Home "theater" upgrading

Congratulations! I have a 26" vizio 720p 1080i, its great. Get some good headphones (bose quiet comfort 2 are my prefered kind) and you're made!

Is your living room really dark enough to allow front projection?

The trouble is, if you ever want to watch stuff on it when it is light (and given that it's light until 9-10PM in the summer and obviously during the day on weekends) you've got to close all of the blinds. I understand that you want a massive picture but getting it to look good will be a daunting task (especially considering the screen/painting hassle you will have to deal with).

I think a front projection screen makes a more sense in a basement or home theater room but in just your living room, you're compromising a lot for that massive picture.

I agree. Unless you have an actual home theater, projectors are not worth the hassle. Bulb replacements, lack of contrast, blocking the image, etc.

I'm curious as to what you've heard about the Optoma HD20. Based on a few sites' reviews, it didn't sound like there were any major negatives, especially for the price.

I ask because I'm looking for a projector as well, but in a slightly lower price range, like $1000 or less. I'm even considering going 720p.
Are you upgrading to 1080 because of picture quality or because it makes sense for what you're willing to spend?

I know this isn't really related to the question you asked but I feel like I should clarify how time zones work.

<begin time zone spiel>
The reason it gets dark early in the summer and (compared to me at least) later in the winter would probably be because you're further south. As you move closer to the equator their is less of a difference between the number of hours of day/night even when at the summer/winter solstice. Basically if you're at the equator there is almost no difference in length of day in December vs. June. As you move further north, days nearing the summer solstice and nights nearing the winter solstice start becoming longer. Moving east/west across a time zone simply shifts equally what time those daytime/nighttime hours start (the further west you are in your time zone the earlier your sun both comes up and goes down).
</end time zone spiel>

And if you're confident that a front projector is right for your lifestyle, go for it. Keep in mind that due to the white screen front projectors are more susceptible to the color of the walls skewing the color of the picture so you may find that with your dark green walls that your picture might have a slight greenness to it sometimes. You'll notice that most movie theaters and home theaters tend to go with a gray to minimize this effect.

I'd actually recommend getting a 3D ready projector as well. It may sound kind of ridiculous now but with some 3D games and movies coming out in the near future it might be worth a bit of future proofing (I know I wish I had one).

I hadn't checked the prices but you're right. Finding a 3D ready projector is kind of difficult. So many cheaper DLP RPTV's are 3D enabled now I just assumed that finding a front projector that was 3D enabled wouldn't be a difficult task.

As for your budget, you'll be hard pressed to find a great projector for that price. I'd have thought that anything in the sub-$2K range would be not great.

Well the whole upgrade is a long process but its all the more rewarding in the end.

Some money saving tips:
-Try to make the projector screen yourself. Its not to hard at all. Like making a very big kite. Position your projector to see how big you can get, without the screen getting too uncomfortable to view from your usual seating locations. This means also you might want to get your projector first.
-monoprice.com, monoprice.com, monoprice.com or amazon.com for your wires. You're gonna need some long wires and well lets say you'll pay the price of a PS3 slim in wires if you go to the wrong people.
-have an idea where you are going to go with your home theater. Is it going to be 5.1 or 7.1. You may be surprised things change depending on room dimensions and space. I ended up going 5.1, but I do have a 7.1 receiver for the future.
-speakers depending on budget and upgrade future prospects can vary slightly in quality. I usually place more importance on the front speakers, but plan to move them to rear speakers when I upgrade them.
-common sense, but draw things out, even little stick figures work a long way to know how much to spend on wiring and size of speakers. No point overloading unless there is a good reason.
-have another screen near your equipment. This will save on time wearing down your projector bulb when you just want to check something small or realize you were supposed to be doing something important 5 min ago.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Optoma HD20. It is amazing. After years of watching movies on screens smaller than 30 or so inches, the upgrade to a 100" 1080p image is mindblowing. It wasn't cheap, $850, and I felt a little guilty sending so much on something that isn't really essential but as soon as I put in Lord of the Rings, it was worth it.

