If you are looking for a large screen movie or TV viewing experience in your home, a projector definitely gives you the best screen size to dollar ratio. A 65 inch LCD runs for approximately $7000 while you can pick up a 1080p projector and screen for about half that price. Those numbers alone give the projector a considerable advantage for our home theater setup.
If that is still too much money, 720p projectors can still give you really good image for around $1000 or less. This is probably the route that we will go until 1080p projectors drop dramatically in price. Do be aware that projector setups require a reasonably dark room to provide the best image, not as much of a consideration for LCD TV's. What else should you consider?
Brightness: The higher the better. Rooms with high ambient light would benefit from 2000 lumens while a dark, dedicated home theater will probably be fine with 1000 lumens.
Lamp life: Replacing these will run you between $200-$400. Lamps typically last between 2000-4000 hours. Assuming you use the projector 8 hours a week you are looking at just under 5 years.
Set up constraints: Ceiling or table top and how far from the screen. Not all projectors can be ceiling mounted and each projector has a distance requirement which may not fit with your layout.
Noise level: Having a projector means having a spinning fan to cool the projector while watching a movie. Look for less than 30dB which is equivalent to someone whispering.
-via Gizmodo
$7000! You have got to be kidding. You can spend under $900 for an Epson Powerlite 83c Mulitmedia Projector.
* 2200 lumens with XGA resolution for brilliant and sharp presentations in virtually any setting
* 7W speaker for multimedia presentations that fill the classroom/conference room
* Built-in closed captioning decoder
* Network ready with RJ-45 connectivity and included software
* energy-efficient with a 4000 hours (compared to the usual 2000)
* cheaper bulb replacement (make sure you check the price of the bulb replacement before you choose. Some are just as expensive as a television set. Be prepared to replace at least every 1.5 years.)
We got a projector and love it! We watch everthing at least 60". We are going to buy the Epson PowerLite, we watch way too much BBC America.
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projectors require so much more maintenance if you want them to actually last for a decent amount of time. the fans need to be cleaned regularly to prevent damage and decreased lamp life. and with lamps still costing that much, for everyday viewing, they're a bad idea as far as i'm concerned. and when you get into the cheaper "home theatre" projectors, they're especially prone to failure.
if it's a special set up that you're going to watch a few movies per week on, then yes, go for it. it'll last reliably.
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XGA is what? 1024x768?
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