New Media Room TV - rear DLP or front projector

[KIB]

We are looking at a new tv for our media room, it currently has an old projector. We have a new blue ray player and want to go ahead and upgrade our receiver and tv for HD. I am looking at getting a new projector, but will have some installation problems with running an HDMI cable to the ceiling mount b/c no attic access. Also looking at the Mitsibushi 82 inch DLP. A little smaller than our current screen - but would fit really well in the space and no installation issues.

Just curious on thoughts

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I'm a big fan of front projection when you have a good room to set it up (mainly light control issues and a large enough space for it to make sense).

What was your old projector?

Is your old projector in the room right now? If so, why will the new projector not be able to get cables routed to it the same way?

Considering the "small" version is still and 82" screen, you're probably still in the ballpark for a cinematic viewing experience in the room. Have you tried setting up the current projector for an 82" screen size and seeing if that size is big enough for you?

There are some really great projectors out for very affordable prices right now. If you can find a way to make one work (shelf mount in the rear of the room maybe?), you'll probably get a big performance jump if your old projector is a few years old.

 

[KIB]

The old one is a boxlight and is mounted from the ceilng. We got the prior owners of the house to leave the equiptment, and it appears that the wiring was done before the house was built. I had someone out to see if they could help route an HDMI and there's no way around having at least part of the cable on the wall versus inside. All the equipment is by the screen and there's no attic access above the room to where the mount is.

The room has great (dark) lighting and no windows. It's a large room, and has two levels of viewing. Although, I don't like sitting on the front row - it's too close for me.

This upgrade is a surprise for my husband, so I want to make the right decision.

 

[sivart]

Other options to hide the cables would be:

1) baseboards that have a channel for the cables to run through.
2) Crown molding that have a channel for the cables to run through.

Depending on the current cabling, you may be able to convert it to an HDMI signal. I have seen devices that convert Cat5e and Coax from HDMI to new cable to HDMI

However, if you have at least a composite cable with the red and white audio running, you could use that as a component HD cable. You wouldn't get 1080p, but you could still get 1080i.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Not as classy, but since I have a rented space, I ran cables under some rugs to the end of the room and the I have a stand back there where cables run to the projector.

How big is the current screen? How far back would the projector be from the ceiling mount or if it was shelf mounted at the back of the room?

 

[KIB]

The current screen is about 100". So, in width versus diagnonal measurement we'll lose 5 inches on each side if I go with the dlp.

We have options with the projector, I know. I'm just trying to figure out the pros of front projection versus dlp, especially in video quality. There's not huge size difference, at least to me.

This is really our dream home, so we want to set it up right - and I'm very detailed about seeing wires and such.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

You can see how the two screen sizes compare here
http://tvcalculator.com/

An 82" screen is about 67% of the area of a 100" screen.

On the bright side, with an appropriate receiver there should only be a need for one video cable to run to the projector.

What's the budget for this?

 

[kalrith]

What cables are currently run for the projector? YOyoYO's recommendation to shoot the current project at an 82" screen size is a good one and the only way to know for sure if the size is good enough for you. What sources have you been watching, and what resolution is your current projector? If you're going from watching DVDs to BDs and/or going to a higher-resolution projector, then you might find that you appreciate the larger screen size much more.

If you absolutely can't run the cables through the wall, then another option would be to use one of those cable hiders and paint it the color of the wall. FlatWire is supposed to be coming out with flat HDMI and power cables in the near future, but there's no ETA on that.

 

[KIB]

I will mess with our current set up and see what kind of a difference it makes, thanks. The current screen actually feels too big for me from our front row. Is there any general guidelines on size of screen versus how far the seating is? It's a big room, but with two levels of seating. I almost feel dizzy sitting in the front row so was thinking it might be too big?

I'm not sure about the current set up, but it's a boxlight - and I think a business projector rigged for home use. So anything new will be impressive. I plan to put in BR also

As for Budget, I more want to do it right. Not unlimited funds, but get the best option for the room.


It seems to me that most of you would work around installation issues to have a front projector? I"m really trying to get information, so why do you feel it's better?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I don't know anything about boxlight projectors.
It does indeed look like they're business projectors or large venue projectors.
A front projector optimized for home theater in a light controlled room will probably be a huge improvement.

Is it a 4:3 aspect ratio screen now?

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html
This is one tool to help you gauge how screen size and seating distance interact.

For example, I use a 102" diagonal 16:9 screen.
My front row is about 9 feet back for about a 45 degree horizontal viewing angle
My second row is about 14 feet back for about a 30 degree horizontal viewing angle

40 is about perfect for me, but that's what I had to work with for my room.

For horizontal viewing angle, there are some physical limits to how small it can be before you start to not be able to resolve all detail even with 20/20 vision.
For how big it can get, that's mostly about personal taste and how big you can get it before starting to see visual artifacts like "Screen Door Effect".

It's more about your own preference though. In a real movie theater, some people love sitting in the front row while others go for the back.

I tend to sit somewhere in the middle of the theater and try to get somewhere around that 40 degree horizontal viewing angle that I prefer.

