I've been lurking on the forums for the last couple of weeks, originally looking at trying to finance a plasma TV, but struggling to find anything decent within my possible budget.
Then I saw an AE900 (though may have been 700) in a local stores demo room and was blown away. Unfortunately the price also blew me away
Anyway, I've spent the last 4 days on this part of the forums, searching like mad, reading hundreds of threads.
Unfortunately I have a condition that means I am extremely prone to motion sickness, and the DLP's I saw made me feel pretty ill :/ so I settled on LCD.
I found I had no need to post asking for help, as all the information I could ever need to read was eassily available in many excellent threads.
Deciding that I may aswell get a decent entry level PJ for now, with a view to replacing with an HD Ready later on, I settled on the Epson TW10H - admittedly, the lamp price was the final deciding factor.
I ordered this evening from Ebuyer - they aren't the cheapest, but I already have a finance account with them, so it was simple to grab it on 6months interest free, rather than sticking it on the plastic at 16% interest
, and it will arrive on Weds.
Onto a screen and mounting - some excellent threads on here regarding DIY screens, with some ingenious solutions for mounting, all of which cost a fraction of the "proper kit", and certainly suitable for a first-timer.
Hopefully, the unit will be wall mounted with 14ft distance, and mainly used for DVD/Sky in the evenings, and for the time being, I'm going to test the blackout blind solution for a screen, with a view to something more suitable later on.
Anyway, without the use of the info on these forums, I would have probably gone and spent £1k on a budget plasma, that would still need upgrading later for HD, and the wife is much happier about having a projector than a 42inch TV in the room, and she can arrange the furniture about more to her liking then, which saves me a lot of grief.
Plus I have the added advantage, that I can move the unit upstairs & watch a DVD in bed on a huge screen (room is identical to the living room
), something not possible with a Plasma TV 
I certainly advise anyone thinking of jumping into buying a projector to spend a couple of days doing your homework in these forums, it will save you a lot of time, hassle and heartache later.
Then I saw an AE900 (though may have been 700) in a local stores demo room and was blown away. Unfortunately the price also blew me away
Anyway, I've spent the last 4 days on this part of the forums, searching like mad, reading hundreds of threads.
Unfortunately I have a condition that means I am extremely prone to motion sickness, and the DLP's I saw made me feel pretty ill :/ so I settled on LCD.
I found I had no need to post asking for help, as all the information I could ever need to read was eassily available in many excellent threads.
Deciding that I may aswell get a decent entry level PJ for now, with a view to replacing with an HD Ready later on, I settled on the Epson TW10H - admittedly, the lamp price was the final deciding factor.
I ordered this evening from Ebuyer - they aren't the cheapest, but I already have a finance account with them, so it was simple to grab it on 6months interest free, rather than sticking it on the plastic at 16% interest
Onto a screen and mounting - some excellent threads on here regarding DIY screens, with some ingenious solutions for mounting, all of which cost a fraction of the "proper kit", and certainly suitable for a first-timer.
Hopefully, the unit will be wall mounted with 14ft distance, and mainly used for DVD/Sky in the evenings, and for the time being, I'm going to test the blackout blind solution for a screen, with a view to something more suitable later on.
Anyway, without the use of the info on these forums, I would have probably gone and spent £1k on a budget plasma, that would still need upgrading later for HD, and the wife is much happier about having a projector than a 42inch TV in the room, and she can arrange the furniture about more to her liking then, which saves me a lot of grief.
Plus I have the added advantage, that I can move the unit upstairs & watch a DVD in bed on a huge screen (room is identical to the living room
I certainly advise anyone thinking of jumping into buying a projector to spend a couple of days doing your homework in these forums, it will save you a lot of time, hassle and heartache later.