[hafner]

Hi all,


I'm new to the forum, but I've tried to do my research here before posting so I don't look any more like an idiot than I normally do.


For the last several years, I've been muddling along with my former leading-edge 27" TV, but given the price and performance of projectors, I'm eager to jump into the fray.


I've read these forums and had settled on the InFocus IN72 - we do not yet have HD, and the IN72 appears to have the best bang for the buck. However, I've lately been considering the Optoma HD70.


My wife and I typically watch mostly TV through our Tivo, but we also watch a lot of DVDs. I do some gaming with an original XBOX.


So my questions are these:


- Am I stupid to even think about getting an SD projector? How does SD TV look projected that large (I can't imagine, very good)? Original XBOX? DVDs sound as if they're pretty good.


- Since projectors don't have tuners, I'm guessing I'd need a tuner. How do you all handle this? Is there such a thing as a tuner that can take all of my inputs (cable, Tivo, DVD/VCR, XBOX) and switch among them so I only need to run one cable and not many across the ceiling to the projector?


- I'm actually shocked at how cheap HD is nowadays, so I'm also trying to consider the HD equivalent of the IN72 - inexpensive, bright, great picture, great bang for the buck. Is the HD70 the HD equivalent?


- A Series 3 HD Tivo certainly isn't in the budget. Is the only different hard disk capacity, or is there something bigger? If so, I'd be perfectly willing to pop a bigger hard drive in my existing Tivo. Is that feasible?


- I have a 6' X 6' screen (which I suppose works out to ~100" diagonal) that a friend gave me. It doesn't look super-fancy, but it looks pretty nice. How should I evaluate this screen (about which I know virtually nothing)? How important are screens anyway? Given that I'd have to stretch just to get an HD70, dropping a few hundred on a fancy screen certainly isn't in the budget.


- I'll be ceiling-mounting this projector in my basement (for better light control). I have a drop ceiling, but they aren't the tiles that come out easily - they look near-permanent. Anybody have any experience mounting on that sort of surface?


Thanks to all for any advice that you can provide. I really appreciate it.

 

[jrwhite]

Hafner,


The IN72 is very well thought of, and I'm sure you'll be happy with it's brighness and out-of-the-box colour accuracy. With the very low price of the HD70 / HD1000 most here have moved up to 720p.


SDTV generally looks mediocre to terrible at large screen sizes. Regular DVD's and game consoles look great.


Having an HDTV source is a HUGE improvement over watching SDTV. If you are on cable or satellite, HD boxes are very inexpensive. You could still use your TiVO to pvr stuff in SD. I would think that you would use your Tivo as a tuner if you don't go the HD cable / satellite box route. I think there are also stand alone HDTV tuners available, but I don't have any esxperience with them.


There are many stand-alone switchers you could use to switch your video / audio sources to send to your projector / receiver. Many receivers include component video switching as well. Ideally, all your sources could feed component video to the switcher, then you just have to string a single component video cable to the projector. There are quite a few threads on component video switchers in this forum, just do a search. I use a CE Labs switch, and it works well for me. Audio Authority, AVTools, Video Storm are other brands. All of these are HD compatible componet switches with remote controls. Monoprice has the Lenexpo switcher for under $35. Of course, this would mean that all your sources would have to be able to output component. Most DVD players have component out, and I know there is a component cable available for the original XBOX. I'm not sure about your Tivo.


I'm not sure about your screen. If your screen is really 6'x6' it's probably an old AV, read slide projector, screen. You would probably be better off projecting on a white wall and masking off a 16x9 screen with a black paint border. A step up from there would be to use a DIY screen paint forumula. Check out the DIY screen section ... there are zillions of them. You could also use a commercial screen paint like ScreenGoo. I have a 12' x 7' Goo screen in my main theatre, and am very happy with it.


I'm sure there will be others which can help you with your mount question. In our livingroom theatre we've built the digital into a custom built cabinet. I've only hung our 180lb CRT beast in the main theatre, so don't have much experience with mounting digitals.


hope this helps,


Jonathan

 

[bud16415]

I'll take a stab at some of your questions. First off welcome to AVS and congrats on writing a good first post and explaining your wants and needs.


The two projectors you listed are fine machines by all accounts but are different resolutions and both in the 16:9 format. Your hand me down screen on the other hand is square and closer to a 4:3 format as are some of your viewing requirements. We would need to know a lot more about the screen make and model etc before we could tell you if its worth using. It's very important to match the screen and the screen size to the projector.


SDTV can look very good on a projector and it can also look very bad. A strong cable signal input in the right way can be very easy to watch. A snowy OTA SD will be a 100 times worse than the 27 picture. SD DVD's will look fantastic as will the Xbox.


What I use as a hub similar to what you asked about as a tuner is a DVD player burner. It works like a VCR and has a bunch of inputs and has component output or better to run to the projector. It has a tuner and all kinds of inputs for cams and xbox etc. and most of the cheep unites will convert everything coming out to 480p and that will help in cleaning up your SDTV. Mine was about $150 and I see many for under a $100 now.


