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Home Theatre Projectors, Dell, InFocus and Sanyo

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the everybody-wants-a-big-tv dept.

ssassen writes "Hardware Analysis is gearing up towards the holiday season with an indepth comparison of three popular home theatre projectors; the perfect gift for under the Christmas tree. They decipher the marketing mumbo-jumbo you'll be faced with and explain all that you need to know prior to buying a home theatre projector."

3 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Rent, then buy! by dada21 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many online and offline business rental companies will let you rent a projector. This is HIGHLY recommended. The $50-$100 more you'll spend will give you a big chance to see if the projector is for you.

    Lumens, contrast ratio, and even resolution is NOT comparitive between brands. Some people see "rainbows" with DLP projectors. Some people see excess screen door with LCD projectors.

    Before I bought my (CHEAP) Sanyo PLV-Z1 projector, I scoured the AVS Forums for information, and it was the best help I could find.

    Now I have a 110" projector on my living room wall, the room feels twice as big (the TV took up so much space), and my projector looks great during the day, the night, and in HDTV (thanks Comcast for doing something right!).

    dada

  2. Re:InFocus Screenplay 4800 same as X1. my mini rev by Mantrid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What are your bulb costs? I looked at doing this a year or so ago, but ended up with a rear projection TV - the bulb costs just seemed too high.

  3. My Favorite Quotes by Aidtopia · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "They decipher the marketing mumbo-jumbo you'll be faced with and explain all that you need to know prior to buying a home theatre projector."

    Oh really?

    ... a high-pressure gas-discharge lamp ... generates a substantial amount of heat which must be transported away from the lamp because of risk of melting and imploding

    If it's a high-pressure lamp, wouldn't the risk be exploding?

    the inside of the lamp is a vacuum, filled with an inert gas

    A filled vacuum?

    Obviously with these three primary colors every possible color can be displayed....

    Not so obvious to those of use who understand device gamuts.

    Despite these errors, I found the comparison useful, but I'm still confused as to their methods. In one place, the author says:

    We've adjusted the lumen output, the contrast and the color balance as well as the sharpness of the individual projectors to get as close to the [reference image] as possible.... If we had not done so we'd have ended up with the factory defaults that in some cases did not do the projector justice.

    But a few screens later:

    We've used the default factory settings for all projectors so we get a fair comparison between them.

    Perhaps for some measurements they used defaults and some they adjusted to match the reference image, but that's far from clear.