Projector Information

Hello everyone. I'm going to be finishing my basement and am planning on installing a projector to replace my TV. We don't watch much regular TV except for maybe one or two shows a week plus football when it's on. This would primarily be for watching movies.

My setup has an aprox. throw distance of 12ft with a seating distance of aprox. 14ft. The projector needs to be mounted on the ceiling, wiring will be accessable through the ceiling tiles. Ambient light shouldn't be much of a problem. There is only one window in the room which will have a blackout curtain for daytime viewing and all of the lights will be dimmer controlled. I already have a Harman/Kardon Signature 2 amp and receiver, I just need to get 5.1 speakers to complete the setup so sound is more or less taken care of.

After looking over projector reviews and buying guides I can say that I'm quite confused. My budget is in the $1,000 - $2,000 range for the projector. I'm assuming that because my lens will be above center to the screen that I will need a vertical shift option to prevent keystoning. Also my minimum resolution requirements are HD 720p, looking at the 1080i stuff it seems to be out of my price range. I've looked at projectorcentral.com and pigpicturebigsound.com as well as hometheater.com to get some ideas of what might suit my needs.

What I'm really wondering is what do you guys normally look for in a projector? Minimum lumens? Minimum contrast? Color accuracy?

Also any recomendations for screens/screen manfactures would be appreciated as well.

So far the Mitsubishi HD1000U (1500 lumens, 2500:1, 720p native) and the PowerLite Home Cinema 400 (1500 lumens, 5000:1, 720p native) seem to be appealing, but before I make a purchase like this I want to ensure that I'm really getting what I want.

Thank you in advance

Gene

I think the primary characteristic for an image is ARTIFACTS. You don't want to see lines, dots, pixels, mosquito noise, poor motion processing, bad grayscale, lousy color. It should project a smooth, film-like, artifact free image with great color and brightness. The more lumens, the larger picture you can have. No point in watching high def on a picture measured in inches. My screen is basically 5 1/2 x 10 feet, with cinemascope at about 13 feet. My room is 21 x 31 feet. This makes a nice home theater, the images big and bright with a JVC SX-21 projector ($7000, now discontinued). You can get the new Sony VPL-50 for $4000. If you can't afford an LCOS, at least look for a spec of 1920 x 1080 pixels, and you will have a chance of not seeing pixels on a smaller screen.

Gary Eickmeier