Greetings all,
First, Pete – our new gaming blogger has shipped me the GT720 so I can do the full review. He’s done for now. Pete reports he played a range of different types of games on it, with great success, and has much to report, which he’s already posted in his Art of Gaming blog. His blog still isn’t well known, and a bit harder to find than mine, so this is just a: Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: The BenQ W1200 projector review has been posted!
Just a quick update: The W1200 is now at photo shoot stage (tonight), and I’m already starting to write up the standard stuff – the Physical Tour, Performance page, etc. -art
Greetings everyone!
I needed this – the BenQ W1200 to review.
BenQ W1200 - Impressive in the Family Room
Ahh, finally, the Classroom projector report is pretty much history, and it’s home theater projector time again. Good thing, I need my fix. Sure, I’ve been watching plenty of home theater, including basketball playoffs, but it’s been two months since I worked on a home review – the Sony VW90ES. This BenQ, unlike the ten thousand dollar Sony, is rather affordable, at about $1500 street price (based on a quick web search).
So, what is the scoop with the BenQ W1200 – it’s a single chip DLP, 1080p resolution projector. Sorry, no 3D for those who were wondering. It claims 1800 lumens, and while I haven’t seen the measurements yet, the first thing that struck me when I powered it up was: Bright!! (and I was coming from an Epson 8700ub in Dynamic mode, which is already fairly bright.
The BenQ W1200 is really more of a home entertainment projector than home “cinema”. It’s strengths include a very bright picture, rich colors, and a very sharp image, but the projector isn’t quite so spiffy when it comes to dark images, and dark shadow detail.
Greetings everyone, Sorry I’ve been a bit out of touch. Two weeks of travel in the last 23 days, (from So. Cal, to Hawaii, then a break, then Washington D.C. But I got a lot of work done (and some play). I’m back for a good 10 days, then off to Infocomm, where I expect some interesting home theater projector announcements. But more on that in the next blog or two.
Projector Reviews, you may have noticed, has a “new” homepage. Or rather, the new homepage is based on the homepage we were running several years, until Read the rest of this entry »
Greetings all,
OK I”m back a week now from the NAB show in Las Vegas, where I did get some face time with JVC. I’d love to say that I got all the answers, but at least I learned some things. though nothing shocking or surprising. At least you get to hear some of JVC’s “side” of the story. Read the rest of this entry »
Hello all!
My name is Pete Connolly and I’m very excited to start helping out here at Projector Reviews. I spend a lot of time in front of the big screen with a controller in my hand and hope to share some of my thoughts and experiences on pairing video games with home theater projectors. I will be doing this by adding a video game section to future reviews, as well as contributing here in a gaming focused blog.
So…where to begin?
Update 4/25/2011: Pete’s Games and Game Projector Blog is now live. His opening article “The Starting Bit”, which appeared here, has been moved there. Please join him there! The short name for his blog, is Bitbound – A Gamer’s Blog. -art
Greetings All,
I would like to tell you about a new blog launching on our site in the next few days. More importantly, t0 tell you we’ve got an expert to blog on the topic of gaming and projectors.
Gaming! As we all know, one popular aspect of owning a projector at home is that you can not only watch movies, sports, TV, but also play games. Games and gamers, come in Read the rest of this entry »
Greetings,
VPL-VW90ES - 2D and 3D Projector
I’m back in 3D projector heaven, thanks to the arrival of the Sony VPL-VW90ES, Sony’s $10,000 replacement for the VW85. The VW90ES brings you 3D in a package claiming 1000 lumens. It doesn’t deliver on all of them, coming up typically short (few companies hit their claims). No matter, here’s a taste of what I’ve learned.
