Hi all -
In the early stages of designing a dedicated home theater. The room the projector will go in is 13x26, I may not use the whole length if it feels too narrow. I'd like to use a 100" 16:9 screen, possibly even a 110" screen. Two rows of seats will go about 10-16 feet back from the screen.

A friend recommended the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 ($2800), but Myer Emco came out to give me a quote for how they'd do it and they recommended the Sony VPL-VW50 ($3500).

From looking at the specs for those projectors, both seem to be lacking in ANSI lumens for the size screen I want. So the a brighter option looked to be the Panasonic PT-AX100U at a much lower $2000. But, it is only 720p. And one likely use for my home theater is also to show slide shows from digital camera files, where the extra resolution of a 1080p projector would really make a difference.

Can anyone comment on the merits of the Sony vs the Epson and if there really will be a brightness issue? I should have almost complete control over the light in the HT, but, it might be nice to leave the can lights on low when I have people over to watch football (vs lights off for movies.)

Are there any other projectors that are highly regarded in this $2k to $4k range that might better fit this room and purpose?

Both of these projectors can do 110" with a dark room. If you need more brightness you can always get a high gain screen.

In my light controlled room I have no problem using the VPL-VW50 on a 122" screen. If I open the door though and some light comes in the pictured quality deteriorates rapidly.

Epson is brighter, and you can go larger screen if you wanted with zoom. The Sony will have a slightly better picture though. You should try to demo the Sony, Best Buy Magnolia usually have them setup. You may have to call around to see the epson, or ask around here.

Epson is brighter, and you can go larger screen if you wanted with zoom. The Sony will have a slightly better picture though. You should try to demo the Sony, Best Buy Magnolia usually have them setup. You may have to call around to see the epson, or ask around here.This is only true if you use it in 1 of the the 2 brightest modes and neither of these gives reasonably accurate color. For that you need to use one of the other modes, which will provide approximately 300 lumens.

Both of these projectors can do 110" with a dark room. If you need more brightness you can always get a high gain screen.

I'd like to avoid a >1 gain screen if possible so I want to make sure I get enough projector to throw a great picture on a 100" screen.

Of course Football is only one season a year, and DVDs will be year round, but I'm hoping to find a projector that has excellent picture quality and can drive the 100" screen (and still allow a little ambient light if I want to have people over to watch a game.)

This is only true if you use it in 1 of the the 2 brightest modes and neither of these gives reasonably accurate color. For that you need to use one of the other modes, which will provide approximately 300 lumens.

I'll try to demo the Sony and the Epson (if I can find the Epson... I know where there is a Sony on display.) Are the big box stores as bad with the projectors as they are with Plasmas? I know it was hard to compare TVs even looking at them in the store because they had the brightness and contrast turned up so high.

On the "modes" mentioned. Would this help to give the best PQ for watching a DVD and then switch to a brighter mode for watching sports with the room light low (but not black?)

This is only true if you use it in 1 of the the 2 brightest modes and neither of these gives reasonably accurate color. For that you need to use one of the other modes, which will provide approximately 300 lumens.

If you are watching a ball game with the lights up color accuracy is not as big an issue as when watching a movie. You can set the Sony up for either scenario. (Pun intended). Lew

Several new projectors have been announced recently at IFA and some more should be announced at CEDIA next week which will outclass the current generation of projectors - although quite often it takes a few months for newly announced projectors to become available.
Sometimes they are available very soon after announcements, so it's hard to pre-judge.

Sony, Epson, Mitsubishi, Panasonic - all of them have announced new projectors to replace the projectors you mentioned. Epson is even quoting an insane 50,000:1 CR spec (dynamic contrast, for sure.) But it sounds like the improvements are real.

Wow! Thanks for the heads-up. I haven't started construction yet (hope to very soon) so I have time to wait for the new stuff to become widely available. I guess I should go ahead and plan on a 100" screen and count on one of these models, or something announced soon, to do the job.

Does anyone have good references to threads or FAQ, etc that discuss the Sony technology? I heard it as something of the best aspects of LCD and DLP combined, but would sure like to understand it better.