Shift, can You come to my store tommorow?
I work whole day.

 

I'll see if i can stop by. Prolly in the morning hours.

 

radzio, do u work at a a/v store in chicago? what pricing can u hook me up with panasonic TH-42PX25U/P 42" plasma? the best i found is $2699 ($300 gift card) at sears or circuit city w/ 2 yr no interest. i'm in MI but willing to drive to chicago. thx!!

 

One thing I learned from trade shows is that the many of the major manufacturers are done with Plasma, it's too expensive and not profitable enough for the consumer market.

I have never been a fan of the technology, mainly for the price.

LCD TVs have come a long way, but the price per inch also it extreme.

The best bang for the buck is front projection DLP, hands down, if you have a room for it.

I have tested 6 DLP front projectors in my home before I decided on one, the BenQ PB6200.

3x color wheel and a .7" DLP chip. It looks beautiful for movies, games, and the PC.

Where else can you get 110" for under 2000$ with a screen. To top it off it does not take up half the room like the massive front projection units weighing 300+ lbs.

Not only that if you are a movie fan most movies are in 2:35 and not 1:85, which means you still are getting bars on your projection unit, and TV never fits.

At least with a front projector you can watch your 4:3 TV in full screen without having to worry about cropping.

You can get into the more expensive DLP projectors with DCDi and 2 chip DLP, but the price also triples, and unless you have a higher end screen and great lighting it is not worth the extra money.

Here is a shot of Tekken 4 PS2 in 480p

110"

Older pictures without the screen






I have seen too many people settle for smaller screens where it's true some of the image quality is better, more adjustability, but they compare it to a larger screen, they all regret it.

Just my advice.

 

looks awesome!

i'm wondering however how regular analog comcast cable tv looks on that projector. i'm a casual viewer 80% tv/20% dvd movies.

also where can i get the benq6200 and a huge screen like that for the best price?

the projection route sounds very appealing except i dont like to run the video cables from the wall and dvd player 15 ft from the av stand to the projector under the coffee table. how did you do this?


thx!

 

I think I have it narrowed down to this one, but I still dont know the disadvantages of Rear Projection. This one uses a bulb right? will the bulb just die one day after about 2000 hours? is it easy to replace the bulb? Any other drawbacks? Dont be afraid to speak up or flame it. I asked around in the stores but the guys didnt really seem to know what they were talking about.

Sony 60" HDTV (KDF-WF655)
SON KDF60WF655

 

Now the practical questions

Basically I scaled down everything to what I needed.

I have all my equipment behind my seating area. I have two hovering shelves and a wall unit to the right of it to hold the reciever, and tuner box.

The top hovering shelf holds the projector and some other DVDs and crap, the lower shelf below it holds the DVD player, switch box, and more DVDs.

Running wire is a bitch, I have a huge black wire loom concealer for all the wires. However this may not be for everyone.

If you do it make sure you know how you want to set it up before you do it.

Here is more detailed specs on the projector,
http://www.projectorcentral.com/BenQ-PB6200.htm

The best way to do the screen is to get your projector in place where you know it will be, just project it on the wall, and get the demensions of the image. This will give you the best idea of the screen size you need.

Da-Lite is one of the better screen makers, will have to call around with your demensios. You can also shop around for cheaper screens to, as long as they are a high contrast material.

You can get a fixed screen or a pull down, thats all your choice. Depending on size expect to pay 200-400$ You can get the projector for around 1200$ if you shop around. You may need some more cables or longer ones so put that in your budget too.

As far as cable?
You can get a box like this which serves as your TV tuner or converter for the projector for analog signals.


This is what I use
Here is an image of the screen

Bad picture some channels are better than others.


Check this out, find the right one for you
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/tventert...ideoprocessors/
,these are really handy, you can always use them to turn your PC monitor into a TV too. It converts NTSC signals to vga, so you can play your games or watch your movies on your monitor if you wanted to. or watch TV.

Picture is ok with cable will take some tweaking to get it to look the way you want. The tuner box helps with that.

Here is a picture during the day with the blinds closed.


If you are a huge TV person you will probably want to go satilite or digital cable. It will make a huge difference.

 

[QUOTE=Road Rash,Dec 6 2004, 11:26 AM] I think I have it narrowed down to this one, but I still dont know the disadvantages of Rear Projection. This one uses a bulb right? will the bulb just die one day after about 2000 hours? is it easy to replace the bulb? Any other drawbacks? Dont be afraid to speak up or flame it. I asked around in the stores but the guys didnt really seem to know what they were talking about.

Sony 60" HDTV (KDF-WF655)
SON KDF60WF655

 

I stated this earlier... and agree whole heartedly. Sony's are great "in-store" sets and that is about it. There are much better brands on the market...

I second the mentioned site and will add another: www.hometheaterforum.com

 

The whole projection idea seems somehow way to complicated....