Viewing HD Front Projectors

[LuZZo]

Hi guys,

First I want to say that you did a great job with the new site.

Does anyone know of a place in the greater Tampa area to view front screen projectors in action? I've been down to both Sound Advices and they only have one (pretty poor looking) projector on display.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[jaymer]

is located on Henderson, just south of where it crosses Dale Mabry.
Heading south-ish on Henderson, its just a few buildings on the right after you cross over DM.

if you go in there, be sure to tell them you heard about them here on TAMPAHDTV.COM - there's some future advertising dollars there me thinks! :lol:

[LuZZo]

Will do, thanks very much for the response.

[dvdao]

Does anyone know the name of this place on Henderson? I'm hoping to see a few PJs live and in person. Any others in the bay area?

[HDTVFanAtic]

Yes, he said it was Audio Visions in the Subject line.

And you should have gone to the NAB in Vegas. Runco, Barco, Sony, JVC etc were all showing HD Projeciton. Microsoft had one showing WM9-HD and movie trailers. The had the Spiderman 2 trailer which was on NBC or CBS several weeks ago which I recorded. I watched closely as i was very familar with the details of it - and considering its 1/3 the file size of mpeg 2, was very impressed.

Sony had a theater with 2 on top of each other and while showing highlights on the top, including new footage from unreleased Star Wars 3, had Joe Montangie on bottow referring to it and looking at it as he talked about it....was very impressive.

The movie clip or hdtv show would start to rain....and they carried it down to him on the second screen - he would put up an umbrella etc etc.

Amazing what you can do when money is no object.

[jaymer]

dvdao - what are you interested in?
there's not a lot of choices to VIEW projectors.

one thing i can definitely say is that the cheaper 800x600 pjs are a much inferior image to the 1024x768.
(you're up to big bucks getting the native 16x9, so i'm not bringing that into the comparison)

many places are starting to carry these cheapo pjs - costco, compusa, etc.
i was impressed when i saw the 800x600 Benq fired up in a dark room - very brite and crisp.
but i set up my nec lt150 next to it and realized i was happy with my 3yr old pj - i'd NEVER get the 800x600 after seeing what i saw.
and its not color related... or any other settings that can be tweaked.
simple resolution was the issue.
jaggies showing up that were not there on mine, and one scene that made me almost get sick as it panned across a crop of cotton - but again mine looked fine.

note to anyone: fight the cheapness factor of an 800x600. pass on it until you can get a better pj. as i say, WITHOUT comparing side by side, the 800x600 will probably look OK - but once you compare it and now know where the crudiness will show up, you won't want one.

avs is really the place to do your pj shopping.
and don't listen to the naysayers about the rainbows - aarrgghh. for every one who complains about it there's 1000 who don't have an issue.
and regardless of what they say, i still wouldn't go LCD.

my $.02,
jaymer...

[CANDY76MAN]

I'm waiting till the 1080P DLP chip based ones come down to my price range....lol...I will be waiting a long time :?

[OccamMD]

Jaymer,

Be careful in being so zealous with newbies. I've done a lot of research into projectors and found I get terrible headaches w/DLP, before I knew about it from avsforum. I just purchased a PT50LC13 LCD RP because the DLP has definite temporal dithering issues and I got headaches watching the sammy within a few minutes. I'm very happy w/ the LCD, small convergence issue wrt sammy, but I get 3 panels and no spinning wheels to break down.

I would just say read up on any number of forums and go see side by side. BTW CC in new tampa has a great setup for this, a panny LCD right next to the sammy w/ a couch to sit and watch to your hearts content.

[jaymer]

dvdao is no newbie - so i'm not sure who you address that comment to.

I would just say read up on any number of forums and go see side by side..
sure, thats always good advice... and i think i said 1 of those (go to avs).
wrt to the other, seeing 2 PJs at CC in no way qualifies as even a mediocre tesing of PJs... esp at most mass retailers. Is that in a light controlled room and are the PJs calibrated?
this only stresses my 1st point I made - its hard to find a place to compare PJs.

so you did a lot of research into PJs and still got a RP?
thats seems like an advertisement for the RP industry, or at least a dig at the projector industry. certainly a lot of others are not coming to your same conclusion.

i'm not knocking your experience, because its YOUR physical experience - whatever physical things are built into you (eyes, brain... whatever causes the reaction in some people) and makes the viewing unpleasant is unfortunate. some people can't take bright sunlight either. but thats a minority.

