Home cinema projectors: brightness, contrast and placement

Using a home cinema projector

Heimkinoraum mit großer Leinwand, Standlautsprechern und roten Sesseln für den Beamer-Einsatz

or what to consider when buying a home cinema projector

First of all, it's worth saying that every home cinema is one of a kind. In this guide you'll find the basics for your home cinema project.

Topics in this guide:

How bright should my projector be?
How much do I need to know about image quality?
What is the native aspect ratio?
3D home cinema projectors?
What do you need to know about lamp life?
Should the projector be mounted on the wall or ceiling, or placed on a table?
Is there anything else to look out for (Deep Color, frame interpolation and other details)?

Brightness of the home cinema projector

How bright should my projector be?

Projector brightness is measured in ANSI lumens. Home cinema projectors generally start at around 1,000 ANSI lumens and go up to 5,000 ANSI lumens or more. The environment of your home cinema projector is the deciding factor in how many ANSI lumens it should have. Rooms with controlled lighting and no bright ambient light need less brightness than rooms lit by daylight through windows.

Some guidelines:

Darkened home cinemas should have at least 1,000 ANSI lumens
Rooms with ambient light should have at least 1,500 ANSI lumens
Home cinemas with a lot of ambient light need more than 3,000 ANSI lumens

The home cinema room itself plays a part

If you can set up a dedicated home cinema room, you'll get more out of any projector: dark, matte wall and ceiling colours absorb stray light and noticeably improve perceived contrast. Windows can be sealed off with blackout curtains or blinds – then even a projector with moderate brightness is enough for a rich image. Seating distance is also part of planning a home cinema room: as a rule of thumb, sit about 1.5 times the image width away from the screen. Planning a home cinema room right now? Get in touch – we'll plan the projector, screen and placement together with you as a package.

Our recommendations:

LG LARGO

1400 ANSI lumens | DLP | Full HD 1920×1080

Sony VPL-HW65ES black

1800 ANSI lumens | D-ILA/LCOS/SXRD | Full HD 1920×1080

Image quality and resolution

How much do I need to know about image quality?

The three most important factors affecting image quality are the projector's resolution, the source material and the contrast ratio. Currently, WXGA (1280×800) and Full HD (1920×1080) projectors are the best solutions for home cinema. An HD projector has more than twice as many pixels as a WXGA projector. More pixels give a sharper picture and better compatibility with high-resolution sources.

A poor-quality signal will also result in a poorly projected image. On a larger screen this will be very noticeable.
For the best results, the resolution of the source material should match the resolution the projector actually displays.

Blu-ray players, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 normally output a 1080p signal. HDTV signals are still not standardised today, although 720p and 1080i seem to be the most common.

But what does that mean for your projector purchase?

HD projectors are able to reproduce even the finest details in a 1080p signal. Wide XGA projectors will also deliver great results, though not quite as good as HD devices.

The last factor is the projector's contrast ratio. The contrast ratio refers to the difference between the blackest black and the whitest white in an image.

However, a projector with a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 is not necessarily 5 times better than a projector with a contrast ratio of 2,000:1. If a projector can't display shades of grey, parts of the image will appear pixelated on a large screen. Look for projectors with plenty of adjustment options. Multi-colour technologies such as BrilliantColor and sRGB mode will help you set up your image exactly the way you want it.