Gaming Projector

[kmount]

Hi there,

 

Does anyone have experience of using a projector at home as a living room TV replacement?

 

The good lady wife has been researching and believes the modern gaming projectors can do 4K and HD at a high refresh rate, low input lag and tolerate ambient light etc.

 

I think I'm anti the idea mostly because of bulb replacement, and seeing a lowish lumen capability etc combined with years in the past of problems in school.

 

(then schools ended up with the long life casio led ones, and short throw to make it bearable for presenters etc which don't seem to to be prevalent in the gaming and home setup yet)

 

Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[supportman]

I have the previous model of this and its fantastic for gaming, so immersive! https://www.optoma.co.uk/product-details/uhd51

 

I only use it with my ps4 though so 1080p but good enough. Has a good speaker in it as well.

[kmount]

Oh! Cool! Thank you, someone with real world experience helps me!

 

Daft question, what size display do you have and how far back is it mounted etc? (just approx there's of course a light fitting in the centre of the room!)

 

Do you run a cabling loom in trunking up to it and have a faceplate near your PS4?

 

Do you run a separate speaker output from it, just thinking whether I can reuse sound bar etc we have.

 

I'm happy with the TV we have but I also value my life and she's not long given me a daughter so I feel I should be open minded

 

Thank you again, chuffed to hear someone is doing this.

[supportman]

The room is about 4.5 meters length and I have the projector right at the back wall projecting onto the opposite wall. Wall is just painted white. Its "huge" and takes up most of the wall

 

I trunked the cabling from the PS4 and Nvidia Shield down the wall into an HDMI splitter that changes to the normal TV when needed.

 

I use the internal speaker on the projector mostly as its pretty good. It does have a 3,5mm jack so could potentially run from that.

[kmount]

Superb, thank you

[jmak]

I'm not a gamer, but I do have an Xbox connected to my Optoma projector.

 

The comment I'd make is that it'll be quite dependent on how large you have the image and where you sit. I chose my screen to be the right size (120" diagonal or about 3m across) for watching films from where the sofa is. Turns out that the range on the Xbox controllers is about 2.5m. That means quite a lot of looking side to side in a game - although if I was really bothered, I'd rearrange the room so that the Xbox was nearer the sofa. At the minute it's under the screen because it used to make sense when it's where the telly was...

 

At that size, I find it struggles in bright sunlight, but since brightness will vary as a function of the square of the size, of you have it set at a screen width of 2m instead of 3m, it'd be about twice as bright. I also just checked and mine has 1200 hours on the bulb and I can't detect any dimming. A replacement bulb was about £40 last time I checked.

 

If you're after immersive gaming, seriously consider decent surround sound - hearing stuff approaching from behind definitely adds something.

 

You could also hedge your bets by keeping the TV - just have a screen that you pull down in front of it for when you want to use the projector. I do really enjoy mine, but watching things like the news and panel shows is a bit odd, so I still watch those on a normal TV. I'd imagine CBeebies might be a bit weird at that size too once your daughter starts watching TV...

[kmount]

Haha brilliant hadn't thought of the impact of life size Mr tumble and tellytubbies...!!!

 

Fab thank you for that too.

 

Sounds like she might not be completely crackers then I shall indulge the thinking I guess!