Optoma HD 65 has arrived!!
Posted by: Flame on 16 March 2008
Hi guys;
Just got a call from Aramex telling me my projector has arrived. Will pick it up later this evening. This is my first projector experience and i'll be back with my initial impression.
Just got a call from Aramex telling me my projector has arrived. Will pick it up later this evening. This is my first projector experience and i'll be back with my initial impression.
Posted on: 16 March 2008 by Flame
Well.... I've just finished watching "the contract" on the new projector. The picture was projected on my grainy off-white wall, I did not calibrate the projector and the movie was not impressive at all. But the picture was amazing! Being a budget projector I really didn't expect picture quality to be this good. The sharpness is very nice and the color balance out of the box is really nice. I'm sure that some calibration will be worthwhile and will improve the image further. This has been a lovely purchase that I feel will bring loads of fun with it. Rainbow effect is there and it might be distracting once or twice during the film but it isn't significant to the point that would bother the viewer.
Posted on: 16 March 2008 by Paul McNamara
Hi Flame,
Collected a projector myself yesterday: an Optoma HD700X. Also a budget model, superb picture. Watched Michael Clayton on it last night.... great movie. No rainbows...DVD going to a 52, active 135's & sbl's. Sounds quite good as well. I guess a good screen is a must and certainly brings good results. They really are good fun. Good luck with your viewing.
Paul.
Collected a projector myself yesterday: an Optoma HD700X. Also a budget model, superb picture. Watched Michael Clayton on it last night.... great movie. No rainbows...DVD going to a 52, active 135's & sbl's. Sounds quite good as well. I guess a good screen is a must and certainly brings good results. They really are good fun. Good luck with your viewing.
Paul.
Posted on: 19 March 2008 by Flame
OK... I've been spending quite a bit of time with this projector so now I feel I can give a reasonably detailed review of its performance.
First thing that strikes is how minuscule this thing is. It is really tiny. Getting the thing connected and started is a piece of cake. I do, however, agree with most opinion about optoma projectors that there zoom range is limited and for that position of installation has to be carefully planned.
I used a very basic online software to calibrate the image. I'm sure using something like Avia's DVD would bring out even more improvement. Still, I think I'm squeezing at least 95% of what this projector can deliver. Blacks are reasonably dark with good levels of detail. Dark scenes are expressive with only the darkest of all loosing a bit of detail. Pixelation is non existent and the few times that I noticed "step ladder" effects was off cheap Chinese riped DVDs. Watching "Master and Commander" which would be prone to such effects with all the shots of the sails and the ropes proved that whatever I had previously observed was software related.
Skin tones are very natural and hues in general are very good. The saturation of colors doesn't get me to jump up in amazement but makes me say "this looks like the movies". In other words, my old Sony trinitron CRT has better saturation, my Samsung LCD doesn't. Pioneer's plasmas on the other hand seem to have better saturation. I haven't done much calibration with saturation so there might be some rewards to gain once I buy a calibration DVD.
Lastly, I want to talk about rainbow effects. They are present. I do tend to pick them out more than the other viewers. They are present during the when the text with the movie credits roles as most would expect. But I was surprised to note that rainbows were absent at the edges of bright areas in the image contrasting with darker backgrounds. The only time I noticed rainbows was when a bright scene shifts to a dark scene or vice versa. The rainbow would appear "somewhere" on the screen for milliseconds before it goes away. Again, it is nothing that gets you upset.
Lastly, I'll talk about brightness. I have a reasonably dimmed room and during the day I didn't have to turn the brightness up to "high" or engage the "auto-iris" function despite light that was leaking into the room. The projector has no problem displaying bright pictures. I'm currently projecting an image that is around 92 inches wide so maybe the modest size is helping in that regard.
Final impression? This is a bloody good projector. I was on a limited budget and I wanted to buy my first projector. The optoma was the only one this cheap that offered HDMI 1.3 and 1080p 24fps support. I'm very happy with it and I would recommend it to people on a budget. My current DVD player is sending out images at 570i and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the picture would look like off some HD source via HDMI. Too bad I need a few months before I can buy a bluray player :P
Regards to you all...
First thing that strikes is how minuscule this thing is. It is really tiny. Getting the thing connected and started is a piece of cake. I do, however, agree with most opinion about optoma projectors that there zoom range is limited and for that position of installation has to be carefully planned.
I used a very basic online software to calibrate the image. I'm sure using something like Avia's DVD would bring out even more improvement. Still, I think I'm squeezing at least 95% of what this projector can deliver. Blacks are reasonably dark with good levels of detail. Dark scenes are expressive with only the darkest of all loosing a bit of detail. Pixelation is non existent and the few times that I noticed "step ladder" effects was off cheap Chinese riped DVDs. Watching "Master and Commander" which would be prone to such effects with all the shots of the sails and the ropes proved that whatever I had previously observed was software related.
Skin tones are very natural and hues in general are very good. The saturation of colors doesn't get me to jump up in amazement but makes me say "this looks like the movies". In other words, my old Sony trinitron CRT has better saturation, my Samsung LCD doesn't. Pioneer's plasmas on the other hand seem to have better saturation. I haven't done much calibration with saturation so there might be some rewards to gain once I buy a calibration DVD.
Lastly, I want to talk about rainbow effects. They are present. I do tend to pick them out more than the other viewers. They are present during the when the text with the movie credits roles as most would expect. But I was surprised to note that rainbows were absent at the edges of bright areas in the image contrasting with darker backgrounds. The only time I noticed rainbows was when a bright scene shifts to a dark scene or vice versa. The rainbow would appear "somewhere" on the screen for milliseconds before it goes away. Again, it is nothing that gets you upset.
Lastly, I'll talk about brightness. I have a reasonably dimmed room and during the day I didn't have to turn the brightness up to "high" or engage the "auto-iris" function despite light that was leaking into the room. The projector has no problem displaying bright pictures. I'm currently projecting an image that is around 92 inches wide so maybe the modest size is helping in that regard.
Final impression? This is a bloody good projector. I was on a limited budget and I wanted to buy my first projector. The optoma was the only one this cheap that offered HDMI 1.3 and 1080p 24fps support. I'm very happy with it and I would recommend it to people on a budget. My current DVD player is sending out images at 570i and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the picture would look like off some HD source via HDMI. Too bad I need a few months before I can buy a bluray player :P
Regards to you all...