Good Projector?

[mattdisaster]

Hey everyone, long time no see! I've been looking around at my option for my htpc. And they arent looking good. The large screen tv I was going to get fell through cause I cant get it down my basement stairs. So latgely I've been looking into getting something else, I've decided to try and get a nice 24" widescreen monitor if I can find it in my budget, but I also stumbled upon this:

http://www.viewsonic.com/products/projector_pj500.htm

for a pretty good price. My question is- any idea on how it actually runs in term so f quality?? I run my htpc at 1024x768, the info on the projector is:

Code: Select all

Native SVGA (800x600) resolution compressing to XGA (1024x768) resolution.

What are svga and xga? Thanks in advance for any info you can give, it might be a while before I post back, comp is still dead.

-matt

[JayDaCodeMonkey]

SVGA simply refers to 800x600 resolution and XGA to 1024x768. I know nothing of projectos, but you should check out http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb
They have three forums for projectors (in different price ranges).

[trevis]

I use a projector for all of my HTPC'ing needs and would never have anything else. The experience of having your movies fill most of a wall is second to none. I've got the NEC LT150 which is an xga native projector. With a little bit of work and the assistance of Powerstrip i can run it at 1024x576 (16x9) my screen is 104x58 inches (something like a 135" TV)

The 2 biggest draw backs to projectors is ambient light and lamp cost. You need to be able to control the light in the room to really enjoy a projector. Rear projection TV's plasmas, LCD's those devices are all very very bright front projectors are not. They must to be in a dark room. The other issue, lamp cost, is something important consider. My projector lamps cost around $350 each and they only last 1000 hours. For my usage that's equalivant to about 6 months of view time. I've had my projector for about 2 years now and i'm about 100 hours from installing the 4th lamp. That cost of ownership is something that you dont really have to worry about with other display devices.

More minor but still relevant issues are: Noise (some projectors are quite noisy, mine included) Installing a screen (some people just run them on a freshly painted white wall, other's go a little farther. I have a screen from DaLite that suits me fine)

It's a lot to think about but if you're anything at all like me, once you see a DVD play back one one of these things you wont ever look back.

[TomKal]

If you've looked in the AVSForums, you might have noticed that the Infocus X1 is a hugely popular projector which can be had for under $1000US. It seems to have a much higher contrast ratio than the Viewsonic.

Like Trevis, once I put a projector into my HTPC system, I could never go back.

Again, definitely check out the AVSForums as there's tons of discussion about the pros and cons of different setups.

[90c4]

I agree with the above. I've had a Sony 10HT projector for over 3 years and a plasma for a few months. There's no comparison in terms of the experience (or in my case the quality, since my projector is 1366X768 versus the plasma's 852X480 resolution). We have no shades in our room with the projector, but all of our viewing is after dark so it isn't an issue. Daytime viewing would be out of the question.

[Hiller]

Even though they are big don't sleep on the CRT projectors. The picture quality cannot be matched by anything that is out there. They will require more setup time then a DLP/LCD but in the end I feel it's worth it. They are also inexpensive to buy and maintain. The bulbs in DPL/LCD's don't last very long and are usually not cheap to be constantly replacing. I just got a Marquee 8500 CRT projector and am falling in love as we speak.

Steve