New setup required - Help me spend my money !

ian_linington · 05-05-2007, 5:40 PM

Evening all,

I'm about to redecorate my lounge and want to take the time to install a decent display setup.

Current setup is a 26" CRT tv and dvd's played from a Pioneer 717. (+ other stuff)

What I'm looking to change to is an LCD tv for normal daytime viewing and a PJ for evening viewing as I'm not going to be able to achieve total blackout.

Length of lounge is 6m and I sit 3.5 m away from the screen (due to doors and stuff)

Looking at various PJ throw distance calculators I can get a 244cm (96") ish 16:9 diagonal image ? is this a good size to go for given the seating position ? or should (can) I go larger.

As I've not seen LCD vs DLP PJ's in action can any reccomend me a place in Surrey to go to for a demo?? Optoma HD70 looks to be a good PJ to base others against but what other ones would be at the top of people shopping lists ?

I also need a screen motorised as I'm tool lazy to pull it down myself and can't have a static screen.

I'm thinking that I want to go for a 720 PJ at the moment considering the lack of HD sources !! and then upgrade to a 1080 one later ?? Guessing that the Toshiba XE1 (sp ?) is a good HD-DVD player to try and demo with the PJ ?

Of course this could then mean an upgrade to Proccesor to handle HDMI switching... looks like it will never end !!

Many thanks in advance.

Ian L.

05-05-2007, 6:02 PM

I recently bought an Optoma HD70 and for the price it is amazing. The brightness is incredible compared to the AE500 it replaced. The contrast is very good and the colours are very rich. There's a lot of shadow detail too. There is one downside, it seems to push green too much and I don't think there is any way to calibrate it perfectly. It really bothered me when I first noticed it but now that I'm using HDMI for everything important I'm happy with it. It seemed to show up worst when the PC was outputting component making some yellows look a little green.

For an HDMI switch I would recommend the one by Joytech. It's only £35 and it does everything I can imagine anyone would want from a switcher, including a remote extender. 1080p and HDMI 1.3 support.

Hope this helps.

05-05-2007, 6:02 PM	#2
Tommy Angelo Guest Posts: n/a	Re: New setup required - Help me spend my money ! I recently bought an Optoma HD70 and for the price it is amazing. The brightness is incredible compared to the AE500 it replaced. The contrast is very good and the colours are very rich. There's a lot of shadow detail too. There is one downside, it seems to push green too much and I don't think there is any way to calibrate it perfectly. It really bothered me when I first noticed it but now that I'm using HDMI for everything important I'm happy with it. It seemed to show up worst when the PC was outputting component making some yellows look a little green. For an HDMI switch I would recommend the one by Joytech. It's only £35 and it does everything I can imagine anyone would want from a switcher, including a remote extender. 1080p and HDMI 1.3 support. Hope this helps.
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