Question about projectors

[Mr_Sukebe]

Chaps,

I'm thinking about adding a project to my home cinema kit. I was wondering whether any of you knew of a projector with the following specs:

- XGA minimum
- DVI input (this is a MUST)
- 16:9 format as standard
- Preferably DLP
- Preferably under £2k

Any thoughts?

 

[technobear]

The EPSON EMP-73 meets everything except DVI.

Think you may have trouble finding a DVI model with XGA at this price.

 

[michaelab]

Mike - I'm assuming you've done a bit of research into projectors?

I was thinking of going the projector route at one point and was quite close to buying but I'm glad I didn't. To perform at anything close to their best they really need a dedicated room, or at least one where it's easy to darken it significantly during the day. Even today's "bright" projectors still don't look too hot with a high amount of ambient light.

You also, ideally, need a proper screen. A white wall really won't do.

Lastly, whatever Sony's brochures may have you believe about a projector sitting on your coffee table, you really need a projector to have a semi-permanent location otherwise you'll be endlessly faffing about with screen and focus adjustments.

A projector certainly can't IMO act as a TV replacement which is what I was hoping it could do.

If you do have a dedicated room though then for the best big screen experience they certainly beat anything else you can have at home. The quality of plasma still sucks compared to anything else and their cost is prohibitive, especially over 42 inches and CRT whilst having superb quality, just doesn't go big enough (and it's very unwieldy). The unwieldy bit also goes for back projection TVs which also have terrible off axis viewing.

Why is DVI input a must? What are you going to be driving it with?

Michael.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Michael,

Siting the unit wouldn't be a problem. I tend not to watch TV during the day, so it would mainly be films in an evening, and my lounge would happily fullfil the role of being dark.
I already have a pretty good Sony 32" TV for non-film duties, but really fancied something a little bigger.

For a while I've been toying with the idea of a Plasma or LCD. Problem is that as you rightly point out, the picture quality is generally worse than a std CRT TV.
To rub salt in, earlier this year I visited Korea. Whilst the hi-fi options out there are pretty limited, they had a LOT of HDTVs on display. Even the rear projection HDs looked amazing. So it strikes me that spending cash on non-HD plasma now, would just make me weep when HD versions become available sometime in the nearish future.

In the meantime, of course it's possible to buy a projector that is on par with a HD TV, instantly future proofing it.

The DVI input is a computer interface, generally used for linking up TFT screens to desktop PCs.
Traditional D-sub PC connectors (15 pin Dins) include a conversion of the digital signal to an analogue one, which of course was fine with CRT monitors. TFT screens are of course digital. As such, why both with a conversion to analogue, when you can feed it a straight digital signal cutting out both the A to D, and vice versa. The results are pretty obvious. My TFT at home wipes the floor with my old CRT monitor.
I'm assuming that the same should apply to a signal from say a DVD player to a PC projector, hence why I want a DVI input.
I just can't understand the interest in "component" analogue connectors, when to me it looks like these will soon be superceeded by a technology already commonly available.

Of course existing DVD players don't have DVI outputs.

My thoughts were to build a quiet PC for the lounge with a DVI capable video card (now not expensive). Along the way, add a big hard drive and a TV tuner card. As such, would be able to use it as a high quality video signal (PCs are capable of progressive scan output in software), hard drive video recorder and games machine all in one.

Interesting idea?

Now, where's that projector I'm looking for....

 

[michaelab]

Ah - you're going the HTPC (Home Theatre PC) route aswell - enjoy

You'll probably find a lot of useful info and knowledgeable people on both HTPCs and projectors over on AV Forums.

BTW, I would endeavour to demo any projector you think of getting in your room before buying it if at all possible to avoid disappointment.

Michael.

 

[Hex Spurt]

Mr_Sukebe, finding a high res true 16:9 DLP with DVI-D for under £2K is a bit of a tall order at the moment. The closest I could think of is the Toshiba MT500 which you might be able to get for about £2300 with some hard haggling. It's a bit of a Hobsons choice though, so you might consider looking outside of your budget to include a few others for comparison.

Originally posted by michaelab
Even today's "bright" projectors still don't look too hot with a high amount of ambient light.

Michael.

A projected video image will never look good in high ambient light regarless of how bright the projector is, so whilst the above is correct the statement itself is a bit misleading.

Ambient light has the same effect on a projected image as background noise when you're listening to music. No matter how loud the music is you only hear what is above the background level. To hear the quiet bits you need to get rid of the background noise.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Look what I've found a review of:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/panasonic_pt_l300u.htm

Apparently this is a rather good LCD with DVI in. I've seen a street price of under £1400 for this.
Looks like the AV side of things is looking up.

 

[nsherin]

Looks good, mate. Panny seem to have got it together when it comes to budget PJs. Their PT-AE100 is very highly regarded as a budget PJ (doesn't have DVI though), so I would have thought this one would be an excellent contender.

Definately agree with Michael that PJs spank plasmas for picture quality. At the moment, plasmas are definately more of a lifestyle product and given the house, room and budget, I'd go for a PJ anyday over a plasma. Plasmas seem to have a slight pixellated image and at least with a PJ, when the bulb dies, you can just replace it, whereas plasmas have around 30,000 - 50,000 hours lifespan, which isn't that much, really, considering the price. Hopefully, this will improve in time.

