Optoma HD803: 1080p Home Theater Projector Review - Image Quality - 7

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Art Feierman

Optoma HD803 Overall Picture Quality

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It's pretty much just what I said about the HD80, HD8000. The HD803 colors are richly saturated, black levels are most respectable, and shadow detail is good. Default gamma seems a little dark in the darker areas, but this is easily adjustable, and I did so before taking any of these images. Overall, the Optoma offers rich colors, good depth and a generally film-like appearance. In regards to film-like, I have to say, I give it the advantage over the Epson, after watching the two, side by side. The Epson is a touch "harder" looking, but we are talking about small differences, just as are sharpness, shadow details and so on. The hard part is to consider the whole, each projector's strengths and weaknesses in terms of image quality and figure out which to recommend, and how to best present it.

Two photos from House of the Flying Daggers - Blu-Ray DVD. It's hard to find movies that offer richer, or more spectacular colors than this movie, and the HD803 looks great showing this movie.

Slightly Brighter Comparison

Epson Home Cinema 1080 UB

Sony VW40

And here's two side by side comparison images. The first pair, Optoma (left), Sony VW40 (right), and the second pair Optoma (left), Epson Home Cinema 1080 UB (right).

Since the projectors are never the same brightness, of course, you can see brightness differences, that you will have to mentally compensate for, otherwise, you are most likely to prefer the slightly brighter image.