My old TV (big box Sony Trinitron, ancient but it has served me faithfully) is finally on its way out, and I've been looking into replacing it. I'm considering ditching the traditional TV/Sky box setup and going with something a little more unorthodox - namely, a mini projector hooked up to a micro PC to stream movies and TV shows.
I was wondering if anyone has experience with using projectors - mini projectors in particular, since space is a bit of an issue in my flat - as their media centrepiece, and what their thoughts are on the setup. Also if anyone had specific recommendations for models, that would be great.
Thanks guys
Yeah, I've always taken the subtext of the Birther movement to be, "The rules don't count here! This is different! HE'S BLACK! BLACK, I SAY! ARE YOU ALL BLIND!?
- Raw Shark
Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent.
The problem I've had with projectors are that the bulbs don't have very long burn times, and if you try to circumvent that by going with an LED one instead of a halogen bulb, you get lower brightness levels, and thus the picture can get washed out pretty easily. You'll also want a good quality screen, as projecting onto a wall rarely looks good, (even if you get the specialized projector paint you can find in some places). Is there a reason you don't or can't just go with one of the super thin LED LCD TVs?
biostem wrote:The problem I've had with projectors are that the bulbs don't have very long burn times, and if you try to circumvent that by going with an LED one instead of a halogen bulb, you get lower brightness levels, and thus the picture can get washed out pretty easily. You'll also want a good quality screen, as projecting onto a wall rarely looks good, (even if you get the specialized projector paint you can find in some places). Is there a reason you don't or can't just go with one of the super thin LED LCD TVs?
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I have a plain white wall in my living room so I was thinking that would be enough, but I guess I'll need a screen instead in that case. As for the TV issue, I guess it's a case of simply wanting something a little different. I'm reviewing all the options though, and I might circle back to an LCD TV with a micro PC plugged into the HDMI port.
Yeah, I've always taken the subtext of the Birther movement to be, "The rules don't count here! This is different! HE'S BLACK! BLACK, I SAY! ARE YOU ALL BLIND!?
- Raw Shark
Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent.
biostem wrote:The problem I've had with projectors are that the bulbs don't have very long burn times, and if you try to circumvent that by going with an LED one instead of a halogen bulb, you get lower brightness levels, and thus the picture can get washed out pretty easily. You'll also want a good quality screen, as projecting onto a wall rarely looks good, (even if you get the specialized projector paint you can find in some places). Is there a reason you don't or can't just go with one of the super thin LED LCD TVs?
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I have a plain white wall in my living room so I was thinking that would be enough, but I guess I'll need a screen instead in that case. As for the TV issue, I guess it's a case of simply wanting something a little different. I'm reviewing all the options though, and I might circle back to an LCD TV with a micro PC plugged into the HDMI port.
They make these special cabinets, where you mount the TV to a rack on it, and it can be raised or lowered as needed. You can kind of work with the LED projectors if you do something like buy blackout curtains and look for that special paint I mentioned.
A much cheaper alternative, which can look quite nice, would be to either mount the TV on the wall, and fit a picture frame around it - you use one of those little punch-outs to conceal the wires, and can display a still image to emulate a regular painting, (just be sure to go with an LED LCD, so there's no burn-in). Alternatively, you could simply buy an actual painting, and modify with to fit over the actual TV, when it's not in use, (though you'd have to manually take it off when you wanted to watch).
We have used a 1080p projector & 100" greywolf 2 screen as our main video device since 2008. With 7.2 sound and 3m viewing distance it is a much more immersive experience than any generally available TV (at least, over that time period). My wife and I have used it for many hundreds of hours of DVD/Blu-Ray plus I used it for many hundreds of hours of console gaming. The projector is on its third bulb. I was a fan of projectors from early on; when I was 17, I got hold of a 640x480 LCD presentation panel and salvaged OHP (overhead projector; the old boxy type for projecting transparencies), and used that as my A/V display through university (it had VGA and composite inputs).
Certainly you need a proper projection screen or the brightness, sharpness and evenness will take a big hit. The main drawback is simply that you need the curtains drawn to use it in the day time and if you want to use it in the daytime in summer you need heavy curtains / blackout blinds. This has been fine for us to date but for children we will probably need a conventional TV. The minor drawback is a small amount of fan noise; not really noticeable in use. I did consider replacing the existing projector with a QuadHD one for home cinema, but since you can get 80" LCD 4K TVs at semi-reasonable prices now there is not much argument for a projector (except maybe portability) up to 100" screen diagonal. With the current state-of-the-art it really requires a large space e.g. dedicated home cinema room for a projector to be clearly superior to a good TV, and you need a fairly high-end projector to keep up with the image quality you get from a local-dimming-enabled 4K LCD panel. The projector does have the benefit of being able to go to events (if you choose a portable screen); I took mine to quite a few weddings, technology demos etc over the years.
