The HC750HD is expected to look like this HC710HD

Epson has just announced its brightest home entertainment projector ever.  The Home Cinema 750HD, when it starts shipping in a couple of months, will be Epson’s best 720p projector.  Pricing is officially $899!  Or as Epson markets it:  ”under $900″ on their press release.

What’s this Epson HC750HD got, you ask?

Well for openers, the Home Cinema 750HD claims a massive 3000 lumens!  It’s ready to tackle some ambient light.

This projector just might be brighter than your LCDTV or  Plasma TV!  That should give you something to think about.

Designed for your family / living / bonus room this Epson projector should prove to be a real wall melter.  Pair this projector with the proper screen, and the results should be rather amazing, in terms of looking good in brighter situations that only a handful of home projectors can approach.  Pair this projector with the right screen, and it just might make your LCDTVs look not only tiny, but dull.

Of course there’s a lot more to tell you.  Resolution is 720p, but it can, of course accept 1080p in both 2D and 3D.  The Home Cinema 750HD is a 3LCD projector.  Using three LCD panels instead of a single DLP chip, means no rainbow effect to worry about.  Epson owns almost the entire world market share for the type of LCD panels that go into projectors.  Other manufacturers such as Panasonic use Epson panels.  You won’t find Epson offering the other technologies, LCD is what they’re good at.

Note that Epson claims 3000 white lumens, and 3000 color lumens.  Here’s a brief explanation:  Many projectors can produce a much brighter white, than they can red, green or blue.  Typically that means that projectors with low color lumens tend to have poor reds and yellows, at least in their brightest modes.  You can check out our video on Color Lumen Output.  It will demonstrate the differences.  The point is, lots of good looking lumens.

You get 3D!  If the lag times are good, this HC750HD should prove to be a great gaming projector, with all that horsepower.  I know Epson cares about the whole gaming market, as they took very seriously complaints about the slow lag times on the old Epson 3010 and 5010.  The new HC3020 and HC5020, by comparison have a good deal smaller lag.  Epson says they have optimized the Home Cinema 750HD for gaming.  It even has a special mode for it.

With 3000 lumens, 3D should be something to behold.  Treat yourself to a really large screen and get totally immersed.  I must comment, if there’s one thing where projectors truly blow away LCDTVs, it’s for 3D because there’s nothing like a huge screen to really immerse you in the content.

The Home Cinema 750HD uses the same 3D glasses as their more expensive projectors.  Nice glasses, I get to wear them a lot.  They are very lightweight (not the lightest though), rechargeable, and use RF instead of infra-red.  Ready to watch a movie, and the battery needs a charge.  Fear not, 3 minutes will give those glasses enough charge for a typical movie.  A full charge should give you about 40 hours.  Cool!  The charger cable plugs into the glasses, and the other end, plugs into a USB connector on any of your favorite other USB capable devices or chargers.

The 750HD has a built in speaker, handy if you are moving it around, or want to take it outside in the summer for a movie.  That’s become a pretty common feature on the lower cost, “home entertainment” projectors.  There’s also an audio out, so you can route the sound from your inputs, back out to an external sound system, or just hook up a powered subwoofer to “rock the house”.  Literally!

Like some other Epson projector models, and Epson’s  MG850HD and MG50 all in one projectors, the 750HD can run slideshows of your photos via USB.  See, it really is a nice family projector!

As a 3D projector it’s got to have HDMI 1.4, of course, as that’s needed for playing Blu-ray 3D.  The Epson also has component video, S-video, and two USB ports.  Placement flexibility is typical for low cost projectors.  It offers a 1.2:1 manual zoom lens, and advanced keystone correction.  Of course it will come with a remote control.

From a picture quality standpoint, the HC750HD, there are five preset color modes.  I have no details, but figure one will be geared for max brightness and will likely be called Dynamic.  There might be a separate mode for 3D, and there will be at least one mode for movies, one for gaming, and one “standard” mode.

Finally, let’s get to the boring practical stuff:  Lamp life is up to 5000 hours.  That will keep your overall cost of operation way down.  So will the two year warranty.  One year is standard among competitors, and even on many projectors twice as expensive.  It gets better though.  Epson’s providing two years of replacement program, which makes ownership as pain free as possible should you have a problem under warranty.  Epson is also very well known for excellent support of their projectors.

Here’s a tidbit for you.   3LCD projectors are more energy efficient – they deliver more lumens with a less powerful lamp.  There you go. Buy this projector and you can feel a bit better helping the environment.  Don’t worry you environmentalists, there are other green aspects to the 750HD as well.

