Home entertainment: For home theater use, DLP or LCD projector?

For anyone who would like to set up a home theater, a projector is among the options worth considering.

Indeed, projectors are already widely used by professionals and amateurs alike. There is even increasing use of projectors for church services and conferences. An LCD projector is quite handy for presentations as it does not require a special screen. You only need to have a bright-colored (white) wall.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) projectors are the types usually sold in Indonesia today. Although generally this particular projector is used for business presentations or as multimedia gadgets, they can also be used for your home theater. LCD projectors have two kinds of ratio, namely 4:3 and 16:9, which simply means that they have been set as multifunctional projectors and therefore can be used either for presentations or as part of your home theater. In reality, however, a DLP (Digital Light Processing) projector is better for home theater purposes.

An LCD projector is suitable making presentations and is usually used together with a laptop computer. As has been said earlier, an LCD projector is not really the best choice for a home theater as the pictures it produces lack detail and in many cases will be fuzzy. The pictures are poor in quality as not all visual information goes through the mirror at the same time.

A DLP projector does not use a mirror, but a color wheel, which is why it is more suitable for home theater use. The color wheel is the most important part of the DLP projector for producing accurate colors. Besides, the presence of this color wheel also reduces saturation, contrast and brightness. A projector for home theater use does not normally require a high level of brightness. A DLP projector, however, is not without its shortcomings. It produces a rainbow effect and also sacrifices the white segment of the color wheel. These two drawbacks make a DLP projector less suitable for presentations.

LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) technology is the latest to come on the market and is used for home theater projectors. This technology blends the superior elements of the LCD projector and the DLP projector. The advantages of an LCD projector are that it is more compact, lighter and more affordable. On the other hand, the advantages of a DLP projector are that it can produce brighter and clearer pictures, the most important element in the screening of a film. An LCOS projector combines the advantages of these two other types of projector.

Also bear also in mind that an LCOS projector can be used for the commercial screening of a film in a cinema. It can produce pictures in sizes ranging from 4 inches to 300 inches, with a throw distance covering a span of between 1.2 meters and 9.1 meters. Still, an LCOS is not without its drawbacks either as its ratio contrast, usually ranging between 500:1 and 1,000:1, is still low compared with that of a DLP projector. Besides, the lifespan of LCOS lights is also brief, usually between 1000 and 1,500 hours. But, wait, if the lights of your LCOS projector go out, just replace them! This feature is one of the main selling points of LCOS projectors.

The source of signals (a DVD player, etc.) and the projector are connected by a cable. The longer the cable, the poorer the quality of the signal transmitted. To overcome this problem, use an optic fiber connection, a system used in SIM2 HT300 Link projectors. The advantage of an optic fiber connection is that it can operate on a quite broad bandwidth at higher speed and with a stronger resistance to electromagnetic disturbances (noise).

Here are a few tips for buying a projector. First of all, choose a projector that is capable of producing the sharpest and brightest pictures regardless of the size of the room in which it is to be used. Then pay attention to the lifespan of the lights. Let's assume that we use the projector to screen 4 films a week, this means we use it for a total of 8 hours or 416 hours a year. If the lifespan of the lights in your LCD projector is 3,000 hours, this means that you can use the projector for about 7 years. The next thing you have to consider is the size of the contrast ratio of the projector you wish to buy. The higher the ratio the better. Last but not least, don't forget to see how many input terminals are available. Find out if the projector is provided with composite, RGB, USB, S-Video, Video Component, RS232, DVI, 1394 Firewire and HDMI-HDCP terminals.

If you are a sales- or a businessperson who often has to go out of town to make presentations, you will need a projector that is compact and light so that you can easily take it with you wherever you go. What you need is an LCD projector. However, if you need a projector only for your home theater, your ideal choice will be a DLP Projector. What ever the case, at the end of the day it is entirely to you whether you eventually opt for an LCD projector, a DLP projector or an LCOS projector.