Projector advice needed

[nonny]

My screen is approx. 6ft 4:3 with me sitting back around 12ft from it and I love it.

I mainly use my xbox on it using a VGA adaptor churning out 480P and upwards... I dont think it looks any more pixelated at all to be honest but sure going down to normal PAL resolutions through S-Video looks noticeably less crisp though and washed out.

[gIzzE]

All digital projectors will scale the resolution you put into it back to the resolution of the panel they are using, so if you buy a projector with only 480 lines you may see the grid arrangement of the panel, i.e screendoor, so if you can get a panel with 720 lines all the better.
One thing to note though is they are now getting alot better than they were a year ago, and they were alot better than a year before, and this will no doubt continue to carry on.
If you want one now I would go with the one you can afford, and know that in a year or so you can get half your money back and upgrade, don't hold on for the next best thing. I bought a BenQ 8700+ DLP last summer for around ?3k, I see that the new Sony is around the same spec and LCD, which has benifits over DLP, for around half that price and with a 6000:1 contrast ratio (most important spec. of any projector).
If it is jsut for a bit of gaming they will all blow you away, movies on the other hand is a different story, I find it hard to live with the quality of any digital yet when it comes to films, they still look, well, digital. When you see a field, or a person in a film you know what it should look like, so you see all the flaws, you don't know what the game is meant to look like so it doesn't really matter.

Just pick one up for ?500 and enjoy it, and even if you loose half your money over the next 18 months or so, who cares, I can't think of a better way to spend ?250

[dc-arena]

I am still loving mine. Had it for over a year now (Panasonic AE200), and its awesome. I use it for all my movies (TV DVDs go through my CRT still), and games are awesome.

I don't always play all my games on it - just the ones I feel will benefit and deserve the bigscreen action. For example, I am currently playing Prime 2 through the projector in 480p and its fooking ace. But something like Sly2 I would play on my TV.

I have two switch boxes, one for RGB and one for component. Then I have a SCART lead going to my TV, and a SCART lead (10m) going to my projector. I just swop them around when I need to. And my Japanese GC I have a modded RGB lead, and component, and just the swop them out at the back of the Nintendo if I am going bigscreen or CRT.

When I get my own place I'll have a dedicated room for it all, with just consoles and DVD player in, with no TV atall. One of the main reasons I didn't use the PR for everything was because of bulb life, but seeing as I rarely used it during the summer, I am doing pretty well on life. So to be honest using everything through it now would be fine. Just daytime gaming would be the only downside. I am sure a 2 minute job to relocate a PlayStation isn't a major issue huh?

Do it, you'll love it.
I'd personally recommend a Panasonic AE700, because I am very very happy with my AE200.

[Roost]

I've got the TW10H, it's a fantastic projector for the money well chuffed with mine so far

[Cerberus]

I gave it some serious thought and decided to wait until next year. I will pick one up from Australia, so I guess I will have to wait and see what becomes available during the next 12 months. I predict my budget will rise from 500 to 1000 pounds, so I should be able to get something significantly better. The Epson projector sounds like a fantastic choice for 500 pounds, but I'm certain I could wait another year for this.

[charlaph]

I'd advise caution against buying a projector from outside the EU just for the sake of saving a bit of money, read the projector forums at www.avforums.com and you'll get an idea of all the things that go wrong with projectors and how often people have to call on their warranties. I would hope you'll get an idea of what buying from a respectable dealer is worth. No doubt the manufacturer will honour any warranty, but imagine something like (for example) a dead or stuck pixel right in the middle of the image, which isn't bad enough to be classed as an exchange by the manufacturer - you'd have to either live with it (after spending ?1000+ on it) or send it all the way back to Oz for an exchange.

If you're decided, but stuck for cash just now then places like www.discounttv.co.uk do buy now pay in 12 months on anything over ?120, even their discounted items (assuming you're accepted for finance)

[Ciaran]

I've just ordered my Panasonic AE700E from Germany for only ?1600 (?1,104). I can't wait. \o/