anyone know how long projectors are good for?
Thread Starter
50 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 302
my sister won a projector, i was thinking about buying a big screen tv but i also have to option to pick this up off my sister for a price, how long do projectors last for? do there bulbs burn out after a year, are they good for watching tv every day, can they be left on for hours at a time? should i just pic up a bigscreen?.....the projector is pretty sweet and the picture gets up to 100"^2 prolly bigger i just dont have a wall big enough......i just want to know how much abuse these things can take
1000 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 1,783
Most projectors have an internal timer for bulb life. Sony projectors for example have bulbs that last 1000 hours.
My advice, is to think about your intended use. Projectors are horrible in ambient light, meaning daytime use in a bright room for example yeilds poor picture quality. For that, I'd stick with a TV. If, you are a movie buff, or watch sporting events a lot, projectors are great. I find them in general to be a waste if you just want to blow time watching whatever is on....
I have 3 different projectors that I use for different needs. A projector is simply not a projector these days. Some are optimized for displaying graphics, some for watching movies, and some are a mix of these 2. Most cheaper projectors (think 2k up to 4k) are decent at showing sheets and low resolution movie or TV content on screens about 60" wide. Most projectors claim to be able to do 100" wide images, but this is usually a pretty DIM experience with a huge loss of image resolution.
I run the projectors I use with 60" screens.
I hope this helps,
Adam
My advice, is to think about your intended use. Projectors are horrible in ambient light, meaning daytime use in a bright room for example yeilds poor picture quality. For that, I'd stick with a TV. If, you are a movie buff, or watch sporting events a lot, projectors are great. I find them in general to be a waste if you just want to blow time watching whatever is on....
I have 3 different projectors that I use for different needs. A projector is simply not a projector these days. Some are optimized for displaying graphics, some for watching movies, and some are a mix of these 2. Most cheaper projectors (think 2k up to 4k) are decent at showing sheets and low resolution movie or TV content on screens about 60" wide. Most projectors claim to be able to do 100" wide images, but this is usually a pretty DIM experience with a huge loss of image resolution.
I run the projectors I use with 60" screens.
I hope this helps,
Adam
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Posts: n/a
For the 30 or so projectors I purchased while at AECL, I got more than 1500 hours from allmost all the bulbs.
Home theatre projectors from companies like Runco or Marantz have a native resolution of 1280 x 720 so that HD and DVD video looks awesome. Computer projectors, like InFocus and Hitachi and the like have native resolutions like 1024x768. They aren't as sharp when watching video, as they have to interpolate the signal to match the available pixels.
You get what you pay for in terms of keystone adjustment, light output, colour accuracy, reliability, input options and resolution.
Home theatre projectors from companies like Runco or Marantz have a native resolution of 1280 x 720 so that HD and DVD video looks awesome. Computer projectors, like InFocus and Hitachi and the like have native resolutions like 1024x768. They aren't as sharp when watching video, as they have to interpolate the signal to match the available pixels.
You get what you pay for in terms of keystone adjustment, light output, colour accuracy, reliability, input options and resolution.
