which should i pick

[bloodbust]

hello i am tryng to build a home theater system. i plan to have a laptop, good speakers, recvivers, dvd players, and something to play the video. i plan to get these all at powersellernyc.com because my friends all brought an item from them and was very happy. according to them they have generally the lowest prices and the best service. this is improtant because all of the stuff for my home theater can cost quiet a bundle of cash. anyways, i am tied bettween a Panasonic TH-42PX600U 42" Plasma TV and a BenQ PE8700 HD2+ DLP Projector. i am pretty sure that they both are compatable with laptop hook up.please help me chose.

 

[Hayato]

hello i am tryng to build a home theater system. i plan to have a laptop, good speakers, recvivers, dvd players, and something to play the video. i plan to get these all at powersellernyc.com because my friends all brought an item from them and was very happy. according to them they have generally the lowest prices and the best service. this is improtant because all of the stuff for my home theater can cost quiet a bundle of cash. anyways, i am tied bettween a Panasonic TH-42PX600U 42" Plasma TV and a BenQ PE8700 HD2+ DLP Projector. i am pretty sure that they both are compatable with laptop hook up.please help me chose.

Well,
Why would you want a projector for a home theater system? Too much headache.

Take the Panasonic plasma TV, you gonna have more image quality and it's a traditional brand.

 

[bloodbust]

thats what i thought too but plasmas have burn ins though.

 

[HiTech]

DLP projectors are far more reliable with far less components to change tolerance over time. Pretty much just the lamp may need replacement, however that's after 3000 hrs. or more. Just make sure you use a very good quality surge protector on all of your items and they really should be powered off of the same neutral circuit to eliminate AC interference. The type of screen also makes a difference in picture quality. I've seen a screen as simple as a 4'x8' sheet of Masonite painted with flat ultra-bright white, which is less than ideal, but still showed an impressive image on it. You can buy dedicated screen material for video projection too, but it's costly.
Plasma screens are too heavy, the power supplies are their weak areas, and they are pricey as hell. A good DLP with high contrast ratio will do the job nicely and make sure it has a variable speed cooling fan in it to reduce ambient room noise during those quiet sound passages. The Mitsubishi DLP has that and never needs the filter cleaned since there aren't any! I just bought 12 of them. Before I'd buy a plasma screen, I'd sink money into an LCD panel. The good ones are impressive, bright and crisp, lightweight, last a real long time, consume little power but typically have one caveaut... the avg. units have narrow viewing angles, forcing the viewer to remain perpendicular to them. Only the real expensive ones provide off-angle viewing without picture degradation... we're talking tens of thousands of dollars though, for those kind.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

DLP projectors are far more reliable with far less components to change tolerance over time. Pretty much just the lamp may need replacement, however that's after 3000 hrs. or more.

Make sure you check out the cost of replacement lamps, and that it's a DIY job - also heavy use often makes it a yearly job!.

Second, make ABSOLUTELY sure that no one ever smokes in the same room (assuming you know any idiots who smoke?), this rapidly dirties the optics and ruins the picture - you can usually clean them once, perhaps twice?, but then you find it's deep down inside where you can't get to.

The good ones are impressive, bright and crisp, lightweight, last a real long time, consume little power but typically have one caveaut... the avg. units have narrow viewing angles, forcing the viewer to remain perpendicular to them. Only the real expensive ones provide off-angle viewing without picture degradation... we're talking tens of thousands of dollars though, for those kind.

The LCD vs. Plasma debate has been going on for years, certainly Plasma takes more power than LCD, but LCD isn't little power by any means, they take many times what a modern CRT set does. As for viewing angle?, the Sony ones seem exceptionally wide angle, and aren't stupidly expensive - as they use S-LCD panels (a collaboration between Sony and Samsung - I suspect this means Sony partly funded Samsung's factory!) presumably Samsung sets use the same panels?, and are probably cheaper.

 

[bloodbust]

AHH I AM ALL TIED UP AGAIN T-T; but i already ordered a pwerconditioner from powersellernyc.com. according to them it reglates the voltage so basically its better than a surge protector. i think only they have it.

 

[Hayato]

AHH I AM ALL TIED UP AGAIN T-T; but i already ordered a pwerconditioner from powersellernyc.com. according to them it reglates the voltage so basically its better than a surge protector. i think only they have it.

I'd go for the Plasma TV.

Projectors give too much headaches, you need a good surface for projecting; you need to project at the right angle, otherwise you get distortion; the room needs to be dark, always; the projector lenses must always be clean... and so on...

