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moebiuscatКупил и наладил проектор для домашнего кинотеатра. Для меня это историческое событие... Давно мечтал о таком "эксппириенсе" при просмотре кино. Главное преимушесто перед любым боьшим телевизором - на порядок больший экран, значительно меньшая стоимость и возможность списать с налогов как оборудование для бизнеса (это кстати тоже предполагаемое использование).
Optoma EP-738 user review ("пардон май френч")
First, let me say that it is written from a perspective of a first-time projector buyer, eager to move from 27" CRT tv to somethign bigger and better to match a good sound system (see details below). Main goals: Watch DVD movies with highest possible quality on a tight budget. Regular TV: very occasionally, HDTV: not important.
First impressions: this DLP projector has a good image quality, very nice movie-like colours, many tweakable options, ECO mode is useable (increases lamp life), very quiet (in ECO mode it's virtually silent).
I'm projecting on a 110" (2.8m) diagonal (52" x 96" or 1.4m x 2.44m) 16:9 DIY blackout cloth screen in a light-controlled basement. (Looks huge compared to any tv, takes almost the whole wall) If you can get it cheap - it is a great budget projector for a home theater. For image that large it has to be mounted quite far! Mine is ceiling-mounted (DIY mount) 17' (5.1 m) from the screen. I use white peaking set to 3 for movies - looks surprisingly good. Both me and my wife could not see any rainbows or screen-door or any other image artifacts seating 13' from the screen. The experience is amazing. We are mainly watching DVDs, so it almost goes to max DVD resolution (with anamorphic DVD it can go for 850 pixels horizontal resolution, so I only lose 50 pixels on some DVDs with SVGA 800x600 projector and get full resolution on others) and I don't feel the price difference is worth it for 1024x768 projector, unless you watch HD most of the time. In other words, I think Optoma EP-738 is a very good projector for the price and beats any rear-projection TV or arguably even plasma (just due to screen size though) hands down in a light-controlled environment. Make sure you have a good sound though, as it has to match the huge picture for the complete movie experience. One of the reasons I got the PJ in the first place was that my grand sound was in total dissonance with the puny 27" TV screen. Now I feel much better.
The whole experience (with a good sound system) is totally mind-blowing compared to anything you could expect in a home setting. If you have not been using projectors before - you're going to love it. Generally, it is comparable to a local older movie theater (or one of those newer "alternative" move theaters for movie conaisseurs) for with a not-so-huge screen. The sound is much better that at any movies (except maybe for IMAX), and the combination is at least as good, and I would say even better that going to movies.
Now for the problems and cons:
If leaving deinterlacing to projector, strange artifacts ("traces") are visible with moving objects on light background. So I had to buy a new DVD player that has GOOD progressive scan - Philips DVP-642 I initially bought has poor progressive scan, which is very visible on a screen this big. I'll have to run DivX movies from my PC then, as no other DVD players that run DivX have good video processing chips (except maybe for KISS, but it's expensive).
Room has to be dark in order to get a juicy picture, so using it in the living room might not be a good idea (compared to say, a rear-projection TV).
Don't expect an ideal picture. It is very good, but while brightness is generally not a problem, contrast is (the absolute black that you see on screen is your white screen colour visible in ambient light), so you have to block almost all light in the room to make it a truly great experience. It's not plasma, you won't get over-blown super-bright colours. Its dimmer, more subtle, and very movie-like: smooth, lifelike colours, just a bit soft. Dark scenes might make you want more brightness sometimes, and with a generally dark movies, you might want to turn ECO setting off.
Black masking is very adviseable and really improves perceived contrast. If you can paint your ceiling black that helps (I can't - too ugly for an office/studio/home theater).
You have to seat far enough, and not just to make "screen-door" effect (pixelation) disappear, but to make image appear sharp enough. DVD resolution limit is really visible at such a big screen. Don't expect a super-sharp image. Although it's really not much worse than local old movie theater with a not-so-huge screen.
My friend was able to spot some rainbow effect, while we didn't see it even once. Maybe we're not sensitive to it.
Preset settings are useless. Much tweaking is needed to get a good movie-like picture. A good calibration DVD (like AVIA) is of much help.
You absolutely HAVE to feed it through progressive-scan component input or from a HTPC. I made a cable to connect DVD's 3-rca component to PJ's VGA port. Don't use S-Video or composite if you want good quality. ANY quality problems are clearly visible on a screen as big. You will see immediately that some DVDs are amazing, while others look like crap (relatively speaking). Make suer you have a good DVD player ($60 cheapo box won't cut it) with a good progressive-scan performance.
The projector has biult-in unadjustable physical keystone correction, thus it projects at an upwards angle, so if using ceiling mount you would want to mount it as high as possible, and a screen as low as possible, to avoid image distortion requiring use of digital keystone correction.
NOTE: I had to order rare metric M2.6 screws for the projector, so I got 100 when all I needed was 3. So if anyone need such screws for DIY mount - let me know.
Note: this is my first projector, so I may be biased. The versict is: highly recommended.
Here is my setup:
Optoma EP-738 DLP projector
Pioneer DV-578A progressive scan DVD (SACD & DVD-Audio) player
Denon AVR-1802 Dolby Digital 5.1 receiver
JBL Studio Series S310CH front speakers (3-way, 10" woofers)
JBL SC-305 center speaker
Dibeisi dipole surround speakers
Sony SA-WM200 subwoofer
110" diagonal (96" x 54") 16:9 DIY blackout cloth fixed screen with black velvet frame.
DIY 3-RCA component to VGA cable, VGA extention shielded cable, optical digital DVD-to-Receiver interconnect, 12-gauge speaker wires.
DIY ceiling mount.
