Compare projector and TV | What is better to choose

If you want to orga­nize a real home the­ater in your apart­ment to watch your favorite movies and series on the big screen, then you can­not do with­out high-qual­i­ty equip­ment. And the choice aris­es — which is bet­ter to buy, a pro­jec­tor or a TV? And the answer to this ques­tion is not as clear as it seems.

Let’s fig­ure out what is bet­ter to buy — a pro­jec­tor or a TV — to arrange inter­est­ing fam­i­ly evenings with microwave pop­corn.

Com­pare three para­me­ters:

1. Which is big­ger and more beau­ti­ful;

2. Which is eas­i­er to install, learn and use;

3. Which is cheap­er.

And the results of the com­par­i­son can be quite sur­pris­ing.

TV and projector screen size

In the bat­tle for supe­ri­or­i­ty in terms of screen size, the pro­jec­tor will win, of course. He can be tens of meters! At home, such sizes, of course, are dif­fi­cult to achieve. How­ev­er, a three-meter screen diag­o­nal is quite fea­si­ble.

TVs seem to have no upper diag­o­nal lim­it. But, if you open the web­site of a well-known elec­tron­ics store with a cor­po­rate orange col­or, it turns out that mod­els with a diag­o­nal of more than 75 inch­es can be count­ed on the fin­gers of one hand. There are also 85–100-inch mod­els, but they cost … sev­en fig­ures.

In gen­er­al, in the bat­tle of sizes, the pro­jec­tor wins.

Image quality on TV and projector

But it’s not just the screen size that mat­ters. Image qual­i­ty also mat­ters. And here the pro­jec­tor los­es to the TV screen in all respects.

Even in a com­plete­ly dark room, the pro­ject­ed “pic­ture” will be too “white”. How­ev­er, you your­self watch it in the cin­e­ma. Black that looks gray is one of the biggest prob­lems. The fact is that the matrix of this device is basi­cal­ly trans­par­ent, and behind it is a pow­er­ful lamp. It is impos­si­ble to achieve high con­trast in such con­di­tions.

The pro­jec­tion of the “pic­ture” also “eats” the col­ors. The image looks dull, devoid of rich­ness of shades. All these bright col­ors are “thought out” by the brain, try­ing to “fit” the pic­ture to some­thing famil­iar.

It is impos­si­ble to achieve absolute white, no mat­ter how sad it may be. The matrix is ​​trans­par­ent, but has a dis­tinct gray­ish tint due to the lay­er of cur­rent-car­ry­ing con­duc­tors. And this also leads to a decrease in the sat­u­ra­tion of col­ors, includ­ing white.

The TV screen, with its reflec­tive lay­er behind the pan­el of image-form­ing LEDs, is devoid of these short­com­ings in prin­ci­ple. Its col­or, con­trast and sat­u­ra­tion of shades is very high.

So in the bat­tle for image qual­i­ty, def­i­nite­ly TV wins.

How­ev­er! There is a spe­cial kind of pro­jec­tors — laser. They use a unique image pro­jec­tion tech­nol­o­gy that deliv­ers high qual­i­ty. Laser pro­jec­tors in terms of bright­ness, sat­u­ra­tion and con­trast are approach­ing the TV screen.

Laser pro­jec­tors have only a cou­ple of prob­lems. First­ly, they are quite rare on the mar­ket. Sec­ond­ly, they are corny expen­sive — even a mod­el from Xiao­mi, which is sold in the “mid-bud­get” price seg­ment, costs about 20$ dol­lars. For this mon­ey, it is quite pos­si­ble to pur­chase a large and beau­ti­ful TV.

Easy to install and use TV and projector

Now let’s deal with such “lit­tle things” as ease of instal­la­tion.

