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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom of TechJab, and this is my TV at the moment.
00:04It's the LG G1 77-inch OLED, and it is beautiful, but I know what you're thinking.
00:09It's too small.
00:10Look at all this extra space.
00:11Look at this wall I'm not using.
00:13Well, you're right.
00:14Let's try something different.
00:16Like this, perhaps.
00:17It's a 120-inch projector.
00:18This is actually an ultra-short throw.
00:19It's an LG Cinebeam triple laser projector, 4K HDR, and I've got this ALR screen I've
00:29mounted to the wall, and as you can see, there is literally no more room.
00:33It is a bit tasty, and obviously, I'm a huge fan of TVs.
00:36The bigger, the better.
00:37I love an OLED, which this is not, obviously, but I was curious about switching to projectors.
00:43Could this give me a better gaming and movie experience?
00:46Well, yes, but I have some thoughts.
00:49I mean, just look at this, 77 inches up to 120 inches with this LG Cinebeam HU915QE.
00:58This has a two-and-a-half times larger screen area compared to my TV.
01:02I mean, it's just in a completely different league.
01:05This thing is three meters or almost 10 feet diagonally.
01:12It's the same as having four 60-inch TVs next to each other in terms of surface area, which
01:19naturally makes it great for a bit of split-screen rocket league or maybe a bit of old-fashioned
01:24time splitters.
01:25Now, obviously, you can get high-end projectors that you mount to your ceiling, you know,
01:29traditional ones, but having an ultra-short throw or UST like this means it's only that
01:37much from the wall, so you can get the full 120-inch 4K image at just 18.3 centimeters
01:43or 7.2 inches from your wall.
01:45Narrow the gap to just 5.6 centimeters or just over two inches, barely enough room to
01:50fit your cables, and you can still get a bloody great 90-inch image, which actually
01:54for some people may be enough.
01:56Now, I've always been curious about switching to a high-end projector instead of a high-end
02:01TV, but I didn't want to have the fuss of mounting it like on the ceiling because I
02:06don't have a house big enough for a proper theater room.
02:09This is my spare bedroom, which I've, well, done this too.
02:13But then along came UST projectors.
02:14They've been around for a few years, but they've been getting better and better, although they
02:18do still command a price premium over a regular projector.
02:21But you're of course saving a lot of money in installation, in super long HDMI cables,
02:27and you can move it.
02:28You could take this outside, hang a sheet on your garden fence and have an outdoor cinema.
02:33You can change it between rooms.
02:35Maybe more importantly though, ultra-short throws mean you can have a massive screen
02:38even in a small room.
02:40Although one thing I will say, actually from experience, because initially we set this
02:44up without a screen, hoping that my white wall would be good enough, but it's not really.
02:49And I'll come back to this later, but if you are going to invest in a high-end UST projector,
02:53or to be honest, any projector, you're going to need a screen, any screen, although ideally
02:58one like this, an ALR screen.
03:01Color and contrast are great, mostly thanks to how bright this gets.
03:04We're looking at about 3700 peak lumens from the triple laser setup, which is equivalent
03:09to a TV with around 11 to 1200 nits of peak brightness, which is actually beyond what
03:14my OLED TV can do.
03:17So the size is pretty eye-watering, but so is the price.
03:21This projector, this specific model, and I'll leave a link below if you do want to check
03:24it out, will cost you about £6,000, and that's before you get a screen, which you should do.
03:31But this is the price you pay for the convenience of ultra-short throw.
03:35Now this is the HU915QE, but there is also a QB model, which is actually even more expensive
03:41at about £6,500, and that gets slightly better image quality thanks to above 100%
03:46DCI-P3 color gamut coverage and even greater contrast, despite actually having a lower
03:52peak brightness of 3000 lumens.
03:54However, if your name is not Mr. Moneybags, and £6,000 is still a lot or a bit of a stretch,
04:00then LG's mid-range Cinebeam HU715Q is more affordable at £4,000.
