I'm at a bit of a crossroads on our home theater setup and could use some assistance. Our Panasonic projector is on its last legs. It's a good unit but it's time to upgrade or move on to some other option. The issue I'm having is we really don't want to go up on screen size and a lot of newer projectors have much shorter throw ratios. Our room is pretty big and the throw from the projector to screen is 16 feet. I really don't want to invest in moving the mount and all the wiring forward. It's nice where it is because it's not as noticeable. I have debated a few options, 1) replace the projector with a long throw projector and get a new screen (I may see about going up a bit to 92" or 100" from 85" that we currently have), 2) get a short throw laser projector and screen, 3) get a 77-85" TV. I was hoping to stay under $2500 for everything.
We've had projectors in various forms since 1996. We really only watch stuff at night. I have a TV in my study that I mostly watch sports on but I'll sometimes watch on the projector. The panels are really starting to go out and the newer bulbs just highlight the flaws now. It's hard finding a not super expensive projector with a long throw ratio now. Most of the good ones I see from Ben-Q, Epson, and Optoma are in the 12-13 feet maximum throw range. The best one I can find is the Epson 5050. It's more than I'd prefer to spend but has most of the things I'm wanting like 4K, HDR, and good brightness. I've seen it in action and it looked great.
The short throw laser is interesting because it seems to have the best technology upside. Laser lasts longer than bulbs. It looks brighter and clearer. The issue is the short throw while great is still odd. The projector needs to sit a foot from the wall. That can look really dumb. The wife definitely does not want to walk in the room and see a cabinet sitting a foot out from the wall. There are some options like sliding shelf mounts but that just makes the amount go even higher and makes it not worth it since then I'm getting into OLED TV prices.
Which leads me to my final option, a 77-85" TV. The issue I have with TVs is I see way too many flaws in the TVs I see on display when I can actually watch something like a movie or live TV. When it's the stock HDR or 4K demo, it looks great. I'm not going to watch that much of that content. Anywhere I go though to check TVs only has that sort of content running. What is the best way to find out what these things look like when you're just watching a non-4K movie or an OTA NFL or college football game? As far as price, I can get a huge TV for pretty cheap but I realize I'm risking getting something that can't replicate motion very well. I've found that motion on newer TVs just looks weird to me. Maybe I'm too institutionalized with this projector but newer TVs really seem to show a lot of artifacting, blur, or other imperfections. I don't want to just get a big ass TV to try it out so some assistance with where I should look for research would be helpful. I was looking at an LG OLED TV this weekend that was on sale at Best Buy. It was showing a trailer for Top Gun: Maverick. Overall it looked good but when it would go close up on a face of an actor or a black background, it would get really grainy and was really noticeable. About the best option I saw was an 85" Sony Bravia XR X90L.
I know I'm overthinking this but is there also a good site that breaks down the OLED, QLED, Full Array LED differences and why I need to worry about refresh rates? We mostly watch stuff on our Apple TV and plan to get the 4K version. I know TVs come with smart apps so that would be a bonus but not a requirement. Standard projectors have none of that, short throw lasers do. We also watch OTA channels and blu-rays.