Does anyone have a projector rather than a tv?

[WardrobeInCrisis]

I've just moved house, and the sitting room just doesn't suit a television. Now, we have done without a tv for many years a few times in the past, but recently we have enjoyed watching some things on tv as a family, mostly films or series I buy on Apple.

There is a blank wall but no power sockets anywhere near it!!

Any comments at all would be welcome!

That sounds quite cool. I haven't had one though.

How does a projector stack up cost wise? For the projector and maybe a dedicated mini pc to run it on. Realistically using your own laptops might not work so well when you want to do other things at the same time etc. Plus a sound bar or other speaker system.

Compared to the cost of a decent tv and a sparky moving a plug socket.

Yes me! We have run a cable along the celing and covered it with a white plastic boxing?? Not sure
What it’s called! And have an Amazon fire
Stick

Yes, I love how much neater they are considering the size of the screen.

Okay, I am liking the sound of this. Especially neat boxed in cables 😆

Am busy googling costs. It seems comparable to a decent television.

Yes, we've got one. We do have a TV, but the TV is only a small one. If we want to watch anything special, we use the projector. It's great - like having a private cinema.

Look into the cost of new bulbs. They are often more expensive than the initial projector cost.

This is my bedroom set up, we run everything through Chrome cast. We don't have any wires on show either.
Oh and cinema surround sound.

Gosh, I am loving this!

I am getting confused googling though. Do I need a tv to mirror?

@sanityisamyth yes, I have just read that 🙈

We have one and a cinema screen which ones down from the ceiling.

It’s ok. Bit gimmicky. Picture isn’t as good as the tv.

I love ours and we use like a normal TV. It has about the same run cost on electric as when we had a Tele the only draw back is we need a new bulb around every 6 months for about £40.
It's worth looking into the price of bulbs before you buy a projector as some are very expensive

Which “comes” down

We had one at our old house, and had a screen that was on the wall constantly (didn't go up and down) but this was in our "cinema room" not the living room where we had a normal tv.

In fact I'm pretty sure it's the main reason DH wanted to buy the house as it was already set up like that and the old owners let us buy it off them so they didn't have to bother removing it.

It was great to watch epic things like Blue Planet and Game of Thrones, or when DH has his mates round to watch the match

We have one. It's at the back of the living room and projects onto a wall at the front. We have the power and HDMI cable running inside the wall cavity and into the understairs cupboard and into an AV box which supports multiple HDMI devices and the surround sound. We currently have a Roku, PS4 and Nintendo Wii connected to it.

Basically what you need is a projector that supports HDMI, and as many lumens and highest contrast ratio your budget will allow. Ours is an Epson with 3000 lumens and is bright enough to watch in the daylight. It's 3d but only 720p but picture quality is good enough. Cost about £300 in a sale. The replacement bulbs are about £150 but have lasted over 3 years of daily use and are very easy to replace.

We won't go back to a TV now.