Projection tv systems...

UTfball68

UTfball68

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2008
Location
Granite Quarry
So I'm relatively ignorant when it comes to electronics...I want whatever I'm using to turn on and work as it should when I turn it on. That said, the foundation is being laid for the man cave, I was originally thinking I was gonna go with a tv in the 65-70" range. However, I started looking at the room and if I flip everything 180*, I have about 20' of wall I can play with as projection screen. I know absolutely zero about projection TV set ups. What I do know is there are two windows that will have direct sunlight on them for half the day (but can be blocked/shaded), and if the movie theater is any indication, I know light is bad for a projection system. If possible, or if it makes sense, I'd like to have HD tv capabilities (but not sure if a projector can be as crisp as a television), play movies/games and maybe live stream from a device if the situation arises. Thoughts, opinions, advice???

IMG_2436.JPG
 
You get what you pay for. HD and even 4k aren't a problem. But I'd think big picture. What are you doing for sound? Do you want to put speakers behind the screen?
 
Contrast and black values are the biggest drawbacks. Look into special/projector paints for that wall, or a proper screen. If you're painting, sand that wall down dead flat (including paint texture from roller nap on previous coats, etc.) and fix any issues too. It's cheap and you'll see the benefits. No matter what, luminous intensity and contrast is a problem with projectors.

If you're looking at a projector, make sure you find out how much the bulbs cost to replace. Bulbs fall off in brightness very rapidly with time, and some can be very expensive (hundreds of dollars each). So just know what you're getting into when you do it. There are some LED and laser illuminated models out there on the consumer market I think, but it's early days for those. I have my eye on the technology for various reasons, but I don't do anything with projectors for home use and don't know much about what's out there for consumer stuff (that's my disclaimer)..
 
Last edited:
shawn said:
You get what you pay for. HD and even 4k aren't a problem. But I'd think big picture. What are you doing for sound? Do you want to put speakers behind the screen?
Click to expand...

Well I can hook stuff up pretty easily, but I was thinking I'd just grab one of the various 'kits' from Best Buy, and that's about the extent I've thought about it.

Fabrik8 said:
Contrast and black values are the biggest drawbacks. Look into special/projector paints for that wall, or a proper screen. If you're painting, sand that wall down dead flat (including paint texture from roller nap on previous coats, etc.) and fix any issues too. It's cheap and you'll see the benefits. No matter what, luminous intensity and contrast is a problem with projectors.

If you're looking at a projector, make sure you find out how much the bulbs cost to replace. Bulbs fall off in brightness very rapidly with time, and some can be very expensive (hundreds of dollars each). So just know what you're getting into when you do it. There are some LED and laser illuminated models out there on the consumer market I think, but it's early days for those. I have my eye on the technology for various reasons, but I don't do anything with projectors for home use and don't know much about what's out there for consumer stuff (that's my disclaimer)..
Click to expand...

I think the bulb thing is enough to make the decision for me, thanks. I guess tv it is.
 
UTfball68 said:
I think the bulb thing is enough to make the decision for me, thanks. I guess tv it is.
Click to expand...

It's either a new $200 lamp every year when the brightness gets bad (which is about half the actual bulb life) or a laser unit with a 20,000 hour life that costs $1000 to replace (for a $5k laser projector). I got curious and started looking at prices for consumer laser projectors (not factoring performance at all), and they look like they're just below $5k for anything worth even considering. The good stuff is a few grand more, like the Epson stuff that keeps popping up in context.

So maybe get another TV, and wait a few years for the laser projectors to tumble in price...?
 
Yeah...after your last post, I got digging around. Not worth it to me yet. Considering I can get a pretty decent 65" tv for under $2k, should take me a good 5 years. And considering how tv's have plummeted in price the last 5-10 years, I'll keep my fingers crossed projectors do the same or I get a really nice promotion.
 
May I recommend the LG 65" OLED tv. Love ours and can't imagine the picture quality improving enough for me to ever need or want anything else until it dies.
 
For as long as projectors have been around, why has there not been the tech-increase/price-drop as there has with televisions?

Is this the one item the industry is holding out on us with?
 
Thanks for the input guys, I was actually eyeballing that 65" LG OLED for the main room. The 55" is getting swallowed in the space.
 
tkeaton said:
For as long as projectors have been around, why has there not been the tech-increase/price-drop as there has with televisions?

Is this the one item the industry is holding out on us with?
Click to expand...

The prices have dropped by a huge amount, and you can get a nice projector for fairly cheap, but you still have the traditional problems with black values and contrast because it's existing technologies that have been out for a long time. The newer technologies are solving the contrast, etc., quite well, but still use a very expensive bulb because it takes a shitload of light to shine though a really tiny pixel panel and onto a big wall with acceptable brightness. The laser illumination technology solves that problem (and the bulb life problem, kinda...), but the laser illum technology is new and expensive. This isn't a bunch of milliwatt Chinese laser pointers thrown in a box...
Plus, the 4k has all of the same problems to solve but with a lot more pixel density thrown in the mix.

So projectors themselves aren't very expensive, but good projectors are expensive. It's not any different from TVs. You can get a really cheap TV with marginal quality, or you can get a really nice expensive curved-screen 4k TV for many times that amount.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top