4k projector vs large 4k TV

[Benedict_Arnold]

Setting price aside, and assuming we're not talking the price of a half decent new family car, what would be the screen size at which one should think about a 4K projector and screen setup instead of a 4K TV?

I currently have a 60 inch 4K TV, but it's a bit like watching the game from what the Americans call the "nosebleed" seats high and back from the field (so called because the altitude makes your nose bleed ). 21:9 movies even more so, of course, because you're only using the middle two thirds of the TV screen.

Seriously, I'm thinking either of an 85 inch TV (which seems to be the cut-off from "wow that's pricey" to "HOW MUCH!!!" right now) or a 120 inch screen.

Don't want 3D, certainly don't want curved, just a good 4K picture. Samsung and Panasonic brands would be prime choice. I had an LG TV once, it only lasted a week before it started humming, so LG would be a VERY distant third.

Media room measures about 15 feet by 25 feet with the TV or projector going on one of the 15-foot walls.

Thoughts?

 

[Frank Harvey]

As in the good old days of Pioneer plasmas, my advice would be to keep the current 4K TV you have for TV viewing, and get a 4K PJ for movie viewing (or whatever else you want to see on a large screen). It is a case of weighing up the cost of a suitable, large 4K TV. If price is close to PJ, consider PJ. Do take into account throw distance though - you're effectively talking a 14ft throw you'll have - cheaper PJs can't produce a particularly large screen from such a short distance, although 4K PJs shouldn't have an issue due to their price (usually affects sub £1500-2000 PJs generally).

A projector can really add another dimension to movie viewing, although you'll need to take into account how dark you can get the room, and the colour of your furnishings - if everything is white, your contrast ratio is going to suffer. There are specialist screens to combat this, allowing high contrast in reflective rooms or ambient light situations, but this will add around £1300ish minimum to the cost of the PJ.

 

[abacus]

I personally consider anything less than a 65" TV to be useless for film watching, (Unless your room is very small) as you loose all the cinematic experience. (No substitute for a big screen projection system)

Bill

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

A 14 foot throw is about right - that's where the builders put the electrical plug and conduit for the HDMI cable in the ceiling for me. These can be moved forwards or backwards, however, as there's only attic space above (and I can get to the ceiling from both sides).

The space between the surround speakers in the wall limits the screen width to about 8 or 9 feet, so say 9 feet wide and a 16:9 ratio fives me a maximum 4'2" foot high screen (which works well, as well), so a 120 inch (or thereabouts) screen is my limit.

Room darkening isn't an issue, as it's a dedicated media room with no windows.

Dedicated furnishings yet to be bought, but wil probably end up being some of those electrically reclining movie seats with cupholders, built in seat warmers and coolers, masssagers, you name it, due to the American wife and kids. Personally I'd like to get some old fold-up cinema seats replete with 50+ years of spilt drink stains and the odor of old tobacco for that proper cinema experience, but I'm sure to be over-ruled on that one. The furniture can be black or brown, and I'm going to resist white or cream on the grounds of spillages and general grime over time.

Walls are beige. Carpet is beige. Both can be changed in time.

TV will normally be watched in the living room or games room, not in the media room. We're not big fans of TV anyway. Remember that line from "Nobody Home" (The Wall) - "I've got thirteen channels of [ahem] to cohose from"? Here in the Land that Taste Forgot I can get 260 of 'em, not one worth watching!

The 4K TV we do have will get moved into the living room if / when the bigger 4K TV or a projector is bought.

Oh yeah, one more question. How much should I factor in for HDMI cabling? I'm going to need 14 feet across the ceiling plus a 3 foot "tail" at the projector end, plus 8-10 feet to go down the back wall plus another 3 or 4 feet out behind the receiver, so say about 30 feet or 10 metres of cable? THAT's going to be expensive as well...

 

[ellisdj]

For HDMI Cabling I was recommended the Lindy Hybrid HDMI - it converts to Fibre and gaurantees no loss at up to huge distances to very high bandwidths that will be needed to Ultra HD TV more than movies as it stands by the sounds of it.

Its expensive but not comapred to the price of a 4k PJ, cheapest was on Amazon about £230 I paid

 

[ellisdj]

First thing to consider doing if you want the best performance that I have experienced is change the walls from beige to black velour, get black rugs ready for under the screen and darker furnishings. Then do the ceiling with black velour as well, or black paint. Its tomb dark but the PJ image quality goes through the roof thanks to the improved contrast and it also disguises the room and all you see is the movie picture. This really does work.

You can get a cracking white screen then such as the Seymour AV X if you need AT or there are cheaper options that are good if you dont which helps with brightness and zing / pop to the image.

