Viewsonic Pro9000 Projector – Physical Tour 2

Viewsonic Pro9000 Remote Control

The Viewsonic’s remote is a very good one.  It is a long, thin remote, about 10 inches in length.  The remote’s range is respectable, but not exceptional – between 20 and 25 feet range with a bounce off my 1.4 gain screen.

The remote is black but the keys are light colored.  Not glow in the dark, but relatively easy to spot in a dark room. It’s downright easy to find compared to locating my PS3 remote control.

At the top there’s a red button to power on, and a green one to power down.  OK, maybe I get it, that the green button represents being green, as the projector draws almost no power when turned off.

I may be wrong, but green is go – as in “on”, and red is stop – or “off” normally.  When I reached for the remote, for the first time (to turn the projector off), I hit the red button, but alas, nothing happened. That’s a survivable detail.

Below those two buttons are two rows of input buttons.  The two HDMI, the S-video, computer, and video.  The sixth button is labeled Source which when pressed has the projector scan the inputs sequentially, looking for a live source to lock on to.

I should note that in my testing, the auto Source feature failed to lock onto either my PS3 or satellite box.  I use a high quality 30 foot HDMI cable, but even more to the point, I haven’t had that problem with these sources and cable with any other projectors in recent memory.

Quite possibly this is something not quite finished, in this early build projector, that will be better when they are shipping product.

The good news is that the manual buttons work fine. I press HDMI 1, and in the usual few seconds, the picture is up there.

The next two rows house Keystone correction, Volume control for the internal speakers, Aspect ratio, and Eco-mode.

Two more buttons next:  Auto Sync (for PCs) and Mute

Then comes the navigation, with the Menu and Exit buttons below the ring.  The Enter button is in the middle of the arrows.

Getting tired yet?  Next come four small programmable keys.  That’s a nice touch, that many may use.  I never got around to it.

Next – a Default button (factory reset!!!) and next to it, the User 1 and User 2 Color Mode memories.

The rest consist of an array of direct access to menu features.  They include:

Overscan – Magnify – Lock
CMS – Color Temp – Gamma
Freeze – Blank – Pattern
Color Mode – Sleep Timer – Info

Yes, this projector has a sleep timer. That’s a real nice touch for those who like to fall asleep in front of the TV.

Viewsonic Pro9000 Lens Throw

Lens Shift

The Viewsonic Pro9000 lacks adjustable lens shift to keep those images nice and rectangular.  Of course, the Pro9000 does have keystone correction, but optical lens shift is superior. Don’t be too surprised that a projector in this price lacks lens shift.  Keep in mind this is a DLP projector.  DLP projectors without lens shift can cost upward of $5000.  On the other hand, virtually every 3LCD and LCoS projector from $1000 up, will have lens shift.  I’m strictly talking about home theater projectors.

The fixed amount of shift built in places the center of the lens of the projector almost 8 inches above the top of the screen (or below the bottom if on a table), for that same 100″ diagonal screen.

That can give some folks whose rooms have low ceilings, some problem if they like larger screens. Otherwise, the Pro9000 has a judicious amount of lens offset, to make up for not having adjustable lens shift.

Anamorphic Lens - Wide Screen

The Viewsonic Pro9000 supports an anamorphic lens. This pre-production unit does not seem to have a second anamorphic setting, one to use when viewing 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio content, with the anamorphic lens still in front of the projector’s lens.  That means you will need a sled.  It is the better way, but also more expensive.