Ditto the importance of getting a good PJ mount - balancing a PJ on a coffee table is hardly an ideal solution. The number of times I've seen crap geometry and focus on PJs in our conference rooms at work because they are balanced on tables. For a city council, in say 4 - 6 large conference rooms, at a budget of around £2000 per PJ, to get properly mounted PJs is pretty small beer really!

And when a conference room hasn't been available, I have on several occasions, tried to optimise a PJ image onto a white wall in our Staff club, whilst the thing is perched on a stool! Gave up after 5 mins - it just isn't going to work - especially when the PJ is about a metre away from the wall, due to space.

 

[michaelab]

Originally posted by Hex Spurt
A projected video image will never look good in high ambient light regarless of how bright the projector is, so whilst the above is correct the statement itself is a bit misleading.

Fair enough but there are "business" projectors out there for presentations etc which sacrifice contrast ratio (not so important in presentations) for extra brightness because the average business presentation is not given in the dark.

Early home cinema projectors (LCD & DLP) were always very 'dim' (CRT projectors are even dimmer) in order to get a decent contrast ratio. Newer ones are significantly brighter whilst maintaining contrast ratio. They are marketed specifically for that reason and for not requiring a dark room and what I was saying was that is basically bull - they still need a dark room

Michael.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

I did wonder if the projector would have slightly cleaner edges if it was sat on 6 levels of mana...

On a more serious note, I have space behind my sofa to put a stand for it, so that should be relatively easy. If I chose to go the HTPC route, it can sit back there too (so you don't see how damn ugly it is).

 

[michaelab]

Originally posted by Mr_Sukebe
Look what I've found a review of:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/panasonic_pt_l300u.htm

You confused me for a second until (reading the link) I realised that this is the "business" badged version of the PT-AE300 - the sucessor to the renowned PT-AE100 which was pretty much the first 16:9 projector and one of the first budget (under £2K) projectors.

AV Land have the PT-AE300 for £1499:

http://www.avland.co.uk/panasonic/ptae300/index.htm

With S-Video, DVI, component and SCART inputs it looks like it has all bases covered. It's LCD though not DLP allthough I'm still not convinced by the merits of DLP over LCD.

Michael.

 

[SteveC]

Originally posted by Mr_Sukebe
....Of course existing DVD players don't have DVI outputs.

My Marantz DV8400 has DVi-D output. Surely some others have it too by now. The legal issue was sorted out recently so I have been able to enable the output, and I assume the same applies to other models.

I'm interested to see how this thread turns out as I am in roughly the same position. Currently the no. 1 on my mental shortlist is the Optoma H56, but that's partly because I don't have a good memory My SO suffers more from screen door effect with plasma then I do. This and rainbow effect must be reasons for one to check out plasmas and DLPs in person rather than take the whole decision in net reviews, IMHO, if that needed saying.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Originally posted by michaelab
AV Land have the PT-AE300 for £1499:

Try Techtronics, found one on there for just £1250, can't be bad.

Use kelkoo.com for that kind of search, awesome site.

I think there's a VERY good chance that I'll be ordering one of these in about a month, so I should be able to give you an update in dec (assuming it happens).

 

[Hex Spurt]

Originally posted by Mr_Sukebe
Look what I've found a review of:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/panasonic_pt_l300u.htm

Apparently this is a rather good LCD with DVI in. I've seen a street price of under £1400 for this.
Looks like the AV side of things is looking up.

Er...what happened to "XGA minimum"??

If you are considering the Pana AE300/L300U (Native 960x540 Pixels resolution) then you should also look at Sanyo PLV-Z2 and few of the other W-VGA/W-SVGA projectors which are available for less than £2K. Not all will have DVI-D.

 

[Hex Spurt]

Originally posted by michaelab
Fair enough but there are "business" projectors out there for presentations etc which sacrifice contrast ratio (not so important in presentations) for extra brightness because the average business presentation is not given in the dark.
Michael.

DLP is a higher contrast chip technology than LCD, but you'll still find both used in high brightness business projectors.

The contrast ratio is incidental in a business application because of viewing in high ambient light. The reason that a high contrast DLP is used in some Hi-brightness pj's is simply that some manufacturers are only licensed to make DLP projectors.

Originally posted by michaelab
Early home cinema projectors (LCD & DLP) were always very 'dim' (CRT projectors are even dimmer) in order to get a decent contrast ratio.

Michael.

Ah!, now we are talking about paper specifications. CRT pjs don't measure well on the ANSI Lumens scale, but they still beat the average hc LCD/DLP for brightness in real terms. It's a similar situation to amplifier wattage. 30 watts from a HiFi amp sounds louder than 100 watts from a midi system.

As a side issue CRT projection produces the highest contrast ratio of all the technologies discussed here. Measured in the same way as LCD & DLP then a CRT would produce approx 10,000:1.

Originally posted by michaelab
Newer ones are significantly brighter whilst maintaining contrast ratio. They are marketed specifically for that reason and for not requiring a dark room and what I was saying was that is basically bull - they still need a dark room

Michael.

Manufacturers are correct when they claim that the new brighter home cinema projectors make it possible to produce an image that will stand some room light, but it is also true that the performance will improve as the room is darkened - just as HiFi sounds better when there's no background noise.