Projectors

Am considering getting a video projector & 5 foot screen for DVD and TV viewing. My TV just looks stupid with my speakers. I do not want 'surround sound', just stereo.

Can anyone tell me what I need? Also, how do I get the TV signal to the projector and preamp? Some sort of funny box would be called-for, I guess.

TIA.

James

 

recommend you join avtalk.co.uk

there are some very knowledgeable folk there about PJ and other av stuff.

 

There's a recentish thread on the Naim forum about projectors that might be worth browsing. Although I think Simon Matthews partook.

Paul

 

but to attempt answer to your questions:

In AV, consider A and V separately; take the visual from source to display device (ie the video projector) and take the audio from source to the sound device (ie your amp).

but do remember that if your source is digital, the d->a has to be done somewhere. If its music, then try to use your favourite dac. If its exciting av stuff then I recommend that you start to look for an av amp with pre-outs (for your stereo fronts)

On the Audio side, you say you want to do stereo/2-channel, not surround. You'll miss some, but OK. So take the 2-channel out from each of the DVD and your TV source (is this the TV tuner, or probably the better VCR tuner, or the NTL/TWcable, or the SKYbox, or the FreeViewbox??) and feed these into the stereo amp (pre-amp or integrated) so that you can switch between these.

On the Visual side, I know less as I use my 32inch Wide-screen Toshiba as the display device, feeding in 3 colour component from the DVDplayer and a SCART cable from the SKY+ box (previously using TeleWest Cable).

But do consider 5.1 for AV stuff - centre channel matters.

 

There's also www.avforums.com which has similarly numerous and knowledgable people

Projector as main TV/AV display device? Forget it I'd say unless you're really committed. I was going to go down that route before I got my Tosh 32" widescreen TV (having discounted plasmas as a) way too expensive and b) crap picture quality).

PJs are getting better all the time but they still don't have a terribly good picture in any kind of normal ambient lighting conditions. It's worth trying one or two out and seeing if you can live with the poor contrast ratio for watching TV during daylight or with the living room lights on. Clearly for watching DVDs you could make sure the room was dark for best results.

Second problem, bulb life and cost. Bulbs cost from £150 to a hell of a lot more (easily £5-600) depending on the model and can last from 2000-6000 hours depending on the PJ and the way in which it's used. Depending on how much TV you watch this may not be economically viable. Forgetting to switch of the "TV" at night will really be quite expensive!

Third problem: noise. PJ's have fans which make a noise. Newer ones are much quieter. More annoying for some people than others.

Fourth problem: positioning. Recent PJs aimed squarely at the home cinema market have made a lot of the fact that you can just set them up on the coffee table and they'll take care of "keystone" adjustments for projection angle offsets from the screen centre (horizontal and vertical). However IMO anything but a relatively permanent location would be a totaly non-starter. Either a ceiling mount or mounting in relatively permanently positioned cabinet/coffee table are the best ways to go.

Lastly of course you'll need a proper screen, especially as your walls aren't white and your TV is currently in a bay window

There are some serious WAF considerations above allthough if she has put up with all that Mana then the intrusion's of a PJ would be relatively minor

Michael.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the replies so far. I read the 'Simon Matthews' thread (well, he can't be wrong about absolutely everything, surely?!) and he reckons the InFocus X1 projector is TOTP.

Any agreements/disagreements with that?

I tend to keep the room dark anyway because music sounds better to me that way, so I think that it would be AOK re picture brightness.

Bulb life hadn't really occurred to me, will bear that in mind, ta.

 

... but would a 5 foot screen be big enough to hide the Mana stands?

seriously, Michael and I seem to be agreeing (even about AVForums, which I also use) that Tosh tellies are ValueForMoney - I do like the look of plasma's tho.

my sig. indicates how I combine AV & HiFi. perhaps others could indicate also. I bought the AVR2802 s/h for £300 about a year ago. It would be cheaper now I guess. As input it has coax/digital from the DVDplayer and optical/digital from Sky+, and it does the d->a for any combo of speakers up to 6.1 speakers - which includes the stereo. Take it out of the chain and I would have fed into the AudioLab 8000S, as I once did to a previous amp, the phono pairs from the TV source and the DVD player, as well as the vcr, and all the music sources.

hth

 

Bub,

I'm with Michael, I would keep the TV for general use and get an electric screen that comes down in front of it. I am thinking along similar lines.

FWIW the new Sharp 91 gives a stunning picture for the money, this is the model I am considering. Demoed it on Saturday at a mates where it's mounted upside down on a Mana wall shelf. Very impressive stuff, with little evidence of pixelisation. I guess that would be the stand then

 

Hi fox, yes I was planning on mounting it where the rug currently is... speak soon mate.

