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HD65 Home Theater Projector: Physical Tour

Posted on May 22, 2008 By Art Feierman

HD65 Home Theater Projector: Physical Tour

The HD65 really is very small, with only a 10.2 inch by 7.4 inch footprint. It’s white, with silver and black trim, so it’s cute.

From the front: The recessed zoom lens, only sticks out enough so you can adjust the focus ring. Like the HD71 it has minimal placement flexibility, as it only has a 1.1:1 zoom ratio (10% adjustment range), and lacks adjustable lens shift.

There is a button for the front drop down foot, near the center bottom. It’s a really small button, easy to overlook.

Like almost all lower cost home theater projectors, the lamp door is on the bottom of the HD65, so to change the lamp, you would have to unmount the HD65 from a ceiling mount if you are using one.

Further towards the back, is the control panel. In this case a multi-ringed affair. The outer ring has three buttons, the AV Mute, the Power button (once on, twice off), and the Menu button. There are also three indicator lamps, one for power, one for lamp, and one for temperature.

The inner ring has the four arrow keys for navigating the menus, with the left and right arrow keys doing a second function when the menus aren’t in use. The left arrow is the Source select button, and the right one, Re-Sync, for triggering the auto-sync button to let the projector figure out the best settings for a computer source.

And, finally, in the very center, is the Enter button.

All considered, very functional!

That takes us to the Input panel on the back. The Optoma HD65 input panel, from left to right has S-video, an analog computer input (the standard HD15 connector), that supports analog computers, European SCART, or component video. Next comes three RCA jacks for component video, and a single RCA jack for composite video. Further to the right, is an HDMI input (1.3), a service port, and finally a 12 volt trigger for controlling a properly equipped motorized projector screen.

Below all of this, is the power receptacle on the left, and a Kensington security lock slot on the right. There is no rear infra-red sensor, which wasn’t a problem in either of my rooms, but could pose a slight challenge if you are mounting the projector in front of you, in a larger than typical room, making a clean bounce of the signal off of the screen a bit difficult.

OK, time to take a close look at the HD65’s overall picture quality.

Optoma HD65 Home Theater Projector Review
Optoma HD65 Home Theater Projector Review – Image Quality