Back again…

I’ve been rethinking things, trying to overcome the problem of having to lay new HDMI cables across the room, and as such have a new question.

If I go with a UST projector, all cable issues are eliminated. I’m currently looking at the LG CineBeam HU715QW and HU915QE. The one issue that gives me pause is that neither seem to be great with video games.

Now just to clarify, I got a PS5 since my last post (yay!!) and have been loving it through my PT-AX200U. I’m not a professional gamer, and not even at that good. But I do love gaming. When the reviews talk about unacceptable delays, in reality how do those relate to the delays which I must already be experiencing with my AX200U? Could they be worse? I couldn’t find the response time for the AX200U in game mode, except for this from the review on this site:

Quote (https://www.projectorcentral.com/panasonic_ax200u_home_theater_projector.htm?page=Performance): With respect to Gaming Mode, Panasonic has accelerated the video processing such that the video delay from the buffer is only 0.3 ms, compared to 0.9 ms in Cinema and other non-gaming modes.

The review for the HU915QB mentions a 67-millisecond response time, but I believe that is the total time to screen and involves cutting out all processing. Is 67ms a deal breaker?

And while we’re talking UST’s is the HU915QE worth the extra money? They both have eARC, so I was thinking of ditching the receiver upgrade and instead getting the Sonos ARC with wireless sub and rear speakers for a compact Atmos setup. That would save a bundle (and tons of space) as I was looking at a high end future-proofed Denon receiver before costing as much as the Epson projector. In addition, I’ll keep my existing Marantz receiver and speakers for 2-channel audio purposes.

Am I headed in the right direction? Would gaming be enjoyable with this setup? Are there better choices in UST projector that would allow the same setup? Would I be loosing something compared to the Epson rear mounted choices we discussed before?

Finally, is there a specific Silver Ticket screen that would be more amenable to UST projectors? What gain should the screen be?

Apologies for the entirely new set of questions. But I think this approach makes a lot more sense and would prevent some catastrophic accident with miles of HDMI strung back and forth across the room, not to mention being much tidier and more compact.

Cheers,
Oliver.

A very late followup--

I went with the Formovie Theater UST and am extremely happy with it!
It looks great, especially with Dolby Vision which AppleTV natively supports and the real surprise is that it sounds great too! It has Dolby Atmos and built in speakers by Bower & Wilkins. It doesn't replace a full on Atmos install, but it gives me solid 3.0+ system with great dialogue and a touch of surround without any extra gear. What I do most of the time is use my Apple AirPods Pro when I watch movies on the AppleTV as they both support Atmos and the sound is incredible.

My only criticism of the Formovie is that it's like a Ferrari driven by someone who's never been in a car before--AndroidTV or whatever it's called. It's useless. But I just treat it as a projector, not a smart projector, and things are ok.

Related is the pretty barebones setup--especially the focus screen. It's not really very helpful and the documentation is useless. But it works...

I did find that trying to get the image to perfectly fit the screen even with all the planning I did is near impossible. I've done it 3 times so far and gotten better results each time, but I still am relying a but too heavily on the digital keystone correction. It's like a black art moving the projector around and dialing 2 knobs on each side of the unit for which there's no info on their function.

But overall, what an amazing call!! Thank you so much!! I even bought a lovely credenza on which it sits and which really adds to the room. And not a wire crossing the room! Brilliant!!

I really can't thank you enough, AV
Happy Holidays,
Oliver.

PS I got a UST screen as well. It is a negative gain screen, but it's still plenty bright for me! And I used the projector without the screen while I was waiting for help to install it and yeah, the white ceiling was lit up like Times Square, so it was definitely necessary in my room.