Best cheap projector for small HT.

Blindjim, the solution is simple. Just buy a used rebuilt Electrohome Marquee 8500 crt projector.

No digital projector that you would be looking at could possible compare vs this $24,000 projector. If anyone tells you otherwise they are uninformed or trying to sell you something.

1200 lums and 25,000:1 contrast ratio. It is film-like. You will find you won't even have to go to the movie theaters anymore. Its that good. You can pick one up on Ebay or better yet on VideoGon.

I run mine from Cox Cable HDTV via DVI cable and watch DVD's on my HTPC at 1440x960p with a VGA-to-5 BNC cable. My best advice is to find one thats been gone over and rebuilt by a tech with warranty. Get tubes rated 8 out of 10 or better and you will be fine. The tubes last 10,000 hours and cost $600 each.

If you want to really learn more about this stuff I suggest you go to AVSforum.com and visit the HTPC forum and CRT Projector forums there. The real experts post there.

*Analog fans may be blind, but digital fans are deaf*

Flrnlamb, I've heard reports about how the newer digital projectors are getting better. Still not up to 100% par with a nice crt projector but you mention that the other trade offs is a consideration. To me its all about image quality and cost. You can get a really nice Marquee 8500 for just over $1500 (which the original poster stated). To come close in quality with a digital projector you would need to spend $10,000 on a sub-par image. For most people, the budget dictates a real world system. Talking about some $10k digital projector is irrelivant to most people because they can't afford it. Of course I'm happy to have my $1500 crt projector and quick to point out mine is better than that $10k digital. Neener neener :)

BTW-A $1500 digital projector is just a toy. Made for pie charts and videogames. Not for watching movies.

Flrnlamb, CRT rules and digital drools!
Hehe I love the use of the first line in the forum.

Your mostly right in theory. A little extremist but your opinion does touch on the some of the differances. I would place more emphasis on image quality in my rundown of the differances between the two.

Tube life: actually the cost is less with crt projectors.
The life expectancy is 10,000 hours pre tube rated.
In reality its quite differant. the GREEN tube is 80% of the image light. Thats the tube that will most likely need to be replaced around 10k. Next is the RED tube which will sometimes last up to 15,000 hours. I never heard anyone replacing the blue tube.
The average movie watcher of 2 movies a night will last for 10 years with the green tube.
A new tube from VDC runs for $600.
Digital tubes are $500 or more and only last about 1,000 hours if that? ouch. Digital will break you.

Regular calibration once every 6 months. I can do that with my remote control in 15 minutes. Its easy. The projector comes with a built in convergance software and guide. Walks you thru it.

Hushbox: yup. I have 3 friends with this projector mounted on their ceilings and they do not have a hushbox. THey woudln't mind one. But havn't gotten around to it yet. The silent fan mod cost only $200 to make the projector very quiet. Its not that noisy compared to a computer can be.
The projector may seem big at first, but once its up on that ceiling its wonderfull. You barely notice it. It looks awsome. Like you have a 100k home theater system! :)

I helped all my friends lift the projector and mount it. They reinforced the ceilings with additional 2x4's to support the weight. Then mounted the $200 mounting bracket before lifting the projector up there. Its not that bad.

You can get an Electrohome Marquee 8500 projector with good tubes from a reputable seller with warrantee for around $1500. Those tubes will last you at least 6 years. If you dont play xbox games on it or watch HDTV more than 6 hours a night. You CAN even play online computer games on it if you don't mind running your tubes. But I won't let the kids do it. BTW this Marquee 8500 projector is rated to go to 3000x2000 res. I run my image at x2 dvd native resolution which is 1440x960.

In 6 years what till be going on? It will be 2012! A high end digital projector for $2000? At that point you may not want to retube the projector. Go digital when the $10k projectors are in the $2k range. Maybe those $2k projectors in the year 2012 will be better than anything we ever had before. 1080p! :)