OPINION: Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that streaming services have dramatically improved production quality, with TV shows looking as good as films.
Provided you pay for the higher-end packages, streaming delivers all of this in 4K and HDR, with a lot of content available in Dolby Vision.
Whether it’s the latest series of Andor, bingeing through Stranger Things before the new season lands, or watching Reacher dish out the punishment, this kind of content deserves a big screen, which is why I use a projector as a TV.
TVs might have gotten bigger over the years, as you can see from our round-up of the best 4K TVs, but at very large sizes (80-inch plus), they’re expensive and bulky, too hard to easily mount on a wall.
A projector makes things much easier, with large screens easier to hang, and a single projector able to handle different screen sizes with ease. Life’s made a lot easier with the latest range of smart projectors offering a picture quality that gets close to hose of super-expensive home cinema models, with 4K resolutions almost standard and Dolby Vision much more widely supported.
But switching from a TV to a projector isn’t without its challenges, as I found out.
Ultra short throw vs long throw
There are two types of projectors to choose from: ultra short throw (UST) or traditional long throw. I went with a UST projector, often called a laser TV, as this type feels best suited to a living room.
With this kind of projector, such as the excellent AWOL Vision LTV-3500 Pro, you can get a huge picture with the projector placed just inches from the screen (or wall).
That made life easier, as my Sky Q box and Ultra HD Blu-ray player were located in the same place, so were easy to plug in with the existing HDMI cables. Choosing a long-throw projector, such as the Valerion VisionMaster Pro 2, can make life a bit more difficult when replacing a TV.
As long-throw projectors have to go further away from the screen, often as far as the opposite wall, long throw projectors can be hard to place. Ceiling mounting is an option, but it does mean you need long HDMI cables to plug everything in, or you have to place your games console, Ultra HD Blu-ray player, etc., closer to the projector. That’s not always possible.
That counts for sound, too. I use a Sonos Arc soundbar, connected via eARC. With a UST projector, the soundbar is easy to connect; with a long-throw projector, I’d need to run a long cable to do the same job.
It’s not just about cable length; it’s about neatly running the cables or hiding them; it’s just not easy. So, a UST projector works brilliantly, as nothing has to move, and I didn’t need any special cabling.
That’s not to say that a long throw projector doesn’t have its place. When I go away and stay in a rental home, I like to take the Valerion VisionMaster Pro 2 and a portable 80-inch screen. I set these up, using the projector’s integrated speakers and get better sound and video than I would with the provided TV. I typically stick to streaming services, which makes life easy, as I don’t need any HDMI cables.
Brightness matters, as does the screen
TVs use emissive light, whereas projectors reflect the light off a surface. The difference is that TVs are easier to see under stronger ambient light conditions than projectors.
Even a budget TV is usually watchable in a room lit by sunlight; assuming there’s no direct light on the screen. A projector can look washed out and hard to see, whether it’s a long-throw or UST.
Brightness, therefore, is incredibly important, and you really need a projector cable of at least 2500-lumens (but higher is often better), if you want to replace a TV. However, the flip side of high brightness is that it can make blacks look washed out.
Realistically, the way that projectors work means that you’ll never get the inky blacks that you’ll get from an OLED TV, for example, but you can get close, and the rich, vibrant colours can equal a TV.
Generally, I recommend adjusting the image to suit the ambient light level. The Enhance Black Level setting, available on many projectors, can help, automatically adjusting the backlight brightness to bring out blacks on darker images.
But, the type of screen you choose also has an impact. A traditional matte white or grey screen is cheap and easy to use, but it will also reflect ambient light, making watching in a bright room hard, and you may need to shut curtains or blinds to watch.
An Ambient Light-Rejecting (ALR) screen can help, particularly with a UST projector. These screens have a lenticular surface that feels ridged (similar to those picture cards that change image as you move them) and so reflect light only from certain angles.
ALR screens are either for long-throw or UST projectors, and you need the right type to get the best image. With an ALR screen, the ambient light isn’t reflected, but the image from the projector is, boosting brightness and contrast.
An ALR screen also stops a UST projector from bouncing its light up and onto the ceiling, focusing on the screen instead.
ALR screens can be fixed or motorised to rise from the floor or ceiling. All types of ALR screens are expensive, and they cost a lot more than a matte screen.
They’re not without their problems, either. The lenticular surface is very delicate, and the screens need to be cleaned with a soft cloth along the lines, to prevent damage and dust accumulating: you need to do this, as dust on the screen is reflected and looks terrible.
With roll-up screens, you must be careful not to get flies stuck on the screen, as they can be crushed. This creates a horrible mess that’s hard to clean up, as I have experience of. A fixed screen is easier to deal with but are always present. Matte screens are more durable and even easier to maintain.
