Page 1 of projector/screen. help and advice needed please..

i know nothing about projectors etc. i have had experience of them once, at a friends around 8 years ago. we watched revenge of the sith on dvd projected on their wall and i remember it looking great. i only went on what i saw and i liked the `big` feel watching the film. their projector was second hand i think and maybe around £300 i think. 

i am not looking at a cinema room, i have been looking on forums recently and they all look great. i would be looking at using our front room, which is a sitting room, no tv etc..so i was thinking either project on wall or buy a drop down screen so it can be concealed most of the time. i have a blu ray player and decent, if a little old, 5.1 speakers and amp. i just want to/like the idea of watching films on a big screen. 

as i say i know nothing about this, so i suspect that the answers i will get will be NO. but i wanted to ask. i don`t have a lot of money to spend, which is why i mentioned projecting on a wall first then maybe get a screen later. i just want to know if i have any options and if it can be done.

sorry for sounding a little vague....didn`t quite know how to start this. cheers.

I`ve always wanted to do this too.

I remember a while back someone on here posted pictures of a projector based home cinema he had set up and had saved themselves a fortune by making their own Screen. I remember it having a 8ft wooden frame and the actual screen just being grey material/paper. This screen was apparently as good as one that cost a couple of hundred quid. That might be worth looking into.

Not being at all handy with anything `DIY` myself, I`d be happy just painting the wall grey.

Can anyone explain why grey would be better than white?

Regards
Bryan

thanks for the reply. i often look at threads were people have done cinema rooms etc.. and thought how great would that be. but i have never wanted to do the whole thing, i just want the screen/projector so never done anything about it. but to be honest i just like the idea of watching films on a Big Screen. nothing wrong with the telly but as i don`t go to the cinema anymore, well not for years, i just wanted to see if it was possible. as i say the screen can come a little later as i probably couldn`t afford both know, to be honest it wouldn`t even be a case of saving to get a better projector as i wouldn`t want to spend more than say £350 on one whenever i may get one. this is were my problems start. can i get anything decent for this? i would be sitting say 10 feet away, its a biggish square room.

having looked a some prices i know this amount is nothing, but then looking at LED`s when i got my last one what i payed was nothing in relation to what you can pay but that didn`t mean i shouldn`t get one, but this might be different all together. out of interest the one i have seen is an optoma 600. hope someone can help as i have no idea, cheers.

Quote:
enemyonpc says...
Can anyone explain why grey would be better than white?To a large extent, projectors really rely on optical illusion for `black`.  Think about it.. the screen is white/grey/slightly reflective etc. How can you make black?...  Surely just cutting out the light would give you the white/grey of the screen....
It really relies on the contrast of surrounding colours that fools the brain into thinking it`s seeing a different colour.  Grey is a bit nearer black so tends to work better.  A darker room is also much more important for a projector for the same reasons.  The darker the better really - a white screen is black in a pitch black room... ;)
I still find this one of the best optical illusions - A and B are the exact same colour..  Try telling your brain that!! ;)  Come from A diagonally to the dark square and then try accepting that B is the same as A - but`s it`s identical.




Ste

You won't get an HD projector for under £500, you can make a screen but there isn't much point when you can buy a decent Optoma one for £80.

You could probably get a half decent SVGA projector for your budget though. Just look for any DLP by a reputable manufacturer with a decent contrast ratio and brightness.


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Mental optical illusion there.

Unless I was going to be watching in a lit room I probably wouldn`t take any notice of how bright it can go.

That may not be true if you are going 3D. But at your price range you`re not.



"Talking`s for lesbians" Psycho Paul 2011.

This item was edited on Friday, 3rd May 2013, 09:50

Quote:
The original 42pcenter MD says...
"Unless I was going to be watching in a lit room I probably wouldn`t take any notice of how bright it can go."
Above a certain level I'd agree, but it is an important factor for a number of reasons. Contrast ratio is probably a more important figure to look at, but the two are intrinsicly linked, you often get a better contrast with a brighter lamp.

