You may be thinking of upgrading your home entertainment with a home theatre projector. A home theatre projector setup brings the movie theatre experience right into your home.

Let’s look at where we’re coming from. For so long, the TV has been king. Most homes have at least one TV set. TVs have been quite popular, and their sizes have continued to increase. People still need the TV to catch up with the news and view other TV programmes that may appeal to a family. TVs are consequently likely to remain with us.

However, home entertainment is shifting, even here in Nigeria. When you want to really enjoy movies, sporting action and other valued video content at home, a large screen display is the real deal. When you want pictures far bigger than your TV can boast of, it’s time to shift to home theatre projection. The impact is awesome when you view your movies or events, in captivating life-sized pictures that provide the ultimate home entertainment experience.

You don’t have to go in search of a public viewing venue to watch a major football match on a big screen. You can have it all packaged into your living room. All you need is a home theatre projector and, ideally, a projection screen!

What Home Theatre Projector is
Home Theatre Projectors are projectors that enable you replicate the high quality, large-screen movie experience of commercial movie theatres, right at home. Some projectors are specially designed to meet the high picture contrast and top resolution required to achieve that outstanding viewing experience of home theatre setup. Manufacturers clearly tag such projectors home theatre projectors.

However, cost and availability constraints may dictate that you use a projector not strictly designed as home theatre projectors. Many other projectors you’ll find in the market can also be used at home for home entertainment. Those may just be referred as home entertainment projectors or home video projectors. The user still gets large-screen image display, excellent picture quality and enthralling entertainment, though quality may not be depth you get from a specialized home theatre projector. It’s excellent entertainment, all the same.

For the purpose of this guide, we’ll be looking at home theatre projectors as one family – projectors used at home for large-screen home entertainment. We’ll paint the ideal requirement and also consider what you can do, with limited resources, to still bring that heavy duty home entertainment to your living place.

Factors to Consider in Choosing a Home theatre Projector

There are many factors that are relevant in choosing a projector, but when it comes to home theatre projection setup, you need to particularly pay attention to the following:<

Best Image Quality You Can Afford
You can’t always have the best, because you may not afford it, but you can aim for the best that you can afford. Getting good image display will largely be defined by the resolution and contrast ratio of the projector you buy.

So, you aim for the best resolution your money can buy. The best, at this time, will be a 4K resolution, but that’s a lot of money. More realistic is Full HD 1080p resolution, but even 1080p carries a fairly hefty price tag. Failing Full HD, a WXGA projector is still a good berth for high quality pictures. If you find that a WXGA projector is still beyond your budget, you still have a chance and shouldn’t bow out. The truth is that you will still get a lot of mileage with many SVGA projectors! An SVGA projector will be far more affordable and that’s still capable of delivering quality home entertainment. Certainly not to be compared to Full HD quality, but captivating large-screen home entertainment, all the same. So, if you want it, you can have it!

A high contrast is important for rich picture quality. Projector contrast ratio measures the difference between the whitest white and darkest dark that it displays. Good projector contrast results in great image details with rich, crystal-clear display. In a fairly dark viewing environment, the impact of high contrast could be amazing. So, higher contrast is desirable for home theatre projection.

How high, anyway? You can aim at contrast that’s above 10000:1.

Projector Brightness for Home Theatre

Some users are able to set up ideal viewing spaces (home theatre room/multimedia room) with very limited or highly controlled lighting. Others have no such luxury and will have to make do with living rooms that have significant ambient light from windows, doors, room paint and room lighting. Bear in mind that the viewing experience is richer in low light environments.

Viewing rooms with controlled ambient light correspondingly need lower projector brightness. Some 2000 to 2500 lumens will be sufficient. It can go up to 3000 lumens or a bit higher, but high brightness is not required. When more light is present, as in the normal living room, you need to scale up the lumens spec of the projector. In that case, 3000 lumens and above may be more appropriate.

Projector Aspect Ratio
Home Theatre projectors are largely about movies, sporting events, gaming and other video content. Inputs sources include DVD/Blu-ray Disc player, Game Console, Media Streamer, Cable/Satellite Box, PC, etc. You are interested in the format of the signal from your input sources and a projector with the aspect ratio to best display them. Aspect ratio of the projector is the ratio of the width to the height of the image it displays. With a 16:9 Blu-ray player, for instance, you would also want your projector to have 16:9 native aspect ratio, for best display result. Achieving this, however, will depend on whether you can afford a projector with that aspect ratio. An SVGA projector has 4:3 aspect ratio. If that is the level of projector you can afford, you will have to get it, because it will still work! Yes, there will be the black stripe at the top and bottom of the picture on your display, but you will still have your pictures.

Projector Throw Ratio/Room Space
How you place you projector in the room could range from installing on the ceiling, to installing on the wall or placing on a stand or cabinet in one side of the room. All these will also depend on how much space you have. If you get a long throw projector, will you have enough space in the room to mount at the right throw distance? Or, will a short throw projector, mounted on the same wall as your screen, be more feasible? Before you choose a projector, be sure you have considered the available space and how the projector will be installed, to know which projectors will best fit the space.

Projector Connections
Be sure to have the right connections for your home theatre. It’s good to know that the quality of display from your projector is affected by the nature of the input connections you have. There are analogue and digital connections, for instance. The connection for your input – DVD, Blu-ray Disc player, Game Console, Media Streamer, Cable/Satellite Box, PC, etc – and the projector, needs to be the best for quality video and audio transmission. If you have a high definition input source like Blu-ray player, you will best use a digital connectivity like HDMI, to retain the signal quality. This means that you need a projector with HDMI connectivity. If you have input with wireless connectivity and you want to connect wirelessly, you need a projector that is also wireless-enabled.

Lamp Life
Replacing projector lamp takes some money off the pocket, besides the challenge of finding where to buy the suitable lamp. It makes sense therefore to consider the lamp life when evaluating projectors options available to you. A projector with good lamp life reduces the burden of lamp replacement.

What would you consider good lamp life? From 4000 to 5000 hours in normal usage will look quite decent. Anything longer will still be an advantage. Laser projectors do far better, but are more expensive.

Get Home theatre and Enjoy life
These tips, hopefully, have primed you to wade into the selection process for the home theatre that will best serve your viewing interest. It’s great entertainment, if you can assemble it. If you need more help picking through the products, we are readily there to help.