I presently have a Panasonic 42" PDP in the living room. I'm about to move to a new townhouse that has a finished basement that opens to a backyard/courtyard area and I'm thinking about making this room into the official TV/Game room. I'm thinking of buying a 50" or 58" PDP but would like to know if a projector would work in this type of room? Do projectors only work in very dark rooms? Will be using the projector for sports and movies. Can anyone recommend a good projector in the $1500 to $2K range? I know absolutely nothing about projectors, is there a good article or website that breaks them down? Also, how difficult is it to connect audio/video components to a projector? Thanks in advance.

Hi there!

I too did not know ANYTHING about projectors. All I did was read this forum and I learned so much; its great! Some projectors work fine in ambient light, some don't. I dont know which models are good for it though. I am sure more experiences people will help :)

For myself, I am getting the BenQ W500. Hopefully it will arrive on Thursday. It cost me around 990 including shipping and such. There are better projectors for a higher price though, I just couldnt afford it.

Long cable runs are generally needed, and some expert help may be in order if you want those runs in the wall / cieling.

How to simplify getting your started?

There are two major groups of projectors. Home Theater and Presentaion.

Home theater projetcors tend to like really dark rooms and generally have better color production for movies, ect..ect..

Presentation projectors tend to be light canons and are more designed for computer screen reproduction.

Both have their place, but if you want a good amount of or even some light about? I tend to suggest a presentaion blaster of a projector. The 3500 Lumen projectors generally will look decent with a lot of light about.

So there, I tried ot get you started. let us know what you pick in the end and of course why you picked it. :)

Read the reviews at www.projectorreviews.com and www.projectorcentral.com

Also check out these two posts on my blog

one for what to look for in a projector
http://thetechhunter.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-to-look-for-when-buying-projector.html

and one with recommendations
http://thetechhunter.blogspot.com/2007/03/prey-captured-projectors.html

You can not have light shining directly on the screen but some level of light is ok.

You are also going to have to answer a few questions
1. How much do you want to spend?
2. How far will the projector lens be from the wall/screen?
3. Are you ceiling mounting and if so how high are your ceilings?

Audio is not connected to a projector. It needs to be connected to some sort of sound system.

Looking for a projector that can be used for home theater, blu-ray and sports. Looking to spend about $1500. In the short amount of time that I have done research I've come up with the Mitsubishi HC1500 Projector, Sony VPL-AW15 BRAVIA LCD Video Projector and the Sanyo PLV-Z4 Projector. I would like to mount the projector on the ceiling, about 10-12ft. from the screen. I'm thinking of buying the movie theater screen paint. Anyone have experience with this?

Don't forget about the screen. The screen can make or break the projector picture quality.

What did you decide on?

You can get a good ambient light picture for sports and moderately brigiht movies pretty easily with light control. This means shading bare bulbs and block sunlight. With a unit like the DT-500 and a decent screen (especially a gray or silver screen) you can get a good image with a bare bulb with the iris off, but can get a great one with shaded lamps.