[b212]

How old are you? I’m in mid 30s and half of my friends do not own TVs. I’m in Europe.

I’ve been using home cinema projector, I don’t see a point in having a TV as late millennial. I want to control what I’m watching and as dumb as the internet got in the last years tv is 100 times dumber. 15 years ago we at last had Discovery Channel or MTV.

[beachy]

Maybe you're an outlier with your projector.

A projector is more fiddly than a TV to set up. You need both a smooth, blank light wall and also a place to perch your projector which is just the right distance away from said wall (based on the projector's throw) and at the correct height and ideally centered to the viewing area - and with power within reach.

[Izkata]

> which is just the right distance away from said wall (based on the projector's throw) and at the correct height and ideally centered to the viewing area

I bought a relatively cheap one around a decade ago, and this is adjustable on the projector itself. It's not nearly as difficult as you make it sound.

[sumtechguy]

Setting up a projector is easy. Getting to look good... That can be an interesting trick with many of them.

[ericd]

As long as you aren't particularly OCD about getting it to look perfect, keystoning, zoom, etc all work together to make it pretty flexible. We throw it on a variety of walls around the house (helps that white is the default wall color for home sales nowadays).

[jamiek88]

Have you looked into short throw projectors? Some of those are very noob friendly and positioning is no longer an issue.

Still an enthusiasts device though really and your point stands I just found those short throw devices quite interesting.

[robswc]

I'm in 20s and don't know anyone _without_ a TV.

A lot of people might not use them very much but I've never been in a house without one.

[SoftTalker]

I have a TV, but it's just an HDMI display for a Roku.

[Arrath]

Yeah I'll agree that anecdotally I know plenty of people without cable or the like, but they still have a TV for streaming/pirated media/games.

[p1esk]

TV is a big screen you watch Netflix on.

[yreg]

> I want to control what I’m watching and as dumb as the internet got in the last years tv is 100 times dumber.

The content preference isn't really relevant to whether you use a TV or a projector.

[esperent]

Same, a lot of my friends don't have tvs. But the houses are still often designed to have one. Probably 3/4s of my friends live in furnished rentals and those usually do have tvs, however.

[account42]

I have a TV which I use as a dumb display. I don't know anyone with a projector nor would I want one due to the limited contrast.

[eikenberry]

Good laser projectors w/ appropriate screens have great contrast. But they are not cheap. E.G. https://epson.com/epiqvision-ultra-laser-projection-tv

[account42]

The projector is irrelevant unless you can rule out all ambient light - and you can't because the screen/projector themselves will contribute to it. This is an inherent problem because the screen needs to be reflective otherwise it won't show your projected image but if it is reflective then the base black level will also be far from zero. Emissive displays don't have this problem because you can increase the emissive brightness without raising the black level and even LCD screens do better because you can increase the ratio between the two with better LCD tech.

[eikenberry]

> This is an inherent problem because the screen needs to be reflective otherwise it won't show your projected image but if it is reflective then the base black level will also be far from zero.

Screens (ALR) for these projectors only reflect from a single direction (down) and are less reflection than a standard TV screen (which are generally gloss screens) from other directions. That is, both in personal experience and in reviews, they are generally considered equal to high quality LCDs in contrast and in color. Their main detraction from using as a display is that they are big and are generally paired with large (>100") screens.

[blackoil]

223 million units are sold in 2023.

[nottorp]

But what do you plug your playstations into?