Projector question - NEED ADVICE!!!

Sorry, best I can offer is take your money to the casino or try some lottery tickets and see if you can multiply it by 10 or so.

I would start checking eBay, Craigslist, and videogon - when you see a few that look promising in your price range or close, feel free to post the model and ask for feedback. One problem you should be aware of though is that used projectors will often have a high mileage bulb, that needs replacement - and the bulbs themselves often sell for that budget (or more depending on the projector). Average bulb life, figure 2000 or so hours of use.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/projection-calculator-pro.cfm


This will help you out on throw distance. Some projectors (especially in the <$600 range) are not 16:9, so the throw distance number won't help you for a 16:9 screen.


That said, if you REALLY only have $300 for a new projector, a replacement bulb is a large percentage of that. So I'm not sure how you could justify actually using the projector (like someone else said, figure a bulb every 2k hours, anything significantly above that is a bonus). Also, you're not likely to get a $300 projector that will give you a reasonable image at 120" or larger (brightness, resolution, etc.).

Why not an LG HW300T LED projector where you wouldn't need to worry about bulb replacements? They're $399 on sale at Fry's if you have one around you. I don't think you'd find the image at 120" that great from a brightness standpoint, but you could do a ~100", to maybe a 110" screen with good light control.

If you don't have the room for the throw, you could always bounce the image off a mirror. But the LG will do about 100" in the space you have. You could make a 98" DIY screen setup for very cheap since 4x8' material is very readily available (check out the DIY screen forum).


You can always try the used projector route, but you'll be looking at a bulb projector with usually some hours on it, so figure a $200-300 expense somewhere down the road to keep using it.