Recommend a HD tuner for my Projector?
I am looking into getting one of these three 720P DLP Projectors and I will need to upgrade my tuner to handle HD. First off, which of these two projectors would you go with? Would you recommend another? I’m not ready for 1080P yet so not interested in one of those. Secondly, I don’t know much about tuners, so what would you recommend for me? Here are the three I’m looking at:
Mitsubishi HD1000U High Definition 720p DLP $1,260
Optoma HD65 720p DLP $680
Mitsubishi HC1600 720p DLP $660
Any other tips or recommendations? I’m going from a rear projection tv to an overhead projector? Thanks.
The reason I’d rather not get 1080P; more $, I’d have to buy a pricey blueray player plus blueray discs and I’d also have to upgrade my dish to HD which is too much
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I have the Samsung DTB-H260F, works great using HDMI output to my projector:
http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/h260f.html
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US303&sourceid=chrome&q=atsc+tuner&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6201430135057719514&ei=50WdStrtMtOwmAf8v-SzAw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=4#ps-sellers
Why not get the 1080p Optoma HD20? In stock at Amazon, free shipping:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002G0CWSU
I have a 720p projector, which works well, but I will be upgrading to a 1080p soon. Twice the pixels makes a huge difference, especially if you have a big screen.
Making the jump to front projection is great if you have the ideal room for it. You’ll get a bigger picture for a fraction of te price. You just have to have a room where you can control the light 100%. Front projection is best viewed in a room that has very little ambient light.
Some projectors have a high lumen output and can be viewed with more ambient light than others, but it still looks much better with little to no abient light. You sacrafice color quality and contrast ratio when the brightness is turned up.
Another thing to consider is where you are going to mount your projector and how big your screen will be. It’s recomended that you sit about 1.5X the screen width (not diagonal) away from the screen. So with a 96″ diagonal screen the width is 83.5″ wide (.87 x diag on a 16:9 screen). That means the ideal seating position is around 10.5 feet.
You’ll also have to take your screen size into consideration in where you want to mount your projector and ultimatly if your projector will work in your room. Projectors have different throw distances and certain features like zoom and lens shift that can help in placement.
Using your screen size go to http://www.projectorcentral.com and search for your projector. Then use their throw calculator to get a feel for how it would go in your room and where you could mount it.
So with the HC1600 and HD1000U with a 96″ screen you would need to mount it 11.5 feet to 14 feet away from the screen. The Optoma HD65 could be mounted from 10.8 feet to 11.9 feet away. The closer to the screen with a given projector you can get is better (brighter). The Optoma is a little noisier than the Mitsubishi’s but not by much.
The HC1600 since it performs almost the same as the HD1000U and is half the price. The contrast ratio is a little better on the Optoma but not by a whole lot. Manufacturers tend to exaggerate contrast ratios anyway. If you could demo both Optoma and the Mitsubishi I would do that.
Personally I would not take any from your list and would seriously look at the Sanyo PLV-Z60. It’s in between the HC1600 and HD1000U in price but out shines (pun intended) the others in a big way. It’s a 3 LCD model but LCD vs DLP is a non issue these days.
The reasons I like this projector:
1) Lamp replacement is cheaper.
3) Excellent placement options ( 9.5 to 19 feet on a 96″ screen)
4) More connection options (ie: 2 x HDMI)
5) Far superior contrast ratio (10000:1)
6) Three year warranty
Another projector that is as good if not better than the Sanyo is the Panasonic PT-AX200U. It’s a little bit more expensive but offers better light output and will accept 1080p/24 from a bluray player (downscales to 720p/24).