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Old     (sidekicknicholas)      Join Date: Mar 2007       08-13-2010, 3:56 PM Reply   
Anyone have one they love/hate?!

I currently am running a Epson S5 in our home theater - its jsut an office projector I for free - built up around that.... was in a projector store today and was watching some of the HD ones and NEED to upgrade....

I'm looking at the Optoma HD20 - its like $999 pretty much everywhere online at at the local store... just wondering if anyone else has any suggestions
Old     (rsanchez)      Join Date: Jun 2010       08-13-2010, 5:27 PM Reply   
Okay, forgive me because I don't know anything about projectors, and although I think it'd be sick to replace the tv on my wall with it, don't the bulbs have like a 400 hr lifetime? Or am I wrong? I feel like I'd burn through that in a month.
Old     (dakid)      Join Date: Feb 2001       08-13-2010, 5:29 PM Reply   
get an apple projector!!!

oh wait...
Old     (rsanchez)      Join Date: Jun 2010       08-13-2010, 5:53 PM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by dakid View Post
get an apple projector!!!

oh wait...
LOL, follow me into other threads. Why don't you go back to taking pictures of cars you wish you own and I actually do?
Old     (dakid)      Join Date: Feb 2001       08-13-2010, 6:07 PM Reply   
Lon, so nice of you to finally come back to wakeworld.

you could drive a bugati for all i care. you're still an pwned turd.
Old     (rsanchez)      Join Date: Jun 2010       08-13-2010, 6:08 PM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by dakid View Post
Lon, so nice of you to finally come back to wakeworld.

you could drive a bugati for all i care. you're still an pwned turd.
Call me what you want buddy. And you're a broke dumbass for all I care who follows me around on a forum but can't actually come up with a logical argument...
Old     (dakid)      Join Date: Feb 2001       08-13-2010, 8:04 PM Reply   
let's see:

your posts bragging about your shiat = Lon

sounds logical to me.
Old     (rsanchez)      Join Date: Jun 2010       08-13-2010, 8:07 PM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by dakid View Post
let's see:

your posts bragging about your shiat = Lon

sounds logical to me.
Guy, you're losing sight of the reality of this, you're the tool that attacked me and included some comical pics in your post in the other infamous thread . Look at it however you want, but you're still the fool.
Old     (onthewatermo)      Join Date: Jan 2008       08-13-2010, 10:05 PM Reply   
I am currently wowed by the Panasonic AX-200U...I'm projecting it 100" and it is awesome for everything from tele to gaming. Pricepoint is solid as well at right around a grand. It is only 720p but my untrained eye sees high def as high def. Highly recommended (typed while watching a high def concert and I don't go to the movies anymore).
Old     (sidekicknicholas)      Join Date: Mar 2007       08-14-2010, 8:24 AM Reply   
^ Thats was the apeal of the HD20 - its a 1080p at under $1,000.



I found it online for $916 and a $100 rebate... I think I'm just going to go to the local store (I've gotten them a lot of business of the last few months so maybe they'll deal with me).... but I'm going to throw out $850 take it or leave it - or $999 with a 106" screen.
Old     (rowdy)      Join Date: Mar 2006       08-15-2010, 8:12 AM Reply   
HD20 is a great projector. As long as your room is somewhat dark, you can really play with the settings and get decent contrast out of it. If you're gonna run blu-ray through it, you'll totally notice a difference of resolution over a 720p projector.

We just installed one in a friend of mine's room, which was 40' x 60' and fairly bright. It's projecting to a 120" da-lite screen and it looks great. It blows the socks off of $15k projectors I was installing 5 years ago.
Old     (sidekicknicholas)      Join Date: Mar 2007       08-15-2010, 1:49 PM Reply   
I was between the the HD20 and the Epson 8100.... bought the 8100 - tried it out last night and was having some trouble with an input,, returned and fired up the HD20 in the store.... looked great so I swapped out for that. It has a worse contrast ratio but I doubt I'll notice. I'll get it home tonight an hopefully fall in love.

The room I have for the setup can pitch black - I knew it was low lumens but with the setup it shouldn't matter - the screen is 120" like your friend's setup.

I'm excited though, since I'm giong to be running HDMI now I've got to re-arange things a bit to make it work, but thats not a big deal.
Old     (snyder)      Join Date: Feb 2006       08-16-2010, 8:35 AM Reply   
Ozark King, I desperately need to upgrade my projector and the Panasonic AX-200U is on my short list.
I'm going off the reservation here to say this (especially for someone w/a dedicated Home Theater room), but i kinda don't like blu-ray on 1080P displays. It's actually so sharp that it seems harsh to me. It's kinda like when the highs of a speaker are too crisp that they sound harsh, unrealistic. oddly enough my wife agrees w/me. I'm glad to hear that you like yours.

However, now that the 1080's have come down so much (many at or slightly below $1k), i may upgrade to 1080 anyway.

