Greetings,
Another great year at Wonder-Con. I thought I would share some pictures with you all, there are a few game related ones mixed in. Enjoy!

Joss Whedon!

Greetings,

There is another Humble Bundle deal going on! Get all these games while you can HERE and the best part…you get the Android versions in addition to the PC versions.

Beat Hazard Ultra

Dynamite Jack

Solar 2

Nightsky HD

And if you give the current average, or beat it ($6.66 the price of the devil…ha ha) you get these two games in addition to the ones above:

Dungeon Defenders

Super Hexagon

Enjoy my friends, until we meet again.

-Ebenezer

Greetings,

I figured I would post a quick update, since we have hit a dry spell for projectors. I will be attending Wonder-Con at the end of the month, and E3 in June. I will try to post live from E3, if the signal there holds up, which I am sure it will. This is my first year at E3, so I am fairly excited. I can’t wait to see what the new Xbox and Playstation look like. Until we meet again, which will be soon!

-Ebenezer

Greetings,
This is an entry level 1080p projector from Optoma, but this thing was amazingly great for gaming. Virtually no lag, at least in comparison to the Epson 3020 I reviewed last. Keep in mind that during offline game play you will probably not notice the lag, unless you are playing a game like Guitar Hero. If you like to do a lot of online gaming then you will be at a disadvantage if your projector lags. I really loved the Epson for movies, but the Optoma does a great job with movies, and games. The color on the HD23 seemed to pop a bit more than the Epson 3020 with Street Fighter IV. I don’t know if it will translate into the pictures, but there was a noticeable difference. My nice Canon DSLR was on loan, so I only was able to get some shots of Street Fighter IV with it. I tried taking some shots with my Samsung S3, but no matter what phone you have, it’s not the same as using a DSLR…so I skipped on those pictures.

If you are a moderate to extreme online gamer, then definitely save some cash and go with the Optoma HD23. The Epson 3020 has 3D, but I see that as a bonus feature, not a necessity. It is a fun gimmick that people may use a couple to few times a year. From my experience, wearing 3D glasses is a bit of a turnoff to a lot of people. That may be the reason 3D was almost non-existent at CES this year, based on all the reports I heard from CES. I think it is a neat little feature, but I lump it in with CFI. It’s something that I can do without a majority of the time.

I only watched about 30 minutes of the following Blu-ray movies on this projector, just to get a feel of how it would perform for movie viewing:

The Avengers

Titanic

Serenity

The games I played were as follows (all PS3 games):

Street Fighter IV

Red Dead Redemption

Black Ops 2

If you are looking for amazing color, a nice sharp picture, and good shadow detail then this is the projector for you. As Art stated in his review found here, the black levels are only decent, and the front grill of the projector leaks some light. There’s no lens shift, but it’s a rarity on projectors priced under $1,000. This one fits a gamer’s budget and looks great at the same time. It’s also a lot smaller than the Epson 3020, which makes it a lot more portable to take to a friend’s house for some XXL gaming, or LAN party.

Below are the pics I promised:

Now to the meat of things:

The Good:

Great color

Very sharp

No lag

Very portable

Less than $1,000

Shadow detail

The Bad:

Black level is only decent, not great

The remote’s backlight is a bit on the bright side, some may see this as a plus

The Ugly:

Light leakage through front grill

Placement flexibility

For the money you can’t go wrong, if your primary goal is gaming. This thing looked great with movies too, but I actually preferred the image of the Epson 3020 for movies. The Epson 3020 is priced at about $400 more than the Optoma, so it’s not really a fair comparison in that regard.Hopefully I get another good gamer next time around. Until we meet again!

-Ebenezer

Just a quick lag test for the Optoma HD23. The Optoma is an entry level 1080p projector, so no special features such as CFI, etc.. This makes the lag testing fairly simple. I put it up against my Planar PX 2710MW 27″ monitor and it was almost on par with it. It ranged from 0ms to 20ms difference, so I would put that at about an average of 10ms difference from my LCD computer monitor. Which means this is a great option for gaming. Here are some pictures of the lag testing, please bear with the cell phone pictures.

Greetings,

I have to start out with, this is not a good projector for hardcore gamers…period. The lag was almost unbearable at times during online play. It was OK on offline play, but still not acceptable in my book if you are a competitive gamer. I loved this projector in all other aspects, but online gaming is its weakest link when playing FPS and fighting games. The lag test results are posted here. If you are looking for a projector with great color, brightness, shadow detail, that has 3D, wireless HDMI, but only plan to casually game on it…then this projector perfectly acceptable. If gaming is your first priority, then you may want to consider a DLP projector instead.

I am a fairly good Street Fighter IV player, and the lag definitely did me in. Here are a few pictures from the games I played, sorry if they are a bit crooked. I will work on my photography skills in the future…ha ha. The games looked beautiful needless to say, especially SFIV. I was lost in it’s beauty…that is until I actually started playing.

I also watched Titanic 3D and The Avengers 3D. 3D doesn’t really translate into a photograph very well, but here are a couple of pictures anyway. I’ll be the first to admit, 3D isn’t my cup of tea, but it performed very well in producing a nice, crisp 3D image. You can read specifics about 3D, brightness, black level, skin tones, etc., in Art’s review linked here.

