Afternoon all,

My mum has received her bonus as vouchers for Co-op electrical store and has offered them to me this year. I have looked at http://www.coopelectricalshop.co.uk and the only thing that has interested me are the projectors.

Having never seen a projector being used outside of a cinema I'm not sure of the quality that they can produce.

The room is 12.8ft x 7.8ft and the room already has blackout curtains so I know the room will be dark enough.

With the vouchers I can get the Optoma HD25e for £450

Are projectors worth the money? and can you make a recommendation of any other projectors?

Cheers

Dedicated home cinema projectors have the ability to better the pq of TV's, but they need to be viewed in ideal conditions and have to be setup/positioned correctly.

The HD25 is a cracking PJ, but before purchasing you really need to work out where and how you are going to set it up.

If you are going to be projecting from the 7ft 8ins distance then you will struggle to get a decent size image, you'll only get something around 60". Projecting from the 12ft 8ins distance you'll get an image around the 100" mark.

So the first question would be, which distance will you be projecting from?

I think it would be rude not to have a 100(ish) inch screen.

Here's a calc to help with seating distance.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/Opto...ulator-pro.htm


I would say the front lens of the projector would be at 12feet

That's a diagonal of between 92" and 110" (on a 16:9 screen)

Or a width in meters of between 2m to 2.4m
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2.4m wide is very big in a small living room.

Or get a Chromecast to cast onto the TV for £30.

I don't see how that is relevant.

Indirectly it is.

At work most of our conference rooms now have a wall mounted large screen TV (40"+), and most people hook up their laptops via a VGA cable, or an HDMI cable now. As far as I can tell you get the quality is just as good as a projector (you would have to make your own judgement)

Much easier to setup than the projectors (usually ceiling mounted). Whereas we only had 1 room with a projector, we now have all conference rooms kitted out with TVs.

Even in a home viewing situation, the user would have to consider where to put the projector for optimum viewing on screen etc - do they permanently mount on ceiling etc.

To me, chromecast from laptop to a large screen gives most of the benefit with very little setup required.

Of course, if you have to buy a large TV as well, then the chromecast option may not be viable.

That's when a projector is being used in a business environment where there will be practical difficulties in connecting up various devices.

It makes no sense whatsoever to talk of such technology with regards the large screen experience in the home.

The OP has already talked of having a 100" screen.

I mean, what is anyone thinking in even talking of Chromecast, it's bizarre.