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I'm curious if projectors collect the same info? We bought several BenQ projectors that have no internet connection. Of course the computer player or Blu-ray pl

I'm curious if projectors collect the same info? We bought several BenQ projectors that have no internet connection. Of course the computer player or Blu-ray player we use with the projectors do have WiFi connections. For aesthetic reasons we removed the large flat screen TV's from our house. We now use projectors on walls with a skim coat and flat white texture. It blends right into our 1927 house. The projections are around 120 inches and look glorious. In the past week we watched John Ford's "The Searchers" and then "Avatar" in 3D. Both were amazing to see so big, bright, and beautiful. When we are done watching, the projector is put away and our home is not a constant display of gadgetry. When ever I go into a store that has a wall of TV's they seem to get worse and worse every year with saturation dialed ALL THE WAY and images looking more and more like CG with smoothing and other weird filters. Perhaps i'm just old.

OJFord 5y ago
I rarely shop in person so I can't really say if it's getting worse, but it's certainly always been my experience that other than in dedicated hi-fi/home cinema type shops they dial the settings to the ridiculous maximum and of course boast that it's 1200000000:1 dynamic 360 max HDR+ gen 5 or whatever.
- sgtnoodle 5y ago
  It's usually called "dynamic" mode and it makes me sad when I see it turned on in peoples' homes.
- beaugunderson 5y ago
  Highly recommend rtings.com to get the best settings for any TV; they do a lot of work to get the most natural look.
sgtnoodle 5y ago
That's cool. I did that when I lived alone in an apartment, and it was awesome. When I researched the best projector setup, I read that a gray wall may actually be better than white because it can result in darker blacks. I couldn't try it, though, as I was renting at the time. Have you ever experimented with that?
- boring_twenties 5y ago
  Not sure about gray walls, but I bought a vinyl screen for my projector and it looks infinitely better than the white wall I was using before, especially blacks. There are other things about the screen that are supposed to improve things (some kind of tiny glass beads on the surface), but also, it's gray.
  - sgtnoodle 5y ago
    I suppose you would want a partially reflective surface so that most of the light bounces back toward the audience rather than completely scattering. That scatter would otherwise raise the ambient light of the screen, and therefore make blacks worse. You wouldn't want a mirror like finish either, though, because then any given viewer would only see a narrow beam of the overall image. My guess is that a reflective cone of about 60 degrees would be optimal? That's probably what the glass beads are doing, reflecting the light and defocusing it in a consistent way. I vaguely recall that the optimal wall paint recommended by the internet was not only gray, but also satin finish.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Yes, gray works quite a lot better with a projector than white. But it does also depend a bit on your use case, you would choose a different paint for a very dark room than one with a fair amount of light pollution. Some people get quite involved with paint formulation, and for a while I played that game, but if I ever need to build a bigger screen I'm just going to buy one. Halfway decent ones aren't very expensive now.

OJFord 5y ago

I rarely shop in person so I can't really say if it's getting worse, but it's certainly always been my experience that other than in dedicated hi-fi/home cinema type shops they dial the settings to the ridiculous maximum and of course boast that it's 1200000000:1 dynamic 360 max HDR+ gen 5 or whatever.

sgtnoodle 5y ago
It's usually called "dynamic" mode and it makes me sad when I see it turned on in peoples' homes.
beaugunderson 5y ago
Highly recommend rtings.com to get the best settings for any TV; they do a lot of work to get the most natural look.

sgtnoodle 5y ago

That's cool. I did that when I lived alone in an apartment, and it was awesome. When I researched the best projector setup, I read that a gray wall may actually be better than white because it can result in darker blacks. I couldn't try it, though, as I was renting at the time. Have you ever experimented with that?

boring_twenties 5y ago
Not sure about gray walls, but I bought a vinyl screen for my projector and it looks infinitely better than the white wall I was using before, especially blacks. There are other things about the screen that are supposed to improve things (some kind of tiny glass beads on the surface), but also, it's gray.
- sgtnoodle 5y ago
  I suppose you would want a partially reflective surface so that most of the light bounces back toward the audience rather than completely scattering. That scatter would otherwise raise the ambient light of the screen, and therefore make blacks worse. You wouldn't want a mirror like finish either, though, because then any given viewer would only see a narrow beam of the overall image. My guess is that a reflective cone of about 60 degrees would be optimal? That's probably what the glass beads are doing, reflecting the light and defocusing it in a consistent way. I vaguely recall that the optimal wall paint recommended by the internet was not only gray, but also satin finish.
rootusrootus 5y ago
Yes, gray works quite a lot better with a projector than white. But it does also depend a bit on your use case, you would choose a different paint for a very dark room than one with a fair amount of light pollution. Some people get quite involved with paint formulation, and for a while I played that game, but if I ever need to build a bigger screen I'm just going to buy one. Halfway decent ones aren't very expensive now.