November 30th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings projector fans!
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 3D Projectors, gaming and Game projectors, New Projector Reviews, Products | No Comments »
November 14th, 2012 Art Feierman
I have finally posted the Epson’s competitors page, which includes many paragraphs comparing it to the Panasonic PT-AE8000, as well as sections comparing to the other key home theater competition: Sharp XV-Z30000, Optoma HD8300, Sony VPL-HW50ES (it’s most formidable competitor), as well as the lower cost Epson HC3020, and last year’s HC5010UB.
Some of you are going to ask… where’s the annual Panasonic vs. Epson multi-page comparison? Fear not Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 3D Projectors, New Projector Reviews, Opinion | 14 Comments »
October 16th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings. This is just a quick update – one that I should have put out a few days ago, regarding the status of the Viewsonic Pro 9000 projector and the Panasonic PT-AE8000 projectors for your home theater.
The Panasonic PT-AE8000 is here – Mike’s calibrated it, and I’ve more than Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 3D Projectors, New Projector Reviews, News, Products | 5 Comments »
October 7th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings,
The Viewsonic Pro9000 projector is back in action here. With the Sony review finished, my attention again turns to this LED/Laser hybrid home theater projector. Built around the same chassis as their business Pro8300, this new Pro9000 is geared for your home, probably a dedicated theater type room.
Mike’s already calibrated the Pro9000 and I’ve been viewing for a few days. This is a projector that can put out up to (or slightly beyond) 1300 lumens, but is best in more of a theater environment. While most color modes look pretty good, the one Bright mode, at least on this engineering sample, is weak, color fidelity wise – pale and strong on greens, the current firmware doesn’t allow modifying it.
The other color modes – including the best, are in the 400 to 750 lumen range. Calibrated, the Pro8000 measured 448 lumens, enough for the typical 110″ diagonal screen for movie viewing. You can “map” those modes to User 1, or User 2, and from there modify the settings.
I will say that color controls are not all that I’d like them to be. Discussing with Viewsonic, they’ve already fixed an issue or two (including a flakey User 2, that didn’t hold settings), and are addressing some others that I’ve mentioned. Personally, I hope the final production versions have controls that would allow Mike to calibrate a bit better. Actually there is a very nice CMS – color management system for adjusting individual colors.
The Color Temp controls though have a single control for each primary color, instead of the two found on most projectors. Without that second control this Viewsonic will need a touch better color tables to get as precise a calibration as we can do with most others. After this review, due to the early nature of this unit, I’ll be looking for a full production version to take a follow-up look at.
Meantime expect my review within the week. I’m just starting the first photoshoot, and will be checking it out tomorrow, to see how it does with sports – lots of football planned. Definitely a different projector, and one where you won’t have to worry about finding $300 to $500 every year or two, for a new lamp. The hybrid light source helps the value proposition big time – makes this projector seem relatively inexpensive – for those that are planning to keep their projector for YEARs, not just a year or two. OK, back to reviewing the Pro9000 projector for me. -art
Posted in New Projector Reviews, Products | 1 Comment »
September 22nd, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings, Let’s talk some more, about Sony’s VPL-HW50ES projector.
The HW50ES Projector - Picture Quality is Excellent!
Well, you’ve probably seen some of my previous home theater projector blogs from, and post CEDIA 2012. If so, you probably think I have led you to believe that one of the most impressive projector values I saw there is Sony’s new HW50ES – it’s full name, of course: VPL-HW50ES. If so, you got it right.
I’ve had the VPL-HW50ES here since Tuesday evening, except for the 24 hours away at Mike’s for calibration. I’ve got 20 hours of viewing so far.
BTW I believe this unit is one of the two used in Sony’s “shoot-out” against the Epson 5010 and the JVC Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 3D Projectors, New Projector Reviews, Opinion, Products | 17 Comments »
August 14th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings, I’m freshly back from Outside Lands music festival, and dropping Lisa back off at college. Mike’s returning the Sharp XV-Z30000 projector in a couple of hours, so I can get back into some serious reviewing.
The Sharp XV-Z30000 - Best In Cave or Home Theater
For those of you who read my “First Look” blog about the XV-Z30000 home theater projector, I conjectured that it was fairly bright. I didn’t get a chance to set it up side by side with any other projectors for reference (which would have made “guessing” rather accurate). In the last blog I did guess that the Z30000 projector might produce 1500 lumens in its brightest mode – Stage.
Wrong. I was just looking at Mike’s calibration and measurement summary. I was overly optimistic. Stage mode which actually looks pretty good (as mentioned) though definitely on the cool temperature side, at maximum measured just over 1100 lumens. (Now we know Mike’s meter is more conservative than our others here, but we go by Mike’s for all home theater projector reviews.) The point there is don’t be surprised if other reviewers find an extra 100 lumens or so.
Still, by our reckoning, that makes the Sharp Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 3D Projectors, New Projector Reviews, Products | No Comments »
August 8th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings all,
Sharp's 3D capable, XV-Z30000 home theater projector
Today our second Sharp XV-Z30000 projector arrived. The first, some of you may remember, arrived about 3 weeks ago, but it was freight damaged. (Someone did an impressive job on the box.) It powered up, but operationally it was a disaster, with a major problem with the “light engine”.
XV-Z30000 number two, exhibits no immediately obvious problems. I’ve had it running for about 3 hours, mostly watching the Olympics. As I write this I’ve got the woman’s Beach Volley Ball finals on, in fact, May/Walsh is one point from winning the goal. Pause… They won another gold! Cool. color’s really good, I’m currently using Movie 1, the brighter of two movie modes (mostly the difference seems to be which brightness mode, which iris settings between Movie 1 and 2). Skin tones look really good. Note: I’m watching beach volleyball, there’s plenty of tanned skin to observe. Movie mode is probably a tad over saturated, but it could be the feed.
Normally, I’d have this XV-Z30000 in Sports mode, or one of the other bright modes. Sports looks Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 3D Projectors, About our website, New Projector Reviews, Products | 3 Comments »
July 12th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings projector fans!
I’ve been playing with a concept which I call Projector Reviews TV, for about a year, and it’s coming to fruition this month. NO, I’m not launching a projector focused TV channel on DirecTV or cable. It’s not even a regular podcast. Here’s the skinny on Projector Reviews TV and a link to the first video: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in About our website, New Projector Reviews, News, Products, Projector Screens | 3 Comments »
July 11th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings!
Here’s what’s going on in terms of review projectors: The low cost 720p Epson Home Cinema 710 has been calibrated by Mike and I’m working with that now (literally, I’ve got it projecting Mad Money, while writing this), hoping to publish the review no later than next Monday.
Hit a snag with the Sharp XV-Z30000 projector unfortunately. The unit arrived, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in New Projector Reviews, Products | 2 Comments »
June 30th, 2012 Art Feierman
Greetings, just a quick note, the Acer H6500 review is live. Lori’s still proofing, etc. It’s a nice little projector for the average consumer. Too many idiosyncrasies, I think, for the enthusiast. Still it does put out a maximum 2100 lumens, but more importantly it has a color mode with over 1700 lumens that looks real good. Not a full set of color controls. Well, check out the review.
Posted in New Projector Reviews, Products | No Comments »
