How much do I need to know about image quality?

The three most important factors affecting image quality are native resolution, your source material, and the projector's contrast ratio.

Currently, the most common home theater projector resolutions are Wide XGA (1280 x 800) and HD (1920 x 1080. An HD (1920 x 1080) projector has about twice the number of pixels of a Wide XGA projector. More pixels mean a sharper looking image and better compatibility with high-definition sources.

Wide XGA	1280 x 800	1,024,000 total pixels
HD	1920 x 1080	2,073,600 total pixels

What you are watching will make a big difference in the quality of your image. A low-quality signal fed to your projector will most likely look like a low-quality image when projected. This is even more noticeable on a larger screen.

For best results, you should try to match the projector with the native resolution of your source material. Your Blu-ray player, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 typically put out a 1080p signal. HDTV signals are still not totally standardized, although 720p and 1080i seem to be the most common.

So what does that mean for your projector purchase? HD (1920 x 1080) projectors are designed to deliver all the rich details carried in a 1080p signal. Wide XGA projectors will deliver great results when fed a 1080p signal, just not as great as their HD counterparts. That being said, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the two unless you were projecting a very large image, say eight feet diagonal or more.

The final factor to consider is a projector's contrast ratio. Contrast ratio literally refers to the difference between the blackest black and the whitest white in an image.

A projector with a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 isn't necessarily five times better than one with a 2,000:1 ratio. The contrast ratio does not account for how the projector displays all the shades of grey in between the blackest black and whitest white. If the projector can't display those shades of gray, portions of the image will "blow-out" and appear pixilated when displayed on the big screen. Look for projectors with more control settings. Multi-color processing technology like Brilliant Color and sRGB modes will allow you to really tweak the projector's display to your liking.

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This article originally by Tronfy.com