Enough.  If you want to be first on your block to sport one, figure the Home Cinema 750HD should hit the stores in March.  Pick one up, take it home, plug it into your Blu-ray or DVD player, cable or satellite, iPad, and other tablets and smart phones.   We have used iPads and iPhones when we’ve tested Epson’s all-in-one projectors.  Nice touch.

There’s not a whole lot more I can tell you.  I’ve been briefed, but I have yet to see this projector in action.  I will get my first look at CES, and will blog some more info from the show.  Stay tuned as I learn more, I’ll share.

The image above, I should mention is the Epson 710HD.  I’m resuming the 750HD will look almost identical.  (Or Epson could fool me – it’s happened before!  -art

BenQ's W1070: Affordable DLP, 3D, home entertainment projector

The BenQ W1070 arrived about two weeks ago, but due to scheduling, all I could do was give it to Mike for calibration.  As soon as he returned it, we “put a stamp on it” and shipped it to Pete – one of our Gamer – Projector – Bloggers.

Pete should be posting his thoughts on the BenQ W1070 as a gaming projector, over the next few days.

Now, since I personally never fired up the W107o projector I’m just going to take a few paragraphs to report on the BenQ’s feature set, and also relate some of the key measurements from Mike’s calibrating of the projector.  Here goes:

BenQ’s W1070 projector is a 1080p single chip DLP projector claiming 2000 lumens.  It’s small – downright portable at under 6 pounds, and has a built in speaker.   A contrast claim of 10,000:1 indicates more than the minimal black level performance that some other entry level projectors offer.  (A typical DLP without a dynamic iris usually has claims of 2000:1 to 3000:1.)

This BenQ projector has, as we’ve seen before from BenQ, three lamp mode combinations, not the two.  Officially they are rated 3500 hours, 5000 hours and 6000 hours.  That should keep cost of ownership nice and low.  A one year warranty is typical in the price range.

Mike was extremely impressed with the before and after color quality.  He found that the W1070 projector had really good RGB balance right out of the box.  Mike took User 1, which at default is almost as bright as Dynamic, to calibrate.  With or without calibration, the W1070 breaks 1700 lumens (at mid-point on the zoom lens), brighter at full wide angle (almost 1850 lumens).  Mike measures conservatively, so getting within about 7% of claim is unusually good.

In Mike’s calibration of the W1070, he ended up with one of the tightest color temp ranges yet, downright surprising for a low cost projector. Post calibration, every temperature from 20 IRE to 100 IRE (white) measured within 6418K and 6500K.  Color should look great as both RGB and individual colors are very balanced (great).

Now when it comes to the picture itself, I can’t help you there, having not yet seen this projector in action, but it should be back here in about a week.  I expect I’ll be tackling it immediately after the JVC DLA-X55 which I’m currently reviewing.  The timing should be close to perfect, so I would hope to finish the W1070 projector review before Christmas.  If not, then certainly before New Years.  (No one gives me the week off – tsk, tsk.)

Before I forget, the W1070 is a 3D ready projector, but it does not come with any 3D glasses.  BenQ and 3rd party 3D glasses are available.   Here’s a compatibility chart BenQ provides:

Various 3D format supported

HDMI-Video:  3D frame packing, is what Blu-ray discs use.

The W1070 is also NVIDIA 3DTV compatible.  We’ve looked at that early on in 3D with an nVidia 3DTV, to try to get all those 2D games converted on the fly, by the nVidia graphics card.  We weren’t successful at the time, the Optoma we reviewed was brand new, and it seems it takes a while to get certified and a driver created for the nVidia graphics card.  Perhaps Pete, who’s got the W1070 will be able to check out whether we can get that 2D – to – 3D games working.

OK, that’s about all I can think of, for a projector that I haven’t even seen out of the box.  Certainly, Mike has had much to say about the color and calibrating the projector, and that’s all good.  I should note that he made an immediate point about how much better the W1070 is in terms of out of the box, and being calibrated, than the older BenQ W1200 which we reviewed. -art

HC7900DW projector - good in a family room, great in a home theater

As promised in the last review, I wanted to tell you a bit about how I decided in the last couple of days of the review, that the Mitsubishi HC7900 DW, deserved our HOT Product award, when only days earlier I was torn between giving it a Special Interest award (not as “major”), or no award at all.

First, I’ve been reviewing some rather bright home theater projectors lately, including several capable of more than 1500 lumens, and two breaking 2000 lumens.  That seems to have “colored” my initial thoughts.  I’ve also, in the HC7900 review, described it as a great projector for “condos” – in other words, smaller rooms.

