HD theater projection, on a budget?

[Mike Rinkunas]

hey everyone,

Looking for opinions here....

I'm looking at purchasing a projector for official use as a 'screening room' for my video company (business expense) however, i realize that the main use will be everyday TV viewing, computer work, gaming, etc. I am not currently setup for HD production, and we're still using SD cable in the house, however i want to have everything HD ready.

We're also playing with a budget of $3000 for the projector, not including screens and cables. On top of that, the room that we're planning upon using has a wood fireplace and 6 windows, i will install shades, but i realize some light may spill through....

Orginally i first saw a Yamaha LPX-510 at tweeter, which blew me away, however after doing some research i've heard about the Infocus cinema 500, which is a true torch, and also the Panasonic AE900, which is a great value. I haven't seen either of these projectors in use though, have seen screen shots from several websites.

Then yesterday i was in a local A/V installation company, and i saw the new mitisubishi HC3000U.....and i really loved the picture. That store uses Da-Lite screens, and i was thinking of getting a manual roll up screen

Have any of you seen all of them in use? Which would you prefer?

Now given my constraints and uses...which do you think is best?
~Mike

[Adam Bray]

I have a Panny AE700U (a little earlier model than the 900U) that I use for home theater. GREAT value for the money. If it broke, I would not even get the 900U, but would get another 700U. I can tell you that you will NOT be able to use it with all that ambiant light during the day unless the drapes are blackout drapes. It needs to be "movie theater dark". You won't be sitting around doing "every day TV watching" on it it unless you're a vampire.

If you can control the ambient light, It totally rocks. If you can't, I would shy away. I will say it has a GREAT short throw, NO screen door effect, and is VERY quiet. I saw a demo of some $10K Runco projector when I was looking around. It was so noisy, I wanted to strangle it even during the demo.

Browse this forum and see what they have to say. They helped me with my purchase with no regrets..

http://www.avsforum.com/

[Amy May]

For our "screening room" we use a DLP projector PLUS U2 1200, it is a Japanese projector and two years ago when we bought everything (projector, screen, cables) it cost us around $4,000, but prices have come down dramatically since then.

Quick tips from experience:
-a roll up screen is cheaper and more convenient and the quality is very good
-RONA sells good quality cables for half the price of Futureshop and others
-With a bit of ingenuity and wood, you can create your own projector mount (ours is suspended from the ceiling) for under $40 instead of $400 for a fancy premade mount.
-It is awesome for gaming in addition to wowing clients with video samples

[Sam Druckerman]

I just bought my first projector, the panny 900.

It's more than I expected.

I did a lot of research and IMHO, it's the Best Bang for the Buck.

$1850 to my door ( after $200 cash rebate from panny ), + $300 blockbuster coupon. If you use blockbuster, it's like $1550.

It's also very easy to set up and I can sit Very Close with no screen door! This is a very important point, because with many DLP's like the hc3000... you have to have a big room to sit far enough away from the screen to not see artifacts. The difference for my room is about 30", the hc3000 would only throw about 100" to 105" diagonal 16x9 in my room. That's a Big difference from the 133" to 140" I'm getting from the 900, and the deciding factor for me.

I do think the hc3000 has a little better blacks, but it's a Real Hassle to set up. Smaller screen and you can't sit as close. It would have been $700 more cash, with no blockbuster coupon ( $1000 more ).

Because the 1080P projectors will be out next year, I decided to not spend to much.

I have a 133" Diagonal 16x9 image on my white wall ( no screen ) with moderate low lights on. I don't have to black out the room to see a beautiful picture. It is a large room though.

Reactions... Everyone who has seen it has been blown away.

My friend is an editor at Revolution, his jaw was on the floor and I quote......
"It looks better than the one we use at work".

I learned a lot on the AV forum that Adam suggested.

And if you need more from the 900, a screen can make a big difference. Also, for $50 you can put filters on the lens and pull more black detail out.

I'm going to use the money I was planing to spend on a screen, and buy a anamorphic lens instead, for full pixel 235 wide-screen.

You should look at the oppo dvd player for upscaling from 480 to 720P or 1080i with DVI, it rocks.

I haven't turned on any of my 4 TV's since I got the 900 10 days ago. I'm starting to think about selling a few of them.

I have the 900 and the oppo mounted on a small cart with rollers so I can take it from my Living Room to the Exercise Room ( it's so easy to set up! ). I use my treadmill and watch movies on a 10' screen (wall ).

Did I mention HD is awesome on this thing.

I love technology.

[Alex Milne]

I'm contemplating the XH-A1, as so many enthusiasts and professionals alike are these days... and am confronted with a problem. Why shoot in HD if I can't project/show in HD?

