Any videophiles around? Cheap projector thoughts?

[adam78]

Alright, so now that I have my bus running, and shifting, and stopping pretty well, I am on my way onto the interior. One idea I had, and really would like to do is to put a projector screen behind the front seats, and right infront of the sink/icebox on my 72 Westfalia. Attach it to the ceiling and pull it down, when I want to watch a movie in the bus when camping.

Obviously I dont want to keep high quality equipment in a vehicle that's not that hard to break into. There are a million 'projectors' on Wish.com and Amazon for $30-$100. Has anyone ever tried one of these? I am not expecting very much, but just how bad are they? I have a projector attachment on my Motorola Z Play and use it way more than I thought I would to watch youtube videos on my ceiling at home. But I dont think that phone attached projector throws nearly enough light to be used when camping unless all fires are out. Another plus to the projector screen would be sectioning off the front of the bus so have less area to heat up in the winter! Anyone do something similar to this? What are your thoughts?

I figured I would put this here instead of the bus forum since this is more of a question about projectors, but if you think it fits somewhere else feel free to move it.
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[sb001]

This is kind of a hobby of mine, well I'm more into audiophile type stuff, but have occasionally dabbled in video equipment installation (and used to be the multimedia specialist at the local CC so there's that I suppose.)
I'm assuming you don't really need high definition at that kind of throw distance- most of those would be past the $100 mark anyway, I'd be leery of any that weren't. That leaves DVD quality mini projectors (basically 480p) but at such a short throw distance I would think that would be fine. Perusing amazon brought me upon this:

https://www.amazon.com/Ohderii-Projector-Lumens-Ou...+projector

Has 800 x 480 native resolution which more or less translates to 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio, which would be the preference for movies. Supports 1080p full HD (would basically downscale this to 480p, but--depending on the quality of the scaler-- inputting a 1080p source may actually end up looking slightly better than DVD resolution). The lumens rating seems pretty good for a projector that cheap. Contrast ratio is not that great but everything else points to a pretty good picture overall... can't attest to reliability or anything but it seems to have pretty outstanding reviews. I would not trust the built-in speaker for sound, I'd add on a small pair of self-amplified speakers.

EDIT: Looks like for $150 you can step up to the true HD version of this projector:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072DTKWF4?tag=tbspec-20

This one will output true HD (720p) resolution images and has a better lumens & contrast ratio rating. Also has excellent reviews.
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