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Projector Questions

post #1 of 4
1/31/10 at 11:56am
Thread Starter 
Say you want to watch a movie over someone's place, and this person does not have a television, and your average laptop screen is just not going to cut it. So you think, no big deal, just pick up a projector, bring that over, and bingo, problem solved. Thing is, I'm not really looking to buy a $1k-$2k home theater projector, though I would like to at some point for other reasons (and when I do, I won't be lugging it around though). I need to know if 800x600 would be 'ok' for watching a movie -- likely classics and black and whites, in fact -- or is XGA (1024x768) pretty essential? I'd like to stay below $500, and there seem to be a number of projectors in that price range, but I want it to at least be fairly decent for this purpose and I don't know. Compactness would also be a plus. I was looking at these: This viewsonic seems the only XGA under $500. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...3&Sku=V18-5142 http://www.amazon.com/Optoma-DS317-S.../ref=de_a_smtd And from a compactness sense, this would be awesome: http://www.amazon.com/Optoma-DS317-S.../ref=de_a_smtd Thanks, dudezz...
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post #2 of 4
1/31/10 at 4:40pm
It's hard for me to say. The contrast ratings on those projectors are terrible. They are also light canons. They're really not designed for watching movies, but for projecting powerpoint presentations in offices. I'd expect color accuracy and flesh tones to be pretty shitty and prepare yourself for non-existent blacks and poor shadow detail. As far as resolution is concerned, as long as you're not expecting a huge image to look good and you're watching DVDs at a minimum, maybe it will be ok.... I can tell you for a fact that even 720P doesn't look great on a 100" screen so you'll want to project a reasonably sized image. Forget about any divx files you might have downloaded. For the most part, they are going to look terrible. I have shrunk my image down to 50" and 3/4 of the divx I have are still unwatchable. The ones that are 1.4GB instead of 700mb are ok, but still not very good. Basically, since getting a projector, the only thing I want to watch is blu-ray. Having said all this, it may very well produce an image that is "good enough" for you, but it's a coin toss imo.
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post #3 of 4
2/1/10 at 2:53pm
If you are going to do this, I would watch slickdeals for a good price on something (and probably focus on contrast ratio over lumens...since you can turn out the lights instead of trying to display in a well lit boardroom).

Getting something cheap will put you in a situation where what you have is good enough for what you described...projecting on a wall and not a screen will eat up a lot of the image quality (the contrast can suffer a lot IIRC). You will come out far ahead of a laptop screen...and since it sounds like there is no real emphasis on quality, your projector will probably be a big hit.
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post #4 of 4
2/1/10 at 4:51pm
Oh the other thing you need to look out for is whether the projector has a short throw lens or not. This is the norm for HT projectors, but not for MM. I can thrown ~110" from about 12'. Most multimedia projectors are designed for larger spaces and won't be capable of that. Look at the specs for each and make sure it can throw a big enough image for your from the distance you're projecting from.
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