Plenty of Wow!
Written: Jan 26 '05
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Pros: Now the plasma and rear projection sets on display in AV showrooms look tiny.
Cons: My serious problem has been ground loop induced picture line rolling.
The Bottom Line: This is an incredible value. It works well for anyone with a white wall, a room that is dark at night, some kind of sound system and a recliner.
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| patboyle's Full Review: InFocus X1 Multimedia Projector |
I had a 20" CRT on which I watched Comcast digital cable TV and VHS tapes. I watched an occasional DVD on my computer which has a 21" monitor - yes my computer screen was bigger than my TV. Both system had inexpensive but good multi speaker Cambridge audio systems. I also have a 9" Sony hanging from the bottom of my kitchen cabinets. I don't watch it so much as I listen to it. It is always tuned to Fox News (or MSNBC or CNN).
I found myself haunting the AV showrooms. I soon determined that the Samsung DLP rear projection sets had the best pictures, although I could also make good use of a flat panel plasma set. Alas I was not prepared to spend $3,500 for a Samsung or $9,000 for a big HDTV plasma. I considered a big CRT (30" to 36") but I watched movies and serious TV in my bedroom and had no space for such a huge box.
Finally I chose a refurbished InFocus X1 at $699. I initially set it up to project onto a 6' by 4' white board in my home office. I had expected to have to buy a ceiling mount but I simply put it on a shelf in the closet which gave me about a 16' throw.
The white board didn't work out. It was too small - much to my delight. The projected image was about a foot wider on both sides. However the wall was a medium rose color. Even so the picture looked very good and only a little less bright. I used a white board because I had long used a white board at the college where in the classroom I taught with the projection of system (computer) displays. However for home theater the bright spots were too distracting.
I painted the wall white. I did some tests of different white paints I had in the garage. I chose the one I had the most of. My wall is texturized, not a true flat surface at all. It hasn't mattered as far as I can tell. Perhaps at some later date I may invest in the Goo paint system but I doubt it. I good white latex on a standard wall is very, very satisfactory. Also the Goo site recommends a light gray not white. My one white wall matches my white ceiling such that the room looks perfectly normal during the day. A gray wall would not be acceptable.
I believe - at my rather elementary state of expertise -that a flat white wall is not just an acceptable compromise with decor but is actually optimum. It's true that if I painted or built a black frame I could get a cleaner edge to the projected image. Clearly this is advantageous - the commercial movie theaters after all do just that. However in the home there is the need to view many different types of material each of which may have a differing image size and/or aspect ratio.
I view material from at least four sources: DVDs played on a Bose 3-2-1, DVDs played on a computer (PowerDVD v.6), Comcast HDTV (some 720p and some 1080i), and standard Comcast TV in wide screen, standard Comcast TV in 4:3. I have attached the Comcast box and the Bose DVD by an S-Video cable. The computer uses a long D-15 video cable.
First let me assure the readership that regular 4:3 TV may be very watchable. With Comcast on demand (free) there are a wealth of older movies that while not HDTV are still very high quality. I watched Legends of the Fall with my girl friend the other night and while it clearly wasn't HDTV it was plenty good enough. I believe this unexpected video quality is a function of the Faroudja chip. I don't know for sure but I do know that for whatever the reason I know that a lot of free movies are available for projection look quite good. For example there are about a dozen on-demand Bond movies available. I saw Goldfinger once again and enjoyed it. However Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in widescreen is essentially unwatchable because of its poor quality. I understand that Comcast digital broadcasts some content in analog and some in digital - perhaps that's it.
The result of all these many sources is that the projected image takes on many sizes and many shapes. A really good looking HDTV movie like Pirates of the Caribbean is best seem at the InFocus 4:3 setting which shows in wide screen with black (dark gray) borders. The image is very big (9 feet) and stunning. A non-HDTV source looks best at the InFocus Native setting which again can yield a wide screen image but a bit smaller (7 feet or so). Other sources need the InFocus 16:9 setting. Therefore the projected image in a single night of viewing may be of at least three different shape/sizes. If a black border optimized my HDTV viewing it would be a problem for other sizes and shapes. A big white wall seems to be the most flexible solution.
There is a great deal of HDTV material available now for nearly nothing. Comcast only charges $5 more a month for about a dozen HDTV channels. In theory you can't get true HD in this 800 by 600 pixel machine. However in the real world this doesn't seem to be a factor. All home DLP front and rear projectors use one of a half dozen TI chips. InFocus makes a very similar projector based on the TI chip that displays natively at 1280 by 720. This machine costs about $9,000 (you can get it on line for perhaps $7,000). In the local high end AV store I compared this machine against the 4805 which is essentially the new version of the X1. I couldn't see much of a difference on satilite HDTV feeds. I'm sure that if I had them both set up at home I would be able to discern differences, but in the real world a native 720p machine has to deal with more than just 720p material. It also has to up-convert DVDs and digital broadcast (rendering 480p), as well as down-convert 1080i. Above a certain minimum the total number of pixels is not very important. Scaling and deinterlacing performance are more important.
I can see the pixels when I get within about five feet of the screen (wall). I do not project the biggest image possible. I find that an 8' wide image is best. I get a picture that has about the same brightness level as a cinema screen (perhaps 12-15 foot lamberts). This means that I can't actually use a lot more resolution or brightness because of the size of my room. There really is no reason for me to even consider upgrading right now given the kind of material available and my size of my room. When there is a 1080p three chip projector available for under $1,000, I will be interested - assuming there is also a lot of 1080p content available.
My house faces onto a deep woods. The nearest house in back is at least two hundred yards away. Therefore I have no artificial light leaks through the windows at night. I have no special curtains. I just wait until dark. Now that's about 6:00PM. Perhaps I will have to do something when summer comes.
I have had two picture quality problems. First I had scrolling light-dark bars on the DVD and the TV sources - but not the computer. I bought a 3 to 2 plug (38 cents) to break the ground loop. I know this is the unsafe way but it immediately cleared up the TV sources. The DVD player still has a problem. The image from the computer DVD player originally looked great but the cable ran across the middle of the room. I bought a pair of 3 meter video cables and ran the cable behind the furniture. The standard says that 15' or less is recommended. The standard is right! The picture was terrible with the long D-15 video cables. I had hoped to use my KVM switch. I may move my computer.
A word about color wheel artifacts. I don't see them probably for a number of reasons. When I was younger I had a buddy getting his doctorate in psychology. His research topic was flicker fusion. If you display a flickering light at a subject and raise the flicker frequency, at some point the subject will perceive the light as steady. This is called the flicker fusion threshold. The threshold is higher in women and children - they see flickering at a higher frequencies where adult men see only steady light. Since the light is indeed flickering this means that adult male vision is in fact less accurate. This is similar to the finding that women and children can hear higher sound frequencies.
When we were young we partied a lot. Often after a night of drinking we went to Charlie's lab and served as flicker fusion research subjects. The punch line is that it is well known alcohol lowers the flicker fusion threshold. Much of Charlie's data was invalid because so many of his subjects were three sheets to the wind when they sat before the apparatus.
My guess is that DLP color wheel perception is a kind of flicker fusion phenomenon and thereby influenced by alcohol. This leads to my advice. If you see color wheel artifacts - have a Martini.
Recommended:
Yes
Purchase Price (if leased, monthly payment): 699
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Epinions.com ID:
patboyle
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Reviews written: 1
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