So yeah. I got myself a projector recently. It’s a Panasonic PT-AX200E, a model which has been around for about a year, but has earned itself pretty good reviews all around. I had been toying with getting one for some time, and saw the Panasonic, thought it looked good, so off I went! I paired it with an Optoma 80-inch (yes, really) 16:9 portable screen. I don’t have a wall big enough to project it onto, but could easily put up a screen where I wanted to project to.
So the projector sits on a shelf on one side of the room, and when I want to watch something, I can have the screen up in a matter of seconds. I managed to also find a reasonably priced 15-metre HDMI cable on eBay(about £30), which has been suitably concealed around the room. I made sure to get a decently screened one, to avoid any signal loss. That plugs into a 3-input, 2-output HDMI switch, which has all my main kit on, including the Sky HD box, the Media Centre, and my DVD player.
The projector is wonderful. The picture is crisp, and clean (even with a 15-metre cable, and the colours are deep and vibrant. There’s two main modes which adjust the projector for light and dark conditions; in darker conditions the bulb isn’t as bright, so the fan runs quieter. Not that that seems to matter, as it’s pretty quiet anyway. I’d read that it was one of the quietest, which was a major factor. It is also able to auto-detect the brightness of the room, and adjust the output accordingly to compensate. It’s not too bad in bright conditions – watchable, but then again, not many projectors produce a great image in light.
The only thing I could really fault it on is that the image always seems to tear a little at first – only very slightly mind – then it goes away. I wonder if this is just my eyes adjusting though.
I’ve been tending to watch things from Sky Movies HD on it, and it’s just perfect to watch things on. The centre speaker of my surround system is behind and above the screen, so the sound works very well. I’ve watched quite a few things – HD films, and upscaled DVDs, and it’s just superb. My best toy ever!