If you can tell us the screen size, aspect ratio, and seating distances, we can work out what the current situation is.

Just to give you a budget estimate...

An entry level 1080p Home Theater projector (that will still probably be a big upgrade from the current one) is around $1000.
A pretty good one is about $1500-$1600.
I got one that was right at the $2000-$2300 mark which is close to the top of the pack for very commonly bought ones.

For me, this was where I thought I was getting the best value with still getting a very good picture.

The sky is the limit for spending, but above the $2500 mark, I think you end up spending a lot more for the incremental improvements. From there, you get into units like JVC's. I have no doubt that those have better image quality than my own, but they're also a lot more expensive.

As for front projection vs. rear projection... if you decide that 82" is the right size, then I think it's much less of an issue of whether you pick a good RP DLP or a good front projector.
Where front projection really shines is allowing you to get cinematic viewing experiences on a budget.

What does your husband think about the screen size?

I don't know how much he likes it, but since I like front projection so much, I'd be a bit upset if my girlfriend knew I was looking to replace my old front projector and bought a rear projection DLP for me. Do you know if he likes how big the screen is now, or what his thoughts are on it? I realize you're still just information collecting at this point, but sometimes people who have these kind of hobbies can be very particular about what they want and it might not work out to surprise him with a choice we made for him.

 

[KIB]

Wow, I can't thank you enough for all your help.

Our current screen is 100", the first row is 9 feet back and the second is another 5 from there. Not knowing much about tv's - I can't tell you what ratio it is. Makes me feel a bit stupid, but oh well - that's why I'm here!

As for what he thinks, we are not techies at all (he knows less than me about the current set up). 4 years ago I had to twist his arm to buy a new HD tv for our living room. And he LOVES it. We bought this house and had the owners leave the media room equiptment - he loves it too and wants to watch all sports and movies in there now. Honestly, if we had moved in with 82" he would have loved that too. The 82 inch rear DLP is expensive, but will be much easier for installation. The current mount is ugly with wires everywhere (so as a neat freak, I like the idea of getting rid of the projector). But, I don't want to lose the theatre effect. Best buy came to the house yesterday and couldn't find attic access to run the new wires. There's options for it, though.

So - I'm not stressing as much about the size of the screen. But the quality of the tv, experience and longevity.

 

[Chapbass]

Wow, I can't thank you enough for all your help.

Our current screen is 100", the first row is 9 feet back and the second is another 5 from there. Not knowing much about tv's - I can't tell you what ratio it is. Makes me feel a bit stupid, but oh well - that's why I'm here!

As for what he thinks, we are not techies at all (he knows less than me about the current set up). 4 years ago I had to twist his arm to buy a new HD tv for our living room. And he LOVES it. We bought this house and had the owners leave the media room equiptment - he loves it too and wants to watch all sports and movies in there now. Honestly, if we had moved in with 82" he would have loved that too. The 82 inch rear DLP is expensive, but will be much easier for installation. The current mount is ugly with wires everywhere (so as a neat freak, I like the idea of getting rid of the projector). But, I don't want to lose the theatre effect. Best buy came to the house yesterday and couldn't find attic access to run the new wires. There's options for it, though.

So - I'm not stressing as much about the size of the screen. But the quality of the tv, experience and longevity.

If you watch normal standard definition tv, do you have black bars anywhere or does it look normal? And by normal I mean it fills up the whole screen, and the people in the picture dont look like squatty midgets.

If so, then you have 4:3 on your current projector (if its that old, I would imagine it would be 4:3). Going with a new projector will be 16:9, so you'll have some issues there (I'd probably suggest a new screen, but yoyo might have some other ideas).


I would 2nd the idea of a projector over DLP. I'm very much a fan of playing to your strengths in the home theater (and technology in general) world, so if the downfalls of a mounting position, light issues, etc. are not a problem in your setup, I would DEFINITELY go for a front projection. Looking further down the road, front projectors are increasing in value and quality at an amazingly quick rate. If you plan on staying in this house for a while (and I imagine you do), then in 5 years or whatever, when the projectors are substantially better than anything out there right now, just swap projectors and keep going!

Much easier than being stuck with a DLP, which has (IMO at least) been going by the wayside for the past several years.


EDIT: Also agreed with yoyo, if you do it right, you can totally eliminate the wires around your projector. Make sure to get a good receiver that will handle all of the switching/converting/sound/etc, and just have one HDMI cable going to the projector. Even if you can't go into the wall, get some cable sleeves and put them on the wall, it will look much better than some cables.

If the installation is all thats stopping you from doing a projector, keep thinking long term and I think youl'l change your mind. I went from an LCD to a front projector, and im never going back.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Not that it's a crucial question to answer for this, but if you want to be sure what the aspect ratio of the screen is, you could measure the width and the height of the screen and we can figure it out.

If it looks almost square, then it's a 4:3 screen
If it looks like a very wide rectangle, then it's 16:9

If you have a 4:3 screen (I'm assuming you're actually shooting on a screen and not a blank wall), then you'd want to get a new screen along with the projector since 16:9 is generally the way to go now. (I say generally meaning either 16:9 or the even wider 2.4:1)

This is a neat tool that lets you do comparisons of different aspect ratios and how big the final images will be.
http://tvcalculator.com/

I posted that before so you could compare 82" to 100", but I didn't take into account telling you about different aspect ratios.

