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The Basics about Home Theater Projectors
 -- Jim Gelder, Projectorian.com


The days of just popping a videocassette into the player and watching old movies on your 20-inch color television are over, today's state of the art home entertainment revolves around re-creating the experience of the movie theater.


Home theater projectors deliver fabulous contrast and outstanding colors, and picture quality that rivals the big screen. These devices, which technologically advanced, are easy to operate, and their portability makes it possible to install them in just about any living room, regardless of space limitations.


Home theater projectors are becoming more common, but some of the top brands in the industry are available from companies like Epson, InFocus, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Sony, and Toshiba. The first consideration is the aspect ratio. Traditional television has an aspect ratio of 4:3, which means a picture is four units wide to three units deep.


Most people recommend having a 16:9 projector and 16:9 screen, and the trend has been to convert the traditional 4:3 television into the 16:9 widescreen theater environment. There are exceptions however, and depending on your situation, you may wish to look into the 4:3 projector.


There is not a universal standard for the aspect ratio of movies and video. Television programs and movies that are made for television viewing usually come in the 4:3 format, while those produced for HDTV are produced in 16:9 format. Your home theater system will be able to play movies in both formats, although the results will be different, and you may see black bars on the top and bottom of the screen if the format of the movie is different from the format of your theater system.


However, those black bars are less noticeable than they used to be, thanks to higher contrast in projectors, and better screen material. Electric masking is also an option. This feature closes the frame when there is a difference in the format and the display. When displaying 4:3 video on a 16:9 projector, you get pillars along both sides.


One way to avoid this is to use the projector's expand feature, which stretches the image to fill the frame, although this does result in some distortion of the image. Using the zoom feature will preserve the integrity of the image, but cut off the top and bottom of the image. But for the best viewing of a video in its original state, it is best to just deal with the bars or pillars, and preserve the original integrity of the video without any distortion or cropping.


Whether you choose a 16:9 or 4:3 format depends on your particular preferences. The 16:9 format is best for those who will see more HDTV programming. These format projectors will also offer better video processing and more features for home theater than the 4:3 projectors.


The size of the screen is also an important factor in home theater. Having a screen that is too big, in a room that is too small, may not be advantageous, and may cause some eyestrain. Also keep in mind that the larger the screen is, and the closer you sit to it, the more you will be able to see artifacts and pixelation. As a general rule of thumb, set your viewing distance to two times the screen width or more to avoid these annoyances.





For those heavily dedicated to having the best home theater system, you may want to take a peek at HTM - a magazine featuring information on not only home theater projectors, but all aspects of home theater equipment. PCworld also has a plethora of information relating to home theater projectors here, including reviews of specific models.