The price of the plasma TV is twice that of the plasma TV, and the video projector turns a family into a palace of movies. NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine)-
The next time you find yourself sitting in a dimly lit conference room staring at a PowerPoint presentation, forget about the market share and instead focus on that crystal --clear, 10-foot-tall pie chart.
Now imagine that you see the towering walls of Troy and the sword of conflict of the mythical warrior.
Now imagine everything in your living room.
This is exactly what you can install if you have a projector at home.
It turns out that a new type of video projector makes it possible to take the big screen home.
Hollywood budget is not required to do so.
The new projector costs less than $2,000 (
Some under $1,000)
This means that you watch it twice the size of the largest plasma screen on the market and pay half the price of the smallest screen.
New models in consumers
The electronics store is optimized for everything in the living room: cable or satellite signals on TV, dvd, video games, and even digital photos.
They tend to be small and weigh less than 9 pounds.
To achieve the best results, the projector needs
Dark rooms and sofas or chairs are at least 8 feet away from your wall or screen, so you may be using the TV most of the time.
But the price of the projector has dropped a lot recently, so they deserve to consider it according to their own conditions, even if it is only in movie nights or large games. Most new home-
The trusted projectors on the market use the digital optical processing (DLP) technology of the latest generation of Texas Instruments.
They made warm photos of high contrast that showed high realistic expectations for theater films.
High contrast makes up for some soft colors.
The latest DLP chip, which will improve color, first appeared in $1,499 InFocus 4805, a highly anticipated machine that was released too late to be here
The competitor's LCD projector offers a spectacular color, although the contrast is a bit short.
You need to find the happiest medium between brightness and contrast for your room.
Bright Lights (
In terms of lumens)
Tends to wash some subtleties from the image, while the details (
A function of contrast, used to evaluate the difference between the brightest white and the darkest black)
A darker room is required at the expense of brightness.
We tried 8 latest projectors.
We like the three most here. BenQ PB6100 ($999; benq. com).
BenQ, Taiwan, was once called Acer ). S.
Projector market for some impressive machines.
The color on the PB6100 is rich and the details are rendered fine.
Make sure you order an adapter for $25 that allows you to connect the projector to the component video jack on the DVD player (
There are three kinds of cables: red, blue and green at the prompt);
Or your picture will be washed away.
Bulb life is a disadvantage.
All the projectors burn out expensive bulbs, but the light bulbs are shorter --
Live more than others-
About 1,000 movies. -
The price of $400 is also expensive.
In addition, the PB6100 cannot be set to wide-
Screen mode, so you will see the black bars up and down of the image in some movies.
Dell 3300MP projector ($1,699; dell. com).
The small and bright 3300 is one of the new products of DLP machines, weighing less than 4 pounds. Even in well-
Bright room with bright enough pictures to show the sales chart clearly.
If you're going to take it to a friend's house or watch a movie outdoors or anywhere you can't control the light, it's also an optional machine.
The color is a little soft, but the picture is the clearest.
The $3300 280 bulb lasts 3,000 hours in full light, but can run for 5,000 hours (
Or 2,500 movies)
In its slightly bleak "economy-mode.
Dell often offers 10 to 20% discounts on projectors, so keep an eye out for specials.
Epson Powerlite Home 10 ($1,299; epson. com).
This is the best projector in our very dark living room.
Epson is leading the LCD camp, and the 10 phones show the reason.
The color is very rich and the picture looks like a movie.
These 10 movies are first designed for DVD movies, just 8 feet--
Almost half the distance of other projectors. -
Eight-foot-wide image.
This is a dream factor for movie lovers whose rooms are easily darkened.
Epson is big, but designed to be the most thoughtful, and looks more like a stylish home than a meeting room.
With these projectors, your screen is important.
A matte white or light gray wall can provide enough screens.
Or consider one of Da's. Lite (da-lite. com)
, Which makes the handsome and lightweight screen that matches the wide sizeangle DVDs.
Theater Lite and deluxe Insta-
The theater line starts with a screen with a diagonal of 60 inch and costs about $230.
The easiest way is to connect a DVD player or computer to a projector.
If your home stereo system is off, simply connect the audio cable of your computer or player to the receiver.
If not, insert some self
Electric speakers commonly used in desktop computers. Surround-
Sound speakers from Creative Labs and Logitech have made a huge difference.
Few retailers are able to show projectors at their best, not to mention letting you compare stores.
So make sure you have a good return policy for the items you buy from the store.
You can keep up with new products at project torcentral. com.
Troy released a DVD in October.
Imagine the size of the horse in your living room!