edz
Established Member
Hello everyone
after an absence from big screen home cinema I built a new screen last year and rolled out my old projector to see if we wanted to come back to big screen viewing as a family. Indeed we did and we've been using my (about 13 year old!) Panasonic AE300 - NB not a 3000 a 300 - with a HTPC via HDMI / DVI at a compromise resolution (wide 60 I believe).
So lots of background - skip if you dont need it!
Anyway at present I'm running the projector from a tripod mounted stand just behind the sofa put in place when we are having a movie night but now I'd like to update to 1080p (4k is a long way off in cost and hardware - not to mention source material).
So I'm looking at projectors that are (preferably) below £1k or much less. The screen is home made and attaches to hooks and is tensioned by turnbuckles which make it pretty easy to put the screen up and down and keep wrinkles at bay, its 135cm high and although we dont use the full width its 300cm wide. Using the AE300 zoom we push to 135cm by about 240cm. On 2.351 movies I can also zoom up further to ~280cm wide but clearly the AE300s 800 ansi lumens is pretty pushed at this point even with only ~360 hours on its lamp (yup the original).
Ideally I'd love to wall mount a new unit and have a zoom / shift to fill the screen so I dont need to keep setting it up but that would push the projector to about 5m from the screen. Thats a big ask and there dont appear to be many projectors in the cheap(er) end of the market at this point that can do it. If its a deal breaker then there are other options to mount it behind the sofa or sticking with our current stand (weight allowing - the AE300 weighs 6.4lbs so I dont think it would be happy with the At6000s 19.2lbs!)
Initially I saw the likes of the Panasonic at6000e (8000) as a really good call here until I realised its a 2012 projector! It's also a bit high on price (for my budget) at ~£1800.
I had some unhappy moments with DLP in its first few generations with rainbows giving me a headache. I know new models use higher speed wheels so may be happy with a new DLP unit.
We run movies with the room blacked out and dont have any ambient light.
So with all that out of the way I'd been looking at the models below
AT6000E
Optoma HD50
Epson EH-TW5350
BenQ W1110
Whilst we have some good dealers nearby none I've called can put demos on for the "cheaper" end of the market Im in and its mostly box shifting or full bespoke installs so research is all I have at the moment.
Many thanks all
Ed
after an absence from big screen home cinema I built a new screen last year and rolled out my old projector to see if we wanted to come back to big screen viewing as a family. Indeed we did and we've been using my (about 13 year old!) Panasonic AE300 - NB not a 3000 a 300 - with a HTPC via HDMI / DVI at a compromise resolution (wide 60 I believe).
So lots of background - skip if you dont need it!
Anyway at present I'm running the projector from a tripod mounted stand just behind the sofa put in place when we are having a movie night but now I'd like to update to 1080p (4k is a long way off in cost and hardware - not to mention source material).
So I'm looking at projectors that are (preferably) below £1k or much less. The screen is home made and attaches to hooks and is tensioned by turnbuckles which make it pretty easy to put the screen up and down and keep wrinkles at bay, its 135cm high and although we dont use the full width its 300cm wide. Using the AE300 zoom we push to 135cm by about 240cm. On 2.351 movies I can also zoom up further to ~280cm wide but clearly the AE300s 800 ansi lumens is pretty pushed at this point even with only ~360 hours on its lamp (yup the original).
Ideally I'd love to wall mount a new unit and have a zoom / shift to fill the screen so I dont need to keep setting it up but that would push the projector to about 5m from the screen. Thats a big ask and there dont appear to be many projectors in the cheap(er) end of the market at this point that can do it. If its a deal breaker then there are other options to mount it behind the sofa or sticking with our current stand (weight allowing - the AE300 weighs 6.4lbs so I dont think it would be happy with the At6000s 19.2lbs!)
Initially I saw the likes of the Panasonic at6000e (8000) as a really good call here until I realised its a 2012 projector! It's also a bit high on price (for my budget) at ~£1800.
I had some unhappy moments with DLP in its first few generations with rainbows giving me a headache. I know new models use higher speed wheels so may be happy with a new DLP unit.
We run movies with the room blacked out and dont have any ambient light.
So with all that out of the way I'd been looking at the models below
AT6000E
Optoma HD50
Epson EH-TW5350
BenQ W1110
Whilst we have some good dealers nearby none I've called can put demos on for the "cheaper" end of the market Im in and its mostly box shifting or full bespoke installs so research is all I have at the moment.
Many thanks all
Ed