Optoma HD80 and HD8000: 1080p Home Theater Projector Review – Image Quality-3

Please keep in mind, these images are not, in their own right, able to guide you to best performance. They are here to support my commentary, not the other way around. Most of today’s projectors have contrast ratios 5 – 20x that of the monitor you are using to view them. Your display, if LCDTV, is drastically inferior to what these projectors produce, so much is lost. (It’s like trying to get a feel for what a big 65″ screen TV is like when you see a commercial for one, and you happen to be watching it on a nice little 21 inch TV.) So, take the images with the usual kilo of salt. All that said, you can compare images, and you should find these photos helpful.

One last point, the digital cameras I use (one point and shoot, one Olympus dSLR), also don’t have the dynamic range to capture the full capability of this or, other home theater projectors. That is why you will see a number of intentionally, badly overexposed photos, so that we can see details in the shadow areas, that the cameras lose with a normal exposure.

From Space Cowboys – the re-entry shot. Click on the first thumbnail for the HD8000, and look to the dark areas on the right and bottom right. Next you can click on the other two thumbnails. The right one is a similar shot using the InFocus IN82, and the one below is from the new Mitsubishi HC6000, an LCD projector with some impressive shadow detail capabilities. It’s impossible for me to end up with identical exposures, so you have to “compensate”, but the trick is how much subtle (and I mean dark, subtle) detail can you make out in each.