 

[philba]

I have a home theater that I put together about 3 years ago. I went with a projector and would NEVER go back unless there was no room for it. My screen is 96 inches wide. Once you get used to that kind of immersive experience, watching even a 50" plasma is just not the same.

My PJ is a sony hs10 LCD unit and I've been very happy with it. It did blow a bulb early on but sony sent me a free one. I've currently got almost 3000 hours on it and have a replacement that I'll drop in pretty soon, keeping the old bulb as an emergency backup. I don't believe that there are any PJs out there that are not user replacable. I've been looking at the benq - it's a good choice.

as to the screen placement and sizing. yes, it's not a simple as plunking down a tv set but the rewards justify the effort. You do need a room that works for it. The benq will require light control so if you can't do that, you will be unhappy with it. You can get higher output devices that can handle high ambient light.

a lot also depends on what you wull use it for. We watch a lot of movies (haven't been to a theater in 3 years) and it's great for having people over. We've had 15 people watching and they all had a good experience. That's hard to with a smaller screen. For an immersive experience, you need around a 35 degree field of view. If you want it for random TV watching, you may not be happy with a PJ but for DVDs and so on, it's awesome.

What is really great about having an HT is that we have family "movie nights". It's great because we all get together. We never did that with our TV.

You should go check out the AV science forum. lots of good info there (though the SNR is kind of low).

Phil

 

[bloodbust]

then according to u all get a projector. do u think this is a good one? http://powersellernyc.com/product-9...ctor-800-ANSI-2000-1-1025X576-16-9-HDTV-.html

browse around and get back to me

 

[philba]

looking more closely, this is an older benq (released about 2 years ago) take a look at projector central https://www.projectorcentral.com/home.cfm lots of reviews and searchable specs. they have a dealer search feature that allows you to shop around.

personally, I would spend more money for that class of PJ. (mid range dlp) The optoma hd72 is about $2K from dealers and has much better specs (brighter, more pixels, better contrast, lower noise) and uses the newer darkchip2 dlp. zero dead pixel policy from optoma. but there are lots of PJ for <2000 in that category.

 

[RadioRon]

I chose to go with a DLP rear projection tv from Samsung. We watch a lot of tv shows via analog or digital cable, it was important to find one that did a good job with these sources. The Samsung is superb in these areas and delivers an excellent HD picture as well. The problem I have with projectors is that their picture is not bright enough. You need to watch them in a darkened room for best impact, and that just doesn't work in my house. It doesn't make sense to me to force TV viewers to leave our normal living space in favor of a "theater room" downstairs or elsewhere to get the big screen experience. We watch our tv in the family room where the real living happens, and it is often quite bright there, so projection would be hopeless in comparison to the DLP rear proj set we got. Our picture now is incredibly bright and has awesome contrast. Arguably it may not be quite as sharp as a plasma set when viewing HD source, but I could not afford a 60 inch plasma set anyway, whereas the 60 inch DLP is cheap. In addition, there is absolutely no problem with fan noise unlike some projectors, and there is no screen door effect such as plasma and LCD unit have. I hate being able to see the individual pixels, and DLP doesn't do that, its a much smoother image.

 

[philba]

actually, screen door is related to distance from the display and not the technology. every non-analog display has a screen door effect (aka visible pixel spacing), depending on how close you view from. this is why the recommendation is to sit at least 1X the width away from the screen (with 1.2-1.4 typical). It is inherent in the construction of the display, not the technology. early DLP had significant screen door effect and wierd little holes in the pixels. the darkchip stuff seems to have solved that. My LCD PJ doesn't have screen door at 1X though much closer and you can see it. Yet earlier LCD panels were pretty bad. Fan noise varies from model to model. some being quite quiet.

I totally agree that for casual TV viewing, a PJ doesn't make sense. But then I hardly watch any TV.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I don't believe that there are any PJs out there that are not user replacable.

Check Sharp models! - the XV-ZW60 not only isn't customer replaceable, it's also ONLY replaceable by an authorised and trained service centre!. To make matters worse, the projector also automatically disables itself after so many hours uses and requires the lamp changing!.

 

[HiTech]

I'd go for the Plasma TV.

Projectors give too much headaches, you need a good surface for projecting; you need to project at the right angle, otherwise you get distortion; the room needs to be dark, always; the projector lenses must always be clean... and so on...