Acoustically treated light-controlled basement (treated plywood walls, acousting ceiling, carpet)
Optoma EP-738 user review ("пардон май френч")
First, let me say that it is written from a perspective of a first-time projector buyer, eager to move from 27" CRT tv to somethign bigger and better to match a good sound system (see details below). Main goals: Watch DVD movies with highest possible quality on a tight budget. Regular TV: very occasionally, HDTV: not important.
First impressions: this DLP projector has a good image quality, very nice movie-like colours, many tweakable options, ECO mode is useable (increases lamp life), very quiet (in ECO mode it's virtually silent).
I'm projecting on a 110" (2.8m) diagonal (52" x 96" or 1.4m x 2.44m) 16:9 DIY blackout cloth screen in a light-controlled basement. (Looks huge compared to any tv, takes almost the whole wall) If you can get it cheap - it is a great budget projector for a home theater. For image that large it has to be mounted quite far! Mine is ceiling-mounted (DIY mount) 17' (5.1 m) from the screen. I use white peaking set to 3 for movies - looks surprisingly good. Both me and my wife could not see any rainbows or screen-door or any other image artifacts seating 13' from the screen. The experience is amazing. We are mainly watching DVDs, so it almost goes to max DVD resolution (with anamorphic DVD it can go for 850 pixels horizontal resolution, so I only lose 50 pixels on some DVDs with SVGA 800x600 projector and get full resolution on others) and I don't feel the price difference is worth it for 1024x768 projector, unless you watch HD most of the time. In other words, I think Optoma EP-738 is a very good projector for the price and beats any rear-projection TV or arguably even plasma (just due to screen size though) hands down in a light-controlled environment. Make sure you have a good sound though, as it has to match the huge picture for the complete movie experience. One of the reasons I got the PJ in the first place was that my grand sound was in total dissonance with the puny 27" TV screen. Now I feel much better.
The whole experience (with a good sound system) is totally mind-blowing compared to anything you could expect in a home setting. If you have not been using projectors before - you're going to love it. Generally, it is comparable to a local older movie theater (or one of those newer "alternative" move theaters for movie conaisseurs) for with a not-so-huge screen. The sound is much better that at any movies (except maybe for IMAX), and the combination is at least as good, and I would say even better that going to movies.
Now for the problems and cons:
If leaving deinterlacing to projector, strange artifacts ("traces") are visible with moving objects on light background. So I had to buy a new DVD player that has GOOD progressive scan - Philips DVP-642 I initially bought has poor progressive scan, which is very visible on a screen this big. I'll have to run DivX movies from my PC then, as no other DVD players that run DivX have good video processing chips (except maybe for KISS, but it's expensive).
Room has to be dark in order to get a juicy picture, so using it in the living room might not be a good idea (compared to say, a rear-projection TV).
Don't expect an ideal picture. It is very good, but while brightness is generally not a problem, contrast is (the absolute black that you see on screen is your white screen colour visible in ambient light), so you have to block almost all light in the room to make it a truly great experience. It's not plasma, you won't get over-blown super-bright colours. Its dimmer, more subtle, and very movie-like: smooth, lifelike colours, just a bit soft. Dark scenes might make you want more brightness sometimes, and with a generally dark movies, you might want to turn ECO setting off.
Black masking is very adviseable and really improves perceived contrast. If you can paint your ceiling black that helps (I can't - too ugly for an office/studio/home theater).
You have to seat far enough, and not just to make "screen-door" effect (pixelation) disappear, but to make image appear sharp enough. DVD resolution limit is really visible at such a big screen. Don't expect a super-sharp image. Although it's really not much worse than local old movie theater with a not-so-huge screen.
My friend was able to spot some rainbow effect, while we didn't see it even once. Maybe we're not sensitive to it.
Preset settings are useless. Much tweaking is needed to get a good movie-like picture. A good calibration DVD (like AVIA) is of much help.
You absolutely HAVE to feed it through progressive-scan component input or from a HTPC. I made a cable to connect DVD's 3-rca component to PJ's VGA port. Don't use S-Video or composite if you want good quality. ANY quality problems are clearly visible on a screen as big. You will see immediately that some DVDs are amazing, while others look like crap (relatively speaking). Make suer you have a good DVD player ($60 cheapo box won't cut it) with a good progressive-scan performance.
The projector has biult-in unadjustable physical keystone correction, thus it projects at an upwards angle, so if using ceiling mount you would want to mount it as high as possible, and a screen as low as possible, to avoid image distortion requiring use of digital keystone correction.
NOTE: I had to order rare metric M2.6 screws for the projector, so I got 100 when all I needed was 3. So if anyone need such screws for DIY mount - let me know.
Note: this is my first projector, so I may be biased. The versict is: highly recommended.
Here is my setup:
Optoma EP-738 DLP projector
Pioneer DV-578A progressive scan DVD (SACD & DVD-Audio) player
Denon AVR-1802 Dolby Digital 5.1 receiver
JBL Studio Series S310CH front speakers (3-way, 10" woofers)
JBL SC-305 center speaker
Dibeisi dipole surround speakers
Sony SA-WM200 subwoofer
110" diagonal (96" x 54") 16:9 DIY blackout cloth fixed screen with black velvet frame.
DIY 3-RCA component to VGA cable, VGA extention shielded cable, optical digital DVD-to-Receiver interconnect, 12-gauge speaker wires.
DIY ceiling mount.
Acoustically treated light-controlled basement (treated plywood walls, acousting ceiling, carpet)
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 05:38 pm (UTC)С учетом, что мне он обошелся в $800 вместо $1300, а приличный проекционный тв - это около $2000 минимум, я уж не говорю про плазму, то есть смысл...
no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 10:20 pm (UTC)