Then, as part of the review, I finally moved the HC7900DW projector down into the testing room(from the theater), for some side by side work.  The usual Epson HC5020 (for comparisons) was in Texas, with Pete, for a gamers review, but I still had a dealer provided PT-AE8000 here, so I put the two side by side.  At the end of a couple of hours, spent viewing 2D and 3D, I still agreed with a number of thoughts I had going in, but also came away with some radically different considerations elsewhere:

Brightness:  While I had been describing the Mitsubishi projector as a smaller room projector, the side by side reminded me that calibrated, the Mitsubishi is actually more than 10% brighter than the Panasonic when it too is calibrated!   Now when I tried “brightest” mode against “brightest” mode, true, the Panasonic was far brighter.  Even in eco mode, the Panasonic was a lot brighter than the Mitsubishi at full power.  No contest.

Beautiful color - skin tones in particular, make the HC7900DW impressive

“It’s the Picture…”   Here we go.   Brightness was important, but the kicker is skin tones.  The Panny looks great, but the HC7900 projector is simply a touch better – more natural looking.  That shouldn’t be a real surprise, since that’s generally been a “benefit” of well designed DLP projectors in the past.

Out the door went any thoughts of no award. A projector that can put up an image where skin tones are that good pretty much guarantees some award, unless it’s really screwed up in some other areas.   The HC7900 projector  proved better (skin tones) than the Panasonic, and therefore I’d have to say, also better than the Epsons, and probably comparable to the Sony HW50ES (or perhaps a touch better?  The Sony was gone by that time.

A Perception Problem for Mitsubishi!   I’ll blame them.  Damn them for changing the HC7900′s case to white, from last year’s black on the HC7800D.   The white implies family room, dark/black implies home theater/cave environments.  We know that’s not the case with Epson, who uses black casing on the Pro Cinema 6020 to distinguish it from the otherwise essentially identical Home Cinema 5020.  In Epson’s case, (pun), the black vs. white is more marketing than message.

By switching to white, (and supported in their marketing pieces, Mitsubishi paints the HC7900DW as a home projector more suitable for the family room / living room / bonus room crowd, than the theater crowd.

But, this projector is better in the Theater, despite the white case.  OK, you are asking “why” (most of you have figured it out though).   It’s the brightest mode issues, and combine that with 3D brightness.   Here’s the short version.  The Mitsubishi’s brightest mode may be able to output more than 1300 measured lumens, but, I can’t stand to watch it.  Not even for sports in a bright room.  It’s way too green.  red could be described as a myth.  Now, go to the next best mode, and you still are approaching 1200 lumens which these days, is about average for a brightest mode.

So, do the math.  700 calibrated lumens will do a great job on a 120″ diagonal screen for your 2D content, in a light controlled room.   And 1100+ lumens will do a respectable job for sports etc., with some, but well controlled (intentional?) ambient light.  Again, great in the “cave” or theater.

It’s when the projector faces rooms without great lighting control – especially in the daytime, that the HC7900DW starts running out of lumens quickly.  Of course screens can help, but, in general, the HC7900DW is no match for the various projectors that can put 25% more,  to almost double the lumens on all but a small screen, in such rooms.

Again.  With a smaller screen – say 100″ or 92″ the HC7900 is probably just fine in a family room situation.  But forget that 120″ that would be fine in a theater.   As to 3D, even in my theater 100″ diagonal was really stretching it brightness wise.

So, back to my award decision.   What changed my mind is this:  I determined that it certainly deserves a Hot Product Award if it’s going to be in a home theater/cave.  But, it can deserve it almost as much in that living room, – if you don’t go large screen.

And – this is important – for 3D viewing, count this a projector that’s fine for “playing around” with 3D, someone not really into 3D, not sure about it, and, on the fence if they even need it at all.   Or, perhaps a person who may well decide to replace the projector in a couple of years for whatever reason (including a newfound love for 3D).   But, the HC7900DW is  not my first choice – or even close, for someone like me, who really finds 3D to be superior (even my wife now agrees – when the glasses are comfortable).  I love 3D, because even with a mediocre movie like the new 3 Musketeers, 3D makes it more alive, more believable, because you are more immersed – way more!   Of course if your only 3D viewing experience is on some tiny (50″ perhaps) LCDTV, then you have no real grasp of the immersion.  Immersion is why people pay for Imax over standard cineplex theaters.

I deemed – in my mind – that the HC7900DW is a really excellent (place in your) theater projector, and it can also double as a projector that can be excellent in a living room / family room world (as long as the screen isn’t too large, or the demand for bright 3D  isn’t a major issue).    Now I’ll remind you about what it takes to earn one of our Hot Product Awards:  A projector has to be so well done, that it should be either the best or close to the best choice for at least a small, but significant portion of the folks out there looking for projectors.   I’m not sure that would be true if we considered this first and foremost a family room projector, but once we seriously consider it in the theater, it has to be.  It becomes an excellent, and perhaps, best choice among the DLP projectors competing in the home theater / cave space.  Further, it’s pricing – even though it’s a “local dealer only” distribution, puts it as less expensive than two top competitors – the PT-AE8000 and the VPL-HW50ES, and not much more expensive than the Epson 5020 (which is also white, but great in a theater).

