The Creative Audio Guide to Projectors (or why not to buy an expensive plasma)
Five years ago, during a sales meeting, I made a prediction that Creative Audio would never sell many projectors.
As comments go, this ranks right alongside Alan Hansen's analysis of Manchester United's 1995 team, in which he uttered the memorable words "You don't win anything with kids" - just before United went on to take the FA / league double!
I guess Mr Hansen will never be allowed to forget the depth of his error and the guys here certainly won't let me forget either, because our projector sales have absolutely exploded in the last 36 months. In fact, we're now one of the biggest projector retailers in Europe!
What has changed so drastically in such a short period of time?
Why do so many people run projectors these days?
Why shouldn't I buy a plasma?
Read on and all will be revealed...
So what's all the fuss about?
Projectors have suddenly got very good - over the last 12 months, they've got much brighter, much more colourful and (most importantly of all) hugely cheaper.  Even a £500 projector now produces a picture that's miles better than all but the most mega expensive plasmas, yet it costs less than a medium sized TV - i.e. far less than any big plasma or LCD. As a result, customers are increasingly turning their backs on plasma, keeping their existing TV (or buying a small LCD) for everyday use, then having a projector for 'special occasions'.
What's wrong with buying a plasma?
Plasmas started their life as commercial monitors; they were never really intended for domestic use - and it shows. The truth of the matter is that they are based on flawed technology, which can never portray movement properly. Try watching a football match and you'll see what I mean - the plasma cannot process the picture quickly enough to 'keep up' with the movement of the ball, so it ends up looking like a mouse trail on a computer monitor. Salesmen tend to hide behind the lie that this happens because the source feed (e.g. Sky) is not 'good enough' for the plasma. This simply isn't true - try watching the same match on a projector and you'll have none of the problems (even though the picture is miles bigger). Plasmas also suffer from two other major drawbacks, screen burn and aspect ratio locking. Screen burn occurs when a picture is left on a plasma and becomes permanently embedded in the panel, so that you can see it 'underneath' subsequent pictures. For example, most digital channels carry a logo in the corner of their screen - if you watch a lot of one channel, then change to a different channel (or watch a DVD) you may still be able to see a faint outline of the original logo 'underneath' the new picture. The same is true if you let your kids run Playstation games on your plasma for a fair period of time - you may be able to see their scores 'burnt in' on every subsequent DVD you watch. This would be OK if it was reversible, but it isn't - we are talking permanent damage here. On top of that, there is the problem of aspect ratio lock. This is not a fault as such, but results from a plasma locking onto the absolute aspect ratio a film was cut in. Plasma screens are 16:9 which  translates to 1:1.78, but most films are cut in either 1:1.85 or 1:2.35. The result is the ubiquitous black tram lines top and bottom of the screen. This is absolutely correct, but also an absolute pain for plasma customers, because they have purchased an expensive plasma to get (say) a 43 inch picture, but they end up looking at a much smaller picture than they expect. In other words they've paid for 100% of the screen but they only end up using 70% of it! Of course exactly the same thing happens with a projector, but it is nowhere near as catastrophic because you start off with such a huge picture that it doesn't really matter if you lose a few inches top and bottom.
As more and more people become aware of the flaws in plasma design, they are choosing projectors or (most popular of all) a combination of flat-panel LCD TV and a projector. This combination approach costs no more than a good plasma, yet yields far superior results.
Yes, but I can only put DVD through a projector, can't I?
Well that's what a lot of people think, but it's completely wrong! As we've hinted in the paragraph above, you can actually feed pretty much anything through a projector, including TV (football is amazing), Sky, VCR, camcorder and last but not least video games - projectors certainly bring a whole new dimension to Lara Croft, I can tell you! In fact, because projectors have their own internal scalers, almost anything you feed into them comes out looking absolutely stunning. This is in marked contrast to many big plasmas and LCDs, where 'non DVD' images can look decidedly dodgy. Take it from me, projectors make any input shine!
But I need complete darkness for a projector, don't I?
Again, a popular misconception - projectors certainly do give maximum contrast in absolute darkness, but, if you think about it, even a cinema isn't completely pitch black. If you want to go 'the full nine yards', curtains or venetian blinds will do the job for you. However, it isn't the big deal that everyone thinks it is - many people now use an LCD TV during the day and a projector at night. English autumn / winter evenings will certainly give you a helping hand on the darkness front - I don't shut my curtains at all during the winter when I use my projector, there's simply no need.
 Yes, but I don't want an ugly screen in my lounge.
Well don't have one then! Modern screens are prettier than ever before and don't have to be a permanent fixture. In my own house for example, I have two very small hooks set into the ceiling, from which I temporarily hang a 69 inch screen. I've timed myself (not that I'm sad, you understand) and it only takes me 10 second to get it up (and not a tab of Viagra in sight). Then, when I've finished using the projector, the screen is removed and stored behind the sofa. Other people cunningly conceal screens behind beams or curtain pelmets, so that to all intents and purposes they become totally invisible. The most popular configuration of all is to have a small LCD TV on the wall, with a concealed screen above, which pulls down in front of the LCD for projector use. Whatever you decide to do, it's quite easy to make screens virtually invisible these days.
