Wife of Gamer Needs Help Buying Digital Projector for Gamer Husband

I am going to turn our den into a media room for my husband while he is away on an extended business trip. I have everything figured out except the projector. I need help! What you need to know: the room is fairly small--13.5 feet long by 8.5 feet wide. The projector will be for movie and tv watching as well as for games. I think that he has every console that you can buy legally in the United States. I don't really have a budget because I'm not sure what is required in a projector to support good gaming. About $2K?

I've been a projector owner for the past year and I am also currently looking into upgrading my current one, although not very seriously right now. I am still spoiled by it. I don't think I'll ever go back to a rear-projection type of display. It is the best image for the price. I suppose plasma screens might be better, but I'll probably never own one unless Gameguru decides to adopt me.

Rezzy recently purchased a Panasonic AE-900(U), which is pretty highly regarded at that site, and I think Rezzy's loving his as well. Visualapex.com sells this projector for $1900 before a $400 mail in rebate.

A direct competitor to the AE900U is Sanyo's PLV-Z4, which Visualapex sells for $1700, and that comes with a voucher for a free replacement bulb, which is worth $300. Projectorcentral has a comparison review of the two: here.

I personally own an Infocus Screenplay 4805. Nowadays these go for $700 new on Ebay. I absolutely love it.

The first two projectors have native resolutions of 1280x720 pixels, which means they're great for displaying 720p images.
Mine has a native resolution of 854x480, which makes it more of a candidate for displaying 480p. However I recently obtained an Xbox360 and it seems to be doing a damn fine job of display 720p. I have not seen a 720-native projector in a while, though, so I can't say at firsthand how mine would compare.

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In case you don't know, the most common display resolutions are as follows, in ascending order of quality:

480i - Your standard TV cable signal for the past 10 or 20 years has displayed in this format.
480p - This is a GIGANTIC leap in image quality over 480i. Larger, sharper, brighter than 480i.
720p - this is a movie-theater style, 16:9 widescreen format. Not as big a jump in image quality (from 480p) this time.
1080i - A more high-end signal. Again, not as large of a jump from 720p.
1080p - Almost astronomically out of reach high end signal. It is very difficult to find anything that will produce a 1080p signal.

The number denotes the number of vertical lines drawn. The 'i' means interlaced. The 'p' means progressive scan, or not interlaced. In general, progressive scan is preferred over interlaced.

I havent seen any games on the PS2 or the Gamecube that can support anything better than 480p. The original Xbox has a lot of games that can display at 480p, some games that can display 720p, and almost no games for 1080i/p. The XBox 360 has more support for 720p and 1080i. I believe Sony is saying that the PS3 will have games that can display 1080p.

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What kind of windows has this room got? My projector's set up in the living room, with a sliding glass door that lets in lots of light during the day, which can drown out the image. Purists will find black-out cloth to hang over their windows, but closing the vertical blinds is more than enough for me.

Every projector has a bulb inside it that's usually rated to last around 2000 hours, although this can vary. The bulb may or may not last as long as advertised, depending on the usage pattern and maintenance. I use my projector for games and movies only (not TV), and I'm at 450 hours after a year's worth of usage. Supposedly I should open up my projector every once in a while to clean out the dust from the bulb housing. I've only done this recently, and it took me about 5 minutes. That's the only maintenance I've performed for it so far.

With that in mind, if your household is the type that likes to leave the TV on while doing other things, perhaps with no one watching it for hours at a time, then you might want to reconsider getting a projector, as it isn't great for that kind of usage. Actually, I can't see why someone would want to abuse any investment worth over $500 in such a way.

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haha pol. I agree with the sentiment that I wish I have a wife like that, but I don't even have a girl friend yet :shame:

OP: here is a good starting point to see if your projector will fit your room:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/Sany...

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pol wrote:

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Edwin wrote:

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Wifeofgamer, please view these not as marriage or adultery proposals, but rather as expressive appreciation for just how gawshdarned lucky your husband is.

Also, are you getting a new sound system? If so, make sure to get a receiver that has enough inputs to support all the different consoles and their HD outputs. For every system out there (in this generation and in the next one), there are the standard RCA cables (Yellow color coded Video), and there are the component cables (Red/Green/Blue Video). Most of this generation comes prepackaged with RCA cables. The Premium Xbox 360 comes prepackaged with component cables.

Actually, if the consoles + TV + DVD player and whatever else won't all fit on a receiver then you may need a separate switch.

Yoyoson wrote:
pol wrote:

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Edwin wrote:

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Wifeofgamer, please do view these as marriage or adultery proposals, but rather as expressive appreciation for just how gawshdarned lucky your husband is.

Fixed.

I can see why my husband spends so much time on this site--it is hilarious. Looks like I have some reading and research to do...back with questions I am sure.

