[medley32]

As you probably noticed, I'm new to the forum, and let me tell you, do I have a lot to learn. I've been lurking for about a month now making frequent use of the search function. Unfortunatley I haven't been able to find this addressed.


Let me start with my application. I'm hoping to convince my wife to put in a dedicated media room in the basement of our house. Room would be 12' X 34'. So front projection is a decent option. It will be completely light controlled. Now I like to watch movies as much as the next guy, but I also watch quite a bit of broadcast TV from Directv. Sports fill in the remaining time.


So here are my questions.


Is a front projector OK for broadcast TV?

If so which would you recommend?

 

[shadowpuppet]

depends on what you mean by "okay."


DirecTV/DirecTiVo pq is quite acceptable on a "small" screen (like a direct-view 36" or smaller), but does tend to show its compressed character on the larger screen afforded by projectors.


Too, the built-in line doublers (on projectors that have them) really don't do much to improve on the picture quality (since it was lacking to begin with). Note that your PQ perception mileage may vary though.


I think most people who use front projectors (myself included) tend to limit it to movie-viewing. In any case, you can get outboard devices/components that help to improve the quality of the NTSC signal when displayed on a digital projector, but you'd need to account for that as an additional buy-in expense. I think the least-expensive (but quite decent, from what I've read/heard) device you can get for that purpose is the DVDO iScan Pro V3 - about $700 I believe.