's an unbelievably engaging gaming experience. And because you're projecting an image onto a wall or separate screen, there's no glass involved, so you'll see absolutely no reflection or glare from the screen.
So pass the popcorn, dim the lights, and get ready for real home theater.
Is a projector for you?
There are a couple of key things to be aware of if you're considering a projector. First, your room lighting: for the best projector performance in a home theater, you should be able to substantially reduce or eliminate light in the room, whether it's daylight or room lights. Rooms with few windows are good candidates. If you plan to use a projector in a room that gets a lot of sunlight, you may need to limit your viewing to after dark, or consider installing blackout shades on the windows. Because of the lighting issue, projector owners generally use other TVs for some or most of their everyday viewing, and reserve the projector for "event" viewing or gaming.
Second, your viewing habits and the life of your projector's lamp: LCD and DLP projectors typically have a lamp life of 2000-4000 hours, compared to 8000 hours for digital big-screen rear-projection models. The hour rating actually represents the lamp's "half-life" — the point where its brightness has diminished by half. A lamp will still work past its half-life, but it will continue to gradually lose brightness. When you replace the lamp (it's easily user-replaceable), picture quality returns to like-new brightness. But you won't be able to simply run to the hardware store for a lamp. These projectors use special high-pressure lamps that cost between $200 and $500. Projector owners who primarily watch movies and special events run their projectors an average of about 8 hours a week. For a projector with a 2000-hour lamp, that translates to 4-5 years of use. But if you use a projector as your main TV, logging say 4 hours per day, you'll be looking at lamp replacement in under a year and a half.