I want to ask the Blu-Ray/1080p crowd a question though, do you find it hard to watch non 1080p movies after getting used to the "crispness" of the 1080p? I have a pretty good collection of standard DVD's and they look great now. but i can't stand to watch non-HD channels on tv anymore. it looks like crap. will i feel the same way about my current movies (not to mention the fact that i've spent untold hours burning my DVD's to a Media Server)? kinda like there's no way i want to watch a VCR movie ha ha
Old     (rowdy)      Join Date: Mar 2006       08-16-2010, 5:05 PM Reply   
The Panasonic AX-200U is, in my opinion, one of the best projectors out there for the money if the 1080p is not a concern. HD stuff will look great, but from my experience, if you are projecting at over 100 inches, and are sitting closer than 14 ft to the screen, bump up to a god 1080p with upscaling. The native resolution will smooth things out and give you a better picture, but with that being said, you must get a projector that can perform as well as the AX-200. I liken it to my favorite plasma set, the 720p 60" pioneer elite just before they moved to the Panasonic based panel that moved the resolution to 1080p. Although the set was only 720p, it's motion, sharpness, blacks and colors are far superior to anything I've ever some across. But, if you are too close the set, you start picking up the lack of resolution.

Nick, here's the settings I went off of configuring the 20. These are from tomsguide.com and gave me a good base:

The first step is to adjust the gamma curve to maximize the depth of the blacks. To do so, adjust the brightness to 26 and set the gamma correction to -1. These two settings will move the gamma curve above the default position which is too bright.

The next thing to do is to adjust the color temperature. Here are the values you need: Gain - Red 1; Green 1; Blue -7 - Bias: Red -1; Green -1; Blue -1. That brings the color temperature closer to 6500 K, albeit with a few gaps here and there that we couldn't do anything about.

Dynamic range: By default, the lightest shades are very bright, and so we preferred to rein them in to something more natural. We chose settings of Color 44 and Tone 49. For this last setting, it's best to adjust it gradually, stopping when you have a result that seems appropriate.


Robert, I have had the blu-ray harshness discussion with many home theater fans, as well as many in the movie industry. It is a general feeling that the blu-ray is too harsh and is a far stretch from the smooth and less sharp film look that is so desired and what we are used to. I feel that blu-ray's are getting better. The first few years of blu-ray, many conversion houses hadn't found a good recipe for the loads of resolution that had to work with. To me, it was easy to pick out which movies had been shot on film, and which ones were shot digitally. More and more stuff is being shot digitally. I heard that five years ago, Panavision was leasing out 80% film and 20% digital. Last year they were 40% film and 60% digital. Another factor is CG. CG is always going to be very, very sharp. Robert, I'm the same as you where I have tons of dvd's on a media server. I added a DVDO video processor/ upscaler into my system and it makes the old dvd's look great!
Old     (sidekicknicholas)      Join Date: Mar 2007       08-17-2010, 8:51 AM Reply   
Sp I hooked it all up and was having a hell of a time getting 1080p working... it was so weird - but finally worked it out

PS3 dashboard - 1080P -- then I would go into a game/movie and it would switch to 480i. So I quit out and the dashboard would be at 1080p again. I checked all my settings - all the cords and PS3 on other items.... everything was fine. Then again to the HD20 - same issue. Long story short I had the PS3 set for 1080p or nothing - so the component wouldn't handle anything coming in except the dashboard in 1080p (weird I thought).... so I tried with an HDMI and it worked just fine.... but it was like 2 hours of crazy headaches for something so stupid simple.... i'll have to re-work my setup to move the ps3 to near the projector.

With that said/fixed the projector is AWESOME. It looks so gooooooood. Even at 120" it is just crystal clear and beautiful (I like the crisp look of blu-ray)
Movies, Video games, and TV are just great on it.

Also a local store that I get my cords/mounts/screens from is helping me out on getting a super deal from Best Buy (didn't buy the projector from them because BB price matches and I can go no interest for 3 years) - since BB price matches they're running a great "1 hour sale" for me when BB calls to price match.....
Old     (sidekicknicholas)      Join Date: Mar 2007       08-20-2010, 6:36 AM Reply   
^ So I hit a homerun on the BestBuy price match thing - finally got around to getting everything setup and my "screen" (a sheet pulled tight in a black frame) just looks like **** with the HD - so I figured I should look at a legit one.

Went to the store and they had a 106" for $300 and a 120" for $350 - I also wanted a ceiling mount ($50 there - cheaper online) and a long long HDMI cord (35ft for $15 there)
We talked a while and went around on prices - ended up getting the 120" screen - ceiling mount - HDMI cable all for $250 --- Just happen to have that much in cash and they went for it.

Get everything setup last night and it is INSANE how awesome it looks. The screen was so worth the money if anyone else is questioning buying one.

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