Buy The Best Home Theater Projector with 7 Questions
Every home theater is different, so on the question of buying a home video projector the best is the most suitable, and based on that, this article concentrates on the method & thought of purchasing home theater projector so that you could pick the most suitable one by yourself depending on your room’s size, lighting condition, source materials, purchase budget, etc. after reading.
The article consists of 7 questions below:
1. How Bright Does a Projector Need for Home Theater?
2. What Is the Best Resolution for a Home Theater Projector?
3. What Is a Suitable Contrast Ratio for a Home Theater Projector?
4. How to Choose the Right Video Projector According to the Size of Your Room?
5. What Is the General Lifetime of A Home Theater Projector Lamp?
6. What Input Options Are Needed for a Home Theater Projector?
7. Should I Ceiling Mount the Digital Projector or Set It on a Tabletop?
1. How Bright Does a Projector Need for Home Theater?
The projector’s brightness is measured in ANSI Lumen. What does 1 lumen mean? It is equivalent to the brightness of a dying match. So, how many lumens are needed for a home theater projector? That depends on the light in your room.
1) If you have a dedicated home theater, a value from 250 lumens to 1000 lumens will be ok. In the low-lumen case, just don’t demand too much of the size of the projection image.
2) If there are some light coming into your room, above 1000 lumens will be needed.
3) If your room is bright with sunshine, you’ll need at least 3000 lumens.
2. What Is the Best Resolution for a Home Theater Projector?
What is the projector resolution? The simple answer is the number of image pixels a projector can display. The higher the resolution, the more image pixels will be shown, thus you will be able to see more details in the image. Currently, 1280×720 or 1280×768 (720p) and 1920×1080 or 1920×1200(1080p) are two common resolutions for home video projector. So, how to choose a home video projector with the right resolution? It depends on the resolution of your source materials like the streaming videos, Blu-ray movies, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 video games, etc.. A basic rule is to get the projector’s resolution match the resolution of your source materials. Imagine you have tons of 1080p movies but you buy a home cinema projector with 720p display resolution, then the projector won’t display the whole visual presentation of the 1080p video.
3. What Is a Suitable Contrast Ratio for a Home Theater Projector?
The projector’s contrast ratio describes the difference between the brightest white and the darkest black on the projection image, for example, the 1000:1 ratio means that the brightest white is 1000x brighter than the darkest black. The higher the ratio the better, and an image without enough contrast ratio will look monotonous, layer-lacking, and lifeless. For home video projector, i think the ratio can’t be any lower than 500:1. It is necessary to explain that there are two kinds of test methods of contrast ratio, the FOFO and ANSI. For the same image, the test value of the FOFO contrast ratio is much higher than that of the ANSI contrast ratio, so when you buy a projector, don’t just look at the ratio value, make clear whether the value comes from the FOFO test or the ANSI test.
4. How to Choose the Right Video Projector According to the Size of Your Room?
First you should have a target size of the projection image you want like 100 or 150 inches, and here let’s suppose it is X inches, then measure the distance between the empty spot you plan to fill with a projection screen and your seat in inches, and here we set it equal to Y inches, next divide the Y by the X and the result is the value of a parameter of projector called Throw Ratio which will be marked in every projector’s product specifications, then you can use the value of Y/X to find the digital projector that has a right throw ratio.
5. What Is the General Lifetime of A Home Theater Projector Lamp?
That depends on the type of lamps used in the home theater projector, and currently there are three common types, the Metal Halide lamps, LED lamps, and Lasers.
1) The rated lifetime of normal Metal Halide projector lamps is 3,000 hours. The rated lifetime refers to the time duration from being brand new to the brightness becoming half as bright as it was when it was new. When the lamp brightness can’t keep pace with your requirement, you’ll have to change a new one which is likely to cost you about $150. The Metal Halide lamp has advantages of mature technology, high brightness, and nice color expression.
2) The LED lamps have a much longer service life which is usually 10,000 – 20,000 hours or more, but the downside is the weak brightness, and today’s pocket projectors which mostly use the LED bulb have general 300 – 500 ANSI Lumens brightness.
3) The Lasers have a lifetime of over 10,000 hours, and performs well in brightness and color, but the price is higher due to the costs.
6. What Input Options Are Needed for a Home Theater Projector?
Today’s home video projectors generally have the HDMI high-definition signal input, USB port, AV audio input, RJ45 Ethernet jack, WiFi, and Bluetooth, and those will meet most of your connection demands. Thus, on this question, what you need to consider is the special connections of your own, for example, you want to project the HDR(High Dynamic Range) images which provides a greater dynamic range and more details than standard images, then you’ll have to require the projector to come with the latest HDMI 2.1 input instead of the common HDMI port.
7. Should I Ceiling Mount the Digital Projector or Set It on a Tabletop?
Both have their benefits. Ceiling mounting the projector will make your room look neat but it’s not easy to move. If you intend to set the projector on a tabletop, here are two things you need to be aware of in the purchase of device, one is the projector’s exterior design should be in concordance with surrounding in your room, after all the projector is visible, for example, the giant Benq projector in the picture below clashes with the small table, and that will be better if replace it with a compact home video projector; the second is the projector can’t be too noisy. You don’t want to hear a drone when viewing a movie. Generally, if you aren’t planning on ceiling installation, the projector which makes over 30db noise might not be for you.
Did this article help you? If so, please tell me in a comment what do you think about it.
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