But I don't have a flat wall to put a screen on?
Neither do I! Whilst many people do fire a projector straight onto a screen fixed to a wall, an equally large number don't. What they do is what I do - hang the screen from the ceiling, so that it pulls own just in front of the TV (I have the TV in the corner of my room). Any arrangement will work well, provided the projector can fire head on to the screen.
 Isn't mounting the projector difficult?
In reality, it's no more difficult than putting up a curtain pole. All you do, is work out how big a screen you want in your room, and exactly where you're going to put it; then use the tables in our Hot Deals section to work out how far back the projector will have to go; then fix the ceiling mount to the ceiling and finally the projector to the mount. It's always better to screw the mount into a joist, but this isn't absolutely mandatory. Our Vogels mount is very elegant and fits just about any modern projector, so it's all pretty straight forward really. We supply everything you'll need, except the screwdriver! It's also important to remember, that you don't have to put the projector on the ceiling - it can be brought out and put on a coffee table in front of the sofa for 'occasional' use, instead, if preferred.
What about all the wiring?
Surprisingly enough, a projector only really needs three cables (or less). The first is the mains cable to give it power; the second is often an HDMI  cable, to take digital video directly from a suitably equipped DVD player to the projector; the third is a component cable to feed vision from anything that isn't DVD into the projector. The trick is to make sure that the next Home Cinema amp you buy is capable of video upsampling. This facility is now found on most amps costing £400 and upwards and enables customers to run all their visual inputs into the amp, then take just one lead on from the amp to the projector. The 'one' lead, can be the component lead we mentioned above, because all the visual inputs are upsampled to component by the amplifier. So, for example an s-video lead would take the visual output from your Sky Plus box into the amp, but the amp would then upsample this s-video to component and send it on to the projector in that form. A very elegant alternative to the plates of spaghetti of old! The latest generation of amps have actually gone one step further by sporting several HDMI inputs, as well as video up-conversion to HDMI. So now we have the glorious possibility of feeding everything (e.g. DVD, High Definition TV, VCR, camcorder etc.) into an amplifier, then having just one lead running on to the projector. Bliss!
What about bulb life?
Projectors produce light from bulbs and bulbs eventually wear out. Typical lamp life ranges from 2000 to 4000 hours. Lets go into Victor Meldrew mode and take the lower figure. Say you watch on average 2 films a week, that means you'll be screaming "I don't believe it", when your bulb blows, in around 6 or so years! In reality, people are often so thrilled  with the whole projector experience that they do run them for longer than just a couple of hours a week, but even those people can expect a lamp life of around 3 - 4 years. Yes, lamps are expensive (£200-£400) but that's because they're not just bulbs, they're actually a sophisticated bulb and fan assembly in one complete unit. To put it into context, replacing your projector bulb every 3 years will cost you about the same as buying half a pint of beer every week for 3 years. Bearing in mind the enjoyment it gives to all the family, I'd say that was pretty amazing value for money!
Of course one thing you do need to bear in mind about bulbs is that you want to be able to get one in the future - which is why we only sell projectors from long standing companies such as BenQ, Screenplay and Themescene. These people specialise in projectors and care about service, something that can't be said for either quirky small companies or giant multi-nationals!
I'll close by saying that projectors really are one of the most sensational things I've seen during my 20 years of selling audio equipment - I genuinely believe that everyone should consider one for their lounge. Many of our customers are the kind of people who've experienced a lot of the good things life has to offer; it actually takes something very special to impress them. But hearing them on the phone after they have bought a projector from us, you would think that you were speaking to a child who had just gone through its first Christmas! They are genuinely dumbstruck by the intensity of the experience they are able to create in their own homes. Many of them say that a projector rates as one of the very best purchases they have ever made.
One example that frequently springs into my mind to illustrate this point, concerns a customer of ours who had just completed the construction of a multi-million pound house. Everything was state-of-the-art, including massive glass (yes, glass!) walls imported from France, a pressurised hot water system imported from Germany, a remote controlled boiler system, a granite-decked kitchen larger than the entire ground floor of my house etc. etc. He came to us because he wanted a projector and complete Home Cinema system to go into his conservatory. He admitted that this was something of an afterthought, but he just felt that he should have one. When all the building work was finished, he threw a lavish House Warming party to show off his sensational new property and invited the whole neighbourhood. About an hour or so into proceedings, on one of his regular 'drinks rounds' he was puzzled to note that very few people actually seemed to be in the main body of the house at all. He assumed that everyone must have moved out to the garden, but a quick wander in that direction soon disproved that theory. Standing in the garden, feeling somewhat bemused, he came to the conclusion that the only place everyone could be was in the conservatory. And he was right, because a mere 42 of his super-affluent 'been everywhere, done everything' neighbours had crammed themselves into his conservatory and were thoroughly enjoying an impromptu showing of The Lord of the Rings.
So the 'afterthought' had totally outperformed everything else that the house had to offer!
Enough said, just buy a projector - you won't be disappointed!
Want to see what a projector can do?
Click on the pictures below to see two actual photographs that one of our customers sent us....
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