Yes, I will need either a drop-down screen, or possibly a pull-up one.

Merlin, was it really on a Mana shelf, or are you having a bit of fun?

 

I use one of these:

6000 ANSI Lumens. Ambient lighting is not a problem
And you can stack them for extra punch.
Seriously, planning to put a screen where your TV is now (in front of a window if I remember correctly) is not a very good idea, unless you are willing / able to cut out all the light coming in through the window when using the projector.

 

The X1 is a superb entry level projector. There are several identical clones which are available cheaper e.g IBM ILV300.

It is a DLP though, so demo before you buy, to see if you or your family can live with/are susceptible to "rainbow" effects. See the other forums for descriptions of this.

ads

 

No genuinely Bub, they are using a Mana wall shelf as a projector stand. I guess any TT shelf does the trick.

What impressed me was that the Sharp still presented an excellent image on a 10 foot screen, which usually I find totally unacceptable for budget DLP/LCD kit.

 

Jolly good. It probably goes without saying, to those who know me well, that I am considering placing this putative projector on a Mana shelf.

 

Oh, come now merlin, you can't just any old shelf for a projector...surely you know that the Mana effect works with them too?

Michael.

 

Now Michael, I try not to laugh at your cables because I haven't tried them. Mana will almost certainly help a projector.

Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

 

Actually Michael, Bub might well be right and the Mana shelf may well work for the projector. Try putting your DVD player on a dedicated support and notice the difference in both picture and sound quality. So why not a projector?

I don't know if I would advocate using it inverted on phase 14 however!

 

I'm a bit surprised about the comments made about the Plasma screens. I agree that the price does seem to be unusually high at the moment and doesn't look to be coming down too fast either ( ). I use an (oldish now) Panasonic WS TV for my limited viewing needs, I'm always taken with just how vibrant and clear the images seem to be on plasma screens though. If i ever need to go into a telly shop (currys, comet, dixons, etc ) . It wasn't until i went into PC world the other day that i noticed what it was, or wasn't should i say.
Refelections is the key. I was looking at the computers and noticed that the Plasmas looked so good because there was just the picture visible, no other room 'artifacts' on the display, unlike the CRT screens regardless of how flatter and squarer they where. I must admit that most of the projector screens i've watched have been in pubs and clubs, i've never liked them for picture quality though.
A nice big 42 or 47 inch Plasma will look great between your Robots Bub.

 

Don't discount LCD without trying it. First off, DLP may be unwatchable due to "rainbow" effects as already mentioned. Secondly, LCD projectors are generally better for colour accuracy and saturation (though it varies by projector). Thirdly, DLPs are usually more expensive. The X1 is an exception, and is reputed to be excellent, though it's hampered by low resolution (800x600 SVGA) and a slow colour wheel (which exacerbates the rainbow effect). There are several budget LCDs that compete directly with the X1, for instance, the Sanyo Z1 (which is what I have). This is a fine projector, though its biggest limitation is again resolution (it's a native widescreen panel, with a resolution of 960x540, which is 1/2 HDTV resolution). If you watch mostly DVD movies and digital telly, then a widescreen panel is an excellent idea - if on the other hand you mostly watch regular 4:3 telly and not many movies, then a widescreen projector would be a waste, and you'd be better off with something like the X1.

The Z1 has recently been superseded by a higher resolution follow-up (unsurprisingly named the Z2), which is reputed to be fantastic. I consider the image quality of the Z1 to be as good as I need, with the only thing I would improve being the resolution - the Z2 improves on this (as well as uprating the contrast ratio and running even quieter) and I would probably consider the Z2 to be the best projector I would ever consider buying (well, at least for the forseeable future).

It's also worth noting that the biggest argument against LCDs in favour of DLPs has historically been that the pixels in LCD screens are farther apart from each other, which is visible and produces what is known as the "screendoor" effect. This is no longer a problem with the latest LCDs like the Z2 as the resolution is so high that you have to sit very close to get any kind of screen door effect.

The Z2 can be had for around £1400 (maybe cheaper?) I've seen the X1 for around £850 (and can maybe be had for cheaper), so it's a fair bit cheaper than the Z2. If you can live with the X1's lower resolution, 4:3 panel (i.e. non-widescreen), much noisier fan (37dB vs. 26dB, though specs like that should only be used as a rough guide), and are not troubled by rainbows, then go for that. Otherwise, consider the Z2.

