Cue eye roll... best projector recommendations please

[Golfmandan]

HI

Please be kind I realise its probably the most asked question out there and is fairly subjective...
But, if there was a no compromise, simply the best projector for a golf simulator build what would it be? Or top 3 maybe?
I currently have a Panasonic PT-VZ580. I don't know how this compares top others, might be very good, fairly good, okay ish

screen size is 4.1m wide x 2.1m height (actual viewable area)

Nvidia GeForce RTX3060 graphics card (if this is a barrier to the best projector please suggest upgrades?)

Trackman 4

Lighting isn't an issue i can go extremely bright or pitch black if need be. No natural light to combat anyway.

Current Projector sits around 3.6-3.7m ish from screen - I have a lot of flexibility in where I mount a projector but one out one in mess free is ideal.

No idea whether 4k is do able, sounds better though I see a lot of people talking about it.

Brief is simply best projector for existing setup, or best setup full stop.

Many thank yous, really appreciate your help

GMD

[COgolfengineer]

Just curious, what do you not like about your current projector?

For 4k, you're looking at DLP projectors. There's a lot of good reviews on the BenQ LK953ST.

[Golfmandan]

DLP is laser? I mean I don't mind what technology it is really.

I was just wondering really how mine sits in the grand scheme of projectors. I get the feeling its a decent one, but I wanted to know what was out there to really get the best display possible. Tinkering with the settings there seems to always be a bit of compromise whether thats foreground or background detail, or colour likeness etc
I saw the video for the LK953ST and the graphics look so much better than what I have. Also the LU935ST which i believe is similar but for a different aspect ratio... but!, i have no technical knowledge beyond that on the subject. Also, the latter appears to only be available in USA right now not UK.
I noticed that while my projector is 5000 lumens (a tick I think), the contrast ratio is 16000:1. Versus I've seen 1000000:1 or even infinity:1 on a Sony VPL-PHZ60 (again no idea how that compares).

I tinkered with Nvidia GPU settings last night after I saw a video on 'best gaming settings 2020' or something like that. Seems to have made some improvement colour wise, but the changes I made I really don't know whether they apply or apply enough to a golf simulator setup, or need tweaking further.

Sorry for being absolutely clueless!

[COgolfengineer]

There's 2 main projector technologies for displaying the image; DLP and LCD. DLP uses mirrors and a color wheel to create the image. Few people see a rainbow effect from the color wheel, so that can be bothersome, but it's rare. Not sure if this has improved over the recent years. LCD uses 3 liquid crystal chips to display colors; a red, a blue, and a green. So no mirrors or color wheel, hence no rainbow effect. However there can be a screen door effect but that's really only seen at a low resolution or you're standing right at the projection screen.

Both of these need a light source. This use to be a lamp, but more recent projectors use a laser. I haven't read up on laser and don't know if it produces a better image or not. But the life of the laser is much higher than a lamp which is nice.

Contrast is important as projectors can't produce black. And if you shiw an image with red and blue side by side, you want to clearly see a red and blue image and not pink and light blue or see purple where they connect (that might be a light bleed issue as well). Very high contrast numbers are typically a Dynamic Contrast number which is done digitally or software as opposed to the native capability of the DLP or LCD hardware. When the contrast or anything is done in software to get an improvement or better spec, there's usually a trade-off of image distortion but most people, myself included, never notice the distortions. The native contrast of a projector is typically in the hundreds to single-digit thousands, maybe some in the low 10k's. If it states in the 100k's or 1M's or infinte, it's achieved by software.

A lot of info. I am by no means an expert in projectors but I understand the thousand foot view. Hope this helps.

[jdmst71]

I upgraded from an Optoma gt1080hdr to a Sony vpl-fhz66 laser but had to source a Sony 3009 zoom lens for the thing. Its a 6100 lumen beast and 16:10 1920x1200. I wanted more brightness and to fill more of my 4:3 aspect screen vertically than the optoma was doing. It wasn't cheap but was worth the 2600 or so I paid between them. The image seems twice as bright and I run it in native 16:10 resolution. I was running the optoma in a custom resolution to try to fill the screen but ran into resolution problems with my uneekor software. Now that I have it I would gladly pay more. Someone just released a similar laser projector in short throw for gaming with the same resolution and similar lumens but I want to say they were asking 4 to 5k.

[JKCapeCod]

We have the Uneekor QED, our screen is 16:10 running the Optoma 1080 Darbee and considering upgrading. A few questions if you don't mind: The native 16:10 works well with Uneekor software. What throw ratio are you set at? We need .5 or .6 The image upgrade is worth the investment? Thanks