For example, if your current room has a 100" 4:3 aspect ratio screen, you can plug that in under "TV1"

You can use the drop down menu on top to change it to 3 displays total.

For "TV2" you can represent the DLP which would be 82" 16:9 aspect ratio

For "TV3" you could put in whatever you want for a new projector. Maybe put in a 100" 16:9 aspect ratio for example.

(No need to mess around with the pixels wide / pixels high part)

Once you have those set up, you can click on the different "Source Image" boxes to see the actual image size of different source material.

If there's a lot of 4:3 aspect ratio source content that you'll be viewing, then going with a 16:9 screen is going to produce a much smaller image. With widescreen sources, the difference in actual image size is not as dramatic.
I don't know if this is useful for you, but it's a good way to visualize how different screen sizes and aspect ratios compare to one another.

A 100" screen with seating 9' back and 14' back is very close to what I have going on, but I'm using a 16:9 aspect ratio screen.

The front row is just a little bit too big for me, but I've gotten used to it.

When my parents came over to watch stuff, they decided they wanted to use the back row and liked it better back there.

Does your husband like the front row or the back row with the projector as it is now?

Would it be possible to shelf mount or stand mount a projector in the back of the room?

My room is not a model for wire management or organization, but just for example:

Please ignore the temporary orange power cable (along the right side of the picture) running to my old projector.

I run my cables from the front of the room to the back of the room under rugs, so they're not visible. I also have rugs next to the seating so wires to the surround speakers are not visible either.

After running rear shelf mounted projectors for several years (due to living in rented spaces), I'm pretty happy with how it's been working out. Cable management hasn't been a big concern to me since I've been able to use some rugs fairly effectively to do a very simple wire hiding system. Not as polished as it could be, but it's working on my budget.

 

[KIB]

It's definately a wide rectangle, and I'm quite sure we don't have any black bars. So, I'm guessing a 16:9. I think we would need a new screen too, though.

This is helping.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

With a 16:9 screen, HDTV and some movies will take up the whole screen.

A lot of movies are wider than 16:9 though, so those will have black bars on the top/bottom of the screen even if you have a "widescreen" tv or screen.

With a 4:3 projector and screen, you'll get black bars on the top/bottom of the screen that are very big for 16:9 material, and even bigger for those movies that are wider than 16:9.

Do you have a picture of the room?

If you're going to get a new screen anyway if you go with another projector, it's not critical to figure out what you have in the room right now, but it would be useful to figure out what you are experiencing now in order to determine what the differences would be for a new system.

Just to clarify, you'll have black bars for some content no matter what the aspect ratio of your screen is. "Black bars" on a projector will just be areas of the screen that are not lit up by the video image. They'll tend to be some shade of gray on a business projector and the better the HT projector is, the closer to black it will be.

The blackest black a projector can give you is the color of the screen. Projectors can only add light, so that's why it's important to have a dark room for front projection.

A "black bar" will at best be the color of the screen. All digital projectors will add some light to the screen even if they're trying to show you "black".

 

[KIB]

I'll try to take a picture tomorrow of the room, but might not have time.
Will a new screen make a difference? The current one is a home-job and white. I thought I read gray is best?

So, I'm gathering if I can get the install right - front projection is definately the way to go.

 

[Chapbass]

I'll try to take a picture tomorrow of the room, but might not have time.
Will a new screen make a difference? The current one is a home-job and white. I thought I read gray is best?

So, I'm gathering if I can get the install right - front projection is definately the way to go.

I would say its definitely the best way to go.

As far as a new screen, some of it will depend on the projector. Once you figure out what projector will fit your budget/room/specs, then my suggestion woudl be to hop on avsforum.com, check out the owner thread of that projector (BE ADVISED : people on avsforum are picky as anyone on the planet. Any owners thread will have tons of "problems" on it. I dont mean to discount AVSforum, the guys there know their stuff and then some, but going in and expecting them to sing the praises of a product as the best ever will leave you disappointed).

The owners thread will help you out with what screen others with the same projector are using, and how they like it.


I'd choose a projector first, then look at screen.

 

[KIB]

<P>how do i include a picture</P>

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

You can just paste a link in, or you can use the tags.

You put [IMG] before the link

and then you put

after

bbzzdd is a free picture hosting site that Anandtech members use if you don't have a place to host pictures.

 

[Booty]

Regarding cabling - I don't know how your walls and/or ceiling are finished, but if it's all just painted drywall it's not really that big of a deal to punch a few holes through to fish the new cable(s), then patch and re-paint when its done. I wouldn't consider myself terribly handy (maybe average), but I've done it a couple times and you can't even tell where the holes were cut. I'm sure you probably have a friend or family member who could help you with it. Then you'd have the clean look and, in the end, it'll probably cost you quite a bit less than trying to do surface mounts/runs and blend them in. It's a lot less scary than it sounds.