TV vs. projection: Your TV is too tiny

(Credit: Stewart Filmscreen)

Despite reviewing TVs for a living, I don't actually own a TV. The last TV I bought was a 27-inch CRT, in the summer of 2000.

Instead, I do all my TV and movie watching on a 103-inch screen. It's epic. It also doesn't have to cost a lot of money, nor is it difficult to set up.

The pros and cons of projection (and why you really, really want it), after the jump.

Front projection is a two-piece system: a projector that creates the image, and a screen that reflects it. Being in two pieces often gives people complexity agita, but in reality projectors are exceedingly simple to setup.

There are three technology types with front projection: DLP, LCD, and LCOS.

LCD is basically the same technology as flat-panel TVs. Typically, LCD projectors are on the lower end of the price spectrum. They don't quite offer the picture quality of the better DLP and LCOS projectors, but they've come a long way in the past few years. Mitsubishi and Epson, specifically, offer some excellent LCD-based front projectors.

DLP, or Digital Light Processing, uses small chips with millions of tiny mirrors. They range in price from low-end models to extremely expensive, three-chip flamethrowers for dedicated theaters. Digital projection in movie theaters is most often DLP. Their black level and contrast ratio isn't as good as LCOS', but motion resolution is way better. With such a range of price points, it's impossible to say DLP is "this" or "that," but typically picture quality is very good.

LCOS, or liquid crystal on silicon, can be thought of as a hybrid of DLP and LCD. It's a liquid crystal layer on top of a mirrored surface. Black level and contrast ratio are both excellent. JVC projectors (using their version of LCOS, called D-ILA) have consistently had the best contrast ratios I've measured of any display type. Sony's version, called SXRD, is a close second. Prices range from midrange to upper midrange, though Sony's new 4K projector is way high-end, price-wise.

(Credit: Epson)

Pros: Size

This is the obvious one, and the reason to go projection. I have a 12-foot-wide screen for 2.35:1 movies. In 16x9 mode, actors on TV look larger than life. Wait, they are larger than life. Literally! At 50 inches tall, that means a close-up is a 4-foot-tall head.

Or think of it this way: watching a 2.25:1 movie like "Lord of the Rings" on a screen that nearly fills your entire field of view, is the very definition of absorbing. Speaking of absorbing, if you drink too much soda and you need to take a break, this movie theater is in your house! Pause, micturate, then movie!

Lately, I've been using my "TV" as a computer monitor. Battlefield 3 on a 100-inch screen with full surround sound is the equal to or better than nearly all war movies.

On a small screen, even 50 inches or more, you can't see all the detail in a 1080p image. From average sofa distance of 10 feet, your eye just can't resolve it. Blow that up 4x to 100 inches, and now you've got yourself a party. Individual strands of hair, every pore and whisker, every blade of sand and grain of grass.

Of course, it means lesser quality content (like DVD or standard-definition cable) is much harder to suffer through.

Your house becomes the de facto location for movie nights, TV watching, and sportballteam events.

Easier on the eyes
Everyone always asks if having a screen that big hurts the eyes. Actually, it's the opposite. Filling a larger percentage of your visual field, and with less overall brightness, it's actually quite relaxing to watch. More like an actual movie theater, which often produce no more than 5 footlamberts or so (on my screen, most projectors produce around 20. An LED LCD can be 5x that or more).

Space (sort of)
If you mount the projector to the ceiling, the screen can just hang on the wall. More expensive installations feature retractable screens, where the screen disappears into the ceiling.

Some people like the idea of just painting the wall, but I don't like the rough texture this creates, as it tends to be visible.

Even though you can mount a TV on the wall, most people don't. They're also surprisingly heavy. A screen is light, and if you drop it, there's little possibility of damage (unless you stick something through it).

(Credit: Stewart Filmscreen)

Cons: Light
Well, that's the big problem. No matter how bright the projector, and no matter how clever the screen material, any light in the room is going to wash out the image. Forget about watching TV with the shades up, or the lights on. You need absolute light control in your room, or you'll be forced to watch TV only at night. In my theater, there is some light during the day, but not enough to wash out the image (though this means I can only review projectors at night, leading to a rather bizarre sleeping schedule).

Lamps
Nearly all projectors create light with a UHP lamp, which lasts a few thousand hours then costs a few hundred dollars to replace. Figure a new lamp every year or so, maybe every other year. The cost of doing the business of awesome, apparently. We're starting to see LEDs replace UHP lamps, but so far the price is really high. You're better off getting a better-performing UHP-based projector and paying for the lamps.

Odd living habits

(Credit: JVC)

Because of this, you can't get Kinect or Wii. You'd be standing in front of the screen, blocking the image, while you tried to get the controller to work.

You leave the shades drawn a lot. Or maybe that's just me. Suddenly, all your friend's TVs seem impossibly small.

Perhaps my favorite is pointing to something on screen. After so many years of having a projector, I just raise my hand and use the shadow of my finger to mark what I want. I also do this at friend's houses... and they don't have projectors. So for a moment, I'm just some guy with his hand randomly in the air. Cracks me up every time.

Other considerations (but not really cons)
It goes without saying (or maybe it doesn't) that you'll need a receiver and speakers. A projector isn't a TV, per se. There's no tuner, and most don't have speakers. So you'll need a source and audio. For cable/satellite users, the source part is easy: you probably already have the box. You can always buy an external HDTV tuner for over-the-air HD broadcasts.

The receiver and speakers, if you don't have them already...wait a second, why don't you have a receiver and speakers? You're not using the speakers in your TV, are you? For shame. There is no better upgrade you can make than upgrading your TV's audio. I just did an article on this over at HDGuru.

Then there's the screen. They range in price from a few hundred to many thousands. As I mentioned above, I don't recommend just using a wall. The image you see is the light from the projector reflected back to your eyes. If there is any sort of texture in the reflecting surface (the wall, in this case), you're going to see that as well. It's worth investing in a screen. Some have better light characteristics, some do fancy things (like make the black level better, or make a brighter image, or minimize the effect of ambient light), and others retract, mask at different aspect ratios, and more. I've been a big fan of Stewart and Da-Lite for years, but they are just two of many, and are generally on the more expensive side.

Then there are the cables. You're going to need to run HDMI from your receiver all the way to the projector. Check out my Why all HDMI cables are the same and Why all HDMI cables are the same, Part 2 articles, though make sure you note the part where I say that in this exact circumstance it is worth it to get a decent cable. There's also wireless, though I found in a recent test that the current crop of wireless HDMI transmitters leave a lot to be desired.

Lastly, there's cost. Though there are a bunch of sub-$1,000 projectors on the market that are quite decent, to get really good picture quality, you're going to have to pay for it. I found that around $3,500 is a sweet spot in terms of price/performance. As you go up in price, the performance does increase (especially when you hit the JVC models I mentioned earlier), but it's not going to be as big a jump. At the extreme high end of the scale, you're mostly just paying for light output, so you can have a tremendously large screen (like, around 150 inches diagonal).

Personally, even with all the considerations, I can't imagine going back to a tiny 50-inch TV.

Questions?
I've lived with a projector as my main display for going on 10 years; do you have any questions? Comment below, or hit me up on Twitter @TechWriterGeoff.