How To: Choosing a TV for Bright/Dark Rooms, by Greg Robinson

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Choosing a TV for Bright/Dark Rooms

Trying to decide between plasma, LCD and DLP? Here's why lighting is such an important factor.

July 18, 2008 | by Greg Robinson

Front projectors are an entirely different animal and ambient light is the make or break issue when considering one for your space. Put simply, front projectors need a dark room to look good – the darker the better. If your room is a windowless basement theater, there is absolutely no substitute for a 100-in. front-projected image. However, if your room is upstairs and flooded with daytime sun, a front projector is the last thing you want to consider – unless you do all of your critical viewing after dark. In my case, I have a front projection setup in a first floor family room full of windows. We use a 30-in. CRT in the same room for daytime viewing and bring down the 92-in. screen after the sun and kids go down for the evening.

Viewing Habits
When thinking about the subject of ambient light, it’s important to take into account your own viewing habits. Your room may have a ton of windows and you may be leaning towards LCD for that reason. However, if you rarely turn the TV on before 7pm and sun is down by then, you’ll definitely want to keep plasma and DLP in the running.

Finally, it’s important to be mindful of the different types of viewing you do and where your priorities lie. If you watch the bulk of your TV during the day in a bright room, LCD makes a lot of sense. However, if you only watch a little TV during daylight hours but you have a weekly movie night with friends, picture quality on movie night might be more important to you and well worth a little glare during the 5:00 news. Only you can prevent forest fires and only you can know what’s most important to you in a new television.

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Greg Robinson - Contributing Writer

Greg Robinson is a freelance technology writer whose work has appeared in several national publications. When he's not evaluating Blu-ray Discs or calibrating televisions, you can usually find him thumping volleyballs at his local gym in rural northeast Connecticut.

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