"temporal dithering issues" - wtf?
i'm sure anyone can come up with some name for any anomaly. ever heard of the "mosquito something-or-other" on LCD? i don't think there are "temporal dithering issues" on my PJ that make my viewing unpleasant - i don't even see them... but as I proved when I did my simple test, there are nasty artifacts when going to an 800x600 - and for that I will be zealous about.

As barrybud said on Avs:
I wonder if this smear is like a lot of other artifacts? If someone doesn't grab you by the neck and push your face to the screen and say "See that?" [This statement is not directed at anyone in particular] Many may never see it.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

if you went to Costco to look at RP TVs, you wouldn't buy any of them, cause the management there doesn't give a rip about hooking them up correctly. why do you think so many people complain about compression? cause some of the providers have signals that when they do panning, the picture goes to crap... and it will be there regardless of the type of display. like in the "temporal dithering" (LOL) thread on avs - the intelligent guy points out that people don't know what they are talking about (terminology wise) and what they are seeing is artifacts caused by a crap signal (or in one's guys case, he's using an xbox or something on his PJ and seeing anomalies).

I'm very happy w/ the LCD, small convergence issue wrt sammy, but I get 3 panels and no spinning wheels to break down. dude, i'm glad you're happy with your selection - cause you are the only one that has to be. but to infer that my (or someone else's) DLP "wheels are going to break" is crap. Thats FUD, and i'm not into FUD. Its technology built by humans - none of its perfect. I did a search and cant' find anything on AVS - please find me the impending doom threads on "wheels breaking" and I'll be glad to hear what a FEW people might have had happen. Then we can add the sporadic threads on bulbs exploding and stuck LCD pixels to our hysteria.

I was planning to do a big PJ shootout event - but I don't think there's enough interest. Too many people are wowed by the simple EDTV and low end Plasmas to realize a good PJ to make a 100inch image (or smaller) and DIY screen can be had for under $2500. (of course some don't have the lighting control - but thats overrated also, because casual viewing doesn't need a pitch black room even on my 800 lumen PJ.)

[OccamMD]

Jaymer,

I'm not trying to flame you, I'm really glad you started this forum and I think we are fortunate to have a local place to discuss issues, especially local OTA antenna and BHN.

I'm just having a discussion not trying to rile anyone. I love FP's, I bought the RP as an intermediate step for an upstairs TV that needed certain things and the LCD fit the bill. I started with the FP when my TV broke, but none of the throws work in my great room I was just about ready to buy the SX21 in September when JVC offered a free DVHS deck with the purchase and avs had a great deal, but decided to wait until my HT is built downstairs to allow technology to progress. Good thing too, 'cause I got absolutely zilch done on the HT to date, but maybe by Christmas :).

I too agree that most brick and mortar stores have horrible setups. That's why I mentioned CC at New Tampa. I think that they have done a fairly good job given the experience of the people there. And if you want to tweak the set, ask them for the remote and tweak all you want. But don't listen to most answers to questions, 'cause as most of us know those guys have little idea what they are talking about.

Its a very subjective thing. I'm not sure where you can look at any of these sets in a good lighting environment. Avs is a great place to get info from actual experiences.

By newbie I mean people entering the forum to read these posts. There are a number of posts on AVS RP about DLP wheels and noise/repair. I'm not inferring that yours will break. I just prefer to minimize the mechanical functions. That doesn't make it right, just my opinion. There are also posts about my panny's balast dying, so I'll just hold my breath.

Mosquito noise is the noise generated around edges by MPEG compression, you can buy processors to take it, but they are about $10K. There is a smudge effect on LCD, but I don't know the technical name for it, of course screen door we all know.

I disagree w/the source being the only issue for temporal dithering. But look through the FP threads and decide for yourself.

No offense really, its just my opinion. Since I have headaches from RP and FP DLP I didn't want to risk that with friends coming over.

I fully agree w/your 800x600 assessment. I didn;t by a EDTV plasma 'cause unless you absolutley have to hang it onthe wall, what's the point for the prices (again my opinion).

