This is true but I have never had any of my cables rust. I save the money and buy cheaper cables.
The only time I would splash out on expensive high end cables is if I had a lot of interferance affecting my picture transmission, e.g. I needed extra shielding or I had to run a cable for a long distance.
Otherwise I am of the opinion that most of what is written about cables (monster cables in particular) is just a load of snake oil and mirrors.
Edit: Harsher than I wanted it to sound.
Plant Head, cables don't rust but they do oxidise. This tends to be worse on speaker cables than connectors, but connectors can be affected too. However if the connector is making a good contact, then oxidation should not occur (at least at the point of contact as there is no air).
I don't buy Monster cables, but I don't buy the cheapest cables. i.e. I've seen HDMI cables for ca. 5chf (and they looked cheap), but I've always payed 20-40chf for a cable.
The last HDMI cable I bought was a 10m cable fo just 30.10 chf :
http://www.techmania.ch/details.aspx...sessionID=1210
And it did the job. Needed this so I could ceiling mount (3.7m ceilings) a projector in a friends shop for a party and run some presentations off a Mac.
And for that price it was gold plated !!!
So you DON'T need to spend a fortune to get a reasonable quality cable.
I am thinking of buying a projector.
I have looked through a lot of reviews and it seems to me that I should buy either a Panasonic or a Sanyo. (it has to be 1080p and I prefer LCD because of the rainbow effect of DLP)
Does anyone have any other recommendations on Projectors, or advice on what I should be wary of when buying one.
I also need to buy a screen because I don't have an available white wall and to move the television everytime I wanted to use the projector would be ridiculous.
I have looked at a lot of screens and have decided (cheaply) that instead I will buy a blackout blind from IKEA
http://www.ikea.com/ch/de/catalog/products/30049514
the reverse side of the blind is grey.
Any thoughts?
However, in switzerland this is often not a problem because the patio doors and windows normally have those wind down metal shutters.... perfect for transforming your living room into a local Odeon... just add popcorn.
http://www.projectorcentral.com/
Lots of great info including throw distance calculators.
For a screen, if you are'nt looking for a all singing/dancing retractable one, I bought projector cloth from Design&Ton (opposite Media Markt in Dietikon). Not cheap but it's the real stuff. You can also buy Gloop (or something like that) which can be painted onto the walls. Here it is: Screen Goo: http://www.theaterthings.com/
I really wanted the Full HD Epson but this was more than I was willing to pay at the time. So I ended up with a Sanyo which I might upgrade in hte future. My old Hitachi is still going strong and this came with a spare bulb. I use this as a sapre one for taking palces and have my old screen cloth rolled onto a length of wood that makes a great make-shift screen.
I assume you mean a popcorn hour and not popcorn machine ? But why not have both
Throw distance is 4metres.
The screen will be 2m wide, which I know is perhaps a little small but it's all the room I have.
Ufortunately my screen has to be retractable, otherwise it will block out the Telly and a 2m x 1.95m chunk of my flat.
If you can, its best to ceiling mount, or wall mount. Then you need to consider cable runs around to your av equipment.
If you shelf mount, you need to consider giving the projector enough room to ventilate. Projectors use hot lamps and therefore use a fan to cool the lamp to stop it from exploding. This creates hot air which will need to be expelled somewhere.
Some projectors vent out the front, some out of the side. You should bear this in mind in your room.
As I mentioned to you before, it is worth investigating if you can find slightly larger blackout blinds from ikea competitors.
Dont let anything put you off though.... Its a great experience.
Like a playstation, they also have fans which spin up faster if necessary.
During hot summer, if you watch a film then the fan might spin faster and be a little louder, but in general there is nothing at all to worry about here.
To my knowledge, there is no evidence to suggest that dlp offers better colour reproduction than LCD.
Normally, LCD vs DLP will produce a similar picture when in a similar price bracket. A chf 10k DLP will normally produce a better picture than a 4k LCD, and vice versa.
The main advantage of DLP projection was that, maybe more than five years ago, the pixel structure of some LCDs was apparent on the projected image (known as the chicken wire effect), whereas DLP did not project pixels and therefore did not exhibit such an effect.
This effect has basically been eradicated on last and latest generation LCDs, unless you want to sit closer than a meter to the wall (and if you do, factor in the cost of a psychiatrist into your budget).
The downside of DLP was that a small percentage, like less than 5%, tended to get a kind of motion sickness from the picture from DLPs, which is produced by a spinning colour wheel, a little like a kaleidoscope. DLPs color wheels these days are more complicated and spin faster, therefore the effect has also been largely reduced. Nevertheless, the stigma of this potential symptom remains a part of some peoples purchasing decision.