Fire a Sony 4K PJ in that room on that setup and its something to behold, its mesmerizingly, I want this badly good.

However 16:9 you will still have top and bottom bars in a lot of movies- if you plan to watch more movies than tv then a scope 21.9 screen I would argue is a better film experience as you can zoom the image to fully fill the screen. This is more immersive, the downside is the TV 16:9 will have empty screen either side and be smaller - you can get masks for this and you can mask the top and bottom bars of the 16:9 screen also but that seems a lot harder.

PJ's are more effort and more work than TV's but do really pay off when you can do things properly

 

[Deleted member 2457]

I know you want it big but I still would go for the Panasonic 4K OLED. Or a OLED at the very least - you can get quite big OLED ones, scrap that I think they are really pricey! What is your budget?

 

[ellisdj]

4k PJ and screen will be about the same or more than the panny 65 oled.

For movies there will be no comparison 65 vs 110 -120 inch. Especially if you sit back in the room 14 feet ish.

I think you will want to be about 6-7 feet from the oled 8 tops

The 4k sony pj's are really excellent as well. Easy to get demo but be prepared they cost as much as a car

 

[bigboss]

You don't need to spend a lot on HDMI cable. 10m comes within HDMI spec. I use a Neet 10m HDMI cable. Brilliant build and flawless picture. Only £35. I've put another one in (Kabeldirekt), just in case this fails.

 

[ellisdj]

It's factoring in the huge bandwidth needed for 4k 10 bit at 50 fps.

If it's a set and forget it's worth spending the extra I thought to make 100%sure.

Lindy confirmed all the data I needed £230 was for 20 metre

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

You don't need to spend a lot on HDMI cable. 10m comes within HDMI spec. I use a Neet 10m HDMI cable. Brilliant build and flawless picture. Only £35. I've put another one in (Kabeldirekt), just in case this fails.

I tried "el cheapo" HDMI with the 4K TV and a Bluray, 6 feet apart. The result was, to say the least, disappointing. Also, bear in mind, my media PC streams at native 4K (well 39?? x 2160).

Budget? About $10,000 US all in. That means a Sony VLPV300ES at around $8000, about a $1000 for the 4K suitable, audio transparent screen, some cables, a couple of Blurays to actualy watch on the thing and change for pop corn and ice creams at the interval.

And no, I'm not turning the room into the Black Hole of Calcutta

 

[bigboss]

You don't need to spend a lot on HDMI cable. 10m comes within HDMI spec. I use a Neet 10m HDMI cable. Brilliant build and flawless picture. Only £35. I've put another one in (Kabeldirekt), just in case this fails.

I tried "el cheapo" HDMI with the 4K TV and a Bluray, 6 feet apart.  The result was, to say the least, disappointing.  Also, bear in mind, my media PC streams at native 4K (well 39?? x 2160).

Budget?  About $10,000 US all in.  That means a Sony VLPV300ES at around $8000, about a $1000 for the 4K suitable, audio transparent screen, some cables, a couple of Blurays to actualy watch on the thing and change for pop corn and ice creams at the interval.

And no, I'm not turning the room into the Black Hole of Calcutta

You just need to make sure the HDMI manufacturer is on the list of adopters on hdmi.org. As long as the cable is within spec, it will work properly.

 

[ellisdj]

Shame that's how the pj is best

If your staying light a black diamond would be a good choice but it's not AT.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Yeah, but it's like my stereo.

I live in a house, not a recording studio, so there have to be a few compromises.

Seriously though, the media room is pretty dark already, the painted walls (matt emulsion - or latex as they call it here - paint and a textured finish) should break up any refections just fine.

Point taken about the HDMI cables. FWIW I always reckon it's as much to do with the plugs and how they are terminated as it is to do with the strands of copper in between. I use Audiquest Chocolate right now, which works very very well at a price point I can sort of justify. A 1 metre cable costs $100, a 1.5 metre costs $150, a 2 metre $200, so 10 metres should be 10 x $50 + $100 for the plugs = about $600. If I can get one that long. If not I'll look at alternatives. I have a conduit tube so I'm not worried about pre-burying spares in the walls.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

10 metre Audioquest Chocolate is indeed about $600 on Amazon. White plastic rather than fabric (nylon or something) sheathed because it's intended to go in a conduit.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Panasonic just cut the price of their EIGHTY FIVE inch AX850 LED / LCD TV to $12,000 US.

Must check down the back of the sofa when I get home....

Seriously, as the price of the larger TVs start to fall, and the larger TVs get, erm, larger, at some point it's going to be more economical to use a large TV rather than a projector and screen, especially around the 100 inch screen size.

