projector recommandation

[chaoliang]

I'm thinking about buying a digital projector to present photos but have no experience with these devices (except those powerpoint presentations). It's for home use only. The room will be rather dark and small. The price should not be much higher than 1000 Euros. Important is of course the IQ. Any thoughts and recommandations?

By the way, happy new year to all!

[Mehen]

http://www.projectorcentral.com/ - GREAT site for all your projector needs.

I think the Optoma projectors would be a safe bet.

[Elie]

Reading the reviews on that site (thanks Mehen) I would strongly recommend the Panasonic PT-AE2000U, as it's priced right and the quality according to the reviewer is outstanding.

Regards,
Elie

[degrub]

Have a look at AVS forum for the skinny on many of the projectors

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/index.php

There are a lot of hard core technical people on the forum.

[Marshmallowman]

sanyo plv-z5 is very good. (1280x720p native)

They are perfectly suited to a dark room
I bought one about 6 motnths ago its been great.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/Sanyo-PLV-Z5-user-reviews.htm

[VJ]

My brother has a Sanyo PLV thingy (dunno the model, but it does 720p). He is very pleased with it (but only uses it for movies/TV), apart from one minor issue: it had issues with autodetecting the source. Sanyo support was immediatly on the ball by stating that it could be caused by fluctuations in the powergrid; they stated that this can occur in rural areas. He lives in the city, but moving his subwoofer to a different net solved it.

Jörg

[chaoliang]

Thanks for the inputs, everyone .

I've visited some sites in the last days and done quite some reading, including the sites recommanded by you. I realized that it is more complicated than I thought.
I'm confronted with three basic questions: DLP or LCD? Data projector or Home Theater? Which native resolution (720p or 1280x768 - I can't afford 1080p)?

As for DLP or LCD: From all the things I read, I got the feeling that DLP may serve my purpose better because it seem to provide better colors (more details in the shadows, much better black, more natural), though sharpness and rainbow effect can be weakness. And DLP projectors tend to be more expensive for similar features. I didn't have the chance to compare them with my own eyes so I can't really tell.

For the second question: It seems that Data projectors are aimed to be made bright. The colors are not that important. Since I'll use the projector at home, so it needs not to be very bright. Colours are much more important.

For the resolution question: I would like to have 768 or more pixels in vertical direction, so that I can show portrait images better. Actually I plan to resize all images to 768x576 and 576x768 so that I can show them in same size.

Panasonic PT-AE2000U is definately too expensive for me.
I'm thinking about Mitsubishi HC 3100 which uses the DarkChip3 and BrilliantColor technology for about 1500 Euro here.