Most projectors, including our recommendation, will come with a chart to help you determine throw distance (the distance required between the screen and the front of the lens), but you should confirm what your room can accommodate before you tear open the projector box (and ideally before you put down your money). A typical basement rec room is about 300 square feet (20 by 15), which is large enough to easily fit a 100- to 120-inch screen and a projector, but you can use an online calculator to figure out what’s right for your room.

If your room’s measurements fit the bill and you want the best picture quality for your home, we heartily recommend the JVC DLA-NX5. It was the best performer with both HD and 4K video due to its great contrast ratio, rich color, and excellent detail. The projector’s dynamic tone mapping of HDR signals is superb, so it does the best job preserving all the details in bright highlights. The automated lens makes it easy to set up, and the projector gives you an accurate image out of the box. In our tests, this projector came closest to replicating the viewing experience of our reference OLED TV on a projection screen, but it is the largest, heaviest projector we tested. Although the DLA-NX5’s peak brightness might be similar to that of the other models we looked at, its ability to display darker blacks made the image look that much better in our tests. Bright highlights popped against black backgrounds.

During Wirecutter’s testing of sub-$1,000 projectors, the BenQ HT2050A DLP 3D projector produced the best contrast and most accurate colors of any projector in its price class. It isn’t as easy to adjust, and it doesn’t have quite the same level of image quality, as our best home theater projector pick above, and some people may notice DLP rainbows, but it is a very good projector at this lower price, and it supports 1080p images.

The BenQ produced 1,665 lumens after calibration in Normal lamp mode and 1,130 lumens in Eco mode. That’s light to spare, so you could easily go up to a 120-inch screen without feeling like you’re sacrificing brightness for size. The BenQ HT2050A also beats comparably-priced LCD projectors in contrast ratio.

Another thing we like about the BenQ is the built-in vertical lens shift adjustment, a feature that makes installation and alignment with the screen easier. It’s something you don’t often find on budget projectors, so even the little bit offered on this model is a welcome addition.