Before you get too involved it is important to know if a projector is actually right for you. A projector is not like a television, a projector requires that the light in the room where it is located can be greatly reduced, or better yet, eliminated. The best candidate rooms are those with few windows and if this cannot be accomplished, you may find that you have to curtail your viewing until after dark or have blackout curtains or shades installed on all the windows. Because of this drawback, most people who have Hitachi projectors installed will also have supplemental televisions for everyday viewing, just using the projector for movies or gaming.
Your unique viewing habits will have a lot to do with the life of the lamp of the projector. Lamp life of 2,000 to 5,000 hours is common. This time period does not attempt to forecast when the lamp will fail, it is considered the “half life.” Once a lamp has reached its half life it will continue to function but the brightness will have dropped by half. When the lamp reaches the point where viewing is no longer pleasant, a replacement will bring the projector back to its “as new” brightness. Although a replacement lamp is expensive, upwards of $500, the life in terms of years of use is still quite high. Hitachi projectors that are commonly used for movies are used approximately eight hours a week. Under these circumstances, the lamp life expectancy is 4 to 5 years even with a 2000 hour lamp. If your projector system is used as the main TV in the house where the number of hours a week are greatly increased, the life of course will drop dramatically.
When selecting Hitachi projectors, there are three primary considerations; resolution, contrast and brightness. The resolution refers to the number of pixels; most that are well suited for home theaters are 1920×1080 pixels. The higher the resolution, the better the projected image will be.
High contrast makes it possible to have more finite control over color and blackness. Brightness is measured in lumens; most projectors have between 700 and 2500 lumens. When it is not possible to lower the light in the room to a tolerable level, higher lumens are a good choice.