So, there you have it.  Mindset shift.  Home Entertainment projector?   The HC7900′s not bad.  As a home theater projector, it’s rather a fine one.  In both cases, color and especially skin tones, are excellent.  -art

PS.  for you gamers – impressive, though not exceptional lag times to report.  See the Special Features on the first page of the review:

Optoma's HD23 DLP home entertainment projector is our next review

I’ve been slammed for weeks, with all these projectors arriving, so time to bring you up to speed, on what’s going on, starting with the next review:  Finally we’ve got our hands on the Optoma HD23, which is mostly available at Best Buy.  I’ve received a number of emails and comments asking about that one, and now it’s time.

Mike had the Optoma HD23 and just returned it to me this afternoon, calibrated and ready to go.   I’ve been so slammed that I haven’t done a “first look” blog in a while, but I will have one for you on the HD23, later this weekend. When exactly?   I’m not sure.

The BenQ W1070 is a lower cost home entertainment projector, and that one also arrived.  I’ve just shipped that out to Pete for his take on the W1070 as a gaming projector.  I will be doing a full review of the BenQ W1070 when Pete returns it.

Basically my blogging gamers have gaming projector comments (some already posted on their blogs), on recently reviewed/being reviewed home projectors including the Epson HC5020/PC6020, Epson HC3020, Viewsonic Pro9000, Optoma HD23, and BenQ W1070.

In other updates:

JVC had told me back around the beginning of the month, that review units likely would become available early December.  I am getting back in touch with them for an update, just waiting to hear back, and, of course, to receive the first of what should be 3 different JVC projectors to review.

The Mitsubishi HC7900DW projector review posted days ago, but I’ve been adding to it.  I did want to take a moment to explain how, in my mind, this projector went from my debating whether it was to receive a Special Interest award, or no award at all, to deciding very recently that it deserved a full Hot Product award.  Some of you might appreciate my thinking, but, since this blog piece has been growing in length, I do believe I will stop here, and discuss the HC7900 award in a blog I’ll start in a couple of minutes.  -art

My bad, Scott published some info in his blog, with info on lag tests of the AAXA P4-X pico projector.  Click here, to read his results.  His more complete write of of gaming with this little P4-X should be posted very soon.

There he will discuss how well the P4X performs during actual gaming.   The P4X has some decent brightness (80 lumens) for a pico, which is a real plus, compared to most of the others out there.

Check it out!  -art

In all of last year’s Epson’s the dynamic features were not available in 3D.

Great news:  I’ve been able to confirm that the Home Cinema 3020 and 3020e, both will be able to run their dynamic irises in 3D operation.

That’s a major improvement for 3D viewing.  Most pleased to here of this change, I and others complained a good bit about the iris not being available on the older 3010 and 5010 projectors.

That’s it, gotta get back to work.  Remember, all this is secret until Sept 5.  shhh!  -art

PS, if I didn’t mention it in the original 3020 blog, I also heard that the new HC3020 projectors will have shorter lag times, which may make the projector nice and fast, suitable for hard core gamers playing First Person Shooters, etc.  We shall see.

Epson's Home Cinema 3020 - Great family room projector

OK, pricing is still not set, best we can tell, but the Home Cinema 3020 and 3020e, probably won’t be more than last year’s 3010 and 3010e.  So far, though Epson has not indicated the new prices.  Let me clarify.  Last year’s two versions (3010 and 3010e) were $1599 and $1799.  the “e” version is the one with the wireless HDMI (5 inputs and Digital Audio this year, up from 2/0).  Last year, the base version came with two pair of 3D glasses, while the “e” version came with wireless, but no glasses.   This year all of Epson’s 3D projectors will come standard with 2 pair of 3D active glasses (newer and lighter, and rechargeable).

So, pricing may shift a bit, due to the addition of the glasses with the “e” version.

So, “what else is new?”

Let’s start with brightness.  Looks like a small lift there.  I’m looking for 2300 lumens up from 2200 lumens.  That sounds like minor improvements in design, rather than changing anything major like the lamp.  Still, for those of us who love 3D, we’ll take every extra 100 lumens we can find.

And since the Home Cinema 3020 and 3020e projectors are designed first and foremost for a family room type environment, every lumen counts, even in 2D, when there’s a decent amount of ambient light. BTW, we’re talking 2300 lumens of white, and also 2300 lumens of Color light output (see our new video about the new SID color brightness standards).

What else…?