Edwin wrote:
Yoyoson wrote:
pol wrote:

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Edwin wrote:

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Wifeofgamer, please do view these as marriage or adultery proposals, but rather as expressive appreciation for just how gawshdarned lucky your husband is.

Fixed.

Don't you have to be married before you can take a mistress?

I can always just lie.

Wife, what are your thoughts on adoption?

OK, what are your thoughts on the adoption of 41-year-olds?

On the sound system. I would love to have this all figured out and installed for him as well, but I think that the choice of a sound system and accompanying speakers is a much tougher decision given all the choices. It is highly likely that I would pick something he wouldn't have picked himself. I am hoping that I can pick a projector that he might have picked himself (with your help of course!). We have an OK system right now that supports all of our consoles, so it should see him through the unveiling of the new room. I am planning to have the retractable screen hung from the ceiling in front of the one window in the room. I am hoping that in combination with some good blinds, this should block out most of the outside light. We typically only play or watch TV at night so it shouldn't be a huge problem. On lazy Sundays he might just have to tack up a blanket or something. After looking at the website lethial referred to, it actually seems like the room we have will be pretty good for having a little theater.

He does have a 360 and already has a pre-order for the PS3. I know that is not coming out until November or 2008 or something, but I assume that we will have one when it does finally emerge. Would both the projectors mentioned above maximize the graphical output or whatever-you-call-it of the 360?

Keep the funny posts coming, it is a boring Monday at the office...

wifeofgamer wrote:

Keep the funny posts coming, it is a boring Monday at the office...

Understand there's effectively no chance of you being able to stem the flow of humor, even from folks actually contributing to the thread.

As opposed to me.

wifeofgamer wrote:

Would both the projectors mentioned above maximize the graphical output or whatever-you-call-it of the 360?

Actually I pretty much exhausted myself of all the projector knowledge I have in my first post.

I would like to refer you to www.avsforum.com. The forum layout is quite daunting as they have probably 20 different forums to choose from, and it generally caters to A/V enthusiasts. However, you'll find much more accurate information and probably more critical opinions there than you would here.

To attempt to answer your question, I don't think the native 720-line projectors (like the AE900 and the PLZ-V4) will let you take full advantage of the output of the 360, or that of the PS3, since the highest resolution outputs on both consoles use 1080 lines. For that you'd want something with native 1080 lines, but I can tell you that a native 1080 projector runs in the $5000-10000 range. I don't know much about the projectors once you start going that high.

Oh and also, projector central lists the top 5 projectors in each of the different weight classes. I think that's a very good guide to go by. If I had 30 seconds to pick a projector to buy, I'd go to that page.

I'd say this.. its probably a waste of money going for a native 1920X1280 Projector at this stage.. too expensive and not enough content

1280X720 native (720P) is perfect for everything today and the near and not so near future. Lets face it very few PS3 games are going to run at 1080P.

If your going to spend money.. spend money getting the highest quality 720P projector rather than trying to up the res.

Yeah, I am getting that sense after searching around on eBay and seeing the prices. Ouch! I just don't want him to be disappointed.

wifeofgamer wrote:

I just don't want him to be disappointed.

Nice sentiment, but he won't be. I have a four or five year old projector that can't compete with modern technology, and it still drops jaws. A good 720p projector will look wonderful.

wifeofgamer wrote:

I just don't want him to be disappointed.

You don't need a projector for that.

As the husband of wifeofgamer, i want to thank you guys for your great suggestions (except of course, Edwin). I was a little worried when my wife took me aside last night and said "i have something to tell you", but turns out it was planning the HT surprise. In the end, she likened it to me trying to pick out a mark jacobs handbag for her, and she just didn't want to get the wrong thing. But I'm grateful for all the leads, thanks again. Now to planning!

And Edwin - pistols at dawn, my friend!

ps. Sorry SwampYankee, she already adopted a 41 year old, me:)

jonnypolite wrote:

As the husband of wifeofgamer, i want to thank you guys for your great suggestions (except of course, Edwin). I was a little worried when my wife took me aside last night and said "i have something to tell you", but turns out it was planning the HT surprise. In the end, she likened it to me trying to pick out a mark jacobs handbag for her, and she just didn't want to get the wrong thing. But I'm grateful for all the leads, thanks again. Now to planning!

And Edwin - pistols at dawn, my friend!

ps. Sorry SwampYankee, she already adopted a 41 year old, me:)

I'm trying to help you out by making myself so over the top as to make her be thankful for choosing a moderate like you.

If that bluff doesn't work then at dawn it is!

IMAGE(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/TheRealEdwin/flame.jpg)

Hey, i said pistols. Not OMFG he's got a FT.