The Best Home-Theater Projectors, According to Experts

There are three main projector types, each providing an optimal fit for a different viewing situation. Long-throw projectors (the kind that may come to mind when you think “home theater”) get mounted on the ceiling at the back of a room and are meant to beam images to a screen located on the opposite wall, as in a movie theater. Jeremy Glowacki, editor-in-chief of ProjectorCentral, a website known for its authoritative, in-depth projector reviews, is a long-throw fan: “For the most cinematic experience, I would opt for a projector that could be mounted to the ceiling at the back of the room. This application requires a more expensive long-throw lens and typically a darker room.”

Good long-throw projectors aren’t cheap. Glowacki points out that the lens used by long-throw projectors contributes to their higher cost, but it also provides greater installation flexibility via features like optical zoom, manual focus, and horizontal and vertical lens shift. Such controls allow for finer adjustment of the projected image, which impacts picture resolution and clarity from the center to the edges of the screen and gets you closest to a real cinematic experience at home.

Short-throw projectors, a category that includes portable models, have less flexible lens capabilities and are typically set up close to the screen — on a table between the room’s seating area and screen or wall. These models cost less than long-throw projectors, and typically use digital processing for automatic focus and screen alignment. The easy, automated setup features make short-throw models a good option for temporary installations, where the projector will be put away immediately after use. Not everyone wants to have a permanent home-theater setup with a projector mounted to the ceiling and a screen mounted on the wall. (While you can use an empty white wall to project on, you can also find retractable screens that will provide better picture quality when viewing and can disappear back into their cases after the credits roll.)

Ultra-short-throw projectors are designed for even closer installations at the room’s front wall, directly below the screen. From a design standpoint, UST models are the least intrusive projector choice, a factor that makes them a compelling option for smaller spaces or multipurpose rooms. As Strategist contributor and audio/video reviewer Mark Knapp says, “UST projectors are the best option if you’d rather tuck the projector into a credenza right below a retractable projection screen for a nearly invisible installation.”

UST projectors are also a popular option for viewing in rooms with ambient lighting, but getting the best performance in such cases requires a special “ceiling light rejecting” screen that filters out light coming from sources other than the projector to ensure contrast is retained and that the picture doesn’t appear dim or washed out.

The downside is that UST projectors can have picture-quality shortcomings compared to long-throw models, especially if you want to project a large image. “There are issues with image clarity at the perimeter of the image, particularly when screen sizes are larger than 100 inches diagonal,” says Michael Hamilton, an ISF-certified professional video calibrator and a reviewer for ProjectorCentral. “UST projectors can also suffer from light fall off from the middle out to the sides and top on larger screens,” Hamilton adds.

Much of the video content you’ll want to watch these days is available in 4K resolution (four times the pixels of an HD image), and most projectors in the $1,000-and-above price range are billed as providing “4K resolution.” But with under-$1,000 projectors, you need to be more careful about reading specifications. “Some cheap projectors will list things like “4K support” or “4K ready,” but they might not actually project at that resolution,” says TechRadar’s Knapp. “Instead, they’re indicating that they can receive video at that resolution, and then will downscale to their lower-resolution display.”

The chipset used in the projector — like the panel used in a TV set — is what creates the image. Higher-end (and higher priced) long-throw projectors from JVC and Sony use LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) display chips with 3,840 by 2,160 (4,096 by 2,160 on some models) pixels. LCoS chips provide “native” (actual) 4K resolution, along with strong contrast and deep blacks. To get the full benefit of their improved contrast, you’ll want to watch an LCoS projector in a dark room (or at least one with dimmed lighting), so they’re well suited for a dedicated home theater.

3LCD is a technology used in Epson projectors that uses separate LCD display chips for the red, green, and blue color components of images. Light passing through each chip simultaneously is combined using a prism to create a full-color image that passes through the projector’s lens. Since the native resolution of 3LCD display chips is 1,920 by 1,080 (HD), a process called pixel-shifting is used to quadruple the number of pixels appearing on the screen to create a higher-resolution 4K image. 3LCD projectors can also deliver high-contrast images, and they are another popular option for home-theater viewing.

In a DLP (digital light processing) projector, white light is passed through a color-filter wheel and split into red, green, and blue components. These components are reflected on a DMD (digital micromirror device) consisting of tiny mirrors, with each mirror forming a single pixel, and then projected sequentially at a fast enough rate that the eye sees a full-color image. As with 3LCD chips, the DMD used in DLP projectors is in HD resolution, with pixel-shifting used to display a 4K-resolution image. DLP is used in a wide range of projectors, from portable to long-throw, and it is the most common tech found in UST models.

“If you are going to be using a projector in a room that has a lot of ambient lighting, like to watch with the lights on,” says Sciacca, “or tend to watch content that is typically bright, like sports, then the most important spec for you to look at will be the lumens. This is a standardized unit of measurement for projector brightness, and it’s the most reliable metric for how bright the image will appear on the screen.”