Configuration is important, particularly with a UST projector
To get the best picture quality, all projectors need to be configured to get a square image. That means getting the projector as square-on to the screen as possible. With a long-throw projector, that’s arguably easier, as the projector can be moved, and the very high-end models have lens shift, which allows the image to be moved vertically and/or horizontally without affecting image quality.
With a UST projector, it’s quite frankly a nightmare to get the image lined-up and square. Even a tiny tilt on a projector can cause the image to become misaligned. Getting the right combination of projector position and screen position can be a time-consuming process. I spent a lot of time staring at the alignment pattern, fiddling with the adjustable feet on my projector to get the image square.
Projectors do offer digital correction in the form of keystone correction. When a projector isn’t square-on to a screen, the image takes on a trapezium shape. Keystone correction puts the image back square, but it does this by adjusting the picture using the available resolution, resizing and straightening the image. In other words, using keystone correction reduces the resolution available for the image.
I prefer to use keystone correction as a final step, getting as square an image as I can first.
Long-throw projectors often have automatic keystone correction and the ability to automatically fit the picture to a screen. Again, picture sizing is a digital correction: the image projected is resized digitally, reducing the total resolution available.
A projector with a zoom lens allows screen size adaptation without losing resolution. If you have to use digital correction, then get as close to filling the screen as you can before using it.
Whatever type of projector you have, there’s more setup needed than with a TV. And, there’s the problem that someone can bump into your projector and move it, which means even more set-up. It’s not that common, but I do have to occasionally move it about to realign the screen; something I never had to do with a TV.
Work out about live TV
Live TV might be on the way out, but streaming doesn’t quite provide everything yet. I watch live TV through Sky Q. In that regard, the box doesn’t care about what it’s plugged into, TV or projector. If you rely on Freeview or Freesat, then you won’t find a projector that has an integrated tuner, so you’ll need a set-top box.
Freely delivers standard TV over the internet, but so far it’s only available with new TVs, and there aren’t set-top boxes or apps yet.
A Sky Stream puck is another way to go, giving you all the live channels you could want, streamed over the internet, and the box is small enough to place easily, regardless of what type of projector you have.
You could rely on streaming apps only, and smart projectors will run Android TV or Google TV. Google TV is better as it supports Netflix; Android TV only has Netflix support if the projector manufacturer makes TVs as well (or the projector is powered by a separate dongle).
However, while both platforms support other major streaming services well, support for UK streaming apps, such as iPlayer, is mixed at best. A dedicated streaming device, such as a Fire TV, is generally easier.
There are never enough HDMI ports
That brings us on to a different issue: projectors rarely have enough HDMI ports for everything. My UST projector has three HDMI ports, but with one for a Blu-ray player, one for a streaming stick, and one for eARC, I don’t have any spare for Sky Q or a games console.
You need to think about how to deal with this. My workaround is to use an Amazon Fire TV Cube, which has an HDMI pass-through port, which the Sky Q box is plugged into.
An HDMI switch is another option, and the Philips Hue HDMI Sync Box 8K works well here, particularly if you want to synchronise your smart lights with the on-screen action. Otherwise, a general 4K switch will do the job.
However, there’s no denying that using a projector is slightly more faff than using a smart TV, where HDMI ports are generally more plentiful and/or the smart operating systems tend to support all the streaming apps you’d need.
Refresh rates aren’t good for gaming
There’s another issue with projectors, particularly 4K ones: refresh rates. The bulk of 4K projectors (well, the affordable ones)use DLP, with a single 1080p DMD chip and a technology called XPR to get a 4K image. XPR works by shifting the DMD chip four times per second to build up a 4K image. It’s clever, but the technology locks the frame rate to 60Hz.
That means a mismatch between source inputs (UK TV is 25fps, films are 24fps, for example), so the projector has to adapt the incoming footage to 60Hz. A little bit of motion compensation on the projector might be required to get a decent picture.
However, for gaming, that 60Hz refresh at 4K does rule out smoother gaming, with many new TVs supporting 120Hz.
Overall, a projector is more impressive
For all the extra steps that a projector has required, I wouldn’t go back to a TV in the living room. The wall-mounted screen I have is big, but it doesn’t jut out from the wall like a TV, which makes my living room look neater.
Most importantly, my 100-inch screen is a lot bigger than a TV. Taking up almost a full wall, it’s properly cinematic.
I mostly watch TV at night, and am happy to shut blinds otherwise, so the bright, large picture is brilliant, and it’s more immersive than watching on a TV. Ultimately, home cinema is about the joy it brings, and a UST projector and large screen bring that joy to everything I watch.
