Page 1 of Home Projectors - Worth It?

I had the chance to take home a mid-range Sanyo projector for the weekend, and so of course not much got done apart from watching movies on the big screen.

Now I`ve had the chance to experiment, I`m not sure I want to part with the four grand plus needed to buy one. The fan`s too noisy, and the picture was definately fuzzy - nowhere near as good as my tv. I`d expected a decrease in the quality, but not that much. Plus you have to black out the front room during daylight hours - not too much of a problem now, but come the summer.....

Is this just down to me trialing a crap projector... hope so.

Mark J.

Why not buy a cheaper (much) LCD projector - I am currently using a 10+ year old Epson VP-100 LCD projector and it`s resolution is something stupid but it still gives a picture thats 10 foot across - if you put it off focus slightly the gaps don`t show as much (and with a moving picture you don`t notice them much anyway) - in the past I looked into it and it was possible to buy a sub £1000 projector from Sharp - not sure if they still make them - not sure who advised me at that time but I seem to remember because he was currently using the model I was going to get (I may be wrong)

This item was edited on Tuesday, 24th October 2000, 15:49

Mark - YES YES YES! Nothing like a good late night projection session. No matter what telly u have you really cant beat a projector.

Contact a compay that rents them our and see if they want to get rid of any - check the price of lamps on LCD and DMD one`s though - I`m lucky a lamp is £11 for me but I have seen them for £100 for some
(I suddenly feel the need to watch some of the Alien Legacy on my projector again :) )

This item was edited on Tuesday, 24th October 2000, 22:14

£100 is cheap. A replacement lamp module for my Sharp is 300 notes. But it lasts 2000 hours, so by then it is probably not worth changing it as there will be a lot better and cheaper projectors out there.

cor blimey gov-ner - I think that was the Sharp Projector I was looking at getting a while ago - thats about a third the cost of the projector !
(try getting a lamp from an electrical wholesalers instead - thats what I did - it`s made by Phillips and was cheaper than I found else where by a bit.

Really - do you have a contact name/website Simon? It is the Sharp XV-C20E

Sounds to me like you demo`d a bad projector. Price doesn`t necessarily mean quality in this area, suprisingly.

Having seen a fair few projectors demo`d, there were only ever 2 LCD models which cut the mustard when compared to a regular TV. The Sony VLP400 (now replaced with a newer more expensive model) and some similarly priced Sharp thing which was the size of a small house.

Both gave a really good honeycomb free sharp image and excellent colour saturation, but both being LCD suffered from very grey blacks and poor colour depth.

Get a demo of a DLP unit, infact your always welcome to see mine.

heh - bring your own ear muffs ;-)

Rob, re demo offer.

Thanks, I will take you up on that one day. After this weekend my wife is convinced that a plasma screen tv is the way to go. I`m still not sure. Bulb costs is something else that puts me off, most retailers sell them at 4-500UKP for the models I was looking at.

Do you guys use your projectors all the time, or do you have a separate tv as well?

MJ.