Projector / Blu Ray / Sound - how to connect it all up ?

[Pot Odds]

Self confessed caveman coming out of the stoneage so go easy.......

I have recently purchased an Epson TW650 projector for presentations and am after a bit of advice to get it hooked up for occasional home cinema use.

By way of background i already have a ceiling mounted NEC VT460 which has served us well for home cinema / Nintendo wii for the last 15 or more years. 15 years ago this was installed with RCA video feed through the ceiling and wall to a DVD player with the RCA audio output running to an old Technics HiFi. I have a ceiling mounted pull down screen. Its all very basic and old stuff but has worked well for us. The downside is obviously a woeful resolution and a bulb seriously lacking in brightness - amazingly we are still on the original bulb.

I am now keen to ceiling mount the Epson as its significantly brighter and much better resolution - I don't mind having to whip it down for occasional presentation duties. I have noticed that the quality is a bit compromised when playing DVD's on it - is this due to the projector having to upscale the image ? It plays 1080 videos from youtube or amazon prime just fine and looks really good so i know its not the 10m worth of HDMI cable thats causing the loss of quality (it looks grainy).

I'm minded that I will need a blu ray player to take full advantage of the projector (shame as I have so many DVD's) and get the best picture quality. I am therefore trying to work out how to connect a bluray player to both the projector and an external sound source (projector does have inbuilt sound but its obviously not up to much). It seems bluray players typically come with a single HDMI so how do you connect this to separate audio and video devices (bluray players don't appear to have RCA anymore). Im guessing I may need something like a soundbar to replace the current HiFi arrangement if there is no RCA on blu ray players anymore ?

Blu Ray player would be within approx 1.5m of any audio equipment and about 9m from ceiling mounted projector

Budget is non existent so ill be buying a cheap blu ray player and audio solution - thinking £2-300

Apologies for the ramble and as always, any advice is very much appreciated

Pot Odds

Edited by Pot Odds on Monday 20th August 20:09

[B17NNS]

You want a receiver/amp.

All sources go into that then one HDMI out to your PJ.

https://www.richersounds.com/denon-avrx2400-blk.ht...

That will give you the option of Atmos in 5.1.2 if you want it.

Alternatively go Blu-ray to sound bar and from the sound bar to the projector with HDMI.

Edited by B17NNS on Monday 20th August 20:35

[parabolica]

I had a similar set up a few years ago; my solution was to use my old but trusty Blu-Ray home cinema all-in-one (receiver, player + 5 speakers) for the DVD and sound aspect.

I had 3 external sources (Xbox, PS4 and Apple TV) which along with the DVD system were plugged into a 4-way HDMI switch, with the out-going cable going from the switch to my projector. An optical cable from the DVD system to whichever external source I was using was how I got sound to work. All you had to do was turn everything on and make sure the HDMI switch was set to the correct input and it worked a treat; although no-one else could work it out/turn it on/get the sound going apart from me

[hornmeister]

Aboslutely AV amp. One that can handle video upscaling - most can.

Then it's just one HDMI cable, amp to projector and the amp will handle all the video processing and audio switching. Likely upscaling will be better in the amp than the projector.

If all your video sources are HDMI then the Denon 2400 as previously recommended is fine. you'll need the 3400 for analogue video upscaling.

Edited by hornmeister on Wednesday 22 August 16:27

[Pot Odds]

Thanks for the replies

So it looks like 2 options...

1. An all in one home theatre with something like this being the cheaper end

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-and-home-entertai...

and something like this being a little more expensive

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-and-home-entertai...

2. An AV amp at about £300 (looking at the one highlighted in above posts) but still needing to buy a bluray player and speakers unless using my existing ones (think i only have the front 3 and might have binned the rears).

Option 1 appeals to me as the whole lot comes integrated and im working to a budget - the upgrade to 1080 on the projector is awesome enough (as tested via youtube/streaming).

My question is though where am i likely to find the best upscaling ? Presumably my current set up of playing dvds from a hard drive via a WDTV box or direct from my laptop DVD drive is leaving the projector to currently upscale the image (which is a bit grainy) ??? If i purchase a blurray player will it be upscaling any old DVDs I play on it or will this still leave the projector to do this ? I'm happy to pay a little more to get the setup (home theatre or AV Amp) which is most likely to upscale DVDs best as I have a large collection. Once i have the new hardware I will of course be buying Bluray in future.

Any advice as always appreciated

Pot Odds

[B17NNS]

Either of the Sony’s will handle the upscaling. It is though as I’m sure you’re aware a turd polishing exercise. The resolution just isn’t there to start with on DVD. The problem is highlighted even more as image size increases.

[kryten22uk]

As above. DVDs just look goddamn awful at projector screen size. Ain't no upscaling going to help I'm afraid.

[tomsugden]

For a budget solution you could use an HDMI switch. I have one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01EHP5CMY/ref...

All the devices plug into the switch then a single HDMI cable goes through the ceiling to the projector.

[tomsugden]

I know the above one is no longer available but there's lots of others

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tendak-Switcher-Optical-T...

[bloomen]

kryten22uk said:

As above. DVDs just look goddamn awful at projector screen size. Ain't no upscaling going to help I'm afraid.

It very much depends on the DVD itself. I've played a few through a full HD projector that were good enough for me not to bother getting blu ray replacements but I'm no obsessive.