Another reason to look at brightness is most projectors have a lower power mode, ideally you want to run yours in this mode because it tends to give you a much longer bulb life and a quieter cooling fan speed, but at the cost of a small amount of brightness which is relative to the total brightness output.


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Just saying for me, how bright it could go on paper would not be a deciding factor. You used to see some wild claims on brightness. So I take them with a pinch of salt.



"Talking`s for lesbians" Psycho Paul 2011.

You can get an SVGA projector that can handle HD ready input (remember it`s 1200x800 or something native resolution) which scales the picture to display for under £300 now, various models but the Optoma 600LV from Richer Sounds might be an option.

I got the HD25 which is 1080p and the quality is fantastic. It does have a small intermittant rainbow effect as all DLP projectors do but it`s nothing.
My unit was £799 but you can get the Optoma 131X (if you wait til it drops) for about £660 from Amazon that is the same unit but the casing is black and the 3D glasses aren`t included, I have 3 pairs glasses and my last two pairs coming next week and I have a couple of spare emitters that I`m gonna flog should you end up with a 3D capable model that has the Vesa RF 3D sync port (basically Optoma 3D ready not 3DXL models) meaning only the glasses required.

I bought an Onkyo TXNR 515 amp because it has twin HDMi OUTPUT.
This is a pretty hefty concern as if you want your kit to run on your TV as well as the projector without swapping cables you need a twin output switchbox, for a decent one you`re between £20 and £40 with varying success reports and I got the amp ex-display really cheap. Currently RS sell the amp for £230 and that`s a damn good price for it anyway.

Lastly my screen. Going back to my days of being DLP Rep up here I knew a couple of wee tricks.
One was as mentioned above, flat material painted with special grey paint.
One was a completely flat wall (I had a demo Optoma DV10 with built in DVD and used it on walls for demo and <koff> the odd personal use ;) ) again, slightly grey being better option.

I looked at a couple of screens, cheapest was around £90 for the 80"+ I was considering so I ended up with my original intention for money saving... a £20 grey black out blind :D
You use the interior side of the blind as the viewing surface and the picture is absolutely amay-zing. So much so it`s almost replaced using my Panny even during the day.

I don`t usually project in total darkness as playing BLOP2 like that causes icky feeling but even on Eco mode it`s way more than bright enough for a low lit room (think lamp on in the background)

I have the blind attached to a wooden spar fitted to the ceiling to drop down. I`m considering making some form of frame for the wall and moving it back which would add about another 20" to the size (currently diagonal at 80" bang on, but it`s about 1.5 to 2 foot off the wall.
It isn`t electric, it`s a manual pull cord on the side, it needs to be anchored in some way to keep it rigid (I use a couple of ribbons pull out at the sides) to prevent the natural wavy shape of the blind but for £20 it`s brilliant. 
And tbh, better than a lot of screens I`ve actually seen!

If it was being fitted right onto a wall I`d remove it from it`s spindle and frame it cos it would be immense and it`s being considered.

If only I had a way to move my Panny on and off in front of it LOL.

Oh, and my unit is faulty, going back today for replacement :-/

Jimbo : oÞ

"There`s that word again... is there a problem with the Earth`s gravitational pull in the future?"

many thanks for the input. a lot to read, but all very interesting. i will have a good read later when i have some time.

as with a lot of technical stuff these days i was put off because i didn`t understand much of it and didn`t want to waste money. as i say some friends had a projector a few years ago, it wouldn`t have been hd and connected to dvd player but it looked really good, more than enough for me. i couldn`t go much over £350 which is why the optoma appeals. are they easy enough to connect up? i have a panasonic blu ray player and an old, but pretty good yamaha amp and 5 speakers. i could sort the screen out later and use a plain wall for know, as long as it looked ok that wouldn`t bother me. i just want to watch a few films on a bigger screen and when i saw the cost of the projector was less than my last tv i thought it could be a good time to look into it. many thanks.