InFocus IN76 - General Performance
Overview
Image Quality
General Performance
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons
Section contents:
Menus
User Memory Settings
Remote Control
Lens Throw and Lens Shift
SDE and Rainbow Effect
Light Leakage
Audible Noise Levels
Projector Brightness
Lamp Life and Replacement
Projector Screen Recommendations
Calibration
Image Noise
1280x720 vs 1280x768 DLP chips
Menus
InFocus doesn't go in for big flashy menus, rather they seem to go out of the way to keep them small, 
so that most of the image is easily visible when you are trying to adjust something. This is a good thing! Basically there is a Main Menu listing the three primary menus.
The first and most comprehensive is the Picture Menu, which has all the color and image controls, as the name implies. Many of the items on the Picture menu have their own submenus, and some of them still another layer below that.
Starting with the Picture menu, note the PREVIOUS menu item. This is located on all menus except the Main. To move back up to a previous menu, you scroll back to Previous and hit the enter key. This is due to InFocus using a two arrow navigation system, plus the enter key. 
Lacking a left arrow, or an escape key (either of which on most projectors take you back up a level, this is the system InFocus uses in their current projectors. It takes a little getting used to, for a reviewer who plays with lots of different projectors, but I have no real issue with this method of navigating.
On the Picture Menu you'll first find Keystone Adjust, a feature we hope you will never use, better to properly place the projector to maintain a rectangular image. Then of course you have the Contrast, Brightness, and Color (saturation) controls. Auto Image will allow you to readjust the projector if there is a problem with the signal. Aspect Ratio lets you choose between 4:3, 16:9, letter boxing, etc. That takes us to Presets, which will be addressed below.
Gamma let's you choose from five settings - CRT (which is the darkest, attempts to immitate CRT projectors (which can do true blacks) but overall I found it to be too dark, and lost more shadow detail than I liked. I settled for the Film setting, which would be my first choice for most movie watchers. Video has a brighter gamma still. PC - is less accurate, but designed for hooking up your PC, and you might like it with games. Lastly is Bright Room, which is overly light in darker areas, and overall, but designed for use when you are dealing with ambient light.
On the Advanced Menu you control aspects including Sharpness, (I found the default setting to work best), Color Temperature (6500K is optimum for movies), and Color Control, where you would separately adjust Reds Greens and Blues if calibrating or "tweaking".
Below is also a image of the Color Control menu.
The next primary menu is the Settings Menu shown below.
For general setting of the projector, the most important performance issue is the in the System sub menu, which allows you to set the lamp brightness to low or high.
If your room and screen size allow, the lower setting will extend your lamp life to an estimated 3000 hours.
The last primary menu is an information screen showing source settings.
User Memory Settings
The InFocus offers 3 user savable settings, found in the Preset menu. The system works very easily, and I used it to compare a couple of different settings I tried when calibrating.
When you Save a user setting you get a choice of User 1, 2, or 3. The projector will remember things like brightness, contrast, color, as well as individual settings inside the Advanced - Color control menu. It also saves gamma, aspect ratio and other settings.
You can change from the default settings to any of the user settings from the same menu, or directly from the remote control.
Remote Control
Overall, its a small, attractive remote backlit (button is underneath), with what appears to be a blue LED light. InFocus has a limited number of buttons, compared to many remotes, but key items like User settings (presets) have their own buttons.
InFocus uses the four buttons (below the power button at the top) to navigate the menus. The left button brings up the menu, the up and down arrows let you navigate through the choices, and the Select button on the right, lets you move to the next level menus, and also to go back a menu (the top item on each menu is Previous, which means the previous, higher level menu, not where you last were in the menus.
This system is pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it. Personally, I still prefer having a separate Menu button, four arrow keys and and Enter key. It's two more buttons, but makes for much faster navigation. The good news, is that you will rarely be playing in the menus.
The next row has the Resize for aspect ratio, Overscan, which will enlarge the image slightly (this can come in handy of you get some artifacts at the top/bottom of the screen, which isn't uncommon if you have regular "low resolution" TV programming comiing in on a HD channel, and possibly on a less than great DVD player.
Source select is on the far right.
Next Row: Custom for retrieving your custom settings, Auto Image adjust, and Presets which let you switch between the multiple settings.
