Home Theater

Setting Up a Home Theater With Movie Projector

These days, many people are setting up a home theater system with a projector instead of a TV because the quality you get is at a bargain price. If you buy a projector, it will give you a diagonal screen size of at-least over 84 inches at a price of $800-$2000 if not more. If you go for a plasma tv of 60-70 inches, it will cost you not less than $7000-$8000. And projectors are portable, don’t weigh much (5-10 pounds) and are easy to use and install. You just need a big room dedicated to your home theater.

Choose between LCD and DLP projectors. DLP gives a better picture quality but it is more expensive than LCD. These days, the quality gap between the two has reduced quite a bit. LCD projectors are great too, so don’t worry. Go for a projector with at least 1600 lumens. This is the brightness of the bulb. If you watch a movie in a completely dark room, 1200 lumens will also work fine. But in case you watch it with some amount of light/brightness, you need at least 1600-2000 lumens, more the better. Go for a resolution of at least 720p. A resolution of 1080p will be great, but these projectors are really expensive. But if you have the bucks, don’t think twice. For XGA resolutions, at least 1024×768 is a must.

Look at the lamp life. Make sure that is at least 2000 hours in normal mode and 3000 hours in power-saving or quiet mode. The lamps are the only replacement parts you will need every 2 years or so. And these are expensive. So if you have to choose between two projectors in which one offers 1000 lamp life hours more, go for that one. Contrast ratio: this decides how black will be the black color compared to the whites. For a contrast ratio of 600:1, it means that black will be 600 times blacker than the white levels. It decides how deep the black will look on your screen. The darker, the better. So, higher the contrast ratio, better the output on screen. Aspect ratio: Go for an aspect ratio of 16:9 because it is the de facto standard of games, movie dvds these days. You can view your TV and old tapes which are in 4:3 format via most projectors because settings are present to adjust the screen size accordingly.

Go for higher optical zoom. Digital zoom does not matter. Calculate how much distance you can keep between the screen and the projector and that will decide what type of lens you will need. For a shorter distance, go for the short throw lens and if the projector is at a distance from the screen, choose a long throw lens. In any case, ask the projector dealer to give you a demo in your home. That will give you the best idea. Make sure that your projector has an HDMI input, so that you can connect a blu ray player or your PS3 or such gaming console to it. Most latest projectors in the higher range have the HDMI input even if they are not full-HD. Such are called as HD-ready projectors.

Choosing your screen: Watching on a white screen is always better than watching on a plain white wall. Screens are of 2 types these days – motorized screens which operate via a remote control (they go up and down with a button click) and insta lock screens, which have to operated with your hand. The picture quality is equally good. The only difference is of operation. And yes, the motorized is priced more. Where do I get the sound from? You need to connect your speakers to your dvd player which connects to the projector and that will give you optimum results.

Which company’s projector should I buy? These days, many companies are selling home multimedia specific projectors just for home theater use. Check those out. Good companies include panasonic, optoma, sony, nec, canon, dell, acer, epson, etc. Read reviews by searching for company name followed by model name on any search engine. There are sites where you can compare two models feature by feature. Try those two. We hope these two articles will help you set up your home theater projector system. Buy some good recliners and enjoy a movie at home.

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