HD Projectors

[essendon2008]

Hey guys.

I dont know a whole lot about projectors, but what exactly is a HD projector? What is the difference between a standard and a HD projector?

I have always been a fan of projectors, mainly due to the large sizes possible. The main turnoff has been picture quality, especially in a well-lit room.

I am considering getting a whole set up ie. Projector, motorised screen, amplifier, speakers and a DVR. Anyone know of some good deals/packages? Was thinking of going to the Big Picture People to see what they think is good.

One more question, are there any projectors out there with built in HD (or even SD) tuners?

 

[seanoff]

HD is HD

the sony projectors are 1920 x 1080p which they call "full HD" the cheapy in this range is listed at $3700

for comparison the Epson EMP-TW20 is an SD projector with a 854 x 480.


honestly the bigger the picture the more you'll see the pixels, esp at 480 lines.


a good line, might be to research what you want.
What sources you'll be running (if you are going to run a PS3 it will effect what amp you need. you need a 7.1 amp that can play LPCM but doesn't have to decode the lossless codecs)
Do you want 7.1 or happy with 5.1
do you want to integrate the whole thing. so when you press the on button everything fires up and the screen comes down.

the go to HN, JB, and the specialty retailers and give them a list of components and then ask for a price. most will give you a pretty fair discount if you walk in with a list that adds up to $10K+


projectors still need dark rooms, no getting away from that also if some do have tuners they are rare.

with a projector setup, you'll want 1 wire into it, HDMI. use your amp to do the switching of the sources.


now some advice. http://www.avsforum.com read the various sections here. ie this thread on the cheapest sony http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=829055&page=27

pretty much ALL BR players are essentially the same in terms of visual output. Visuals will be much more dependent on the display than the player. Also, it matters not a jot whether the BR player bitstreams or decodes the advanced codecs (DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD) they will, given the same parameters in the amp sound identical. (look up filmmixer on AVS, he is, amazingly, a sound engineer in hollywood and tells it how it is.)