So you should be getting the idea - you can navigate through the menus, or quickly use the buttons on the remote to jump to your choices.
The last row let's you choose sources directly, without toggling through ones you aren't interested in.
One very interesting feature: By tapping on the Backlite button (on the bottom, the keys illuminate (now, that's nothing new). If, instead, you hold down the Backlight button, a small LED light in the front illuminates, to function as a flashlight. I actually found that rather handy while hooking up the projector to various cables, etc.
Lens Throw and Lens Shift
The InFocus IN76 lacks variable lens shift, which, when present, simplifies vertical placement of the projector. This is typical of DLP projectors selling for under $3000. In fact, as all the competing LCD home theater projectors have variable lens shift, this tends to be one of the few real advantages of LCD vs DLP, in this price range.
The 1.3:1 zoom, as mentioned in the Overview, is also limited compared to the 1.5:1, or even 2:1 found on LCD projectors, but is typical or slightly more range than most DLP projectors in this class. As far as placement distance goes, to fill a 100" diagonal screen, you can place the IN76 as close as 11 feet and as far back as about 13.9 feet. For many people that will allow them to place on a table or ceiling mount in the middle or toward the back of the room, and even on a shelf at the back, if the room isn't very deep compared to the screen size.
When mounting the projector you will need the projector (actually the center of the lens) to be just slightly above the top of the screen surface. If sitting on a table, the center of lens will be a few inches below the bottom of the screen. This is a common amount of fixed lens shift, that works well for most users.
SDE and Rainbow Effect
Pixel visibility is typical for a DLP projector, meaning that they are far less visible than on competing LCD projectors. Sitting about 1.1 times screen width (that works out to just less than 9 feet back with a 110" screen, is far enough that pixels will not normally be noticeable. The exceptions are in large stationary bright images, and on things like credits. The distortion of the pixel structure and small details in areas like grass, that can make the grass look wierd, is not likely to become an issue at that distance. If you really want never to be able to detect the pixels (except maybe on those movie credits, think sitting more like 1.4 or 1.5 times screen width, but most will be content at 1.1 times.
The IN76 home theater projector uses a 5x color wheel, that is the fastest avaiable and typical of most DLP projectors in this price range. With a 5X wheel only an extremely small percentage of viewers are susceptable at all of the "Rainbow Effect". If you are one of those very few, you are likely to go with an LCD projector instead. I should note that the Optoma HD72, which I have mentioned previously, uses a 4X wheel, so there will be few who find the IN76 to be a better choice in this regard, as there will be an additional small percentage of people who spot the rainbow effect with the Optoma.
Light Leakage
The IN76 is very clean, in regards to light leakage. No issues here at all. You can spot the tiniest amount of light coming out of the sides of the projector, but far less light overall than most other projectors.
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Audible Noise Levels
I have not found a published spec for noise levels, however from using the projector, it is very quiet in Whisper mode (low power), although not the quietest I've worked with. In my viewing room with the projector sitting about 4 feet behind me (but I sit in a high backed "captain's chair") I never noticed the fan except when the sound track was extremely quiet, and only when listening for it. The fan is supposed to be variable speed, but I simply never noticed a change while watching. so as not to be an issue for almost any but the most picky. In full power mode, as is typical, the IN76 is significantly noiser. In that regard it seems about average, but definitely quieter than some of the noiser units like the Epson Cinema 550 in its brightest modes. Those who are very concerned about noise levels would be best served by avoiding the High Bright (high power) mode.
Projector Brightness
Despite the relatively low brightness claims (800 in whisper, 1000 in High Bright mode), the IN76 is one of the brightest out there. In Whisper mode, with gamma set for Film, I measured an impressive 385 lumens. With the same Film Gamma that should be just about 500 lumens in High Bright mode, and brighter still if you set the projector for Bright Room mode. Of the DLP's in this class, I found only the Optoma HD72 to be slightly brighter. Interestingly, in another reviewer's tests, they found similar measurements on the Optoma, but found the IN76 to be slightly brighter than the Optoma, so again, I question whether the IN76 I am working with is performing as well as it should be.
Anyway you slice it, though, the InFocus IN76 is one of the brightest projectors, significantly brighter than say the popular Panasonic PT-AE900u, or the Sanyo PLV-Z4 LCD projectors.
