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Home Theatre Projectors, Dell, InFocus and Sanyo
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."
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....
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
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.
How can you have a serious home cinema projector comparison without comparing the Sharp AE series projectors?
I own the Sharp AE-100 and Sharp AE-300 (no, I don't work for them or think that they are the best brand in everything, they just make awesome "cheap" widescreen projectors).
I had some minor problems with my AE-100 (red/green tint in the picture), but this was a known problem with the AE-100, and it is solved in the AE-200 and AE-300.
In my livingroom I have the AE-300 running, projecting a 110 inch screen. If you get the right signal to it (progressive NTSC or VGA), the projector is unbeatable by anything in the same pricerange (asuming you want a WideScreen projector).
I read A LOT of articles/reviews/forums before going for the sharp, and with the AE-300, I'm really happy! You'd be able to get the AE-300 for under $2000, and you can get the AE-100 for around $1000 (although you should be aware of the red/green tint in the picture on the AE-100).
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.
...It's the cost of the freakin' bulbs that'll kill ya. 500 for 2000 hours? You'd better be watchin' some pretty top-drawer p0rn to make it worth your while.
Best PJ's by price ranged -home-t heater-projectors.htm
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:)
http://www.projectorcentral.com/recommende
Reviews of each PJ and other info
hhtp://www.projectorcentral.com
Great forum site
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay
I used to own a 42" Plasma (Panny EDTV 848x480 $4000). However, had I known how good projectors were nowadays, I would never would have bought it.
Currently I own a Sanyo PLV-70 ($3,500 1366x768) with a 105" Dalite HiPower screen ($350). And it's almost like a 105" plasma!
HDTV looks awesome. And DVD's look pretty good too. Finding Nemo is one of the best looking ones so far... But the hardware really needs Hi Definition material to shine. 480 just don't cut it at that size. Hollywood needs to get their butt in gear.
And with a DVI input, I've connected my computer and played Unreal2, MotoGP2, Vice City, etc. at 16:9 widescreen at 1360x768. Sick!
And you can do email, surf the web and everything with the 3D gyro mouse and keypad. Completely useable as a computer screen.
I can only hope Half Life 2 and Doom 3 properly support widescreen.
Or even better, do that, then invite six of the local needy kids around for Christmas dinner. With the proviso that after dinner they stand around your armchair, shouting 'Boom!', 'Bang!' and 'Woosh!' whenever a particularly loud explosion comes on screen - you won't even miss your surround sound speakers.
While I don't have the X1 yet (still waiting for a few bonuses and such), I have put a good amount of research into it. The bulb is rated for 3,000 hours, and goes for $300. I estimated ~2 hours per day of viewing between myself and my SO, which puts me at just over 4 years between bulbs, a completely reasonable expense. Of course, your mileage may vary based on how much you watch, but do keep in mind that when the X1 first hit the streets, replacement bulbs were $500, so I don't see any reason why they wouldn't drop some in the next few years as well.
They are missing a lot of important information in that article. It seems written to promote DLP and skims over a lot of deficiencies with what they tested, and uneven ways in which the testing was done.
Page 3, Contrast. What it doesn't mention is that above 800:1, it becomes hard to see any difference, and above 1200:1, it's pretty much impossible.
The examples are also set up to make you think that the 'low constrast LCD' is the Z1, which it isn't. Here's a quick snap taken of my Z1 (slight blur due to hand-held camera) of the same scene.
Page 4, Resolution. Again what's left out is at what point it no longer makes a difference. This varies projector by projector and is a factor of the screen size, LCD resolution and distance the viewer is sitting from the screen.
For SVGA/WVGA one can no longer see the grid at all if they are sitting about 1.8x the diagonal of their screen away. For XGA, WXGA that number drops to 1x (probably closer than you'd want to be).
I sit 1.5x screen diagonal away from my WVGA projector (Z1) and can see the grid in very bright-white scenes only. (Specifically, I sit 15' away from a screen with a 10' diagonal.)
Page 5, Fan Noise. Fan noise varies depending on whether you are using the projector's low-lamp/theatre mode. Most projectors give you an option of running at its highest brightness level, or a dark but quieter mode. Where the manufacturer doesn't list
I sit directly below my Z1 and can definitely hear the fan in 'low-lamp' mode, if there is no sound in the movie. I can also here my refrigerator humming in the kitchen if its quiet. If someone is speaking it covers up the sound of the projector (and the fridge). Any guests I have seem oblivious to the sound of the fan until I mention it.
It seems like they must have measured the Z1s lumens in 'low-lamp' mode, and its fan in regular mode (to make it measure as loud as possible). If a manufacturer only lists one fan noise level, it will be their 'low-lamp' mode volume.
Page 6,7, LCD & DLP. He fails to mention that some people cannot watch a DLP projector without getting a headache or becoming nauseous due to a 'strobing' effect. It only happens to small percentage of the population (maybe 2%), but it is a well documented phenomenon. The problem does not exist on high end DLP projectors as they use a slightly different projection technique, but it does exist on all low end DLPs.
This is an issue because if you are ordering your projector over the internet, sight unseen, you may get it home to find out you can't watch it. Likewise, you may have a bunch of friends over, only to find out one of them can't sit through the film/game/etc.
The article fails to mention that LCD has better color saturation.
For a fair and balanced look at the DLP vs. LCD debate, see this Projector Central article.
The conclusion fails to factor in other important cost information, like that over the course of 6 years of ownership, the Dell projector will cost significantly more because you will have to buy 2 bulbs for it, in the same period you will only buy 1 for the other two projectors.
It also never returns to the briefly mentioned benefits of natively Widescreen projectors over traditional 4x3 projectors. Unless you watch a lot of very old movies, you will want to own a widescreen projector. All movies today are widescreen, and in 5 years, so will your television.
There is a lot more wrong with the article, but this should at least give you an idea that you should not make this your single source of information about home projectors. Instead do some reading over at AVSForum. There are a lot of knowledgeable people there who can set you straight where this article would mislead you.
-Colin.
Oh really?
If it's a high-pressure lamp, wouldn't the risk be exploding?
A filled vacuum?
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:
But a few screens later:
Perhaps for some measurements they used defaults and some they adjusted to match the reference image, but that's far from clear.