The usual long life lamp (up to 5000 hours), the usual excellent 2 year warranty with 2 years of replacement program.  New 2D to 3D conversion abilities.  There’s more, too.

Ah, let’s not forget a pair of 10 watt speakers (as before).  Great if you want to move the projector from room to room, or the summer night movie festival in your back yard!

As mentioned 2 pair of the new Epson 3D glasses are included with both projectors.

And of course, the Home Cinema 3020e comes with that wireless HDMI – it’s uncompressed, and you get five HDMI inputs as well as a digital audio input.  That’s a big improvement over last year’s 3010e who’s transmitter had only a limited 2 HDMI inputs, and no digital audio.

So, looks like we have a pair of improved projectors for Epson’s “low end” of 3D capable models.  One thing I’m not sure of is dynamic features in 3D.  Rumor has it that the 5020 and 6020 versions now support dynamic iris and other features while in 3D.  I have not been able to confirm or deny that ability for these 3020 projectors.   I really hope they have allowed at least the dynamic iris to stay engaged in 3D.  We shall see.

Good, that gives me stuff to ask Epson at my meeting with them at CEDIA next week!

Bottom line:  I expect some price shifting, but whether they will cost less than the older 3010s, I can only guess at this time.  I say that, since the Home Cinema 3020 and 3020e will be at least incrementally better, with a few more features.  We shall have to wait until Sept 5th for the official pricing!   I meet with Epson on the 6th, so I will be sharing a lot more with you from CEDIA.

Hang in there!  Lots of fun new projectors being announced and shown at CEDIA this year! -art

Greetings projector fans, movie fans, sports fans, TV fans, and the world in general.  I’ve had a couple of days now with the Panasonic PT-AR100U.  Not as much time as I would have liked, but that’s my fault.  This weekend I had a tough choice watching a dozen or so hours on the PT-AR100U projector, or heading to Las Vegas with an old friend, to catch a concert.

But, first things first.  Panasonic’s pricing has dropped dramatically since the PT-AR100U was first announced around the fall.  A quick look on the web the street price is obviously right around $999, despite an MSRP of $1999.  Panasonic is definitely getting aggressive, price wise.

Sorry folks, in this case, the PT-AR100U projector lost out.  The band, btw, that Eddie and I saw, was Alan Parson’s Project.  (Yeah, just about none of you have ever heard of them, even though they’ve had some huge hits over the decades.  Hey, even a lot of folks from the 60′s don’t remember Alan Parsons.  More about the trip below!

The Panasonic PT-AR100U isn’t your average home theater, or home entertainment projector.  It is simply the brightest of them all, at least of the ones I’m aware of that are true home projectors, not compromised cross-over projectors.

Mike’s picking up the AR100U in a couple of hours, to measure and calibrate it, but I just want to start out with some impressive tidbits for you, even though I can’t quote measured numbers yet.

OK, here are the Panasonic PT-AR100U projector’s strengths, based on watching:

1. Major league brightness.  2800 lumens claimed! To find another home theater projector that has significantly more lumens we’re talking 3 chip DLP’s and a price tag at least 10x higher!  Well, if you are looking for one of these, a three chip DLP probably isn’t in your budget (or mine).
2. Great out of the box color!   I am truly impressed (regular readers know I’m quite often “impressed” and sometimes “very impressed” or “really impressed”, but rarely, every do I put “truly” in front of impressed.)  Even the really bright modes look really good out of the box. True, Cinema 1, and REC 709 are no where near as bright as Vivid Cinema, Standard (even brighter), and of course Dynamic, which is dazzling (and only slightly brighter than Standard).  I mean I can detect yellows as being a touch strong in Dynamic, and a touch more overall “contrasty” look, but not very much.  There’s a far smaller drop in color quality from Standard to Dynamic, than in most other projectors, including the Epson 3010 or 5010 projectors.   I’d have to say, that the Dynamic modes looks better than most LCDTV’s, PERIOD!  See the image from X-men, below, taken, with default settings using dynamic!
3. And paired with the right screen, and a not too terrible family room or living room, this Panasonic projector just might prove brighter than an LCDTV, and I mean, even at sizes of 100 inches diagonal.  (Yes, black levels will suffer somewhat, but sports – nice!)
   Wow!  I have to see how far I can push this projector – It’s going to be leaving my theater, and going downstairs into our extremely bright great room.  I need to shoot a few pictures for you – I’ll start with my light beige walls, since I have no screen down there, then I’ll break out an 80″ portable matte white screen, just to see.  But, you’d want an appropriate  screen in a family room or living room where there’s tons of ambient light.  Those pics will show up in the full review, in a few more days.
4. The amenities.   Lots of features, two screen triggers, Panasonic’s waveform analyzer, their auto adjustment for room brightness (Light Harmonizer), dynamic features, like CFI etc.  Lot’s of placement flexibility, good remote, lots of (good) picture modes
5. And: You get a dynamic iris, for better blacks.  Note:  I’m not prepared yet, for a really good assessment of the black level performance.  The 50,000:1 claim is a really good number, but, this projector is really not an ultra-high contrast projector in the sense of the Epson 5010, or Panasonic’s own flagship, the PT-AE7000 projector.  It may well offer better blacks than say the Epson Home Cinema 8350, a projector with a slightly higher street price, or their more expensive 3D capable 3010, but most likely its blacks are comparable to those Epson’s, and probably not as good as the Acer H9500BD DLP projector.  Remember, I’m watching a really bright projector – which means even really good blacks aren’t as black as a less bright projector on the same screen.  I’ll have it sorted out soon, in the full review of the PT-AR100U projector.