I work for an institution that employs well over 100 data projectors. 1/3 of them are DLP and we have no isues with them. The new optics are perfect for ceiling mounted fixtures or table tops surfaces with little keystoning if any... and even then you can electronically crop to square up the picture. Replacement lamps are expensive and often run $300 or more (I had one that cost me $1800 for just one lamp!!). Lamps are a cinch to replace. If you can install batteries in a kid's toy, you can install a lamp. Today's new projectors yield a lamp life of 3000 to 5000 hrs with degradation slightly noticable around 2500 hrs. The projs. have a lamp life meter in them as well to notify you. If you run the lamp in economy mode you'll have slightly reduces brightness (slightly) but greatly increased lamp life. 3000 hrs or more of tv viewing is a heck of a long time!! Even at 5 hrs daily viewing, that's nearly 2 years worth of operation. And if someone is watching television for 5 hrs daily, they need a life and a hobby outside the home! (chasing women usually works!) Plasma is too expensive to service. If the repair centers learns that you're a doctor, lawyer or such, it'll be cheaper to buy the whole service center than to repair the tv!!

The Sharp projector shutdown is gotten around by simply resetting the lamp hour meter using the menu to do it. I do it yearly around here when they start displaying 900hrs. Sharp produces a very nice projector but their lamps are on the high cost side. I have been using Sharps for several years now with only a couple of them failing. Panasonics have faired well and I have some that are still working well at 8 years old!! But the Mitsubishi line is excellent, the company really stands behind their product and I can attest to that as they have swung me discounts, lamp deals (freebies), and other good customer service support (including a couple of nice lunches!!). I'm about to order 40+ more Mitsubishi DLP projectors soon. They better give me a 3-day Carribean cruise!!!! The Sharps and Mits are still using real glass for the optics where many others have gone the way of acrylic lenses - yeech!

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

The Sharp projector shutdown is gotten around by simply resetting the lamp hour meter using the menu to do it. I do it yearly around here when they start displaying 900hrs.

OK if you know how, but Sharp won't provide spares or details to anyone who isn't an approved projector service agent!.

 

[philba]

Check Sharp models! - the XV-ZW60 not only isn't customer replaceable, it's also ONLY replaceable by an authorised and trained service centre!.

does it require a special tool? the lamps can be bought on-line. https://www.projectorpoint.co.uk/projectorlamps/Sharp_XV-ZW60_Projector_Bulb_Only.html Is this a feature of the warrantee or the hardware? sounds more like them covering their *sses than anything else.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I work for a TV dealer, and we are a Sharp authorised service centre - HOWEVER, we're not allowed to touch these, nor will they supply us with spares or service information. I've no idea what's involved in changing the lamp, it's not mentioned in the instruction book, nor how to reset the lamp counter - there isn't anything obvious on the outside?.

 

[HiTech]

Well every Sharp model I have has the easy procedure listed in the opertator's manual, plus it's on a small piece of paper included with every new replacement lamp. Often it's a matter of pressing a combination of panel switches while holding the PWR switch. The proj. powers up and then displays "LAMP HOURS 0000" of similar. I admit that I'm not familiar with that specific model you mention but there has to be a way to reset the lamp timer without too much trouble.

philba -- often proj. mfgrs. have two different warranties on their units. The projector itself has a longer warranty than the lamps do. Lamps are made by various companies to the mfgrs. specs for their proj. Lamps that sit around in humid wharehouses will have a shorted lifespan. Proj mfgrs cannot control the lifespan of those lamps, hence one reason for short warranties on lamps.

 

[philba]

philba -- often proj. mfgrs. have two different warranties on their units. The projector itself has a longer warranty than the lamps do. Lamps are made by various companies to the mfgrs. specs for their proj. Lamps that sit around in humid wharehouses will have a shorted lifespan. Proj mfgrs cannot control the lifespan of those lamps, hence one reason for short warranties on lamps.

yes, I am quite aware of that. frankly, I think the bulb warrantee is BS as they spec the lamp for like 2000 hrs or some such and then typically warrantee it for only 90 days - that's calendar days, not usage time. they either need to lower the price or provide a longer warrantee. when I purchase a $3000 product, I do not expect to shell out $250 4 months later. when I blew my first bulb at 320 hrs I was about 30 days outside the warrantee cut off. The bulb actually exploded with a loud bang which woke up my father in-law. of course the loud cursing may have helped... (yes, he did hear the bang). sony was good enough to ship me a new one with no argument. that was fortunate because there was a shortage of spares - no one had them except sony. hmmm. what i found out later on the AV science forum was that a lot of people with my model were seeing the same problem and they quietly went to buy a new one. no wonder there was a shortage...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I admit that I'm not familiar with that specific model you mention but there has to be a way to reset the lamp timer without too much trouble.

I imagine so?, but it's NOT available to the customer, nor to non-approved Sharp service agents!.