04:05It's still 120 inches and 4K, but it's not as bright and it only uses a single laser.
04:11Now this projector is a review sample sent by LG.
04:14This is not a sponsored video, and they will probably ask for this back any day now.
04:18But I didn't want to test this, this high-end projector, without a screen.
04:22So I actually bought this myself.
04:25It was like £1,500.
04:26These high-end ALR screens, which I think are the best of the best, are quite pricey.
04:31But I wanted to give this the best shot possible and see really how a high-end projector system
04:35would compare to my pretty high-end TV setup.
04:38But having seen the difference between projecting this onto my white wall, it was not the kind
04:42of experience I expected, given the price and the quality of this projector.
04:47I can't stress this enough.
04:48The projector surface, in my mind, is just as important as the projector itself.
04:53You don't even need to spend a fortune to get one like this.
04:56Any kind of screen or even a projector paint, if you apply it to your wall, will make a
05:00huge difference to the brightness and the contrast.
05:04Although ideally, a good ALR, or Ambient Light Reflecting Screen like this, is your
05:08best bet.
05:09Because these actually reflect the projector light from below to maximise luminance and
05:13contrast while absorbing light from above.
05:16Bringing the total of this setup to £7,500.
05:22Now, my experience of projectors in the past, of horrible, kind of grainy, washed-out images,
05:27a bit of a painful installation, no smart apps, they were just sort of dumb things you
05:31had to plug an HDMI from your laptop out into.
05:34I appreciate I've not been around projectors a lot recently.
05:36But this is something completely different because we have LG's webOS software here,
05:41so it very much is like a TV, and you can see it's also a little bit slow like some
05:44of the TVs.
05:45But you've got all the streaming apps, Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, you've got AirPlay built
05:49in, and of course, with a remote like this, you've got all the usual controls of the screen
05:54options, audio.
05:56It's a TV, but, you know, not.
05:59And every time I sit down to play some games or watch some TV or a movie on this, it just
06:04feels like a proper movie theatre experience that I just don't get from my TV.
06:09Everything feels more like an event, although if you do sit too close, it might make you
06:12feel a bit dizzy.
06:13And to be honest, a round of Fall Guys is just a sensory overload.
06:18Even the sound, the 40-watt 2.2 speaker setup is powerful and it can easily fill a large
06:24living room, and it lets you pair it with LG's Bluetooth speakers for surround sound,
06:28so you could rely on the inbuilt speakers, but to be honest, if you're going to spend
06:32this kind of money, I would definitely pair it with an external soundbar or speaker setup.
06:37Let me just pan the camera around, because you'll see this is a window, and it is a beautifully
06:42sunny day, which we don't see very often here in the UK, and while it is obviously a bit
06:46more washed out, it's not as contrasty and crisp as my TV.
06:52It's very good for a projector, and actually, you can use this even in daylight.
06:56But if you close your blinds, or you're just watching this at night, this thing really
07:00comes alive, with deep blacks and bright highlights, I would take this for watching movies over
07:05my TV.
07:06Sadly, it can't match my OLED's perfect black levels.
07:09It's closer to a high-end LED LCD TV than an OLED, but this is brighter, and a whole
07:15lot bigger.
07:17Most UST projectors like this use a single laser light source, which is sometimes called
07:22a laser TV, and the benefit of lasers over traditional lamps is that they can get much
07:26brighter, they can produce more vivid colours, and they can last up to 20,000 hours.
07:31This guy uses three lasers, one each for RGB, which means high brightness, a more precise
07:37image, and greater colour accuracy.
07:40And brightness is key, because the higher it is, the better the contrast, the colours,
07:44the HDR, and while around 1500 peak lumens will get you by in a fully darkened room,
07:49if you add in any light, it will seriously degrade the image.
07:52So being able to hit 3700 peak lumens is obviously a big help.
07:57HDR is a bit of a mixed bag though.
07:59We do get HDR10, HLG, and HGIG for games, but no Dolby Vision, sadly.
08:05And again, actual HDR performance has a lot to do with your screen and the environment
08:09as well.
08:10In terms of fan noise, it is just about audible if you're close up, but it's quieter than
08:15almost any other projector I've used, and actually if you've got any kind of sound
08:18on at all, then you just don't hear it.
08:21On the design side of things, I think it's absolutely gorgeous.
08:24I love the straight lines, the off-white colour, and this Danish-designed wool speaker cover.
08:30Although my dad, who helped set this up, wasn't a huge fan.
08:33He thought it just looked like something out of the 60s.
08:35But the simplicity and the all-in-one setup means that it's pretty much plug and play.
08:40Just pop it onto your TV stand, plug in any HDMI sources, and you can use the eARC HDMI
08:47for your sound system, then just turn it on and complete the on-screen setup.
08:51And you can physically scale the image size from 90 to 120 inches just by moving it closer
08:56or further from your wall.
08:58Although keep in mind, the only height adjustment is via the adjustable feet, and with these
09:03set to the minimum, at 120 inches, the image still extends right up to my ceiling, which
09:07is a bit annoying as it's higher than I wanted and you can't just tip it forward
09:11to counter the effect.
09:13But once you are happy with the size, you can make sure everything is straight and level
09:17by adjusting the feet.
09:19Although in my case, I just had to correct for distortion with the edge adjustment control,
09:23which lets you manually position the corners, the sides, and the center points.
09:28Focusing is all automatic, although you can make corrections if you want via the wheel.
09:32And then it's just a case of selecting your preferred picture mode.
09:35You can balance the brightness, the color, and the contrast to your taste and also to
09:38your room, and that's about it.
09:41What about gaming though?
09:42Well, I mean, a 4K 120 screen is nothing to be sniffed at.
09:46It is an incredibly immersive experience, but there are a few downsides.
09:50For starters, this is only 60Hz versus 120 on my OLED.
09:54It also misses out on VRR, although it does get ALLM, which automatically switches to
09:59game mode.
10:00But the main downside for me is the 50ms response time, which just dulls the responsiveness.
10:05So TV, movies, and casual gaming, yes, absolutely.
10:10For more serious gaming, no.
10:13But overall, I have to say, this has completely transformed what I imagine a projector experience
10:20to be like.
10:21It's not perfect, it's incredibly expensive, but you just can't get a TV this big, or
10:26if you can, it's going to probably cost you £50,000 or something like that.
10:29Ultra short throw is just so much nicer.
10:32And also you're getting a lot of the extra smarts that you don't get with a lot of traditional
10:35projectors, including the webOS and all the smart apps, and software updates, which is
10:39quite important.
10:40But I guess to answer the final question of will I be fully switching to this from my
10:46OLED TV, no.
10:49I don't think so.
10:50I love this, and it is a great theatre experience, but I think it's just going to be too big
10:56for regular TV when you just want to turn the news on or just have something in the
11:00background.
11:01It's a bit overwhelming.
11:02Also for gaming, gaming is quite important to me, so this doesn't really check enough
11:05boxes for that.
11:06And also, it's quite a lot more expensive.
11:08You can get the 77-inch, which I know is not the exact same thing as this, it's a lot smaller,
11:13but you can get my OLED TV for like £4,000-ish, so like 50% less than this.
11:18And while you could argue, well, you know, when you haven't got your TV on, you've just
11:21got this big, black, horrible void on your wall, well, you kind of do as well when you
11:27have a high-end projector system because you need a screen.
11:30So you're not really gaming in that respect either.
11:33But what do you think?
11:34Would you go for a super high-end TV or a super high-end projector system?
11:38Have I convinced you?
11:39Let me know in the comments below.
11:40Thank you so much for watching, guys.
11:42If you enjoyed this, then a like and subscribe would be very much appreciated, and I'll see
11:46you next time right here on The Tech Jam.