VERY BUDGET cinema room

MrNismo

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It was my birthday recently.
Unfortunately it coincides with this Covid-19 malarkey, reduction in my work hours and a pay cut with possible greater pay cuts to come.
With uncertain financial future I couldn't justify anything too extravagant.
So my birthday treat was a very modest £200.
My setup was
an old 42" Panasonic plasma,
Onkyo 606 reciever
KEF center speaker
KEF Coda 9 fronts
KEF Coda 7 rears
Some donated q 3010 sides.
BK Monolith Plus



Bought an £170 Apeman LC 650 1080p projector after looking up what the best my meagre budget could get on YouTube.
Got a £30 Duronic 100" screen.
Someone got me a ceiling mount for my birthday.
So off I went setting it up.
Placed the projector as square on as possible about 3m from the screen so practically no keystone adjustment was needed.





Got to paint the walls black next.
Hopefully things pick up again jobwise and I can get a proper projector one day, as the colours definitely are no way near as vibrant as my plasma.........but it does give a new dimension to watching films and cheers me up a little allowing me to forget about Covid-19 and work worries for a while at least.
 
It was my birthday recently.
Unfortunately it coincides with this Covid-19 malarkey, reduction in my work hours and a pay cut with possible greater pay cuts to come.
With uncertain financial future I couldn't justify anything too extravagant.
So my birthday treat was a very modest £200.
My setup was
an old 42" Panasonic plasma,
Onkyo 606 reciever
KEF center speaker
KEF Coda 9 fronts
KEF Coda 7 rears
Some donated q 3010 sides.
BK Monolith Plus



Bought an £170 Apeman LC 650 1080p projector after looking up what the best my meagre budget could get on YouTube.
Got a £30 Duronic 100" screen.
Someone got me a ceiling mount for my birthday.
So off I went setting it up.
Placed the projector as square on as possible about 3m from the screen so practically no keystone adjustment was needed.





Got to paint the walls black next.
Hopefully things pick up again jobwise and I can get a proper projector one day, as the colours definitely are no way near as vibrant as my plasma.........but it does give a new dimension to watching films and cheers me up a little allowing me to forget about Covid-19 and work worries for a while at least.

Happy birthday mate, and well done with the budget you had..there's no going back to using a TV once you've used a projector. :smashin:
 
Nice work! Shows what you can do with not much money but a bit of effort. Good luck on your path to future upgrades!
 
I don't think a home cinema room which house a beast like a BK Monolith plus can be called budget. I have one and its incredible.
 
I bought this projector too recently and as it's my first one I am happy with it for the time being. Will defo upgrade before too long, but for now it will do. The colours aren't great and the image is slightly out of focus at the edge, but I only paid £170 for it, so can't complain too much!
 
I’m thinking of getting this apeman projector. Will be used a couple of times a week. Any advice with regards to pictures settings etc? I had an elephas projector from eBay however I’m seeing permant black dots on the screen.
 
Well the Apeman has a sealed lense so no dust can get in. I'm a total noob, so can't really offer any proper advice really. The settings are extremely basic compared to my oled tv. I've found that you really have to make major adjustments to the brightness and contrast to get the best picture as the ambient light changes, but that seems to be normal for a projector.
 
I don't fully understand my Blu-ray player settings but found that.....

1080p at 24hz causes video stutter

1080p at 60hz makes stutter disappear but makes my image look grainy and faces orange.

Found I actually prefer the image with Blu-ray player set to 720p at 60hz.
Maybe I need to go to Specsavers :lol:
 
Well the Apeman has a sealed lense so no dust can get in. I'm a total noob, so can't really offer any proper advice really. The settings are extremely basic compared to my oled tv. I've found that you really have to make major adjustments to the brightness and contrast to get the best picture as the ambient light changes, but that seems to be normal for a projector.

thanks. I’ll have a play around with the settings at weekend. The default settings just don’t look right to me. Out of interest what settings did you decide to use and what picture temperature?
 
