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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."

11 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. InFocus Screenplay 4800 same as X1. my mini review by scottm · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Once I had a room to dedicate to home theater I started looking for an affordable upgrade to the 32" TV I had been watching on.

    I bought an Infocus X1 a few months ago and have been amazed. It's nearly identical to the Screenplay 4800 reviewed in the article (some software/settings tweaks and extra cables for your few hundred bucks extra for the 4800).

    I bought the X1 after seeing glowing reviews on AVS Forums. There are a number of good entry level choices in the projector market now. I did make sure I bought from a place with no restocking fees, as I was worried about rainbows (X1 has a 2x color wheel and some fraction of people seem to be sensitive to them, it's a potential problem with any low end DLP)... I can see rainbows if I try, but they haven't bothered any of the 15 or so people who've watched movies on my X1.

    Once I got it home & set up, I was amazed... You have to have some level of light control in your viewing area, but it's such a huge difference... I've seen only 2 movies in the theater since I got the projector... I'm projecting a ~90" diagonal 16:9 screen (note the X1/4800 is natively 4:3, but scales fine to 16:9). DVDs are spectacular, 4 player split screen Gamecube is a lot of fun (vs. squinting at your little corner of the 32" tv).

    Not sure why anyone spends the $$ on a big screen CRT/FPTV/RPTV anymore. I've already converted two coworkers to projectors (an X1 & a Z1).

    Now, if anyone has an easy DIY screen I can get rid of this bed sheet nailed to the ceiling in my basement....

  2. cheap! by proj_2501 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the dell one is missing some useful features!

    NO POWER SWITCH!

    still, under $1k is awesome.

  3. Z-coordinate? by pipingguy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can they project vertically? Since I spend most of my life being horizontal, that would be a great feature on the ceiling.

  4. mmmm... projector... by TWX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had the interesting experience of working for a company back in 2001 that closed and couldn't pay me for the vacation that I'd accrued, so the office manager/CFO and I made a deal where I'd write off the time in exchange for the company video projector. It was probably the best deal that I'd made working with them.

    I use a Philips Proscreen 4100, which is an older 800x600 projector that puts out 300 ANSI Lumens. It's not nearly as bright as modern projectors (coming in at 1000+ Lumens), but the 4000 hour lamp is nice.

    I'll never go back to a TV. Even if my projector breaks and I am forced to replace it outright, I'll buy the $1500 projector again. The furniture savings, the space savings, and the ability to have a room not centered around a glass TV, but still able to become a multimedia room with 100" of screen with the pull of a retractable screen far outweighs having a fixed TV. I can take it wherever I go, and it'll fit in the trunk of my friend's Mazda Miata. I can show up to 200" diagonal picture from a computer, composite, or S-Video source on any wall suitable.

    For versatility, picture size, and general niftiness, I don't think that you can beat a video projector.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  5. Where is EPSON? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    EPSON is a reference in video projectors, they are the number 1 in sales worldwide and other companies just simple OEM the products from them! My company has 2 EPSON projectors, I took one home for testing (don't tell anyone) and it rocks DVD, X and Counter-Strike!

    I heard they launched a new one below 30 dB! That's silent!

  6. just wondering... by supercooled32 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I have been in an AF training enviroment training for the past year, and have used a projection screen almost everyday that has gone by for projection of power point slide shows.. The only downfall I see in using one of these in your home would be that you have to turn the lights off in the room in order to obtain any sort of clarity.

    if i wanted to use this for passively watching the simpsons or something it seems that would be annoying..

    any thoughts on this?

  7. Anyone using this tech for daily computer use? by G4from128k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've noticed that many of these large screen products (projectors and PDPs) have VGA or DVI inputs and support higher resolutions than the minimum required to display an NTSC signal. Thus, they could be connected to a computer and used for multi-user computer applications (e.g., gaming, boardrooms, or extreme programming) or just a single-person big-screen. What is it like to have a big screen that is more distant than the usual monitor?

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  8. Re:Rent, then buy! by jelle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hmm.

    700 Lumens at 110" and still 'looks great during the day'.

    Lumens is an absolute measure of light defined in physics. Unless the manufacturers are lying about the numbers, it's comparable between brands.

    At 700 Lumen spread across a 110" screen, there is not much light left per unit surface area.

    Indoor artificial lighting for offices is usually 300-500 lux, and outdoors it goes up to 30000 lux. Lux is lumens per square meter. So, assuming your 110" measure is the size of the bottom edge of your screen, then you have about 5.8 square meters of screen, which under office lighting conditions already gets 1750-2900 lumens of light. So an additional 700 lumens of light on that surface is going to be visible, but the contrast will not be that great. If your 110" is the diagonal, the numbers get a bit better but still, the ambient light would have to be made pretty close to dark to give a good contrast.

    Or are you using some sort of wonder screen?

    --
    --- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
  9. Anyone know why projectors are so expensive? by Bob+Bitchen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's not that much technology in them. A bulb, a lens, the LCDs or the DLP, some mirrors, a fan or two. I would think they would cost much less than they do. What's keeping the price so high? Is it simply lack of demand? A television seems to have a lot more hardware than a projector so maybe it is demand that is driving the price.

    --
    http://tinyurl.com/3t236
    1. Re:Anyone know why projectors are so expensive? by cybrthng · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is alot to them. The bulbs are fairly advanced and expensive to make, the entire color wheel/motor/lcd panel needs to be calibrated to exact measurements and it takes a refigned/exact process to build an lcd panel or DLP system effeciently and with 0 errors.

      You have to remember a dead pixel can look HUGE on a large screen.

      On the other hand, this stuff costed 2,500 to 5,000 just 2 years ago. Now you can get it for 900 or less.

      That seems like a fairly decent price drop!

      Speeed, Performance, Durability, Bulb Lifetime, Resolutions and such have been increasing faster then they can mass produce antyhing hence the higher costs. With HDTV standardization and DLP technologies catching up the prices will fall since there are industry standards to meet and build upon

  10. More advantages of projection viewing by figa · · Score: 2, Interesting
    About two years ago, I bought a Sony CPJ-200 from eBay for about $600. It's a crappy projector, but it was about the only affordable projector when I got it.

    Since I'm not experiencing any of the modern wonders of video projection, I thought I'd share some of the inherent strengths of projection viewing:

    • It's a much better experience for movies, since it really feels like sitting in a theater. I have young children, so my movie days are over. This has been a lifesaver.
    • At least with my projector, you can't watch it during the day. This keeps the kids from camping out in front of the thing. I don't have a TV tuner or cable, so it's for movies only.
    • The whole apparatus is out of the way. My apartment is tiny, and I don't really have room for a TV. It just wouldn't fit so that the couch would be in front of it. I have a ceiling-mounted screen, and when we want to watch a movie, I just pull it down. When we're done, it rolls up out of the way. The projector sits on a bookshelf over the couch. It really eliminates all the problems with incorporating a TV as a part of your furniture.
    • Since the projector is off most of the time, when I have friends over, we aren't all sitting on the couch staring forward into a TV, we actually face each other and talk.

    I wouldn't recommend it for watching network programming, but for someone only watches movies, it's the ideal setup.