Oh, and as for fan noise, most of the latest projectors are very quiet indeed. My Z1 is audible, but only just - and it's only 3 feet from my head! And the Z2 is quieter still. I'm not sure about the X1 in practice, but on paper it's a fair bit noisier. In any case, even very quiet fan noise can be irritating to some people so it's probably worth trying out the projector before making a purchase (generally a good idea anyway!)

Screen-wise, if you didn't want to spend hundreds of pounds on a proper pull-down projection screen, you could instead buy a blackout-cloth roller blind and use that. I did just that for about a year, and though the picture quality is not as good as a proper screen, it's perfectly watchable, and shouldn't cost more than about £70-80, possibly less.

As for connections, most projectors have all the input options you could need, from bog standard composite (the single yellow phono plug from days of yore) to high quality component (three separate phono plugs) to VGA (the same as a computer monitor uses) to DVI (a fairly recent all-digital connection method that allows for the best possible image quality from a computer).

For watching telly you'll need some form of tuner - if you have cable, then all you need is the digibox that came with it, if not then you'll probably want to get a freeview digital terrestrial tuner which will let you watch all the free-to-air digital channels. Or you could just use a VCR with a built-in tuner, though the quality may not be that great.

For movies, unless you want the highest of videophile quality, you won't need anything more than a low- to mid-priced DVD player (Sony, Pioneer, and Toshiba are consistently good makes) - just make sure it has component outs, as this provides the best picture quality. (It doesn't even need to be progressive scan as most projectors have very decent built-in deinterlacing, so you can probably get away with a very cheap DVD player.) Unless you're an ardent videophile, you probably won't notice the difference in picture quality between a decent £200 DVD player and a much more expensive one. Same probably goes for sound, though I know you take your sound seriously, so you may want to audition a few players on those grounds.

In any case, the DVD player will be plugged into the projector using the three-way component cables, the TV tuner can be plugged in using an S-Video cable (nearly as good as component), and the sound will go straight from the DVD player's and TV tuner's stereo pre-outs to separate inputs in your preamp.

You could, as ditton suggested, get an AV processor (or integrated amp), but seeing as you're not inerested in surround sound I don't think this should be necessary. Just use the stereo preouts on your DVD player and you should be fine. More often than not, DVDs will have a stereo mix selectable from the menu, and even if they don't, the DVD can mix down the Dolby Digital surround track to two channels quite effectively.

Oh, and for all the projector specs and information you can stomach, as well as excellent, impartial reviews, head over to www.projectorcentral.com. Be aware, though, that it's a US site, so prices, exact specs, etc are not necessarily the same.

Okay, that's all the advice I can think of just now, but if I think of any more I'll let you know. Oh, and I'd be happy to come round and lend a hand with the setup once you're kitted out, on the condition that I get to hear your system again. :MILD: (I have some video and audio calibration DVDs that could come in handy.)

Good luck,

Dunc

P.S. - I would second the suggestion to keep the telly for regular day-time viewing. Projectors only really work with the curtains shut and the lights low (or preferably off). Plus there's the lamp life to consider - maybe not a good idea wasting valuable bulb life watching the news.

 

Hi..............

I'm brand new here and skipped the intro's and kit bit (sorry folks!!)

However from personal experience I can recommend a Sanyo PLV-30. I've had mine for a couple of years which means they should now have the re-sale value of a deck chair on the S\H market.

It's an LCD, but as has been said here don't dismiss the technology.

It's only a 1000 lumens so needs darkness, but I project on to an 8ft screen and I am more than happy with the results (especially a blazingly assembled NTSC package)

The problem with having a million lumens is you may only end up lighting up the room!!

I did some manner of foot lambert calculation to arrive at the screen\brightness ratio, I can't remember it now but I picked it up from an AV forum somewhere!

It has loads of inputs (composite\RGB\S-VHS and PC), the fan is a bit noisy, but other than that I have been happy with it since it was unboxed!

I choose not to study the faults documented for an LCD projector, as I don't fancy feeding the paranoia that has plagued my enjoyment of music for two decades!! - I recommend you do the same

Cheers

s

 

If it's absolute quality your looking for.. then the old CRT projectors are still the best..(assuming you get a good one).. neither DLP or LCD can match their natural colour rendition and more importantly don't have anywhere near the contrast ratio... their main drawbacks.. They're big, expensive.. can't be moved AT ALL once they've been set-up (which requires a technician to do). But in exchange.. you get ZERO digital artifacts.. a resolution that DLP/LCD can only dream of and NO smearing etc etc on fast action.

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/testbench/VideoProjectors/ScreensUK/EllieXS3000HT.php

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/cgi-bin/displayreview.php?reviewid=3362


GTM