Vivitek H5080 Home Projector - A First Look Review

Greetings all, Yes, I've been promising, and promising, so finally, here's my two cents about the Vivitek 5080 projector.  It's iris behaves differently than the almost identical Optoma HD8600.  The iris is actually rather smooth, however, it also doesn't seem to have as much range as the Optoma.   It's been a long time since the HD8600 was here, but my belief is that the Vivitek 5080 cannot produce as dark a black level, because it's iris isn't set to close down as much. That's a fair trade-off.  In Optoma's case, they delivered great blacks, but in doing so, ended up with iris action I couldn't live with for long.  Turning off the iris solves the problem but reduced that projector's black level performance to something well below it's pay grade.  (How's that for a mixed metaphor?) The bottom line, is that the Vivitek 5080 is being prepped for a full review.  Mike picked it up earlier, and will bring it back measured and calibrated. The Vivitek 5080, at it's lower price point (than the Optoma) and smoother iris should be interesting competition for the Epson UB's, the LG CF181D, Panasonic, BenQ W6000 and others in the Vivitek price range.  Most of you wanted most, though, to hear what I thought of the iris, since much of the rest is the same as that Optoma, and, hey, once calibrated, they all do pretty darn good color. Meantime, I'm working on the Runco review, and also have a couple of LG's to deal with.  The full Vivitek projector review will come between the two LG's (CF3D and AF115). -art