Optoma HD20 Demo Feedback

[kinda]

Hello,

Demod the HD20 on Saturday, and thought I'd give some feedback. Firstly, thanks to tandy and Liam in Sevenoaks Sheffield who were very helpful, including the problematic HDMI setup of my Sagem HD recorder to test with.

I was impressed overall. In a room that wasn't fully dark, just dim, on a screen around 12 feet I reckon, the HD20 impressed from about 12 - 15 feet with it's colur and detail. Even with the lights up it was watchable, but with reduced contrast and colour saturation.

I'd tried a view DVDs on my CRT the day before going, in daylight conditions, and the same scenes showed more detail in dark scenes on the Optoma, but the actual blacks were greyer. Overall, though the huge screen size sometimes showed more of the faults in the transfer, I thought the pictures were just as good. I tried black and white, action, older films, car chases, and so on. the motion was tracked really well, and it all looked fine.

From my Sagem upscaling freeview box, (1080i), pictures were very good. Motion was tracked fine in footbal matches and motor racing.

BlueRay films. Dark Knight I'd been told to watch the building edges in the opening zoom, (thanks for recommending this), and these looked totally solid. With BlueRay everything looked more real, and it was all smoother, but overall I personally didn't find I was raving about it in relation to DVD on the big screen.

Noise was very acceptable when mounted overhead. Couldn't be heard in films, and even in an otherwise silent room wasn't intrusive.

There were only a couple of issues.

Me and my girlfriend could see a bit of rainbow effect, in the initial car drive scene of Mothman Prophecies, and on the night chase in Ronin, (I picked the scenes out for this reason). Also a bit on the Alien opening, (thanks whoever recommended this). However, it was more a minor distraction than a big issue.

The opening credits of Match of The Day where there is horizontal scrolling, on the Optoma and on my CRt there was some judder, (but not on a Loewe TV I saw the same sequence on). Also at the start of the Dark Knight, as they enter the bank, I saw the lamposts judder slightly. there were the only motion issues I saw.

Later at home, I watched the TV footage and scenes again on my CRT, and this was where maybe things fell apart a bit. The TV footage, everything suddenly seemed more vivid and real. The bright green on the Brawn cars just stood out, and everything had more colour, and there was a noticeably better contrast.

Also, with the lights down, I think the TV showed more detail and colour in dark scenes than the HD20. But it has to be remembered that the HD 20 demo wasn't fully dark, and I'd maybe get better colour contrast with a smaller screen with the Optoma.

So I guess my view of the Optoma was very good, in isolation. I don't think I'd look to spend double to cure it's minor faults, but if something was available around £1000 with no rainbow effect and better motion, then i ight be tempted.

I suppose the real question is did the cinematic effect of the big screen, which I was very partial to, mean I could forego the out right vividness of my CRT picture, and would a smaller picture improve the Optoma much in this respect.

 

[Frank Harvey]

For the money, it's a great little projector. It's nothing to worry our resident projectors, but at less than half price it does a cracking job. Black levels are about as good as you'll get this side of £1,500, and that's using it on our 9ft wide screen in our main demo room (although it is pretty much fully blacked out). Colours need a little tweaking, but that's true of any projector. The only drawback with the model is the lack of lens shift, which will be a major issue for some, but if you can place the projector in the right place it will work out fine for everyone else. Obviously something has to be sacrificed to get 1080p below £1k....

 

[kinda]

Thanks for the reply David. Just wanted to ask a couple of questions if I can?

Just wanted to confirm, in terms of the colour vibrancy, black levels, and contrast, do you think projecting a picture smaller than the huge one I saw will improve this? I'm thinking generally the picture is brighter when smaller, so it may well do so.

Also, it sounds like you reckon I could probably get more out of the colours at home with some more in depth tweaking?

If I went LCD I'd lose the rainbow effect, but in similar priced projectors, would I see other benefits or deficiencies when compared to the HD20? Would the £1500 projector you mention improve the slight motion issues I saw?

Final question, is there anything that should tempt me to demo in the £1500 - £2500 category? What kind of benefits would I see above the HD20 in terms of picture quality?

