What's a Good Budget Home Theater Projector?

[triodecr]

I'm planning to put together a modest home theater in our basement. What's a good home theater projector in the $600 range? I'm going to prep and paint a wall rather than use a screen and will be using a blue ray player as source.

[hamerhead]

Google 'projector reviews'. There are some really good sources out there that can steer you toward the right one. If 2 or 3 of them fit your needs, get the one with the best 'reliability' reviews, followed by lowest noise. But READ THE REVIEWS! People aren't shy if they get a POS. Projector Central, Projector People, etc are good starting points.

I'm on my 3rd and use it daily. They get better every year, so upgrading after 5 years or so can mean a pretty dramatic improvement. The one I have now (View Sonic) was around $600, and it's WAY better than the one it replaced (Toshiba, $1400). I'm due for a new one in the next year or so, and at $600, there are some pretty decent ones out there. Keep in mind - I'm no movie-theater-ophile. I don't nitpick the blackest blacks or the smoothest transitions. For me it doesn't matter. For you, it might.

Some things to look for:

Get HD - some are made for work presentations or the like and sell cheap. Don't even. You'll be disappointed.

Manual keystoning - if you mount it to a ceiling, the keystone adjustment re-squares the picture on the wall. The closer to the ceiling, the higher the percentage of keystoning you'll need (I think I said that right).

A 'Low Power Mode' option - If your basement is dark, running in low power mode is quieter and doubles the bulb life - and the bulbs get pricey. The picture quality suffers slightly, but not enough to matter.

Noise - Get the quietest one that meets your needs, otherwise it can be pretty annoying when trying to watch something that's not at movie theater volume.

DLP - can cause rainbows with certain viewers, otherwise they're great (my current one is a DLP).

Amp - You'll need some sort of amplifier, because the sound from the unit is laughable at best. A 7.1 or 7.2 amp with Blu-ray kills.

There are a lot of good ones out there. You should have no trouble finding a nice one in your range. I haven't looked for a few years, but I'm sure they are that much better and at a lower price. Good luck!

[mathman]

Lumens is the measure of brightness. Depending on your room and it's lighting you may need to consider a brighter projector.

this is a good guide. (one of many on the web)

Everything else Hamerhead was spot on. One other consideration is connections. Do you want component, digital, vga, or hdmi.

[Armitage]

Just make sure you SEE the one you're buying before you do. I read a million reviews online and talked to tons of dealers before I bought mine... and the ones around what I was looking to spend were just terrible. I kept thinking, "why spend all this money when it doesn't look anywhere near as good as the TV I have upstairs?" I ended up spending way more then I wanted to and got the JVC DLA-X70R (or was it the DLA-X90R?). It looks great on a 132" CinemaScope screen, and I'm really happy with it, but was a lot of money.

[JohnnyB]

How big an image (measured diagonally) do you plan to have--5 feet, 8 feet, 10 feet?

If you're around 5-6 feet, you may be better off with a direct view plasma or LCD. I've seen 60" 1080p plasma TVs for $768. I've also seen reasonably-priced 70" and 80", but not around $600.

I suggest you ask around as to whether prepping and painting a wall is the best way to go. The surface needs to be absolutely flat and smooth, and you'll probably need a special reflective paint to get the best picture, as opposed to standard white paint.

It's true that many of those larger HD screens with light gain are expensive, but on ebay (and probably elsewhere) you can buy screen fabric for a reasonable cost. Then you construct a lightweight frame for the screen, attach the fabric to the frame, and hang it on the wall. Personally I'd rather invest my time and energy in some poplar 1x1s, a miter box, and staple gun than try to create a perfectly flat plastered viewing area and paint it. But if you know walls and paint, maybe that's better for you.

What's the typical cost of replacement bulbs these days? I think they've come way down from when I paid $250 to replace the bulb in my long gone LCD rear projector TV.

[LordOfTheThighs]

Blu-Ray.com forums.

A TON of galleries, with a galaxies worth of home theaters.

Lots of good info in their forum area.

[triodecr]

Thanks for the great info! I had read reviews on Amazon but didn't know what the good home theater web sites are.

I've already got an old 5.1 system that will do the trick for a few more years. Tinny, itty bitty projector speakers ain't gonna cut it. That's for sure.

We've got boys so I figure at some point an actual screen would become a target/drawing pad. I thought using the wall would work OK until they are older and I found this site describing a regular paint that would work well for a 'screen'. On the flip side, I no idea screen material was so cheap and it's pretty simple to build a nice frame. Cool build thread here.

The throw length will be 15 feet so that should give about a 10 foot picture

I've seen bulb prices anywhere from $125 to $200 so that will definitely be a consideration. I did also find that View Sonic has a 3yr/1yr warranty on the projector/bulb which is great. I'm a little skittish about them after having one of their monitors die after about 2 years of use due to bad electrolytic caps, but the warranty may sway me.

Lots of reading to do. Thanks all!