As to ceiling mounting you have to be concerned with both throw distance spec and drop height spec. All projectors are different and if your ceiling is low you may need a shorter drop height projector. To mount it go up into the floor joists and drop a mount down thru a hole cut thru the ceiling tiles and then do some kind of mount. The drop ceiling will make running wires easy and you will need 110V power run up there also. You can pop the tiles out near the screen and paint black and that will help a lot.


I don't know much about TIVO's but the burner player works like one for my needs. And all my DVD's get played thru it.


If your screen isn't suitable there are many DIY screens and a whole forum about them here.


Below in my signature are a bunch of threads linked and if you take the time to read thru them you will gain a lot of information.


Just for the record the projector I'm using is a Sharp XR10X in all the screen shots you will see and it sells around the $700 price point.


Post more questions as they come up and we'll see if we can help.

 

[reconlabtech]



Quote:
Originally Posted by hafner /forum/post/0


- Am I stupid to even think about getting an SD projector? How does SD TV look projected that large (I can't imagine, very good)? Original XBOX? DVDs sound as if they're pretty good.


- Since projectors don't have tuners, I'm guessing I'd need a tuner. How do you all handle this? Is there such a thing as a tuner that can take all of my inputs (cable, Tivo, DVD/VCR, XBOX) and switch among them so I only need to run one cable and not many across the ceiling to the projector?


- I'm actually shocked at how cheap HD is nowadays, so I'm also trying to consider the HD equivalent of the IN72 - inexpensive, bright, great picture, great bang for the buck. Is the HD70 the HD equivalent?


- A Series 3 HD Tivo certainly isn't in the budget. Is the only different hard disk capacity, or is there something bigger? If so, I'd be perfectly willing to pop a bigger hard drive in my existing Tivo. Is that feasible?


- I have a 6' X 6' screen (which I suppose works out to ~100" diagonal) that a friend gave me. It doesn't look super-fancy, but it looks pretty nice. How should I evaluate this screen (about which I know virtually nothing)? How important are screens anyway? Given that I'd have to stretch just to get an HD70, dropping a few hundred on a fancy screen certainly isn't in the budget.


- I'll be ceiling-mounting this projector in my basement (for better light control). I have a drop ceiling, but they aren't the tiles that come out easily - they look near-permanent. Anybody have any experience mounting on that sort of surface?


Thanks to all for any advice that you can provide. I really appreciate it.

SD Projector:

What you should really be asking yourself is do I want a 4:3 PJ or a 16:9 PJ. If your tv watching and dvds are all 4:3, on a dvd it is called Full Screen, and you aren't going to change that soon, maybe a very affordable 4:3 PJ like the Sharp mentioned would be a good fit. If you do project a 16:9 dvd, it will have the blank space above and below the picture like on your 27".


If all your dvds are widescreen and you will be upgrading to HDTV in the next 6 months or so, then maybe a 16:9 like the IN72 or DV10 480p are a good place to start or for HD(720p) at or less than $1K the HD70, HD1000, PJTX100, PJTX200, Z4, Z5, AX100 and a few others might be the road to take. Regular tv will not fill the screen unless you stretch it.


How does your tv signal get into the Tivo?

You are not looking for a tuner so much as an AV receiver that you can plug all your signal sources into and run one or two lines out to the PJ, usually HDMI/DVI and Component. They can be had for around $200-$250 without HDMI or $450 on up for any kind of HDMI. I use a component/svideo only receiver and a separate HDMI switcher to meet my needs.


Depending on which PJ aspect ratio you go with, you could recycle the screen, but I would consider spending some time in the screens forum and the DIY sub-forum to take care of your screen need. You can usually build a DIY for under $100 easy and some have done it for $20 or so.


For your ceiling, you will need to find a floor joist that the ceiling tiles are fixed to and mount your ceiling mount to that or even mount a board that spans two joists and then mount the ceiling mount for the PJ to that.


Good luck, and welcome!

 

[bcarlsen]



Quote:
Am I stupid to even think about getting an SD projector?

The IN72 is 480p, which is ED. 480i is SD. I have an Optoma H31 which is also 480p. SDTV looks pretty bad that big. In my opinion, it is a waste of money to buy equipment to watch SDTV on a 100" screen. But HDTV looks incredible, especially sports. I also own a 42" 720p lcd tv and sports look better on the 480p projector because of the size. Widescreen DVD movies also look great using the projector.


An alternative to renting an HD box from the cable company is to buy the Samsung DTB-H260F. If your cable company sends your local channels in the clear, you can use that machine's QAM tuner to watch HD without paying for any additional subscriptions.


720p vs 480p... I'm sure you'll be happy with whichever you choose. They're both bargains right now.

 

[maingon]

regular dvds dont look bad but they look worse on a large screen, they arent as sharp as a smaller screen, some dvds look pretty bad on a 92"+ larger screen, if you can get a HD-DVD player and HD movies look amazing on a big screen