My first real take on the PT-AR100:

For those looking to forgo 3D, and just need a really bright projector – for almost any remotely suitable room, or for someone who just can’t live without a 160″ diagonal matte white screen, this Panasonic is probably the ticket.  It should easily outmuscle those other $1000 – $2000 home entertainment projectors, with only the Epson Home Cinema 3010 being bright enough to discuss as even “close” in brightness.

Panasonic PT-AR100U Projector - looks great, even in Dynamic mode (brightest).

At first I had the disturbing impression that the really bright modes are also a very high in typical image noise.  I normally expect to see more mosquito and other basic noise on DLP projectors than 3 LCD or LCoS.  In reality, I noticed a lot of noise  in Normal and Dynamic, but it turned out to be the default settings of the Detail Clarity control which was set for 3.  It provides an over-sharpened image, and in doing so, it magnifies the noise.

Can’t wait until Mike hands it back calibrated, and to do the whole photo shoot, and some side by side viewing.  In this case against the Epson 5010, as it’s the only projector I have here right now, bright enough to do a side by side with the AR100U projector.

For you gamers – we haven’t tested lag times yet, but that will be done in time for the full review.  Either Pete or Scott, my two gaming – projector bloggers, will get the projector to really run though its paces as a serious gaming projector.  Keep in mind Panasonic has been heavily focused on doing great gaming, on the predecessors to the PT-AR100U, such as the PT-AX200U, which this projector replaces.  Considering there’s even a Game mode, I expect lag times to be respectable.

That’s it, folks (well, mostly).  Below, a bit on the trip to vegas, and how my friend Eddie, will soon be considering replacing his old projector with a new one, with the PT-AR100U being on his short list.

Finishing up on the Vegas trip (and a home theater decision), my wine guy:  Eddie – Eddie Osterland, I should note, is one of the world’s foremost wine experts (first american to become a Master Sommelier), so you better believe there was some great food and wine on the trip.  If you head to Las Vegas, check out this Thai restaurant: Lotus of Siam – awesome and a world class wine list to die for (per Eddie).  Yummy!  (note, it’s in a run down large strip shopping center, and lacks the ambiance, of a fancy restaurant, but the food and wine, more than offsets.  Eddie says it’s a legendary restaurant among wine and food aficionados.

Eddie, is a home theater projector owner too – sold him his first a decade ago.  He’s got an old Sony and also a Panasonic, but time to upgrade.  He’s going to be replacing soon (I mention all this, because we watched a bit of Hugo in 3D, on the Epson 5010, and some 2D content on the PT-AR100U.  Eddies new place is loft like, lots of light, he’ll have to decide, which will serve him best – since he needs some real horsepower.  He can go 3D and really good brightness (Epson), or he can go for even more lumens and also save some bucks (if he forgoes 3D) with the Panasonic PT-AR100U.  Eddie knows about the importance of good blacks, but he also knows when you need lots of lumens, often blacks don’t come into play.  Ultimately we’ll see what he finally decides upon in a couple of months, and let you know.

Thanks folks!  -art

PS.  The full PT-AR100U projector review should be up on the website this weekend (sooner or later)!

OK, I’m not the guy to write about gaming.  I’ve got two hard core gamers doing that – Pete and Scott.  But, Pete’s just blogged on the Epson Home Cinema 5010 as a gaming projector and I just shipped him the W7000 (click for review) so that’s next on his list.

After speaking with Pete, I did some Lag tests.  As you gamers know, but many of my other readers may not, gamers need their displays to be fast, whether you are a console player – PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, etc., or a PC gamer.

As you can all imagine, if a game does something, and your screen doesn’t show it for a a half second, you will be very dead, or some other bad thing, in most action games.

