Cinema at home - advice please

Bigphil1474

I'm thinking of buying a projector. It will be mainly to watch movies in the living room. The rooms not massive (about 5m x 5m) , but if I arrange it as a temporary set up, I reckon I can get a decent cinema feel at home. My 42" Tv is great but I'd like something more for movies.
I've got a large blank wall which is very light in colour so I think would be fine for projecting onto. I've got a wireless soundbar and woofer, although I'd probably look to plug the sound-bar directly to the projector, as it did occasionally cut out on Wi-Fi before I got an optical lead. I've got a decent 3d blue ray player and plenty of films to enjoy. I've got blinds and curtains on the windows already so could get it dark enough even in the day time, and plenty of popcorn to munch on.
I'm looking at a budget of about £300 give or take. I'm thinking HD projector but could 720 be enough? I thought I was a bit tech savvy but all the figures for lumens, contrast ratio's etc. have me a bit confused - I'm working on the assumption that higher is better but the lumens figures seem to vary from a couple of thousand to 30,000?? It would also need to have vertical adjustment as it would have to sit on a coffee table around 2-4m from the wall (can't fix to the ceiling), and not be too loud to spoil the ambience. No doubt I'd have to keep clearing up afterwards or the OH would be moaning, so reasonably compact.
Does anyone have any experience of projectors as a home cinema? Is it worth it? Is my budget over optimistic? Are the bulb lives what they say they are? Any rough guide for minimum spec. No amount of online browsing has left me any the wiser. Thanks for any useful help you can give.

wongataa

Your budget is too low for what you want to do. A decent projector is more than you want to pay for a start.

ohreally

https://www.avforums.com/forums/projectors-screens-forum.43/

Bigphil1474

ohreally - thanks. Will have a read.

Double_V

Your budget is low.
Also have you already got A/V amplifier ?
Pioneer VSX 529 is good entry level amplifier. And also what sort of speakers are you gonna be using.

benje302

Hi

One thing I would NOT do is plug the soundbar into the projector as usually the in-built sound processors/amps are not that good.

Some blu-ray players have built in surround these days but the best option is plugging the blu-ray into an AV receiver and let that do the sound processing.

I use an Onkyo 3d AV reciever with Tannoy speakers all round and an Onkyo Sub. You can then output the picture from that to the projector (mines via HDMI)

As for budget - £300 is a little on the low side

Bigphil1474

I have an LG soundbar with separate wireless woofer - I was thinking that would do the sound - the soundbar doesn't have an HDMI slot, but it is wireless, bt, or optical.
I was basically presuming I could get a projector, plug the player in via hdmi to the projector, connect the soundbar (and therefore the woofer) to the player or projector via optical cable, and off I'd go.
Appreciate the comments that the budget is too low - any comments on what would be a realistic budget, without going over the top? Had a look on the AV forum and the prices range from a few hundred £ to a few thousand. I noted that the BenQ W1070 has reasonable reviews at around £500 ? which I may be able to stretch to next month - or should I be thinking more more more?

wongataa

Bigphil1474 wrote: »

I was basically presuming I could get a projector, plug the player in via hdmi to the projector, connect the soundbar (and therefore the woofer) to the player or projector via optical cable, and off I'd go.

That is unlikely to work. You would need a disc player with a suitable sound output and plug it into the soundbar and the projector.

jay1989

hi - if you go on to a website called Get Tech Direct you can contact them and they can normally point you in the right direction and they are also authorised resellers so usually pretty cheap on their projectors hope this helps

agrinnall

jay1989 wrote: »

hi - if you go on to a website called [redacted] you can contact them and they can normally point you in the right direction and they are also authorised resellers so usually pretty cheap on their projectors hope this helps

Several posts promoting this no doubt dodgy outfit, do they also do a good price on :spam: ?