As with 4K resolution, brightness is another specification that can get muddied by the way projector manufacturers advertise. “The way some projectors advertise their brightness levels can lead you astray,” says Knapp. When you’re looking at specs, he says, “be on the lookout forISO lumensorANSI lumens, as this tells you the projector’s brightness was measured in a standardized way, allowing for direct comparison against other models.” You can expect to see brightness levels in the 500 to 3,200 lumens range for short-throw and portable projectors; 2,500 to 4,000 lumens for ultra-short-throw models; and 2,000 to 3,300 lumens for long-throw projectors. More is better here, all else being equal.

Beyond brightness, however, contrast is key, especially if you plan to watch in a dark, theaterlike environment. “If you can get your room really dark and like to watch movies, which usually feature a lot darker content, then a projector’s contrast measurement will be even more important than its brightness,” says Sciacca. “Contrast is a measurement of the ratio between the luminance of the projector’s brightest output (white) and lowest output (black), and is reflected as a number such as [for a unit with very good contrast] 40,000:1, meaning the brightest part of the image is 40,000 times brighter than the darkest part.” Better contrast means you’ll see a real difference between shadowy elements of a scene and bright ones — the kind of experience you get at a movie theater.

Once again, the devil here is in the details: “It’s important to look at the rating for the projector’snative contrast, not itsdynamic contrast,” adds Sciacca. “Modern laser projectors can completely shut off the laser light source to produce a completely black image, resulting in an infinite contrast rating. However, this only works when the screen is completely black, and it’s not an accurate rating for real-world content.”

Most projectors designed for home use can’t hit the high brightness levels TVs are capable of, but they can match or even exceed TVs when it comes to reproducing color in movies that have high dynamic range (HDR). Why? RGB backlighting is just beginning to make it into TVs this season — most sets still use white backlighting, while it’s becoming a common feature in UST and also some short-throw DLP projectors. These use an RGB laser light source, combining separate red, green, and blue lasers to create a full-color image. Projectors with this feature can capture the full HDR color range, often with striking results. “One feature I absolutely love to see, literally, is an RGB laser light source,” says Mark Knapp. “On every projector I’ve tested with this feature, the color is simply gobsmacking. It doesn’t guarantee a perfect picture, as there’s a lot more involved there, but it can make for really stunning visuals.”

As with other projector specifications, color space coverage is subject to exaggeration by manufacturers, so it’s useful to read projector reviews that use measurements to verify specs. “Nowadays, an often-misleading specification is thepercentageof a color space that a projector can display,” says Michael Hamilton.” Projector manufacturers of all types are in a color space specification race to say their models eclipse the capabilities of ITU-R BT.2020 (the color space foundation for HDR video). Often when tested, none of these models making such claims can do so. In fact, they largely fail by a wide margin.”

Along with HDR support and extended color, some projectors now feature a “filmmaker mode” picture preset. This feature eliminates the “motion smoothing” processing (that setting you have to turn off on a hotel TV or at your parents’ place) that alters the original frame rate and can make images look wobbly and sped-up.

With a 100-inch or larger image expanding your field of view, gaming with a projector can be an incredibly immersive experience. Some new models provide gaming-related features such as high refresh rate support (primarily 4K/120Hz and 1080p/240Hz) for console and PC gaming, along with special picture modes to reduce input lag when playing first-person shooter games.

If you plan to use a short-throw portable projector for gaming, however, you may get a less-than-optimal experience because of how they depend on software correction to produce a big image at such close range. “Short-throw projectors rely on effective, but limiting, auto setup features, says Michael Hamilton. “These projectors seldom have adjustable lenses, but rather use digital manipulation as a substitute,” Hamilton says. “If you intend to use the projector for gaming, all the image correction facilities are disengaged as their memory usage causes undesirable lag.” While this won’t affect gameplay, you’ll be left looking at an image that won’t look great and will be misaligned with your screen. So if you don’t have a lot of space to set up a projector, look for a model with manual picture adjustments like theBenQ TK710STior one that offers image modes designed specifically for gaming like theHisense PX3-Pro.

Few long-throw projectors provide built-in video streaming and audio capabilities — they are instead designed for use with a separate video source and full home-theater audio-playback system, with a single cable making a video connection between the system and the projector. Most short-throw, portable, and UST projectors, on the other hand, include a smart TV interface with streaming apps. Knapp finds these to be a “nice perk,” and Android TV and Google TV are “pretty serviceable” smart TV platforms. “But not every projector runs them smoothly,” he adds, “even some pricey projectors.”

While most short-throw, and even some long-throw, projectors provide some kind of built-in speakers for audio, the sound quality of these can be characterized as weak at best. If you want the option of adding better audio, it’s important to look for features such as an HDMI eARC port for connecting to external speakers or soundbar, or a Bluetooth output for wirelessly streaming audio to the same. For audio quality, the one projector exception would be UST models, some of which have surprisingly powerful built-in speakers that deliver clear sound.

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