Rear Projection TV Facts - Pros & Cons of Rear Projection in the Home Theater

Written by Andrew Ghigo


Continued from page 1

Reflections: It is common that any light source at a complementary angle to your viewing-angle will result in glare - in particular ifrepparttar unit makes use of a screen-saver (a clear protective material that coversrepparttar 144340 fragile screen itself). Glare can seriously degraderepparttar 144341 picture quality. The only real solution is to take awayrepparttar 144342 offending light source; in some casesrepparttar 144343 situation can improve if one removesrepparttar 144344 screen-saver – BUT remember that an unprotected screen is fragile and expensive to replace if damaged.

Floor-space: Any rear projection TV is literally a large box with a relatively large footprint. It is true that modern slim-type models do exist that are no more than 15 to 18 inches in depth - depending onrepparttar 144345 screen size, yetrepparttar 144346 cheaper CRT-based rear projection TV sets will stand out by at least 24 to even 30 inches to allow forrepparttar 144347 necessary air-space betweenrepparttar 144348 back ofrepparttar 144349 unit andrepparttar 144350 wall.

Remember to take this into your calculations when planning your home theater as these two feet or so will have to be deducted from your available viewing distance.

Rear Projection TV Speakers: Forget all about them! Do not give any weighting torepparttar 144351 speaker system coming with your rear projection unit. You would not be using them as you will surely want to replace these with your dedicated home theater surround receiver speaker system. Do not even think of usingrepparttar 144352 build-in speakers of your rear television set as a center channel replacement. They will just interfere withrepparttar 144353 sound coming out of your dedicated system - hence do not pay anything extra for this as you will surely be switching off your TV sound completely during a movie show.

Aspect ratios: We have already mentioned a number of limitations associated with rear projection television, yet in comparison, these are just minor issues. The real serious limitation with a rear projection TV is aspect ratio management.

This isrepparttar 144354 trickiest of it all. Standard television comes only in 4:3 but rear projection TV systems come in both standard 4:3, and inrepparttar 144355 16:9 widescreen format. Once you choose your format however, you have to live with it - so once again, you have to choose wisely.

The 4:3 (1.33) or 16:9 (1.78) referred to asrepparttar 144356 aspect ratio, isrepparttar 144357 ratio ofrepparttar 144358 screen width with respect torepparttar 144359 height ofrepparttar 144360 image. All standard non-HDTV material is inrepparttar 144361 4:3 format while most modern films come in one ofrepparttar 144362 many widescreen formats -repparttar 144363 most common beingrepparttar 144364 2.35, which in itself is not compatible with any ofrepparttar 144365 fixed aspect ratio TV systems.

There are various ways to deal with this - including:

  • Image stretching to fillrepparttar 144366 available screen.
  • Use of black or gray bars on top and bottom of a 4:3 screen to showrepparttar 144367 movie in its correct aspect ratio as originally filmed, but thenrepparttar 144368 effective film display will be smaller.
  • Pan and scan editing where onlyrepparttar 144369 most important portion of each frame is shown withrepparttar 144370 rest being discarded.

Image stretching and horizontal bars can be extremely irritating while inrepparttar 144371 'pan and scan' you are giving up film information to have a full screen view. Worst of all, prolonged use of horizontal bars - especially black bars - leads to tube burn-out in CRT based systems at huge costs to you.

The incompatibility between screen formats rendersrepparttar 144372 decision on aspect ratio a rather complicated issue when choosing a rear projection TV set. Surely, there is no such dilemma with a front projection setup, but if your only way forward is rear projection, then you will have to choose wisely.

Here no one can help you in your decision - it is simply a matter of preference. The best way to decide on aspect ratio is by first determining what you will be viewing most.

Makingrepparttar 144373 Choice:

Surely, there is a market for both front and rear projection TVs – it is all a question of knowing what arerepparttar 144374 advantages and limitations of each with respect to your specific needs.

(c) 2004/2005 www.practical-home-theater-guide.com. All rights reserved.

Andrew Ghigo – editor & publisher of http://www.practical-home-theater-guide.com - a comprehensive home theater guide to home theater systems, product reviews and home theater design.

This article is an excerpt from a series of Projection TV Guides published on the same site.


How the "Firefox: How to..." Manual helped me

Written by Garret Belisle


Continued from page 1

So I am proud to introduce to you my newest product creation withrepparttar help of my programmer, S. Murphy, "Firefox: How to..."

This 82 page manual comes with complete screen shots to take you step by step throughrepparttar 144246 Firefox browser. Answering a wide variety of "How to's"repparttar 144247 screen shots quite literally show to go here, then go there, then go there...etc. So that you have a map to what you need to accomplish all laid out for you in a simple to read manual.

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Garret Belisle

Garret Belisle is the co-author of www.firefoxmentor.com for the latest information on the firefox browser.


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