First, no question about it, with the same setup, this Sony VPL-VW90ES, was significantly brighter than the JVC DLA-RS60 we had here a couple of weeks ago. Of course that projector was expected to be brighter than the Sony VW90ES, since it claimed 1300 lumens. We sent it back thinking we got a bad one, but so far, still waiting on JVC for another. I kept the screen size small so far, for 3D viewing, to about 80″ diagonal, for 3D viewing, and it wasn’t bright, but it was definitely good enough for some really impressive viewing. I’ve yet to see if the Sony’s bright enough to fill my 106 inch screen (same Carada Brilliant White surface, up in the theatre. (1.4 gain).
Actually, I’m not hopeful. Oh, it will likely be adequate with a nice, new lamp, but after 1000 hours on the bulb… Brightness is going to be a concern with all 3D capable projectors until the manufacturers start mostly tripling the typical brightness of today’s home theater projectors. The Sony’s brightest measurement was just about 800 lumens.
But, the Sony is first, and foremost a 2D projector, and while I’ve watched only minutes, so far, in 2D, it seems to be very much like my recollections of the VW85, but a bit brighter. And that’s a very good thing (especially for 3D). Black levels are again, very “ultra high contrast” and while still not a match for the JVC competition, the 90ES should pretty much be able to hold it’s own with all but a very few of the other ultra high contrast projectors.
Nothing wrong with the Sony’s blacks, so if the roughly 50% brightness advantage (measured) of the Sony (compared to the JVC) turns out to be accurate, I do believe most people wanting 2D and 3D, will opt for the Sony over the JVC, with sheer horsepower for 3D trumping a black level advantage. Of course, if the JVC’s turn out to be brighter than our first look… meantime, there have been mentions by owners of RS50 and RS60 (or their HD series equivalents), on the web also reporting low brightness measurements. We’ll get it all sorted out.
I digress. If we forget about the 3D for a moment, and you want to learn a whole lot more about the VW90ES, try our full review of the Sony VW85 last year. The VPL-VW90ES review will publish next week – target date is March 14th!
That’s it for now. Got to finish writing up the Runco LS-10d review. -art
PS. Although 3D is still rough around the edges, I have to tell you I’ve been watching some spectacular and interesting 3D content of late. I’ll recommend the Blu-ray 3D Tahiti disc. Not just great looking footage, but lots of surprising high quality 3D graphics you would never expect. Very cool. As to the surfing shots, try standing 4 feet from the screen with your glasses on… whoa!
Update: The Runco LS10 review is completed.
It’s not easy to talk the high end home theater projector manufacturers to provide us with review projectors, but we did it, we have here Runco’s new 1080p LS10 projector – or by its more formal name, the LifeStyle 10 by Runco. The Runco LS10 (specifications) is the least expensive of Runco’s 1080p 3 chip DLP, home theater projectors. Actually Runco sent me an LS10d, which means it shares the same outboard processor as many of the more expensive Runco projectors. There is also the less expensive LS10i, which has all the processing internal to the projector.
First things first, Runco is just starting to ship this LS10 projector. The two versions play out like this, price wise: The LS10i stickers Read the rest of this entry »
Greetings all,
In our attempt to provide you more, better information on projectors, this week (Monday) we rolled out a newly designed homepage. Projector Reviews now looks very different from before, as we’ve gone to a panes design for the homepage.
Unfortunately, we hit some unanticipated problems, with parts of the design, that didn’t become apparent until our projectors homepage went live.
The good news, is that, as of earlier today, Read the rest of this entry »
The Sharp XV-Z17000 looks like it's predecessor
Wow, a practical 1080p home theater projector. I set the Sharp XV-Z17000 down on the table in my theater, plugged it in, connected it to my PS3, and DirecTV box, and dropped in Alice In Wonderland in Blu-ray 3D.
Eureka! It works – in “living” 3D. My PS3, and the disk recognized the projector as a Blu-ray 3D device, and everything fired right up.
So, what have we here? The XV-Z17000 projector from Sharp is essentially a slightly updated (overall) version with 3D, of the existing XV-Z15000 which has been around more than a year, and Read the rest of this entry »
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