5 Things You Need to Know Before Buying a Home Theater Projector

Thinking of buying a home theater projector? Maybe you’d like to watch movies with your friends or you’re looking for quality time with your family. Whatever the reason, it’s important to find one that suits your needs. Home theater projectors may seem similar at first, but their specifications and performance makes every projector very different. So how do we determine what the difference is between all of these projector options? 

Here’s the top 5 things you should be on the hunt for when buying a home theater projector for your home!

·     Color Technology

·     Resolution

·     Contrast

·     Light Output & Brightness

·     Input Source – Connectivity

·     Other Things to Take Into Consideration

The majority of home theater projectors on the market are Digital Light Processing projectors (DLP). DLP projectors use tiny mirrors to reflect light and use a color wheel, which is a spinning wheel with multiple color filters. Generally, these projectors are portable and generate a higher color contrast. But what is important about color?

Projector manufacturers generally use the standard Red, Green, Blue (sRGB) color space as the default color setting. In terms of accuracy, a video captured within these settings should be reproduced on a screen with the same color accuracy as the moment it was shot. But projectors are more sensitive than other types of displays depending on the light output, contrast, and distance, which need to be taken into consideration. It’s important to ensure one color standard for everyone because color is subjective; what looks bright red to you might look pink to others. Rec. 709 color is a standard for TV, movies, and AV industries to ensure the same color gamut, resolution, frame rate, and video specifications for all HD equipment including displays, DVDs, and Blu-ray.

BenQ’s latest home cinema projectors all utilize CinematicColor™ technology for the most vibrant and supreme colors. For more information on color performance, see what actor David Crozier has to say about BenQ’s CinePro series 4k projector.

Read more: Unsure About Projection Colors, Color Gamut, or Color Wheel?

Read more: What is true 4K and does it matter?

Contrast perception is an effect produced by a series of single frames and can be measured two ways: Full On/Full Off (FOFO) and ANSI Contrast. FOFO is easy to manipulate and is commonly used in the industry, whereas ANSI produces more valid numbers, but is hardly used.

Full On/Full Off contrast measures the ratio between the brightness of a solid white pattern (Full On) and that of a solid black pattern (Full Off). A contrast ratio of 5,000:1 means that the meter reads the white pattern as being 5000 times brighter than the black pattern. 

ANSI uses a single checkerboard pattern (consisting of 16 rectangles, 8 white and 8 black). The brightness of both the black and white squares are measured and averaged, and the ratio between them is the ANSI contrast ratio.

Besides these ratios, you should consider the other important factors such as: how much ambient light is available where you place your projector? And what will you be projecting it on? 

For more information on FOFO and ANSI, read this article: The Myth of Contrast

When selecting a projector, you need to take into consideration the environment in which it will be placed in and the ambient light in that environment. Are you looking to put your projector indoors or outdoors? Will it only be watched by a few people or many viewers? What size is the room the projector will be placed in?

Projectors are sensitive to light. When we refer to the light output and brightness a projector produces, we use brightness measured in ANSI Lumens. The brightness output is essential to how it is perceived by the audience and there’s a huge difference between putting a projector in a place where there’s a lot of ambient light, or a darkroom that doesn’t have ambient light.

For a home cinema projector in a dark location that can still display a clear image despite some ambient light, you’ll need a projector above 2000 lumens. For a projector in lighter environments, you’ll need a model that allows for more than 3,000 lumens. If you need ambient lighting when using the projector, then a model with higher lumens will produce better results. 

BenQ takes ambient light into consideration. The HT3560 home cinema projector has 2200 lumens, and the TK860i smart home theater projector has 3300 lumens.

Read more: Why does brightness or lumens matter for projectors? How many lumens do you need?

To display movies, games, or any digital image through the projector, you need to hook up your projector to the original source, such as a laptop or a game console. General projectors have HDMI ports, giving you a range of options, but most BenQ’s home theatre projectors provide universal connectivity of dual HDMI 2.0b (HDCP2.2) ports and advanced AV controls for gaming consoles, handheld devices, streaming boxes, and Blu-ray players, which allows you to project 4K content with HDR. HDMI port 2 supports ARC (Audio Return).