If you want to hang a TV in the hall­way, you will need:

1. Drill a wall and hang one part of the brack­et on it;

2. Attach the sec­ond part of the brack­et to the TV;

3. Hang TV on the wall;

4. Con­nect the exten­sion cord to the out­let if nec­es­sary.

If you want to install a TV, you will need:

1. Install TV on the bed­side table;

2. Con­nect it to the mains.

With pro­jec­tors it will be a lit­tle more com­pli­cat­ed:

1. Hang screen. It is usu­al­ly attached to the ceil­ing;

2. Con­nect pow­er to the screen, if required (if it is with auto­mat­ic open­ing);

3. Hang the pro­jec­tor on the ceil­ing;

4. Run the cables to the pro­jec­tor. You will need to run pow­er and image (HDMI/DVI) wires. Usu­al­ly they are hid­den behind the false ceil­ing and in the wall, but with the repair already com­plet­ed, you can also for­ward the cable chan­nel;

5. Install an audio sys­tem in the room;

6. Lay cables from the audio sys­tem;

7. Con­nect the audio and pro­jec­tor cables to the com­put­er.

No, of course, you can not com­pli­cate it once again and place the pro­jec­tor on the oppo­site wall on the bed­side table. But in any case, when installing such a sys­tem, there will be much more work than when using a TV.

The prob­lem lies in the fact that the pro­jec­tor will need to con­nect dif­fer­ent devices to work in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. Want to watch live TV? The receiv­er is con­nect­ed. Want to watch a movie on your com­put­er? The receiv­er turns off, the com­put­er con­nects. And in all cas­es, an exter­nal audio sys­tem is required.

So in terms of ease of instal­la­tion and use, the TV also wins.

TV and projector price

And now to the most impor­tant for some users to prices.

The vast major­i­ty of TV mod­els, if you look at online stores, cost about 500 $. We con­sid­er large (with a diag­o­nal of 40 inch­es) and good image qual­i­ty. For 500 $, you can get a device ready for con­nec­tion.

But home the­ater requires more than just a TV. Full list:

1. Tele­vi­sion;

2. Audio sys­tem 5.1.

Let’s try to pick:

1. LG 4K TV with a diag­o­nal of 65 inch­es (165 cen­time­ters) — 580 $;

2. Sony home the­ater (1000 W 5.1 acoustics, DLNA and Wi-Fi sup­port, the abil­i­ty to out­put sound from an exter­nal source via optics, includ­ing 5.1 chan­nels) — 250 $.

Total 830 $ - and you have a real cin­e­ma in your home with a huge screen, amaz­ing pic­ture qual­i­ty and excel­lent sound.

Now to the pro­jec­tor. Let’s try to pick:

1. Epson bright 3LCD pro­jec­tor (Full HD res­o­lu­tion, max­i­mum diag­o­nal up to 10 meters, cus­tomiz­able, 3D sup­port) — 550 $;

2. 150-inch mat­te white Cac­tus Wallscreen — 80 $;

3. Sony home the­ater (5.1 audio, 1000 W, sup­ports opti­cal con­nec­tion and DLNA) — 250 $.

Total 880 $ – and you can watch movies on the big screen! How­ev­er, there are a cou­ple of “buts” in assem­blies:

1. The TV has a much high­er res­o­lu­tion, if you watch UHD video, it will be impres­sive. 4K pro­jec­tors cost many times more;

2. The pro­jec­tor has a diag­o­nal of up to 150 inch­es with this screen. The TV in any case will be 65 inch­es.

Prices are cur­rent as of March 2019. In addi­tion, the opti­mal con­fig­u­ra­tions have been select­ed, but you can pick up some­thing of your own, with oth­er tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics and, accord­ing­ly, cost.

Conclusion

We did not take into account one impor­tant fea­ture — no pop­corn, no chairs will cre­ate a real cin­e­ma atmos­phere if the film is shown on TV. Only a pro­jec­tor is able to give the mag­ic of view­ing. There is some­thing “rit­u­al” in this cur­tain­ing of win­dows, low­er­ing the screen and a bright white spot imme­di­ate­ly after switch­ing on, some­thing that sets you in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent way, when all vital issues remain out­side the room, and you are immersed in watch­ing a movie.

In gen­er­al, TVs out­per­form pro­jec­tors in almost every way, includ­ing image qual­i­ty, ease of instal­la­tion, and aver­age price. But not in screen size. A tru­ly large diag­o­nal, like in a movie, can only be achieved with a pro­jec­tor.