My question then becomes one of picture quality, and I think the TVs still win out over projectors.

Good job I have to save my beer money to pay for either - I can wait and see what happens after Christmas when all the price drops happen and new stuff hits the shelves (which, in the US, means right after the Superbowl - they try and shift all the old stock for the Superbowl, then bring out the newer, better, cheaper stuff right after).

 

[kinda]

If I'm reading your original post correctly you are having the projector screen or TV on the 15 foot wall, so may be almost 25 feet away from it at the furthest distance? If I were you I'd go projector all the way.

Due to some current restrictions my projected image is restricted to about 72 inches and from about 10 feet away I often think it could do with being bigger, especially for the films that are wider than 16:9. Based on what you've said I think it will be much more expensive to get the size of image you want from a TV. Plus you can try it out and alter the size of the projected image to mexactly the size you want, and could go for an anamorphic lense to help with the wider format films.

Also, to me generally the projected images have a more filmic feel and often look more natural. For picture quality i can't see you finding a good prokjector wanting. My £2500 LCD projector is incredible. The main advantage to me of TVs is that they can cope better in daylight but to be honest mine with 2100 lumens does a very good job in anything but bright sunlight.

I also wouldn't worry too much about furnishings and screens to be honest. My room which doubles as a sitting room has resonally bright decor and the picture is still great. Also, when I switched from a screen to a wall painted qwith good quality 7% gloss paint i tohught the picture was better. In addition if you do this, you don't have to worry about masking black bars for letter box images.

Hope this helps.

 

[bigboss]

Panasonic just cut the price of their EIGHTY FIVE inch AX850 LED / LCD TV to $12,000 US.

Must check down the back of the sofa when I get home....

Seriously, as the price of the larger TVs start to fall, and the larger TVs get, erm, larger, at some point it's going to be more economical to use a large TV rather than a projector and screen, especially around the 100 inch screen size.

I don't think a large TV will ever compete a projector for price. My Sony HW40ES projector is £1850 (actually less than that, due to the sizeable discount I got on the whole package). My screen is expensive, at £1500 or thereabouts. You can get cheaper screens of excellent quality but I was unable to demo them at the time. The sub 1K projector market is hotting up, with some excellent models.

Besides, reflected light is better for the eye than such a huge screen emitting direct light.

 

[richardw42]

I've got the same Sony thatBB has and i can vouch it's pretty much the best viewing I've had. The dark/black detail is just stunning. I adapted a little lightly used living room, painted the walls grey but kept ceriling and woodwork white. It's very nice as a LR but works really well as a HC. I just had black out blinds installed and when they're down its total blackness in there. I got a remote dimmer because of this.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

To answer Kinda, the screen (or TV) would be going in the middle of the 15 foot wide wall. The builders pre-installed electrical sockets and a conduit for the HDMI cable about 14 or 15 feet back from the wall designated for the screen / TV, so that's more or less where the projector would go, adjusted forwards / backwards according to where the ceiling joists are.

Re everyone on screen vs TV, I expect the prices of both to fall at the end of January, once the Christmas (and in the US, the Superbowl) are over, but what concerns me are tow things: the first is picture quality, Pound for Pound, and the second is reliability / longevity, especially of the projector bulbs. For a while I had one of those DLP back-projectingTVs (a 1080p JVC job) and the bulbs seemed to last about ten minutes. Whether it was the "cherubs" switching the thing on and off all the time, or voltage spikes (we get a LOT of thunderstorms here in Houston), or whatever, I don't know, but the bulbs were expensive and I usually kept a spare (or two) in the house at all times.

Thoughts / experiences?

 

[bigboss]

Projector bulb life isn't much of an issue. My projector's bulb has life of 2000-3000 hours. That should last me 5 years or so. Replacement bulbs are available for £65. The latest Sony projectors have bulb life of 6000 hours. Laser projectors like Epson LS10000 has a bulb life of 30000 hours.

You can sue surge protection / UPS to protect bulb life.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Projector bulb life isn't much of an issue. My projector's bulb has life of 2000-3000 hours. That should last me 5 years or so. Replacement bulbs are available for £65. The latest Sony projectors have bulb life of 6000 hours. Laser projectors like Epson LS10000 has a bulb life of 30000 hours.

You can sue surge protection / UPS to protect bulb life.

Yeah, and that's what the bulb in the TV was supposed to be good for. And that's what makes me worry. I usually got about six weeks out of one. Six weeks is 8 or 9 bulbs a year which is nearly $1000 a year. Times five years and that's the difference between an 85 inch TV and a projector...

I suppose I could put a UPS / surge protector in the ceiling, but that won't stop the "cherubs", will it?