I apologize if this has been discussed (i'm sure it has) I ran two searches but didn't come up with what I'm looking for.

DVD's are SD, presently. And HD-DVD's are climbing the consumer ladder along with blue-ray's (or is it spelled 'blu-ray?'), but as far as I know I don't have the technology to burn HD-DVD's with DVD studio pro (or do I?), much less have the means to play them back.

I suppose I could play a film back on a laptop, and patch the audio through the theater's soundboard, but what a hassle. I'm involved actively with theater (how I have access to a theater) and am all about presentation. I don't want the audience seeing my desktop, followed by me clumsily dragging the mouse past all my private files to the movie, and then having everyone wait as the hard drive starts spinning and I maximize the window.

Is it even worth it with a $1000 projector?

Is there a better way?

Thanks for anything
-Alex

[John C. Chu]

I would imagine it depends on how long your final product will be.

You can always play the project via the camcorder itself, or if you want to preserve the heads on your expensive cam, you can go get a HV10 or HV20 as a playback deck.

You can get a AvelLink Player...which will play .TS files burned on a regular DVD. You can get about 25-30 minutes of HD on a regular 4.7 gig disc.

You could get a HD-DVD player, but then you would need authoring software to create a HD-DVD compliant disc. HD-DVD players will not play the .TS file.

[Kevin Shaw]

I'm currently considering this projector, which has native 720p resolution with component inputs which could be connected to an HDV camcorder for playback, and is selling for around $1299: http://projectorcentral.com/Optoma-EP1690.htm

Alternatively, it works fine for me to connect my laptop to a projector via VGA and play a video directly from the editing timeline using the overlay signal, without the audience seeing me controlling the computer.

If you want to get into proper HD disc authoring and playback, everything you need to do that is now available at a starting price of around $1500-2000. But the camcorder playback approach is probably simpler and definitely cheaper.

[Bryon Akerman]

I would suggest you do what Kevin did, which is use your DVI out, connecting it to the projector. I would be weary of buying a projector to use in a theatre. Projectors are priced according to lumens and picture quality and because of the size of theatres, you lose both of these when dealing with a long throw. I had a friend up in Indiana who ran a theatre and they had to use 3 Large projectors finely tuned in order to achieve he bright crisp picture we all look for.

If there is any way to connect straight to the projector that is there, that would be your best bet.

[Waldemar Winkler]

In my opinion, presentation technology will always lag behind production technology. If you are all about presentation, then think in terms of presentation. Native resolution of projector vs native resolution of presentation? Lumen output of projector vs size of screen? Audience size? Front projection or rear projection?

All of these questions narrow your parameters towards the right product to serve your needs. My LCD projector has a native resolution of 800x600 pixels, produces 1200 lumens, and can fill a 15' x 20' screen with "some" satisfaction. It is best suited for a screen of 6' x 8' or less.

Interestingly, I have been advised that the algorhythm formulas video projectors use tend to expand better than they compress. Presentations created at 1024x768 resolution suffer when the projector downgrades the incoming signal to its native 800x600, but the same presentation created at 800x600 will look better on a different projector when expanded to 1024x768. The same presentation on DVD, if introduced to the projector via VGA won't suffer damaging loss in resolution.

In past times, 35mm slides, when projected, always produced a better looking image because the light was transmitted through the film as opposed to being reflected off of it. The same is true of rear projected video. An RP video screen will look better than a FP video screen, all other aspects being equal.

Presenting is all about presentation. You must know the tools at your disposal. You should never have to navigate through software to start any presentation. If you have to navigate through menus to start your program you haven't done your homework. Add 30 sec. of black, initiate the projector's built-in black out screen, put a friggin card in front of the lens, do something to preserve the integrity of the presentation! Just think about the process of presentation. Analize the steps, pay attention to details, and do what is necessary to make it clean & professional.

Video is not difficult. One just has to know a lot.

[Seun Osewa]

You need a XVID HD hard disk player or something like that.

WMV-HD dvd players also exist: http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/1116/wmv_hd_dvd

[John C. Chu]

Here's another possibility for a HD player..

http://www.neodigits.com/new/body/pr...line/x3000.asp

[Alex Milne]

"Video is not difficult. One just has to know a lot."

Last time I checked, knowledge can at times be a difficult thing to attain.


Thanks for all the help everyone...

[Mark Wheeler]

www.tomshardware.com had a diy article where a disassembled HD capable LCD was mounted on a overhead projector. Naturally the PC video adapter would have to support HD. Worked pretty well.