Quite some years ago, I did a review of a brand name projector for a ‘gadget’ magazine. The claim to fame for this particular projector was that it was the first one to break under the $3000 price barrier, and therefore was suitable for domestic markets in theory.

I had a play with it for a few weeks, playing back DVDs, TV and my own movies shot in DV mode (not HD) and was quite happy with it. If you put the image up against a Pioneer plasma, which was acknowledged ‘best of the best’ at the time, certainly the plasma won hands down, but the quality nonetheless was better than a standard TV, there was the advantage of portability, and you could of course get a bigger than 42” image from it. The drawbacks were that it was not at all flash in anything other than dim light.

A benchmark for me when reviewing a product, is whether I would buy it or not. Well I did buy this one, and it is still giving sterling service, albeit having gone through two globes so far.

When I submitted the review however, the editor emailed me back and said it wouldn’t be being run as they had played with the same projector and ‘it was rubbish’. After investigation, it turned out that the testing had been little more than plugging a standard antenna and projecting the image onto a wall. Now standard TV is pretty donkey at the best of times, so blowing the image up by a factor of five or even ten is going to emphasise that lack of quality by a corresponding amount. That is, it will look like rubbish. Play back a DVD however and the image is brilliant by comparison.

To be fair, this is a mistake that is easily made if you are not playing with this stuff all day, every day. This is why I find it unforgivable that retailers and their staff make the same basic mistakes – over and over.

I have lost track of the number of times I have heard sales staff say to prospective buyer that a particular camcorder was better than another was because it ‘uses DVD to record to and that’s higher quality’. Rubbish!
Simply, the complexity of the Home Theatre and all the potential gizmos and gadgets that make it up means a lot of research needs to be done by the consumer. Alternatively, of course, you can call in a professional from a body such as CEDIA, but expect to pay the premium. Then again, if you are paying up to $20,000 for a decent system, it is probably worth it.

It’s not going to get any easier either, what with Media Centers and Extenders, DivX-based players, and even WiFi dropping into the mix of LCD, Plasma, Blu-ray, 5.1, 7.1 and their ilk already confusing many.

Final word? Keep your wallet firmly closed until you know exactly what you want. And research, research, research.