Explainers
These 8 topics were chosen by reading roughly 38,000 posts from the main public projector discussion archive, keeping the question-shaped ones and ranking what remained by how much response each drew. Every one leads with a short answer.
A flat, smooth, matte white wall works, and in a dark room the difference between it and a mid-priced white screen is small. A screen earns its money in two situations: when the room has light you cannot control, and when the wall is textured, off-white, or not flat.
Read the full answer →For 4K content, a screen diagonal of roughly 0.6 to 0.8 times your seating distance fills the field of view the way a cinema does — around 110 to 145 inches from 12 feet back. Then check the projector can physically make that size from where it can sit: image width equals throw distance divided by throw ratio.
Read the full answer →Look for the words ISO 21118 or ANSI next to the lumen figure. Without one of them the number is the maker's own measurement and cannot be compared to anything. And '4K supported' means it accepts a 4K signal, not that it displays one — a projector that displays 4K says so in its native resolution line.
Read the full answer →Yes, on a screen over about 100 inches and from a normal seating distance — but it is the third most visible upgrade, behind contrast and brightness. A pixel-shift 4K projector with good contrast beats a native 4K projector with bad contrast every time.
Read the full answer →If the room can be darkened for viewing, a projector gives you a bigger, more cinema-like picture for less money per inch. If it cannot, a television wins on every measure that matters and it is not close. Size is the wrong axis to compare them on.
Read the full answer →An ALR screen is directional, not magic. A lenticular UST screen accepts light from below and rejects it from above; an angular-reflective screen for a ceiling-mounted projector does the opposite. Pairing a projector with the wrong type is the most common reason an expensive screen disappoints.
Read the full answer →It is caused by single-chip DLP projectors showing colours in sequence rather than at once. A minority of people perceive the sequence as coloured flashes, usually on bright objects against dark backgrounds or when the eye moves quickly. 3LCD, LCoS, D-ILA and SXRD projectors cannot produce it at all.
Read the full answer →Work out the throw distance first: image width equals distance divided by throw ratio. Then check the projector can be off the screen's centre line by however much your room forces, using optical lens shift. Digital keystone can also do it, and it costs you resolution every time.
Read the full answer →For the specifications themselves — what each number on a spec sheet means and which ones can be compared with each other — see how to read a projector spec sheet.