DLP Projection at home

[Les]

Have any of you ever thought about buying an LCD or DLP projector for home use? Well I bought an InFocus X1a from Best Buy about a week ago and it is awesome! From about 11' the image size is 88" (in my bedroom) and the quality is amazing. and AND it supports HDTV. I would definately recommend something like that for your next big... (really big) purchase. PS I am not a salesman lol. But it is really cool. I am waiting on some screen material from ebay. I guess I'm just going to stretch it over a wooden frame like a broadway flat and put a black border around it. I guess I've proven to my friends that I'm the most impractical person when it comes to money that they know. Next up, Martin Lighting System...Haha I wish!

[Peter]

LoL sweet!!! yes I have thought about this several times, but as you hint, it does come down to the $$. Popular Science Magazine has done an article or two about doing this, but there doesnt look to be anything too tricky about it. Infact, I have basicly done the same thing a couple dozen times with the projectors at school and the classroom's built in sound system. It's just a matter of pulling an RCA cable from my backpack (yes, i carry them arround) and pluging it between the VCR (all we can afford @ school) and the projector and the amp (if you can even call it that).

[len]

We just started finishing our basement. The screen wil l be about 110" diagonal, with seating for 12 on three levels (floor, 2 risers).

And all my old dj lights (Martin 218, 518, etc.) will be going down there, since I couldn't get enough money to make it worthwhile selling them.

[bdesmond]

One alternative to an expensive screen in some setups is projection screen paint. If you have a flat or slightly curved (concave) wall, you can buy a gallon of this stuff and roll it on. It's about the same reflectivity (sp?) & whiteness as a standard screen, so it does just as well. Paint a black border around and you're done.

[Les]

Right now its just projecting onto a wall and it looks pretty good but I can't wait until I have the proper projection surface in place. I have it connected to my DVD player with a 27' VGA monster cable, and the DVD player is connected to the Sony Reciever. The sound is awesome with 5.1 surround. I'm thinking about putting the sub under my bed. (the best seat in the house). I just need to find a longer cable for it and hope there isn't too much distortion in the bass. Also, the projector is just sitting on my night stand. I hope to build a shelf and mount it about half way up the wall. It's a work in progress. The projector wasn's as expensive as I had thought. (about $850. before the $50. mail-in rebate.) For this price, it is a very impressive machine.

[zac850]

My school has a really nice projection, and the entire tech crew has been tempted to take it home and set up a giant screen TV somewhere in there houses and playing video games on it. In fact, we currently have a dream cast hooked up to it in our booth. (We don't have a screen to project onto though )

Question: do you find that in walking around the room, you get in the through of the projector and get a shadow on the screen? Or that you loose a lot of "seating space" because of the beam of the projector? I had originally assumed that you mounted the projector on your ceiling somehow.

And Peter, there is nothing wrong with carrying RCA around with you, right. I always have 2 c-wrenches, a GAM check, RCA cable, multi-tools and about 20 other things with me whenever I'm at school (or a theater working). There's nothing wrong with that, right? please say right?

[Peter]

Ah thank you Zac, that is abit reassuring!

I wouldnt think that alot of room space would be taken up if you thought out where you placed the projector and didnt put it in the path of any of your seats.

In my school, EVERY classroom has a projector mounted on the ceiling tied into the teacher's computer and a "Elmo" type overhead video camera that can show what the teacher is writing.

If I were to take home the Auditorium's projecor to play video games, I think i would burn a hole in the wall. The projector in our booth is huge and very powerful b/c of the weird angle we have to shoot at ($13,000 just for the special lenze, not the mention the cost of the projector).

[theothergreg587]

My School last year got a BIG screen probably one of the nicest things in our auditourum at school but no projector . . . . . but the media center has them so we just rent them from there . . . . but out school dosn't even have a booth for sound and out lighting is a cage but i woudl love a permament mout of ra projector

[Les]

I would mount my projector directly to the ceiling but I have a ceiling fan, and that would get in the way. Also, since its such a short throw (~11') The 20 degree keystone correction isn't enough. You will see a shadow if you walk directly infront of the projector but I expect I'll be the only one using it so it shouldn't really matter. The DLP projector is actually recommended for connecting to computer, dvd, x box, cable, etc... What's great about DLP is that there is no "screen door effect" or pixelation. Also, you would never have to worry about colors fading or images 'burning' into the screen as you would LCD projectors or CRT projectors. The only downfall with DLP is the 'rainbow' effect. This only appears when you have a display like white letters on a black background. such as movie credits. What happens is when you dart your eyes around the screen, you can actually see RGB in the letters, but only out of the corner of your eye. Some people aren't sensitive to it though. It just depends on how fast your eyes are, because with DLP, you are actually seeing a series of RBG in any given fraction of a second. It's pretty cool though. I believe the screen size can range from 25" to 25' diagonal. It is 1100 Lumens with a 4,000 hour lamp life, which is good because the lamp is valued at about $250.00. sheeesh

[Peter]

Ya, you have to watch out for those lamps. I have one teacher who uses his projector 24/7 (well, for all of his classes anyway) and the bulb lasted less then a year and a half! (and those are school years!)