Many folks discuss how fast a display should be. Zero lag time is ideal, and some projectors do measure that fast.  (Measuring is done by running a timer program on a computer (I use a MacBook Pro), and projecting it.  I photograph the projected image and the laptop screen at the same time.  The difference in time, is the lag.  Obviously you want to use a clock that goes down to thousandths of a second.

BenQ W7000 Lag Times - Gaming Projector

Per my two hard core gamers, figure this lag times below 20 ms (milliseconds) is ideal  Once one gets in the 30 -50 range, most serious gamers I gather, are still pretty satisfied.  Generally hey’d like faster but the game plays well enough for serious competition.  Pushing much above 50, though, loses the serious gamers on first person shooters, and most other action games.  (Hey, if you are playing computer versions of Chess, or Monopoly, lag time isn’t an issue!)  Well, it’s Pete and Scott who throw out numbers, better you read their opinions.

OK, here’s the story on the BenQ W7000 and the Epson 5010 (which also means the 5010e and 6010).

The BenQ’s a pretty good gamer.  With my setup, as described, the W7000 measured 34-35 ms.
The Epson’s too slow for hard core gamers – or so my guys would tell me.  The Home Cinema 5010 measured 83 ms.   Now mind you, that’s still less than 1/10th of a second, so that may be fine for the average gamer, even on some action games.

Check out Pete’s blogs for the real word on how each of these projectors figure as gaming projectors – from one of the “hard core!”  Pete just loves his “consoles” and he’s been a projector owner for years, and he uses it for much of his gaming.   Fastest way to his blog is click!

Greetings and happy holidays.

It’s almost Christmas Eve here in southern California, and we hope everyone is enjoying the season as much as we are.  I’ll be knocking off after I finish this W7000 projector blog.  (finally)

I had intended to try and get a good portion of the review  up and running this evening, but there wasn’t enough time.  I’ve still got 100+ images to process (Lisa’s overseas – so I have to do all that myself), and tons of writing to do.  But, more importantly, at this point, I really want to speak with the BenQ folks for information on the newer firmware that’s already out there.  (I am working with an early engineering sample – firmware 0.22). By now, BenQ should be up to at least at 1.0 firmware.  We’ve noted a number of issues in the earlier blog from two days ago.

Let’s talk BenQ W7000 and our engineering sample!  Based on comments and emails, I want to start off by discussing what an engineering sample is, since understanding that is important.  Then back to the W7000 projector.  First, for those of you concerned after reading the first blog – relax!

BenQ W7000, an exceptionally bright projector

This BenQ W7000 is likely to be one of the best projectors around the price, if the final versions are clean, and there’s a bit of performance improvement in one area.

I elaborated yesterday when answering a  comment about engineering samples, but most of you might miss that.

Over the years, we’ve probably reviewed at least a dozen engineering samples out of something approaching 200 projectors.  In almost every case, we were able to bring in a full production version of the projector, not too long after first consumer shipments, to confirm that all the things missing, or not working, or acting strangely, are fixed.    That’s the plan here.   Although the differences are a bit vague, let’s say that engineering samples are typically “unfinished” whereas a pre-production version is normally finished, and very close to what will ship.    The reason we like do engineering samples when we can get them, is that it means we can give you folks a heads up, by the time the projectors are beginning to ship, and then we get a second look, for updating you.

Unfinished?  By unfinished, I mean that some projectors have had only HDMI working, a few had menus only in Japanese, or Chinese or Korean.  In one case, in HDMI we couldn’t access most color controls making a calibration impossible.  In another, HDMI was the only input working – no component, computer, or even composite video.  I’ve had one where the case wasn’t even close to final.  (the entire top piece was blank, and made of the wrong material.  Entire modes are often missing, menus incomplete, if it’s a whole new projector, it’s probably a good bit dimmer than a full production projector.  And they usually have a bunch of glitches and non-working features.

This BenQ W7000 fits the bill.  As I reported, some glitches, and possibly even some menu items might be missing, but as I have also said, most of what’s missing or not right, should be just fine by the time full production W7000 projectors ship.

For that reason, we’ll post the review in a few days, but we plan on a major update within the next couple of weeks.

Great. With that out of the way, time to talk more about the BenQ W7000 itself.

I’ve been watching football on the W7000 all day while writing and minding my fantasy football.  Wow, it’s a sharp image.  It’s very bright!  I’m filling my Studiotek 130 at full 16:9 size of 98″ diagonal for regular viewing, but when I’m watching DirecTVs NFL Mix, with it’s 8 separate games going on one screen, I zoomed out so that I was filling the full width of my 124″ diagonal screen, which works out to the equivalent of about 130″ (in 16:9).  Boy is it bright.  Even at the larger size, (with some of the unneeded (non game) parts of the image off the screen, the W7000 was effortlessly bright, even running in “best calibrated mode”.  That was with my rear lights on, and my shutters just a little open as usual (sunny day).  No problem.