DIY screens and screen goo are great, no argument there.

[jaymer]

points well taken - thx

Good thing too, 'cause I got absolutely zilch done on the HT to date, but maybe by Christmas :) yes, been there. don't know how long i've been saying to the wife that i'm gonna hide those cables :roll:

[OccamMD]

I'm getting noise from the wife because of the "antenna farm" up on our roof for dish/VOOM/OTA. She's been a good sport and wants a theater, so LCOS soon I hope, but I'm not in too much of a hurry. I'm happy enough w/VOOM (which added ESPN today) and the RP to wait it out.

Now if I could just figure out how to get the DVI levels from MAC to VOOM STB to be correct for my SMART III cal I would be all set for a while.

[jdiehl]

I'm moving down from St. Louis to Land O' Lakes. My house is being built and will be finished mid-June. It's a ranch with an upstairs bonus room (20x16ft). I intend to turn this into a dedicated HT room with a front projector (w/ room darkening shades on the one window in the room to control lighting).

In the research I've been doing on front projectors at AVS, projectorcentral.com , I've narrowed my choices to the NEC HT1100, the Infocus 5700, and the BenQ PE8700. I can't find any B&W retailers in the St. Louis area to demo any of these models. The boutique stores up here all have Sharp FP's to demo and I've seen several demos of the Sharp 10000 and 12000 models.

Are there any stores in that area to demo any of these 3 models? I'm a little hesitant on buying one of these FP's sight-unseen.

Anyway, I look forward to being active in these forums. I've spent alot of time at avsforum, especially in the local St. Louis monthly thread that I helped start a few years back when I got into HDTV (65" Mits Plat Plus was my first).

Thanks.

[hsuthard]

FWIW, we finally decided on the Sanyo PLZ2. We saw the Sony model at Audio Visions South, and were very impressed, but after some research decided on the Sanyo, sight unseen. We absolutely love it. I recommend it very highly, and are still amazed we got it for under $2000.

Let us know what you end up doing!

Holly.

[dvdao]

Thanks for the help guys. I was happy to see that we were all able to resurrect this old thread. Anyway, I'm leaning towards the Sanyo Z2 but am also considering the Sony HS20.

[jdiehl]

FWIW, we finally decided on the Sanyo PLZ2. We saw the Sony model at Audio Visions South, and were very impressed, but after some research decided on the Sanyo, sight unseen. We absolutely love it. I recommend it very highly, and are still amazed we got it for under $2000.

Let us know what you end up doing!

Holly.

What other models are viewable at Audio Visions South? I'm looking to get a good sampling of front projectors before making a decision on one but I'm having trouble finding anything but Yahama and Sharp projectors but would love to see some Infocus, Sanyo, BenQ, NEC, Epson, etc projectors that I've been considering based on discussion at AVSforum and reviews at projectorcentral.com If someone could point me to some home theater stores with front projectors on display, that would be great. I'm closing on the house next Friday and want to have my PJ picked out soon so that I can install it over Memorial Day weekend.

Thanks!

[OccamMD]

When I was looking at the JVC SX21 I found local vendor who would bring it over to the house, but he was not ging to discount it at all. Did you try calling the AVSFORUM store and seeing if they will ship you demo's? Policies differ from store to store.

[jdiehl]

When I was looking at the JVC SX21 I found local vendor who would bring it over to the house, but he was not ging to discount it at all. Did you try calling the AVSFORUM store and seeing if they will ship you demo's? Policies differ from store to store.

No, I haven't looked into shipping demo units yet. Although, if I can't find a brick and mortar store that has a variety of units on display, I just may have to. Most of the guys in the yellow pages want to bring their projector over to your house, but since I'm currently living at the Holiday Inn until closing next Friday, that won't quite work :wink:

[OccamMD]

You could do it in the parking lot on the side of the hotel. We could all come. Beer and a movie.

[jdiehl]

You could do it in the parking lot on the side of the hotel. We could all come. Beer and a movie.

Yeah, or maybe the Muvico 20 next door will let me borrow their screens to test out projectors. hehe :lol:

[OccamMD]

Actually, my sons karate school just showed a movie about childs abduction for kids at the Muvico in New Tampa. They used their own projector (which I had to keystone and adjust).