[mythtv-users] Projector and Frontend upgrade advice

[Andre Newman]

On 25 Feb 2015, at 12:30, Damian <myth at surr.co.uk> wrote:

> Thanks for all of this information Andre! I thought that the entire thread had moved on to discussing cars fro some reason.

Not sure what happened there…

There are a few of us here who have projectors with Myth, either as well as a “normal” TV or instead like me, I’m away on a business trip so didn’t see your post until now.


> 
> The room and screen are relatively small. The projection wall is limited due to it being triangular (because of hole in wall underneath staircase). The screen size feels substantial in the room though, so we're happy with it if we can find the right projector that can deliver a screen small enough.

Fair enough, I had an 88” screen for five years due to size of the room and the old projector (Optoma HD80) lens limitations.
Generally lenses are wider now than six or seven years ago so it’s possible to get 100” in a fairly typical European living room, I’m up to 112” now in an ~13’ throw.

I think you might struggle to get down to 75” with a budget projector, the more expensive £5k+ tend to have interchangeable or longer lenses, I guess people who can afford expensive projectors can afford bigger rooms to put them in! You may have to mount closer to get it right, take a look at the projector calculators that BenQ and Optoma put on their websites also projector central has quite a good one if they have updated it lately. I think the W1300 or the HD50 had especially flexible zoom ranges but I’ve not paid much attention to the long end of the lenses.

The LGs are not going to suit you, I think you’d get 120” at that distance with the PF87k!! Shame as the usual complaint about LED is not enough brightness for 3D at 100” but at 75” you would have brightness to spare.

> 
> I'll go through all of your suggestions when I get some time later on.

Feel free to bounce ideas around on here if it helps, I’m sure we can keep it Myth centric enough, I’ll keep an eye on the thread.

Usually it’s us projector guys who are looking for the best, not the cheapest, video cards for MythTV because we see all the small defects the LCD guys just can’t see. I have an Nvidia GT640 which can de-interlace anything at full quality with room to spare and is fanless, I think there is a fanless half height GT630 now.

You probably don’t want frontend recommendations from me, I’m using an overclocked 4Ghz i7 for frontend because I’m working with h265 ultra HD material (scaled down) on some work projects and it’s only just fast enough!

I find that avsforum in the US is the best place for Projector info and discussion, they have a lively <$3000 projector forum.
AvForums in the UK is a bit pushed around by the manufacturers but can still be useful and gives a European take on things.
cine4home can be very valuable if you can google translate or read a little German...
cineston.org too if you are ok with some French.

Andre


> 
> Thanks again,
> Damian
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