I’ve done some more 3D viewing.  As I had reported, I believe, the BenQ when in 3D seems to be a little less bright than the Epsons (3010 and 5010 series), and the Panasonic PT-AE7000.   But not by much.   I found previously, that the Panasonic and Epson seem about equally bright.  I normally view in 3D with the glasses setting in the medium of 3 positions, when available.   Bright usually has lot of ghosting, while for me, low and medium aren’t too different, with low a touch cleaner.

Well the BenQ doesn’t have any glasses options (don’t expect them too, either) – that feature seems to be showing up on 3 chip LCoS and 3LCD projectors but not DLP.    Basically my impression is that the W7000 falls in between the Epson 5010′s medium and low brightness glasses settings (this is a feature controlled by the projector – you won’t see any difference to the image in brightness unless you have the glasses on).  There isn’t a whole lot of difference between those two modes.   Switching back and forth between the different classes (both projectors running at the same time), it took a bit of time to get the overall feel that the Epson was brighter.  In other words, if a full production W7000 is at all brighter than this engineering sample, it should be at least as bright as those other bright projectors in 3D.

Movie viewing is a pleasure, but for the blacks that could/should be a bit blacker. Classic, rich, deep  colors, well calibrated as we have come to expect from DLP projectors.

Black level performance is actually at the top of my list of questions when I talk with BenQ this week, rather than some of those reported glitches.  We shall see if production projectors do better blacks – boy if they do, look out!

Brilliant Color – the implementation is subtle (compared to most).  It really doesn’t get “over the top” like so many do.  The BenQ’s image is still excellent with BC on, but still, as expected, the W7000 is a little more natural looking with Brilliant Color turned off.

BenQ W7000 - X-Men - Cityscape

Touring the BenQ W7000 – I’m going get the Tour page up perhaps first, so you get a feel for the W7000 hardware.  Remote and most menus look like they have for years, and I’m a fan of both.  It’s basically the same remote that I loved when I owned BenQ projectors way back to the PE-8700 and PE8720, 4,5,6 years ago.  It’s got good range, a great backlight and good organization!

The collection of inputs is pretty standard, no surprises, that too will be covered in depth on the Tour page.

3D brightness – seconds ago, I found more lumens, from playing around.  You will all love this, especially in regard to things “missing” on engineering samples.

In 3D mode, first of all, the menu is all kinds of stretched, they haven’t grabbed it, and made it 3D, pretty ugly, but functional.

When the W7000 was setup next to the Epson 5010 in 3D,  as reported above, it wasn’t quite as bright, but very close.  Now I should have been running with Brilliant Color on, as I was looking for max lumens.  Well, I got that wrong, and I think it relates to some work not yet done on this .22 firmware.

When in 3D with BC On, the projector seems to be in a Warm or Normal Color Temp modes – basically, based on our calibrated best.   When I went to the Color Temp settings, though and tried to change to other Color Temps, I could change it from Normal to Warm, Cool and Native, but while the words changed, the picture did not.  That’s right, essentially, in 3D on this projector, the Color Temp looks good, but we can’t get to the one really bright mode – Native.

But:

Turn Brilliant Color to OFF, and strangely, now 3D drops into the Native Color Temp mode, and brightness goes up.

Now that I’m aware of these idiosyncrasies, I’ll take another look, against the Epson to see which one rules in terms of brightness.  It’s quite possible I was in their “3D best”, rather than 3D brightest.  I don’t think so, but, I’ll get back to you.  Real soon!

BenQ W7000 Projector - Image from X-Men FC

We’re not going to try that with this engineering sample, but we will give 3D gaming a spin when the production version shows up.  Meantime I’ve dropped in the PS3′s hot new game UnChartered: Drakes Deception.  I even tried playing it for a few minutes.  The 3D looks pretty good (says the non-gamer), but, in this case, the game is 720p.  With all this screen surface, I sure would prefer a game in 1080.  Pete or Scott will ultmately get a full production unit to test for lag, and for their gaming expertise.

Uh-oh, family obligations.  OK, I’m out of here!  I’m going to stop back tomorrow or after Santa leaves, and drop in a few images for you.  One last time – happy holidays! -art

PS.  Was watching a replay of the old Uconn vs. Oklahoma BCS Tostidos Bowl in 3D on ESPN 3D, few a few minutes.  Turning off BC, really made a difference.

On a related note, ESPN 3D is coming over in 1080i/60.  Their 3D implementation (DirecTV + ESPN 3D), definitely isn’t a sharp as a 2D 1080p signal, no doubt about that.   I had thought that ESPN 3D was 720p (will check), in which case DirecTV may be converting it to 1080i.