How to achieve the best view from front-projector televisions

With screen sizes more appropriately measured in feet than inches and high-definition (HD) image quality rivaling the best a plasma TV can offer, front-projector television is probably the closest you can get to a truly theater-like experience in your home.

Front projectors are compact, portable units using the same microdisplay technologies – LCD, DLP or LCoS – found in rear-projection TVs. Unlike their rear-display cousins, however, front projectors have no screen or TV tuner, and most lack speakers.

That’s not a bad thing. A cable or satellite box can fill in for the tuner, and providing your own screen means you’re not locked into a specific size, as you are with every other type of TV. By adjusting the distance between the projector and the screen and using the zoom control, you can view images ranging from a 50-inch picture that would work in a small room, to a 200-inch display that would suit larger spaces.

Yet front projectors may not be the best choice for typical everyday viewing. When you beam an image onto a screen or a white wall, ambient light is the enemy. If light falls on the screen, it reduces contrast and washes out the picture. Your best bet for front-projector viewing, therefore, is a room with blackout shades to block daylight. Even at night you have to keep light from nearby lamps from hitting the display surface.

Hitting ‘sweet spot

Logistics are another issue. As you move the projector farther from the screen, the image gets larger but dimmer. We found an image size of about 110 inches to be the sweet spot for impact and brightness. To fill that screen size, you’d typically place a projector 10 to 15 feet away. For a 50-inch screen, half that distance should do.

Also consider seating. With an HD projector and a 110-inch screen, the optimal viewing distance is 14 feet or so – about three times the height of the display area. If you’re too close, the images look a bit coarse.

As for display technologies, projectors using LCD don’t do as well as DLP models in reproducing true black, but some are fine. Most DLP projectors, meanwhile, are subject to a “rainbow effect” – a perceived flash of color visible mainly with bright objects on a dark background. Some viewers may find it troubling.

We tested five HD projectors selling for $2,000 to $5,000, and four enhanced-definition (ED) units priced from $1,300 to $2,000. (ED models have lower native resolution than HD units, limiting image quality.) We beamed their images onto a Da-Lite screen with matte white viewing surface ($400) that measured 110 inches diagonally.

Best, best, best

Three of our tested HD projectors stood out:

¢ Best for most: The Epson Powerlite Cinema 500 ($3,300) is an LCD unit that provides outstanding picture quality with good black levels. Useful features include a lens-shift mechanism that lets you move the image vertically or horizontally.

¢ Best for small rooms: A DLP projector, the Sharp SharpVision XV-Z2000 ($3,500) can be placed closer to the screen (9 feet) than other models we tested. It had the best combination of HD color and clarity of all tested projectors, and produced good black levels.

¢ Most versatile placement: The Sony Cineza VPL-HS51 ($2,900) worked well between 10 and 16 feet from our screen, allowing more latitude than the others tested. Picture quality and black levels were very good for this LCD model.

If you’re going to the effort of setting up a front-projection system, you should stick with HD. But if low price is more important to you than higher resolution, consider the enhanced-definition InFocus ScreenPlay 4805 ($1,300). Picture quality for this DLP projector is decent – if the rainbow effect doesn’t bother you.