Lamp Life and Replacement
Now this is interesting. With most projectors the low power mode (Whisper in the case of the IN76), feeds less wattage to the lamp, and therefore extends the life of the lamp). Not so with the IN76 projector according to the published specs. In fact the IN76 claims a 3000 hour lamp life regardless of which mode you are in.
If this proves out, the IN76 has about the longest lamp life of any projector we have worked with in full power mode. So for those with larger screens or using High Bright mode to deal with ambient life, the IN76 would prove to have a lower cost of operation. Now that's a nice thing to have. If you run the projector for 20 hours a week, that works out to about 3 years on a lamp, or, as InFocus likes to point out, long enough for about 1500 movies.
To actually replace the lamp, you must remove the supplied pedestal, or, if you have ceiling mounted the projector, you must remove the projector from the mount.
The need to unmount the projector, is definitely a negative. In this modern day and age, most home theater projectors no longer require unmounting. If you are just placing it on a table, taking off the pedestal is easy enough.
Projector Screen Recomendations
Always the toughest call. Since you can use full power (assuming the extra noise doesn't bother you), all the time with no extra expense, the IN76 can easily handle a 110" diagonal screen or larger.
I watched the projector extensively on both My 128" Firehawk screen (high contrast, light gray), and on the Carada Brilliant White screen in my testing room (1.4 gain - brighter, but lower in contrast, and wider viewing angle. Personally, I favored the light gray surface, although you don't get as bright an image, it does what its supposed to, by lowering the brightness levels of "blacks". If you want to stick to Whisper mode, I wouldn't suggest a light gray HC screen over 100" diagonal, but definitely for a screen that is smaller. For the typical viewer (who is going to be less critical), the extra brightness of the higher gain white screens will be appreciated. I mention the Carada as it is very affordable, compared to say the Stewart StudioTek 130, which is similar, perhaps slightly better, but well over twice the price, and hard for many to rationalize relative to the price of projectors such as the IN76.
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Calibration
I did the usual calibration on the InFocus IN76 that I do on projectors I review. However, because I am suspect of the findings, as related to my suspicions that this IN76 is not performing as well as other reviewers are reporting, that other units may calibrate significantly differently, or possibly need virtually no calibration at all. For that reason, I'm not publishing the specs and images as usual, other to say that with Carada screen, I ended up with Brightness set for 50 or 51, and Contrast at 51 (default on both is 50).
I'll also say that I did have to drop the red values noticeably and adjust some blue values upward.
If/when InFocus sends me a second unit to look at, I will compare the two and update this review or publish a separate update.
Image Noise
DLP projectors are known to show some image noise in dark areas. Few notice, or care, but it is an area where LCD projectors have an advantage. I found the image noice on the InFocus to be slightly lower than what I recollect for the Optoma HD72. Whether this is due to the fact that they use different DLP chips, or other reasons, I wouldn't venture to guess. Since I don't consider the image noise levels of either to be an issue, I would suggest not worrying about it.
1280x720 vs 1280x768 DLP chips
I addressed this earlier, but want to finish up. Texas Instruments - makers of the DLP chips recently came out with a 1280x768 ratio DLP. This allows the projector using it to do true XGA found on typical PC's and that is an advantage to some. The ability to use the same DLP chip in both business and home theater projectors should allow TI to build the chips in higher volume and for lower cost, an attractive advantage.
So far, all DLP projectors with Brilliant Color, use the 1280x768 DLP. Whether the use of Brilliant Color is tied to that chip, I don't know, more importantly are the issues relating to the two different shaped images these two chips have.
The 1280x768 chip will overshoot a traditional home theater 16:9 projector. If you have a 100" that overshoot (dark gray light, same as you get in the letter box area of a widescreen movie), works out to about 1.6" at the top and bottom of the screen. Thus, the light will hit the frame of your screen, and if the frame/border is less than 1.6" it will spill a little over on to your wall, which if white or near white, will be far more noticeable. So, my recommendation is simple: Choose a screen that has close to, if not 2 inches or more border at the top and bottom.
Since the IN76 is true HD - 1280x720, its a non-issue, so you don't have to worry about the width of the top and bottom borders.
OK, that's a wrap for this section, time for Warranty, and then the Summary.
Overview
Image Quality
General Performance
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons