The Best Home Theater Projector

The best home theater projector is the Optoma HD20 projector. This, of course, is according to me but I have had a couple of projectors in the past and my opinion is based on this experience. The Optoma HD20 model has a number of desirable features including high definition (1080p) resolution and excellent colors. At the same time it is good looking, has a low noise fan while in normal bulb mode and over 4000 hours of lamp life. It works great with both Blu-ray movies played from either the PS3 or an ordinary Blu-ray player and at the same time video games look really good.

There are also a lot of options to adjust contrast, brightness and sharpness. Almost all settings that you can change on any HDTV these days is possible to set. I personally, Think that the built in cinema mode is great to use in dark environments where you can turn off all the lights. Sharpness is actually used a bit differently on this projector than some other HD devices. Here the default is 7 and if you go lower you will actually soften the picture and go decrease the sharpness effect. I founf the best value to be 10 because at that value you get extremely sharp text and the picture looks really good.

However, there are some cons of this projector. The first thing you notice is the black level where you notice a difference between the projector and LCD and LED TV's. The black level looks more like a slightly dark shade of grey. There is also the lack of auto-focus which would have been a nice option. Nothing worth skipping the purchase for but if you plan on mounting this in the ceiling it could pose a problem.

So, having said that, what features or things do I find the most important when it comes to finding the best home theater projector? 

Resolution is the number one thing to look at in the displayed picture. Most projectors have a resolution of 720p up to 1080p. In short, the number is a measure of how many pixels that are displayed and this is directly proportional to how sharp the image looks. The lower the resolution gets the bigger each individual picture element gets and the less detail rich the picture gets. If you imagine the TV wall in the electronics store each individual TV on sale could represent one pixel only being able to display one color at a time. Then you undertsand that you would need alot of TVs to be able to show a picture where you would be able to see any kind of detail.

The brightness of projectors is measured in lumens and are usually in the range of 1000 to 2500. The Optoma HD20 has 1700 lumens which places it right in the middle. The brightness of the bulb can be put in direct correlation to how bright the picture is projected on your screen or wall. Of course you need to look at the lighting conditions in the room and if you are able to get it completely dark you might not need a very high brightness. According to some source anything above 1000 lumens is good enough for most home theater systems. There could also be some reasons not to aim for higher brightness. With very bright projectors you could experience annoying light reflection, decreased bulb life and as a result higher costs.

The contrast ratio is a measure of the difference between white and black pixels within the picture. In short one can say that projectors with a high contrast ratio provide clearer images. The Optoma HD20 has a contrast ratio of 4000:1. 

The last and for most the most important aspect of a projector purchase is the price compared to other solutions. Projectors used to be very high priced but nowadays you can find really good ones for as low as $500. The price for the Optoma HD20 is around $900-950 on Amazon.