Black levels aren't a big deal to me, since I'm not exactly looking at a side-by-side comparison with higher-end products when watching a movie and I don't have a good memory for how a movie should look under the best conditions. And placement of the projector hasn't been an issue since I have an empty room of about 13' x 10' and a huge screen I picked up at my college surplus auction.

So I love it and everyone who I've shown it off to has been really impressed.

Hey Joey what did you end up getting?

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, I looked in both the TECH and DVD forums and didn't find a good match. Also didn't want to start my own thread just for this one specific question.


Ok, quick question I gotta ask.... This has been on my mind for a long time, but because I've been afraid of the truth (that I may have been stupid and ended up ripped off), I've avoided asking the tough questions


Here it goes...


In November of 2007, I saved up money for a 26" Vizio 720p HD TV. I like it alot, it's pretty cool. I bought it in anticipation of the videogame "Assassin's Creed". I'm a big history buff, and the idea of getting to roam around in the crusades , in HD!!, was too good to pass up. My old TV (and current downstairs TV) is a 19" RCA, and it got crazy interference whenever I'd play games because I had to hook it up through the VCR.

Anyway, when I bought my HDTV I ended up having to hook up my XBOX through the component cables. Why? Because I bought the cheaper xbox (or "ghetto xbox" as certain friends of mine call it) back in October of 2006.

I ended up buying an HD-DVD player in January of 2008 (shortly after President Obama won the Iowa Caucus), at Best Buy. I was excited to be able to try out HDMI cables on my TV and see if there was a difference. The Salesperson advised I buy this special kind of "rocket fish" HDMI cable. It has gold plated connectors, and this weird mesh webbing all over it that's supposed to block out interference from the sun or something. I don't know. But it was $80 and five feet long. I thought to myself "But I only have a 720p HDTV, will this make any sort of difference?". I thought to myself "It's an all digital signal. Wouldn't the ones and zeros be the same regardless of how fancy the cable is?". But the sales person would not take no for an answer and I ended up buying it.


Was this indeed a stupid thing to do? Am I getting any benefit at all from having this expensive cable?

To be honest Kate, not really. Best Buy makes a pretty damn big profit off their cables. Given your TV is only 720p I don't believe you'll get much of a difference in quality. If you kept your receipt, take it back, tell them it did not work, and exchange it for a cheaper on and get some money/credit back.

I used to work for Best Buy. We would always push for the more expensive cables due to the fact that is where the money is made.

Well at least I know that someone did indeed trick me.. I'm not going to go back and try and get a refund. I've had problems with that store before, they're terrible. They also always demand to see your receipt when you leave the store after having purchased anything , which is illegal as far as I know*. It makes for a very unpleasant shopping experience

Anyway, thanks for telling me the truth MBN

*I read up on it one time. Unless they have cause to think you're stealing, once you buy something it's yours and you can't have someone demand proof you did not steal it as a matter of course. I tried explaining this to them one time but it was to no avail

Joe's right, you buy a cheap as hell cable, then you get what you've paid for. Middle of the road seems like a good fit for your set up.

It never hurts to stock pile! you never know when you'll need them.

Well thanks for the advice, everyone (JP, MBN). I'd heard cables could be purchased inexpensively online and that's what sort of lead to my post. I hear about 2$ cables or whatever, and then I sort of look over at my 5' $80 cable suspiciously.

Well at least I know better now for next time. I am planning to get a Blu Ray player sooner or later (if I can ever will myself to actually save any money), and I think I'll just use the cable that's currently plugged into my HD DVD player when I do.

I bought some "in wall rated" hdmi cable from monoprice when I setup my TV and that stuff is good quality for a killer price. Thick ass shielding on it too, almost made it a little bit of a pain to run the wire.

Yeah, the shielding on those can actually make it tough to get them in at the right angle or put too much pressure on your HDMI ports. In my case I got rid of them simply because I was moving to a much tighter area and couldn't afford to give up the space they took up (both in depth because of the stiffness of the wire and volume because of the circumference of it).

I went with monoprice's HDMI that came in a variety of colors and now have all of my cables color coded (green for Xbox, red for PS3, orange for TiVo, and blue out to the TV). It certainly makes it easier when you're messing around in the cabinet and don't know which cable you're looking at.