Projection Television Is Cheaper Than Most Large Televisions

When we think of digital projectors we imagine the video projector tucked behind plexiglass, beaming an image onto a screen placed in front of it. Similarly, a rear-projection TV also has an image projected onto the screen, yet in this case, the projector is actually located behind the screen.

Within rear-projection televisions there is a projector, a magnifying lens, a mirror that reflects the image, a screen where the image is presented and a sealed box protecting these components. At first glance, these television sets look like any other HDTV.

projection televisions
One type of rear-projection televisions technology is the Cathode Ray Tube system. Within your TV, there are tubes of red, green and blue phosphors; within the cathode ray tube, a large vacuum tube, an electron beam will scan the face of the tube, light up the phosphors and create an image, which is then reflected onto the screen.

The benefit of CRT projection televisions is that they produce the blackest blacks, in addition to film-quality color and brightness. Since this is one of the oldest TV technologies, you can imagine the price is most reasonable.

However, the problem comes with the size, as the bulky cabinet stands in stark contrast to LCD projectors or plasma projectors. Additionally, a lot of heat is generated, so liquid gels must be used to cool the system down and older TVs often shut down due to leaky gel casings over time.

Another type of rear-projection TV technology is the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) system. At first, many consumers confused LCD projectors with LCD flat panel TV sets, even though they use completely different technology.

digital projectors
The LCD projection televisions use rod-shaped liquid crystal molecules that bend light in response to an electrical current, with each crystal either transmitting or blocking light. Using beam-splitting mirrors, light from a projector lamp is split into red, green and blue beams.

A prism combines these beams again to project through the lens. However, the quality may diminish if you have stadium seating or if you’re watching from the side.

Digital Light Processing rear projection televisions have become a very popular option among projection TV enthusiasts. Even though you’ll need to buy a new projector lamp bulb after 2,000 viewing hours, which will cost you $200 to $300, some of the high-end sets now offer LED and laser light sources to eliminate this added expense.

video projector
The screens can reach up to a whopping 80 inches for which you would pay a fortune if you were purchasing LCD flat screen or plasma screen television sets. The quality of a DLP TV, while not perfect, is good enough to be the technology used at many movie theaters today.

The best way to find a suitable TV is to check them out side by side.