Projectors (merged)

[Brynn]

Projectors

So student loan has just come through, and fuck spending it on books im gunna buy a projector, im wanting it for mainly playing consoles and dvd's.

im on a student budget so about £300, i was looking at ebuyer and they are about £500 so im looking for something cheaper

and i did a search for projecters in this forum and found nothing helpful

 

[nath]

£300 quid = forget it. Perhaps you could find a really really crap second hand one for that much, but they really tend to be very expensive things. Have you thought this through? You know that every few hundred-thousand hours (depends on the projector I guess) you have to change the bulb. When I looked in to this, the bulbs cost about 300 quid each. I decided to put off buying one till I'm absolutely stinking rich and have my 6 litre audi a8 sitting in my driveway next to my aston martin db9 and my fezza modena. *drools*.

Uh - back to reality, point is they're awfully expensive things these projectors :\

 

[old.user4556]

For £300, forget it.

Projectors are true to the saying 'you only get what you pay for'. One of the best entry level projectors money can buy is the Infocus X1 (also known as the Screenplay 4800 - the X1 is the 'data/PC' version where as the 4800 is aimed more toward home theatre). You can pick one up brand new for about 580. The X1 won best buy awards for the great, bright picture quality for its relatively cheap price.

It was the projector of my initial choice, but I decided on the more expensive Optoma H30 which had a 4 speed colour wheel (as opposed to the X1's 2 speed) which further eliminates the DLP rainbow artifacting that some people don't like. Once you see a DVD on a 100" screen, you'll never want to go back to plasma/TV.

Have a look at mine here

Nath is right to an extent, they are expensive - but a mid range (about £1800) is still significantly cheaper than a good 42" plasma and the projector will give you screen potential to over 200". What would you rather watch DVD's on and play Gran Turismo on? . The quality is a lot better from the projector too, although you need to have a very dark room (ideally pitch black) to get the best results.

As for bulb life, yes it's a problem - but it depends on your usage. A typical bulb life on the H30 is 3000 hours, so if you watch a 2 hour DVD every weekend (like me...), your bulb would last about 28 years and cost about £250-£300 to replace. If you used it 2 hours per night, you'd get about 4 years from a bulb; so the bulb life isn't too bad even by heavy usage (every day) standards. Remember CRT TV's don't last forever - our last Trinitron lasted about 5 years before it started to whine a lot and the picture went a bit green.

My 2p's worth - I bought one and loved it, but £300 isn't going to get you much at all.

G

 

[Clown]

I like how you answered my PM in this thread. I like how this thread appeared as I was asking you about projectors myself

 

[old.user4556]

Soz i never got back to you Clown, i never got a notification for it - my email notifications for topic replies aren't working either.

I've got a thread about it on the feedback forum, damn notifications .

 

[Clown]

Naw, you answered it anyway
4 years is good enough for me... But please, you should put a disclaimer up or something before posting pictures like that. You're going to be costing people thousands of quids
People like me.

Fuck.

How big would the picture be if the projector was less than 2m away from the wall/screen?

 

[old.user4556]

totally depends on the projector, some of them have a wide throw, some have a long throw. Long throw tends to be better for a few reasons, but one of key reasons being that you can mount the projector at the back of the room instead about half way up the ceiling.

For Optoma screen size and distance, try their online calculator http://www.optomahometheater.com/content/calculator_index.htm

 

[Cask]

Who wants to invite me over so they can show off their projector to me. I'll make all the appropriate "Ooooh" and "aaaaah" noises as well as bringing drinks and snacks.

 

[Clown]

I dunno how I'm gong to connect it to the PC if it's really far away.

 

[old.user4556]

Buy yourself a high quality VGA extension lead, I have a 7 metre one that I used to use with the PC.

I might add that PC's are pretty poo for DVD playback compared to a good DVD player.

G

 

[TdC]

indeed, but that's why people have DVD players


myself, I want to play games with a stupidly large screen / projector heheh a group of mates and I used to get together to play tekken and mariocart on one of our number's PS/2 and a projector. we had the image at something like 2x3 meters, which, tbh, rawked

 

[nath]

Oh sweet jesus, I need one. How much was your projector, G?

God damn, that's fucking stunning.

Oh man.

GNGHn.

My current room is perfect for it, there's a nice big spot just above my tv - I'd probably not even need a screen immediately - the wall is flat and has a near white matt paint.


ARghhga.


edit: just checked out how the H30 and it's going for ~1k now. My credit limit could take care of that... oh god.

gngh.

 

[Tom]

How much noise do these projectors make? Something to consider if you've spent a few hundred on surround sound.

Also, with them being digital devices, is there any delay on the picture (plasma screens can be out of sync by several frames, you have to correct it with your AV amp)

 

[nath]

From experience, they can be pretty noisy. At least the one my housemate had was - got very hot and had a big fuckoff fan in there that was noisier than all three pc's in my room. However, with the surround switched on and loud while watching terminator 2 not a lot was heard bar the annoying whining of Edward Furlong.

 

[old.user4556]

How much noise do these projectors make? Something to consider if you've spent a few hundred on surround sound.

Also, with them being digital devices, is there any delay on the picture (plasma screens can be out of sync by several frames, you have to correct it with your AV amp)

My projector is 30 db at 1 metre, pretty quiet although if it's a silent part in a film you are aware there is a fan spinning. I have mine mounted high and mounted far back so i'm never really aware of it.

There is no lag with the H30, but it's using an analog connection as opposed to the more expensive projectors that use HDMI and DVI. My AV amp can correct for delay anyway, so no probs.