The 3020e is very bright, and the built in speakers came in handy in the surround sound-less room I had to use to review it. The speakers are better than any of the other projectors with built in speakers I have reviewed, but don’t expect 5.1 Dolby surround. They are adequate, and I would even go as far as calling them good, but not great. I had to keep it ghetto and use a blackout cloth to test this one, I figured it was better than projecting onto an off white wall. Most of us gamers aren’t made of money, so the odds are we’d be playing on a wall, or on a DIY screen of some sort anyway. Even with the lack of a “proper screen”, it still looked amazing.

This projector would work for me, because I normally game on a PC monitor, or on a TV in my bedroom. I typically use my projector for movies, television, and some Wii gaming when we have friends over. If you plan on doing all of your PC, and console gaming on a projector, then I would check out a DLP projector first. If your second priority is gaming, I would not hesitate in recommending the 3020e to you. The good definitely outweighs the bad when it comes to the 3020e, just not in the gaming department.

-Ebenezer

The Good:

Very bright

Great color

Great shadow detail

Love the Epson remotes

Decent built in speakers

3D (if it is something you care about)

Wireless HDMI (a feature I did not have the opportunity to try, but Pete says it works great in his 5020e review)

Great warranty (2 years)

The Bad:

Not very portable for gamers on the go

Black level is good, but not great

No lens shift

Lacks CFI feature (not too big of a deal in my book)

The Ugly:

LAG

LAG

MAJOR LAG

This round of testing is with all of the special features turned off. At 90-100ms lag based on comparison with my Planar LCD, the 3020e is a poor performer for gaming. All of the lag tests I have conducted are with the same monitor, so it will give you a fairly accurate idea of how good, or poor the projector performance is. As people have commented on my other lag tests, I have no CRT to test the lag on my monitor. If a projector is performing 100ms worse than my monitor, then it is safe to say it is a poor performer.

I then turned on all of the features, super resolution, iris, etc.. The performance did not change, it was a consistent 90-100ms slower than my monitor. I then set the image processing to “Fast”, there was a slight improvement. The improvements were not consistent, as you can see below:

The Epson was very disappointing in the lag department, but most LCD’s are. It might be OK for casual gamers, but anyone who takes care of business will not be impressed.

I got started on it tonight. I pulled off all the vinyl on the sides and started on the front. I need to remove the coin doors and the security bar before I finish that up. It took a couple of hours altogether, with the help of a heat gun and scraper. I have also removed the marquee, and the new joysticks and buttons are on their way. I ended up purchasing these, except I went with black joysticks:

This is the cabinet after stripping the vinyl and removal of the marquee.

IN PROGRESS:

Greetings,

I am trying to pick up new hobbies here and there. The newest one is arcade cabinet restoration. I have wanted to own one of these things since 1992, and it has finally become a reality for me. This will be a record of my progress for this restoration, I am also restoring a Konami arcade cabinet (you can see it in some of the pictures) after this one. I will post pictures of it before, during and after the restoration. This will most likely take me months, since I don’t have a whole lot of free time. When I am done it will be back to the original red color. I have the controls on order, and already have the new marquee. I just need new plexiglass for the screen, new monitor bezel and new control panel overlay. Below are pictures of the current condition of the cabinet.

BEFORE PICTURES:

Greetings,

I only had the VPL-HW50ES for a short period of time, and I would have liked to spent more time with it, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I did get to game on it. The color was amazing, the contrast was amazing, and the shadow detail and black levels were amazing. I would go as far as saying I like this projector more than my own Epson 8700UB. The lag test determined that it had about 50ms of lag, but after the review I realized the CFI feature was on when the lag test was done. It should yield much better results with it turned off. As always, here’s a link to Art’s full review.

While I had the projector I played Street Fighter IV on the PS3, Borderlands 2 on the PC, and Half-Life 2:Deathmatch on the PC. I did not notice any sort of lag while playing online, or off. I haven’t had my hands on one of the new Epson projectors, but based on what I have seen comparing the Epson 8700UB and this Sony, I would pick the Sony. Street Fighter IV looked amazing, and this would be a game you’d definitely notice if lag was an issue.

Even with the projector testing at 50ms, I never noticed it while playing. This projector performed amazingly well for gaming, and was visually better than any other projector I have reviewed (my wife even approved). I felt totally immersed in the games, more so than ever before. I can’t speak highly enough about it.

There wasn’t much I disliked about the Sony, so let’s get to the meat of things.

The Good:

Very bright

Amazing color

Easy placement

Great black levels

Great shadow detail (very important for gaming)

Quiet

Aesthetically pleasing

The Bad:

This is a big one, so forget about portability if that is important to you.

Is it a bit pricey for most of us gamers at $3,999,99 MSRP, but well worth the cost.

The Ugly:

I’ve got nothing! There is nothing ugly about this projector.

Greetings,

I know this is a very expensive projector for most of us lowly gamers, but I am definitely not passing up having a crack at this beauty. Below are the lag times I experienced during the test. I am going to spend a few hours with it gaming, and hopefully get to watch Avengers in 3D on it. The gaming review of the Sony VPL-HW50ES should be up early next week! Until then, here’s a link to Art’s full review. See below for the lag test results, they are very acceptable: