If you really believe you won’t become more of a projector enthusiast/purist (hard for us audiophiles), then your life is simpler.

For 2D only, the Epson’s key strength would be warranty and support. The 8350 is getting a bit “long in the tooth”.
Between the W6000 and PT-AR100U projectors though, first thing to ask yourself: Are you rainbow sensitive? If you don’t know, you might want to play it safe and stick with an LCD projector instead of the DLP powered W6000.

The W6000 is the more purist of the two. While not as bright, it’s still one of the brighter out there. It definitely delivers better blacks, but that really won’t matter at all until you have that Black Diamond… More to the point, the W6000 has that DLP look and feel. It’s not a critical thing, but many of us just sort of like the way DLP’s look, to me, it’s mostly on darker scenes – in terms of color saturation, but whatever, there are many loyalists.

So, that said, I’m one of them… but, I also love black levels, which the W6000 is very good at. On the other hand it’s been almost 5 years and 3 newer projectors since I last bought a DLP, because I’m rainbow sensitive. The W6000′s very good, in that regard, but not as good as the far more expensive Sharp XV-Z30000 I just reviewed.

My final best guess… start with the PT-AR100U, but after you get that good screen, my bet is within a year or two, you’ll be wishing for something higher end, be it 2D or 3D (I love great 3D content), it’s the audiophile in you. At that point, I’ll bet you will be shopping for great black levels, and other performance improvements… Best of luck. And, how about returning here with some good personal feedback about your decision, and how it is working out. Best if you do that at least 2 weeks after you are up and running. Enjoy!

How would this projector work with a grey screen?

IN the case of Hugo, I don’t care. To me, the movie is stunning in 3D. Let me put it another way, with many 3D projectors, there’s a brightness control on the projector – generally referred to for the 3D glasses. usually 3 or 4 modes from bright to “low” (was going to say dim). No matter what the content, the brightest setting usually has plenty of crosstalk (in this case a projector issue, not a blu-ray transfer issue). I don’t watch above “medium”, sacrificing some needed brightness. I would say that running any of those projectors in the brightest glasses mode offers a good deal more crosstalk than that Hugo disc.

To answer your last question. It can be the media or the projector, or both. Occasionally on the forums I’ll read one guy saying “that projector’s got a lot of crosstalk” and the next guy says, no way, it’s the movie you are watching… and vice versa… I don’t care about whatever level the disc has, I’ll rank Hugo now as the favorite 3D content I own, that’s a movie, and probably overall, despite Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D, Hubble 3D, and a bunch of non-movie 3D I now own (maybe 60 hours of non movies, plus more than a dozen movies.

In other words, effects or not, this a great movie, and I barely can see how folks fully immersed in the movie, even notice the crosstalk.

With the great variation in comments relating to the Hugo review, perhaps, in some cases, the issue is a combination of the movie transfer, and whatever crosstalk the display has? Well, get some popcorn, the disc, and enjoy. -art

the 10 hours a day, really shouldn’t be a problem for any

I tend to favor LCD projectors for most biz/education uses, but they do have one disadvantage: dust can get into their “lightpath” Thus what are called “dust blobs” (very scientific), can show up. That’s a factory cleaning type of thing. DLP’s have “sealed light paths” not as perfect as they would have you believe, but still far more dust and dirt resistant.

With that said, best if that DLP projector has a dust filter, (few do, because of that sealed light path).

I normally don’t track that, and don’t have time to research filter/no filter, but I have emailed my product manager contacts at 4 companies. Hope to have the replies in the next few days. -art