Home cinema

[jyx]

I am planning to buy a projector and turn my livingroom into a home cinema. The new Panasonic ae700 or something. I am curious about how you guys watch your films and the equipment you are using. Maybe a picture if you have.

[Vaughan]

I don't have a picture, but I have a projector - it's a Phillips Garbo Matchline (http://www.projectorpoint.co.uk/Philips_Garbo_Matchline.htm) and I've had it for two years now.

As with all technologies of this type, the models have changed since I bought mine, and projectors have gotten a lot better. Still, I have no complaints at all about mine, and it certainly does the job.

The only issues I'd be thinking about is making sure you can make your room dark (what use is a home theater if the room isn't dark?) and then how far back from the wall/screen can you have the projector? This determines the size of the picture you can get. I happen to have a very large room to use, and have the screen currently at 12 feet wide.

Once you have that, you have to realize that there is a minimum distance you have to be away from the screen in orfer to enjoy something like that - once again, the length of the room determines that. In other words, a 12 foot screen where yo're sitting six feet from it, would be a nightmare.

Things to looks for on projectors are Lumens, lamp life, and contrast. Contrast is tricky though, because different types of projectors measure it in different ways. Mine is an LCD, and it looks low on contrast, but apparently that is something to do with LCD's and how the contrast measurement is done.

At the time I bought mine, DLP projectors were out of the question, due to a "rainbow" effect I readily saw while watching them. Horrible. A couple months ago though, I saw a new DLP model - forget the brand, it was 7k! - and it was DLP and was like.... WOW. Certainly a step up from mine in every way.

Finally, you want one that is Hi-Def ready, so be looking at the maximum resolution. Oh... and a native widescreen model too.

[irons]

Panasonic 28" widescreen tv.
Toshiba multi-region DVD player.
Yamaha RX-V795 amp.
Mission speakers.

This does me fine, realy mean to get a subwoofer thou. The Bass is impressive throu the main speakers, but always looking to improve.
I've had these for around 5 years now (apart from the DVD player) and i'm waiting to see what happens with Hi-Def before I think of replacing some or all of my equipment.