Pitfalls of front projection? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Silge]

So I had never really considered a front projector before, but was very surprised to see how far prices have fallen for well received LCD projectors. I was going to get a DLP RPTV in the 40-50" range, but for the same cost or less I could get an LCD FPTV which would of course be much larger.

What do I need to be thinking about to see if this is a good direction to go? Either would be going into a basement HT of the house we're moving into. I'm not sure what the ceiling height will be, but not super tall I'm sure. In addition to DVDs I'd be doing some gaming and watching sports and TV (hopefully mostly HD) on it.

 

[Neil Joseph]

Looks like you may be a candidate. With a broad range of viewing material that may rack up the bulb usage, I would consider bulb life as being one of the deciding factors in your projector decision, since replacement costs can cost a few quid. A basement HT with minimal or little ambient light would be good of course. Unless your ceiling height was under about 7' then you should have no challenges. As far as the room dimensions go, if you decide to place your speakers to the left and right of the screen (as opposed to behind a perforated screen) then you need enough room width to accomodate the screen plus space for the speakers typically around 11' for a 100" screen with a little breathing room. Then for the depth of the room, that may determine how many rows of seating you can get (if you decide to go that route) and how close you sit from the screen, which may in turn decide your screen size. In other words, you dont want to necessarily have a 120" screen if you are forced to sit 8' away from it.