Optoma HD8200 - Physical Tour

Posted on March 29, 2009 by Art Feierman

Optoma HD8200 Physical Appearance

The HD8200 is a physically good looking, medium sized home theater projector with a black piano finish.

The center mounted manual zoom lens, surrounded by a chrome looking trim ring, is slightly recessed. Along the bottom front, are mostly recessed wheels to control zoom, vertical and horizontal lens shift.

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There is no control panel, but a power switch (and an IR sensor for the remote) are located on the left side (looking from the front). The door for the lamp is hidden nicely on the side of the HD8200 as well. That means if you are ceiling mounting, you can change out the lamp, without having to remove the HD8200 from its mount.

The inputs and outputs are located in the back, recessed significantly from the top panel, to hide much of the cabling.

HD8200 Projector - Control Panel

There is no control panel. The remote control is, other than power on/off, the only way to control the projector (other than the RS-232 port for control by computer or room control system.

Optoma provides a separate credit card sized remote as well, which is attached magnetically to the bottom of the projector and can be used if the main remote is misplaced.

Optoma HD8200 Inputs and Outputs

The HD8200 is basically a little better equipped than the standard home theater projector. It has two HDMI 1.3 inputs, and in addition, a DVI-D input which can be used for a third HDMI source. The image immediately below may look a little strange. I shot the image with the projector upside down, then flipped the image. You can see the full input panel, and also the holder for the back-up, credit card sized remote control:

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In addition, there's a VGA analog computer input (which can alternately be used as a component video input. There is also a standard component video input, the usual S-video and composite video, and the RS-232 for remote command and control. Finally, there are two 12 volt (screen trigger) outputs. Why two? You could use one to control a motorized screen's up and down functions, and the other to control a lens sled for an anamorphic lens, or a motorized masking system. Basically you've got two 12 volt signals to "spread around" as needed.