As a side note regarding the fact that you mentioned panasonic projectors (of which I have owned two and have been very happy with), and sanyo (my current projector being a sanyo), I can certainly recommend these brands of projectors. The similar Sony projectors have also been praised recently for their quality.
As for DLP, the major brands to look at include Optoma, Hitachi, Epson, BenQ, Infocus. I am less well informed about the DLP side of things however. Maybe NickH has more information on that side.
Your right krlock3, the gap between LCD and DLP seems to have closed since I was last on the market for one.
The chicken wire effect or screen door effect regarding LCDs depend in part on the resolution of the projector. Not sure what the budget is.
Contrast was another area that LCDs were behind DLP, not sure if that is still the case.
As krlock3 mentioned, the rainbow effect was/is due to the speed of the colour wheel. Not only has the speed the wheel spins doubled from the original design, they now tend to use 6 segmented colour wheels.
Final point is that in the past there was some degradation of LCD pannels over time. Not sure if that still is a problem.
LCD Projectors: Strengths
Richer color dynamics for better results in rooms with ample ambient light Draw less power Throw less heat No color filter wheel = No "rainbow effect" Slightly quieter Seemingly sharper image on data Quicktip: Figure you need about 30% more lumens in a DLP projector to hold its own with an LCD model.
DLP Projectors: Strengths
Smoother video Smaller box Pixels far less visible, (although normally not an issue for business use) More “filmlike” on DVD and HDTV Generate "blacker" blacks Higher contrast LCD Projectors: Disadvantages
More visible pixels Some screen door effect on certain video images Physically larger - Even for the same number of lumens Poorer contrast Blacks come out lighter gray than DLP prrojectors DLP Projectors: Disadvantages
Rainbow effect bothers some More moving parts (color filter wheel) Color filter wheel often produces soft but audible whine Poorer reds and yellows at full power Color saturation Need more lumens than LCD, for rich colors, when dealing with ambient light Stolen from here:
http://www.projectorreviews.com/advi...slcd/index.php
To be honest it seems much of a muchness to me.
DLP projectors also seem to be more expensive.
On latest generation home cinema projectors, this is not an issue at all, and renders the projectorreviews link fairly out of date. I doubt very much that DLP projectors "whine" very much either.
There is a distinction sometimes to be made between business projectors and home cinema projectors. Business projectors blast out more light because they are mostly used to show powerpoint presentations in not very dark rooms. However, their black levels are necessarily poor due to this... i.e. poor contrast. Business projectors are more often natively 4:3 rather than 16:9.
In other words, you do not want a business projector for home cinema. My current projector has no screen door effect. My previous one before that had no screen door effect, and I bought the one before that because it had a reputation as one of the first to more or less eliminate screen door.
I am sure the picture from either technology will be as good as I could hope for.
Now with regards to surround sound:
How to handle the front sound stage? Is the only solution 3 identical front speakers?
Left and Right surrounds: Directional or not
Rear surrounds (EX/ES): Does it help? Where to place them?
If you have a dedicated amp and then add your own speakers, it is normally considered a good idea to make the front, center, and rear surround (i.e. all of your surround speakers) from the same brand or even better, product line of the same brand.
The center channel speaker should not be identical in shape to the left and right main speakers... normally it is flat to allow easier placement under the TV.
Left and right front speakers are directional by nature, but the actual direction you point them at depends again on that wonderful notion of the acoustics of your room. Sounds comes out and reverberates off all surfaces, and one cannot generalise about how this will occur in each different room shape and height. You should simply start with the speakers pointing straight out from the back wall (leaving enough space behind them when possible up to or more than a meter to reduce bass reverberations).
Then you can experiment with swivelling the speakers in towards your seating position and see how it sounds. This is called "toeing in" i.e. toe in your speakers by ten degrees and see how that sounds.
Current opinion on rear speakers is that they should be directly to the left and right of your sitting position and facing right at you, or just slightly behind and facing you. If you have a 7.1 setup then you add two more speakers right behind you pointing towards the front of the room, if you wish.
Rear surrounds are an incredibly important part of a surround sound setup. Without them, the surround sound effect is naturally lost, unless you rely on one of these soundbars which i naturally disdain.
Subs we have already covered :-)
Agree with most what was said above. With regards to the centre channel, I have heard that ideally they should be the same as your mains for a better sound stage. Realistically this is only feasible if you are using a projector on an acoustically transparent screen. As found in professional cinemas.
With regards to surround sound, again I might be behind the times, but I remember that some manufacturers recommended omnidirectional speakers (bipolar speakers) to diffuse the left and right surrounds.