Home Projector Buyers Guide

What brightness level do I require?

The best brightness level for your home projector will depend on the use. Some home projectors are used for everyday use in a living area and will require more brightness of around 4000 lumens. In a dimmed down home theatre room you would only need 1000 to 2000 lumens brightness and still produce a beautiful picture but maximise colour accuracy.

What is the best resolution?

Do I have to ceiling mount my projector?

Not necessarily; there are many types of home projector setups nowadays:

Ceiling Mount Home Projector

The traditional ceiling installation is still the ideal way to setup the projector with the projector out of the way hard wired in. This would typically be connected in to an amplifier with a big speaker system which would in turn be connected to other AV components like games consoles bluray players etc.

UST Home Projector

But there are now UST projectors that allow for a no installation setup. They just get placed on a TV unit at the front of the room and project a massive image from near point blank range. This saves you wiring and ceiling mounting the projector and can run audio with its own speakers or be connected to larger scale sound for the big theatre experience.

Coffee Table Home Projector

Finally there I a new trend of a more informal projector on the coffee table able to be packed away when not in use or used more as a portable setup most popular in apartments to get a massive picture in an easier more compact format.

What inputs or inbuilt smarts do i need?

Inputs connections on home projectors has become much simpler. HDMI has literally taken over as higher resolution pictures have become more popular. So essentially whether you are connecting a PlayStation, an Apple TV, or Blu-ray player the projector should have HDMI inputs.

Inbuilt smarts are a relatively new feature to hit projectors. Essentially a small computer inbuilt typically running an Android TV operating system. These connect to your house Wifi and allow you to stream free to air TV programs from 10play, 7plus, 9Now, ABC iview, and SBS on demand. Also they can play paid streaming services like Disney +, AppleTV, Paramount+, and depending on the inbuilt system some can play Netflix or Kayo. On some systems Netflix and Kayo is not available but you can always hook in an inexpensive Amazon Fire stick into the HDMI to add these in or even to upgrade a regular non smart projector to have all these features.

How do I set up my Audio?

There are many ways to setup the audio side of your home projector.

Big Theatre Speakers

The big audio 5.1 or 7.1 channel setup is the ultimate audio quality usually more popular in a dedicated home theatre room. These can be inbuilt into the walls and ceiling for a cleaner look or feature the big column speakers for the powerful top quality cinema sound.

Sound Bar

A simplified sound bar setup is quite popular in living rooms and areas where the larger theatre speaker setup would be inconvenient. These can still be quite powerful and in some of the higher end models can have rear speakers added on for a more immersive surround sound without all the cabling of a big surround sound installation.

Something to look out for when choosing a sound bar is to make sure there are multiple HDMI inputs into the sound bar and one HDMI output. Some sound bars will only have one HDMI input going into it which will make connection tricky. It would restrict you to inbuilt smart functions in the projector if it has ARC (audio return channel) capability.

Inbuilt Audio

While not able to shake the walls inbuilt audio has come a long way. With many projectors now featuring third party speakers for clearer audio quality like Harman Kardon or Yamaha the inbuilt speaker setup is the most portable and easy. This sort of setup can always be upgraded down the track.

Something to look out for if you might be upgrading the audio down the track is a decent audio output. Preferably ARC or eARC HDMI where the projector could send out audio to a sound bar if you wanted a more powerful setup.

LED, Laser, or Lamp Home Projector?

Projectors have traditionally been illuminated with a high brightness lamp. This technology is in general the cheaper option with a decent lamp life ranging from 5,000 to 15,000 hours depending on running mode, and fairly cheap replacement being available. So even with pretty heavy use quite a good option.

The newer technologies to the projector market are LED and Laser. These both offer a massive boost in lifespan typically 20,000 hours and above but generally have a higher initial buy price. In general LED based projectors are not as bright as their Laser counterparts but will offer a better colour accuracy.

What projectors do you recommend for home theatre?

We have some of our favourite home projector recommendations below. We know it can be difficult to pick the best one for you so if you need assistance please send us an email with your requirements, we are happy to help.