When designing your home theater or media room, one of the most critical choices is choosing between a projector and a TV. This topic is important and will depend on many factors for your specific needs. We have an in-depth video and article to help break down what makes the most sense in your situation.

Should I get a TV or a Projector?

While a projector may not have the same brightness and contrast as a standard TV, they excel at an important aspect that a TV can't compete with — the size! A 100” or bigger projector screen allows you to fill your room with a massive image that immerses you in the movie or game you’re watching. However, Samsung is out to challenge that notion with The Wall.

The Wall is Samsung's unique, life-size TV that gives you another option to get a massive image in your home without relying on a projector. It is truly a one-of-a-kind visual experience that will blow away any projector when it comes to brightness and contrast. Let’s explore the technology within The Wall and help you determine if it is the right option for you.

MicroLED

Utilizing microLED technology, The Wall brings lifelike detail, incredible color purity, and a much wider color gamut than conditional LED TVs. Typically, you have to be about 10 feet away from an LED TV. Otherwise, you may see the individual pixels, and the experience starts to suffer. LED displays are complicated structures with LCD displays that use LED backlight units on a liquid crystal layer to produce an image. They work by blocking light where needed on the screen, which results in poor contrast ratio and response time.

What makes microLED tech so remarkable is that individual LEDs emit the light and can be individually controlled. The Wall has millions of these bright, micrometer-scale LEDs with a deep black background behind them. Since each LED pixel can turn off, you can see a true, deep inky black on the screen from any angle and even from close proximity. Samsung’s “Black Seal” tech ensures that the blacks are actually black and not just composite shades of gray, allowing you to see more details in the darkest areas of a movie. In addition, this true black naturally will minimize reflections from lights or windows nearby the screen. Simply put, there is no projector on the market that can compete with The Wall's contrast and black levels and its microLED tech.

Samsung has rated these micro LEDs to last for 100,000 hours. That’s 8 hours of use every single day or 35 years. Talk about durability!

Size

Go as big as you want! At our Audio Advice Live event, we had a 110” version and a 146” version which are extremely popular sizes. There is a 110” version that comes as one single panel and simply needs to be mounted to your wall. Once you go larger to the 146” size, it will come in 4 separate panels connected during installation. However, you do not have to worry about that, as our team of professionals will handle the installation and all the details for you. You can even go up to 292” or larger to put it in a massive residential or commercial space!

Another key factor in determining your size and model is the pixel pitch. Pixel pitch refers to how close together the pixels are on the screen. There are a few different models of The Wall; the 110” 2K version will have a pixel pitch of 1.2, the 146” 2K version is 1.68, and the 4K UHD version will have a pixel pitch of 0.84. To determine which is right for you, there is some simple math that can be done. Take the pixel pitch and multiply it by 10. So as en example, 1.2 x 10 = 12, so you must be about 12 feet or more from the screen for a 1.2 pixel pitch display. Whereas 0.84 x 10 = 8.4, so you must be about 8 feet from the screen for the full 4k version with 8.4 pixel pitch. Our team of experts can help you determine the best size and pixel pitch needed for your specific situation.

Projector vs. The Wall

Let’s discuss why you may want to use a projector instead of The Wall. First and foremost, budget. The Wall will run you over $200,000. For that price, you can buy a top-of-the-line projector and screen and come in under that price. The Wall is not inexpensive. Therefore, it will not be for everyone.

Projectors are also known for their ability to create a “cinematic look” on the screen. There’s just something about watching a movie from a projector that gives you that “movie theater” experience where there are no reflections off of glass or LEDs. Projectors arguably do a better job more naturally representing the “film look” many movies and directors aim for.

In addition, projectors allow you to utilize an acoustically transparent screen, which will let you install speakers directly behind the screen and make it feel like the sound is coming right from the action in front of you. This obviously cannot be done with any TV, so you must put your left and right speakers on the side of the screen and your center channel below or above the screen. This may seem like a small detail, but when you want to be as immersed as much as possible in your viewing experience, this is a big deal. If you really want The Wall TV, we do have ways of simulating the sound coming from the center of the screen using advanced sound processors. So if you are thinking seriously about The Wall, then reach out to us and we can help you design it to get both the best video and audio.

If you have a light-controlled room, such as a dedicated home theater, where you know you will not want to open any windows or have any lights on when watching a movie or sporting event, then a projector will make a lot of sense. The Wall will still give a brighter picture with better contrast.

One of the most significant advantages of The Wall vs. a Projector is its ability to be used in a room with a lot of light. Windows, overhead lights, accent lights, and more will not affect the brightness of The Wall. In contrast, a projector screen will be quickly washed out in a bright room. For this reason, if you have a media room or large living room and you still want that massive screen feel for everyone to enjoy a movie or sporting event from every angle in the room, The Wall will be the better option.

For example, we had a customer where we installed an incredible theater in a dedicated theater room. However, the customer wanted a massive screen in the main living room which had lots of windows and light. A massive television screen was the answer.

Conclusion

Samsung’s The Wall is an incredible feat of technology in the video world. Our experts can help you determine if it is the best option for you. And if you decide to go for The Wall, we can have it installed and set up all in one day anywhere in the nation. If you are thinking about installing either a home theater or media room with a projector or large tv, you should first try putting in your room dimensions in our free Home Theater Design tool linked here. There you can toggle between a projector screen and a tv and change the size to see what fits your room. Then you can easily schedule a time to talk to our designers on the phone to make sure you got it right. Our team has installed systems all over the country and would be happy to help you out both in the design process and installation.