Well the Apeman has a sealed lense so no dust can get in. I'm a total noob, so can't really offer any proper advice really. The settings are extremely basic compared to my oled tv. I've found that you really have to make major adjustments to the brightness and contrast to get the best picture as the ambient light changes, but that seems to be normal for a projector.

No light path is 100% sealed and dust can still get in.
 
thanks. I’ll have a play around with the settings at weekend. The default settings just don’t look right to me. Out of interest what settings did you decide to use and what picture temperature?

Medium temp. Most of mine are around the 50 mark, but I drop the brightness as it gets darker
 
Painted the walls and ceiling Matt black today.
Didn't realize how much light was reflecting off the ceiling and walls even with all the lights off until today.
Before painting.....

After....
 
Looks good. I have same projector and for the price got no complaints. Do you have yours ceiling mounted? I currently have mine on a tripod but I’m tempted to mount it above the seating.
 
Cheers I’ll take a look at this. I’ll more than likely make this my project while I have time on my hands. For movies projector is great for the price but haven’t tried with games console yet. That will be my next test.
 
I almost drilled the mounting holes in the wrong place until I re checked.
I was going to position the mount dead center to the screen until I realised the projector lens is not bang in the middle of the machine!
 
No light path is 100% sealed and dust can still get in.
Looks like u r right as I now have a mark on the projected image. Contacted Apeman and they are replacing it. Does this happen often with projectors?
 
Looks like u r right as I now have a mark on the projected image. Contacted Apeman and they are replacing it. Does this happen often with projectors?

Depends on the model, the amount of dust, and luck.
 
Looks like u r right as I now have a mark on the projected image. Contacted Apeman and they are replacing it. Does this happen often with projectors?

Only ever had dust blob problems with LCD projectors which don't have a sealed light path, never had dust in a DLP.

If you end up returning the Apeman, look out for a used Benq W1070, should be possible to pick one up for £150-200. I am sure it will give a better picture and has a bit of lens shift to help avoid using keystone (it's pretty much projector rule #1 - never use keystone!). Even if you get one with a lot of hours on the lamp, replacements can be found for under £50 now, so good budget option.
 
No complaints with Apeman customer service. They sent me a new one and said I could keep the old one. They did ask me to reconsider my Amazon review, but I probably won't.
 
If I were you I would probably “have a go” at the old projector with a vacuum cleaner - maybe putting it inside a vac seal bag to see if you can shift the dust blob.

Then sell both and see if you can pick up one of the cheaper Optoma / BenQ 1080p DLP projectors
 
Did the same last October bought a Vanko v600 and pull down screen and dusted off my Onkyo HD22 that I put away several years ago as it was too loud and woke the kids up..

One of the best things I have done proper family movie nights been great during this lock down would recommend to anyone that can.

But now I'm looking to upgrade as the V600 is a bit noisy and blurred around the edges my initial plan was to upgrade to 4k when the projector prices came down , but I'm not thinking they will in the near future so may stick to 1080p. My main problem seems to be my projector is too far away from the screen and I have set the projector to reduce the picture to 76% in size(I assume digital zoom). Doing the calculations I need a throw ratio of around 1.9 which seems to limit projector choices. Do all projectors have the ability to reduce the size digitally and does it impact the quality of the picture ?

Any recommendations on new or used around the £500 mark ?


Thanks
 
Any recommendations on new or used around the £500 mark ?
Sony hw40 can be had about this price used.
Panasonic pt-at6000e possibly also used.
On the cheaper side such as a benqw1070 which is a lower speck machine but will still give a very respectable image can had for £200 ish used, but this is dlp so there is the rainbow effect to deal with.
 
Thanks I'll look into them , the Benq has a max throw ratio of 1.5 , does it have a digital zoom or would I have to move the projector closer , which is an option just would make the whole thing a more untidy and the boss may complain.

Cheers
 

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