Dead projector - Advice on a new one

Posted by: paul99 on 23 February 2008

Help needed!

My venerable Sony VPL-CS2 projector has just died. I may have to get it repaired but I would like to take the opportunity to upgrade to a higher resolution DLP projector. (My wife is convinced that it's deliberate sabotage so that I have an excuse to spend more money.)

I have spent about three hours or so going through all the projectors available from PC World Business, everything from £200 to £30,000 models and nothing seems to meet my requirements.

Perhaps the assembled experts can help.

Here's the problem:

The projector is mounted 13 feet or so from the screen. (The precise distance from lens to screen is 12.75 feet.)

The screen is 5 feet in width. The white area is only 58" across.

So, I need a throw ratio of about 2.6.

Every sensible projector that you could use in a domestic environment has a throw ratio of about 2 with about a 10% (zoom) adjustment.

This would mean that the picture would be about 6.5 feet across.

The InFocus site has a nice projector-screen distance and picture size calculator. I worked through their entire product range and every projector gives a picture that is too wide.

Can anyone recommend a suitable long throw projector?

Is there, perhaps, some sort of gadget that can resize a picture?

The inputs the projector or gadget needs to have are:

RGB for use with a computer
Composite PAL
S-Video

(I haven't gone high definition yet but might do.)

Finally - moving the projector closer to the screen isn't an option due to ceiling lamps.

A wider screen is not an option either because I do not have the height available for a larger picture.

Any suggestions?

Regards,

Paul.

Posted on: 23 February 2008 by neil w

afaik simm2 can put different lenses in their pjs with different throw ratios .

but i suspect they wont be cheap

regards

neil

heres one 2.5 throw

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sim2-HT300-Xtra-Projector-Pre-own...sidZp1742.m153.l1262

Posted on: 23 February 2008 by Allan Probin

Not DLP but the JVC HD-1 (& HD-100) will do a throw ratio from 1.43 to 2.81 and is pretty flexible with vertical and horizontal lens shift. Might be a bit bright with that screen size - you're always going to have that problem with recent projectors.

Posted on: 23 February 2008 by neil w

funny that alan should come in and give you one that suits youre requirements . which is exactly what pj i have

neil

Posted on: 24 February 2008 by Michael Dale

Hi Paul,

Check out the Optima Themescene projectors. Our H90 is a similar distance from our screen to yours. Our screen is wider, but the lens will zoom down to the size you need. Superb image too.

Many of the manufacturers have a size/ratio calculator on their websites.

Regards,

Mickey

Posted on: 24 February 2008 by tonym

A vote here also for SIM2 - the Naim of the projector world in my opinion! I'm now on my third (nothing wrong with any of them, I just felt the need to upgrade!)

As posted above they supply various lenses, but I think you shouldn't have too much of a problem with their standard lens.

I had the opposite problem; a big screen but have to have the projector close to it (there's a big beam in the way).

Posted on: 24 February 2008 by Allan Probin

Very happy with my SIM2 as well! I think Paul is going to struggle to find a DLP that can accomplish a 2.6:1 throw ratio. I think the T2 lens on a SIM2 HT380 will do it but that's a £6.5k projector. It's also a very bright projector and I would imagine you'd be looking at > 30ft lamberts on a screen that size. That would mean fitting ND filters to the lens and in my experience they kill the image.

How you getting on the ND filters I gave you for your JVC Neil?

Allan

Posted on: 24 February 2008 by paul99

Thanks for all the advice. I've had a look at the JVC DLA-HD1 - It looks like the business.

I'm going to find out about the others now.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Of course with one of these far superior projectors, the urge to upgrade the DVD player etc is going to be close to irresistable.

Posted on: 27 February 2008 by Frank Abela

For all that it's an LCD projector, the Panasonic PT-AE2000E is excellent. I'd be very surprised if it can't achieve the desired throw ratio. We use it in a very similar scenario.

It's also remarkably quiet and has ridiculously good depth, particularly with Blu-ray of course since it's a FullHD machine.

Posted on: 17 March 2008 by paul99

Thanks for all the advice.

In the end, I plumped for the JVC DLA-HD1. This Friday I finally got it plumbed in properly. It took a while because my ancient DVD player also failed, so I had to get a new one of those. And I had to change the ceiling light because of shadows and so I had to change some other lights to match and I had to make a new shelf for the projector and I had to make up some new leads for the new DVD player - It's amazing how these things snowball.

In the end - very good. A nice clear and natural looking picture that fits onto the screen with plenty of adjustement either way.

The only thing that I haven't been able to sort out is a connection to the laptop that I use for looking at photos.

I've tried a VGA to HDMI converter (the projector does not have the usual VGA connection) but that didn't work.

Once I've got a few other things sorted out with the system (e.g. I can't fit the new DVD player on the rack.), I'll get back to seeing how I can link in the laptop. I don't want to have to buy a Video Processor just for that.

Regards,

Paul.