Projector Reviews – General Performance-3

Click to Enlarge.So close

As usual, Optoma has a really well laid out remote control, and as usual, it could use a little more range. If you are sitting in front of the projector, you normally would bounce the signal off your screen. I find that it works pretty well with total distances of up to about 25 feet or so, and then runs out of steam. Is this a real problem. No, afterall, how often do you need the remote. When I’m viewing in my theater, the projector is behind me, and due to a large screen (128″ diagonal) the round trip is pretty long. So, I often simply pointed the remote over my shoulder. If, on the other hand, if you are sitting behind the remote, it’s lack of a standard IR sensor in the rear requires a little more attention on your part. Remember, the HD70’s front IR actually is front-top. As long as I remembered to point it right towards the projector it worked fine without a rear sensor.

Let’s look at the remote itself. First, it’s backlighting is very bright, although not all the buttons are evenly lit. Bright, though is what’s important. Optoma puts text descriptions above each button, and graphical icons on the backlit buttons themselves.

Top left: Power (one on, two off)
Top right: preset Mode selection (Cinema, Video, etc.)

Next come four aspect ratio buttons, true 16:9, 4:3, Letterbox and Real (no resizing at all, so with a DVD (480 res) you would get a small image in the center of the screen. The next group of keys, give you direct access to Brightness, contrast, vertical, and horizontal keystone correction (a waste of buttons since no one wants to use keystone correction – it degrades the image quality slightly). There is also Overscan, for slightly enlarging the image to avoid potentially annoying noise and lines at the edges. And also the all important MENU button.