G

 

[old.user4556]

Oh sweet jesus, I need one. How much was your projector, G?

I paid £1195 back in February, good to see it's held it's value fairly well unlike PC parts that are worth fuck all what you paid 7 months ago .

If you guys are interested, have a look at the avsforum website as it has many forums discussing everything from the cheapest projectors up to the most expensive; their problems, caveats and their brilliant points. It also covers screens, tips, tricks, TV's, HDTV, HTPC, general home theatre, speakers, subs, rears, DVD players. It's got the whole fucking lot!

It's the holy ground of the home theatre world.

G

 

[Ch3tan]

Don't use your PC to play DVD's Clown, especially when you can get really good quality DVD players for under £150 quid.

Personally I am getting this Pioneer DV 575a as soon as Richer Sounds get it back in stock.

http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/product_detail.jsp?product_id=8533&taxonomy_id=62-84

No way I can afford a projector, but I can afford a Loewe CRT, commited to getting a MIMO or Nemos 28" model this month.

Now I just have to wait till xmas to have anough cash to get a new AV amp.

 

[Clown]

DVDs? DivX more like
I have a DVD player anyway.

 

[Clown]

What's a good projector for around the £1200 mark then? Maybe a little bit more for better quality. Your Optoma can't still be the best can it?

 

[Cask]

Clean out the spare room Clown, I'm moving in next week.

 

[Clown]

HEY FUCK YOU BUDDY. Isn't my webcam enough?

 

[TdC]

nekkid clown pics!! get your nekkid clown pics here!!!

 

[old.user4556]

What's a good projector for around the £1200 mark then? Maybe a little bit more for better quality. Your Optoma can't still be the best can it?

The next model up is the Optoma H56 at ~£1600 which gives you 1024*768 instead of the H30's 800*600. The H56 also supports DVI which the H30 doesn't, but i use progressive scan component video so i'm not too fussed on missing out. Worth the extra £600? Hmmm, not too sure.

An alternative is the Infocus 4805 which is similar in spec to the H30 but it's newer and has the new Darkchip2 which is meant to provide better black. A comparison of the H30 and 4805 over on Avsforum returned:

Out of the box, the 4805 is pretty close to a colourfacts calibrated 4805, so not much tweaking is required to get the best out of this projector.

H30 is nowhere near a decent calibration out of the box and require much more tweaking.

After calibration, both projectors produce a superb image - the H30 having "more natural reds and greens".

Focus on the 4805 is better than the H30.

4805 has more noticable screen-door.

4805 is brighter (and louder, but by no means noisy).

All in all, a pretty even match it would seem.

The key point to understand here Clown is that all of the DLP projectors are limited by what Texas Instruments make as they make the chip that provides the image. What you pay a premium for is additional features like "remote control focus" or DVI functionality, or better optics. So by paying a couple of hundred quid more, you're not going to get a better picture and/or higher resolution - you need to pay quite a bit more to get a projector that has the next chip in the ladder.

So you go from a projector based on an 848*600 chip (Optoma H30, Infocus 4800) to a projector based on a 1024*768 XGA chip (a price margin of several hundred pounds), then you go up to a progressive scan HDTV native chip which is the 1280*720 chip. Projectors based on the HD2 (1280*720) chip tend to upper £2000 to £4000 depending on features etc.

I demo'd the Optoma H30 against the fucking daddy at the time, the Sim2 20H Domino - the Sim2 was sharper, brighter and had much better black levels; but was it worth nealy four times the price of the H30? Yeah, it was good; but it wasn't four times as good.

Hope this helps!

G

PS The Optoma H30 isn't that old really as it wasn't readily available in the UK until late March.

 

[old.user4556]

But please, you should put a disclaimer up or something before posting pictures like that.

Pictures like these?

 

[WPKenny]

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=122201&cks=PRL

550 quid

 

[old.user4556]

That looks like a good budget projector, but a couple of things concern me:

1) There is no mention of the colour wheel speed (and LG don't have it on their website) - crucial to know as a 2x colour wheel (as found on the X1) can lead to very noticable colour artifacting

2) The contrast ratio is 1500:1 which isn't great and the brightness is high so that suggests that it's based on a data projector indicating it might be a 2x colour wheel. Contrast ratio is far more important than brightness.

I'd have to see it demo'd, but it's still good for the money. Bear in mind what I said about you get what you pay for .

G

 

[old.user4556]

Something else to read:

Issues with single chip DLP projectors (visual artifacts).

Also for a demo of the so called 'rainbow effect', you can download a clip here

I can see the rainbow effect on the H30, but only because i know how to look for it (by darting my eyes left and right very quickly like the guy does with his camera in that video clip). However, if you sit and watch a DVD by flicking your eyes backwards and forwards; you need help.

There is also a crude example of rainbows here

G

 

[old.user4556]

Counter strike source enjoyed on 65" of love, here and here

All thanks to the 16:9 aspect ratio that CS:S supports allowing widescreen resolutions.

 

[Clown]

Holy crap. I was just reading this thread looking for some info.
I go through phases of wanting a projector and not wanting one.

I think I'm going to get an Optoma H30, mount it about 2m back from the 'screen' and up a bit so my head doesn't get in the way of the projection. Hopefully, I'll get a 50 inch picture screen for about £1000 quid...

Will having the projector 2m back and on the ceiling fuck up the picture and make it trapezoid?

 

[TdC]

tbh I expect that projectors have much the same aspect controls that monitors do. not sure though. perhaps a google will uncover your projector of choice's online instruction book?