Sorry for all the questions, but any replies you have would be much appreciated.

 

[Frank Harvey]

No problem.

Did you mean smaller as in moving the projector closer? Or just zooming the lens so it's smaller?

If the projector is moved closer to the screen it will produce a brighter picture - the further away it is the duller it will become.

If you zoom the lens so the picture is smaller, it will become sharper, colours little more vivid.

Colours are never correct out the box, and because everyone's rooms have a different amount of ambient light, settings will usually be different. You could start by using the listed setups in the tests on projectorreviews.com as a starting point, then tweak from there to suit your own personal tastes.

Going for a similarly priced LCD will get rid of the rainbow effect, and you'll also find the colours are more natural, particularly skin tones (something which DLP and D-ILA struggle with). They will still need tweaking though, as colours are never correct regardless of the projector ou buy. Some people prefer the motion on an LCD and sometimes find DLP's to be a little juddery. LCD's generally run quieter too. The main benefit of the DLP is that the black levels are superior, although this becomes a more close run thing at higher price points.

Between £1,500 and £2,500, if you want to take a look at LCD, try Panasonic's PTAE4000, or even Mitsubishi's HC7000, which I find superior, if you can get a deal on one. For £1300, Mitsubishi have the HC3800, which is a DLP - I cna't comment on it's picture though as I haven't seen it as yet.

 

[matengawhat]

just to add to this thread as an owner of the hd20

you need to be able to place the projector bang in the middle of the screen as no horizontal lens shift and very little flexibilty on vertical lens shift but you can alter a good inch or so eiither way but then starts to crunch the image

colours needed quite a bit of tweeking out of the box and the good thing is you can alter the gamma curve as much as you want its very easy to achieve a very vivid picture also i really like the flesh colours and think they are quite natural

light in a room will always wash out the colours of the projector personally with a little time and efort you can get great results - i'm really happy once calibrated - i run a 106inch screen without any isssue

the projector is very bright so if trying to squeeze a smaller image image you might want to try a few screens as not to end up with to bright an image.

i find that this projector suffer from very little digital noise and nothing you can see from your viewing distance

with regards to scrolling i think this projector smetimes tries to squeeze every bit of detail out result in a little judder sometimes but not enough to really put you off - with regard to motion i think if your image is to big and ou sit to close this can be made a little worse so make sure you can get far enough away from it.

the rainbow effect tends to be visible when moving your eyes fast across a screen again if you sit far enough back from the screen so you don't need to move your eyes to view the whole picture so is reduced and it does get better with a few hundred hours on the bulb - not sure how new their projrctor was.

all i would say is the more you pay the better it get so depends on how much your prepared to spend

 

[kinda]

Thanks Dave,

I'd be running the projector closer than for the demo, and with the aim of a smaller screen size, in my current room, so it sounds like I'd probably benefit from more brightness and improved colours in the real scenario.

i didn't have big issues with colour, motion, or noise with the HD20, so I'm not sure I'd swap no rainbow effect for lesser blacks. I may just have a demo, though, and of the step up models, just to see if I'm interested.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[kinda]

Another interesting obsefvation for me as a result of this demo was that although the BluRays were more realistic and the colours a little better, I didn't really find myself enjoying them loads more than DVD, and also to my dissapointment didn't find myself immediately thinking the audio was a huge step up from DVD.

I could see the improvements of the picture, but it was the cinematic effect of the big screen that I liked, and I didn't find myself crying out for more detail or realism when watching a DVD.

Breakfast at Tiffany's on DVD had pretty much the same kind of grain and issues I saw at the cinema, but was still enjoyable.

As a result, it's made me further question any BluRay upgrade, but then again a HD display would be the biggest outlay in that, so ...

 

[Frank Harvey]

Audio varies from Bluray to Bluray (as it does with DVD), and you may find some films don't benefit much from an HD soundtrack. I've not seen Zodiac on DVD, but the UK Bluray is Dolby Digital, so I'm guessing it's similar, and a bit of the dialogue is a little quiet and muffled, but on the US version with True HD soundtrack, this isn't an issue.