A couple questions on home theater projectors?

Question

I am looking at getting a home theater projector for my living room but i dont know much about them, a couple questions i have are, first off the one i am looking at says it projects 40" to 200" now is the 200" the size at which it starts to destort or does it do that before?, also it says projector distance is 4.5 feet to 32 feet, do they have to be super far back to project say a 90" screen? and then the final question i have is in tv's dlp looks alot better than lcd is the same true for projectors?

Answer 1

First off, a 200 in screen is awfully big and after about 150 in, the brightness begins to diminish, to answer your other question about projection distance i have to talk from personal experience. I own an optoma hd70 dlp projector and mine projects a 92' screen and it is sitting roughly 12 feet from the screen.  The distance your projector is from the screen can be diminished by using the projector's zoom function, but too much of that can also diminish quality a bit. I cant say which type of projectors look better, but i can say that the Optoma HD70 is a really good buy.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/Search.do...

Answer 2

I've provided links for further info on the answers below, so don't worry if they don't make too much sense right now.

Screen size is a function of the lens and distance from the screen. For most rooms you wouldn't want a screen bigger than about 100"-120" (It gets too overwhelming). Ideally you aim for a viewing angle (the horizontal angle between left & right edges of the screen viewed from the viewing position) of 30-40 degrees. So, the 40" - 200" is pretty meaningless. You can go smaller but it will be very bright and you probably can't get to 200" and have much brightness left.  Distortion isn't an issue unless you get things "wrong".

All projectors have a "throw distance range". That's the range (from projector to screen) over which you can mount the projector and get a useful range of screen sizes and also stay within reasonable brightness levels. The throw distance range varies with the projector lamp and optics.

DLP projectors used to be a sure bet to be able to give better contrast and deeper blacks.  That is no longer a given, though in most cases it's still true.

See the links for a viewing distance calculator, a throw distance calculator and sites with info and reviews on projectors.  The info above will make more sense after reading some of the info on the sites below.

Hope that helps