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“A projector gives you true home cinema”
Bigger picture, better quality, space-saving – Clare Newsome says goodbye to her bulky old TV and hello to life-changing High Definition projectors. It's easier than you'd think…
Many of the electronic marvels strutting their tech-packed stuff in these pages – and seductively whispering “touch me, buy me” from every store – promise to be life-enhancing. But few of these little beauties qualify as life-changing. Yet that’s exactly what home-cinema projectors have done for me.
Before you deem this to be Oprah-show gushing, let me explain. Four years ago, when my big ol’ TV was starting to look unbearably lumpy next to the flatscreen model we were testing at work, I visited a friend’s house. There appeared to be no telly in its living room, just an expanse of clean space. Slightly panicked – there being a big match due that I’d fully expected to watch with them – I asked if they’d moved their set to another room.
With a proud smile, they pointed to a hitherto concealed projector and pull-up screen. Now this was in an ordinary living room with big picture windows – not the blacked-out, cinema-style space in which I’d previously seen projectors tested and used. The only extra investment my mate had made was some blackout linings for his curtains, so he could enjoy his big-screen fun on sunnier days too.
Damascene conversion
There then followed a film-fest Saturday, a Super Sunday of football and, in my case, a Damascene conversion (the original of which also involved a shining light). Why was I watching an ugly, fat lump of a TV with a mere 32in screen, when I could be revelling in an entertainment-transforming experience from kit I could hide away when not in use?
Within days my TV (if not its set-top box) was history and I’d taken the plunge into the world of home-cinema projection. Films I’d only seen on the small screen were engrossing and powerful and teeming with background detail. And all at the touch of a couple of buttons and the unfurling of my very own silver screen.
Living-room friendly
Back then, few projectors on the market were living-room friendly. My friend’s model (an LCD-based Sony, coincidentally) was one of them. It allowed a ‘side-shot’ set-up, so you could position the projector at the side of the sofa (a tidier solution, and one that meant you could get up during a movie or match without your bonce obscuring the action). Since then, features and ease-of-use have both increased.
More sophisticated technologies, such as DLP (Digital Light Processing, which uses individually controlled tiny mirrors) and Sony’s SXRD (Silicon Crystal Reflective Display, which further improves performance) – combined with an 80in high-gain screen – mean I can watch during the daytime without even having to draw the curtains (lazy? moi?).
If I had the money, I could have fancy motorised screens, ceiling-mounted projectors and the works, but I don’t. London living means I have to sit a mere 12 feet away from the picture, making everything ‘event TV’, but my new set-up no longer dominates my flat’s bijou dimensions.
Far more social
A home-cinema projector is also a far more social thing. Having friends round to watch the big match in glorious High Definition, viewing the latest blockbuster on Blu-ray Disc™ or even a gaming marathon with my PS3-obsessed stepson gets a lot more lively than a couple of people quietly enjoying a smaller flatscreen.
There’s also the feeling that this is true home cinema, linking you to moving-image history. While TV is a mere 20th-century upstart, projectors were first recorded in second-century China, and have been crowd-pleasers ever since – and crowd-scarers, too. The Phantasmagoria shows of the 18th and 19th centuries accompanied frightening images with special sound effects.
The most celebrated ghost-show projectionist, Etienne-Gaspard Robert, said, “I am only satisfied if my spectators, shivering and shuddering, raise their hands or cover their eyes out of fear.”
I think of this when watching penalty shoot-outs. That’s the only time – or perhaps during footage of medical procedures – that I ever miss the smaller screen of my previous life.
Clare Newsome is editor-in chief of What Hi-fi? Sound and Vision
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