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Last Updated: Oct 12th, 2006 - 09:40:27 |
Video projectors are making their mark in home theater as prices go down and quality goes up. The Optoma H56 DLP video projector is an excellent, affordable unit that can turn your living room into a true home theater. For more details, check out my review.
Overview
Despite all of my home theater gadgets, I really enjoy going to a real movie theater for that giant screen motion picture experience. However, that may all change now that I have had the experience of using the Optoma H56 DLP video projector.
The Optoma H56 is one of a new breed of extermely compact home theater video projectors based on Texas Instruments DLP technology. In addition, the H56 renders 16.7 million colors with 1,000 ANSI lumens, and has a 2000:1 contrast ratio. In addition, this unit is fully HD-compatible (720p, 1080i) with Progressive Scan and built-in de-interlacer for analog signals. In addition, the H56 has a full complement of Composite, S-Video, Component, and DVI video inputs, and is NTSC/PAL/SECAM/VGA/SVGA compatible. To round things off, the H56 comes with a 200-watt user replacable lamp with 2000 hour life, a wireless remote control, and a very nice and functional carrying case. Of course, the user must provide their own screen to take advantage of the video projector.
Setup
Setup of the Optoma H56 is extremely easy. If you are not familiar with video projectors, read the owner's manual to get a good understanding of how to operate the unit, but for an experienced user, a quick glance at the on/off procedure and the menu functions is all that is needed. The owner's manual is suprisingly easy and brief. After setting up a screen (size of your choosing), all you have to do is position the unit at the optimal distance from the screen (your choosing). For the purpose of this review, I chose to place the unit on a mobile cart, but the H56 can be easily be ceiling mounted with an accessory mount.
Starting up the projector is very easy. After you plug in the power, hookup your DVD player or other source to it, all you have to do is turn on the main power switch, wait for the projector to warm up for a minute or so, then an indicator light will signal you that it is OK to turn on the lamp. When you see the Optoma logo projected on your screen, you are all set to go.
Now, all you have to do to get going is adjust the zoom and focus so that your screen filled and that the detail is where you want it. For a permanent set-up I would definitely use one of many home theater setup DVDs available, however, since my purpose was to see how a quick setup would go, I forgoed that method and just eyeballed it.
The only drawback the projector had at this point was that the focus could only be manually done at the focus ring on the lens, not from the remote. This is fine for a table-top installation, but would be inconvenient in a ceiling mounted setting.
After setting up my screen size (which was a 10-foot diagonal 4x3 theatrical screen), I turned on the DVD player (a Technics DVD-A10) and, before I could pick up the remote to select the correct input, the projector automatically detected the correct active input and the DVD player's logo was showing on the screen. This is very convenient.
Testing and Evaluation
The first test of the H56 was with the DVD version of the classic B/W film Casablanca. The reason I chose this as my first test disc, is that many projectors exhibit an annoying green-tinted B/W image, with muddy blacks, and overblown whites. To my suprise the H56 exhibited none of these common defects. I, and my test audience, were impressed with the film-like quality, brightness, and excellent gray scale of the projected image. All this without using the remote to make any adjustments.
It was now time to check how color images would look. I selected five films (two old Technicolor classics, a Metrocolor classic, and two recent films). For the older color classic films, I chose the lastest DVD releases of Duel In The Sun (1946) and The Garden Of Allah (1936). Despite obvious issues involving the age of these films, the Optoma did an excellent job of capturing the technicolor characteristics of the films. The reds were fantastic, the dark scenes very watchable, and the flesh tones were consistent (except for actual film print variations). It was like being in a small movie house in the 1940's. Once again, with no additional adjustments. I, and my test audience, were very impressed.
Optoma H56 Letterboxing Test
Since the H56 has a native 4x3 DLP chip, it has to letterbox a widescreen image in order to project it, which results in slight lower resolution in the actual image itself. The films, selected for this test were: The Time Machine (1960 version), The Mummy (1999), and Six Days And Seven Nights (1998).
In brief, I was not disappointed, the aspect ratios of the films were faithfully projected. Also, the color and detail rendition of these widescreen films were excellent. The exceptional color quality on The Time Machine jumped right out at me and the special effects and action sequences in The Mummy showed no signs of motion artifacts. In addition, the excellent contrast capability of the H56 proved itself in the many dark scenes in The Mummy. Eveything was perfectly viewable. Lastly, the South Seas locations of Six Days And Seven Nights looked fantastic. Greens, blues, and reds were never overblown and the natural layers of color were easily distinguished in foilage and landscapes.
Testing Text Display Performance
Another test of the performance of a video projector is how good it can display text, which, in home theater terms, means smoothness and readability of opening titles and closing credits. Many LCD-type projectors display severe jaggedness of text and severe overblowing of the whites often used in closing credits. This is especially noticable as the screen size gets larger. Although the Optoma wasn't perfect, text was much smoother and readable than many projectors in this class that I have viewed. I had to get fairly close to the screen (too close for normal, comfortable, viewing) to actually see minor jaggedness present in the text display. If Optoma and other manufacturers can completely conquer this weakness in video projection, DLP video projection will be truly indistinguishable from film.
Overall Impressions
The Optoma H56 video projector, right out of the box, with minimal setup and adjustment, provides an excellent projected image of stunning detail and color accuracy. In addition, unlike many video projectors, there is no hint of annoying anomalies, such as green tinted blacks or overblown whites. Colors and shadows retain their intended characteristics even in the darkest scenes, while dominant primary colors such as red and blue do not become overwhelming in bright scenes. Even though the H56 is a fully capable HDTV video projector, even standard resolution 480i DVD images, through the S-Video connection look outstanding. With a more attentive setup procedure than I employed, it is hard to imagine many video projectors in this class being much better that the H56.
Conclusion
The only real negatives I found with this projector were that there was no focus from remote control, the sharpness control was not linear, but stairstepped (although I never really needed to use it), and that was no internal sound system or speakers in the projector (a very minor point in home theater applications, where you would use an external AV audio system anyway), but since this is a portable projector, you need to provide an external speaker system or hope that your computer or laptop speaker system is adequate for an on-site presentation.
In essence, despite the minor concerns listed above, I just cannot say enough about the excellent performance of the Optoma H56. If you haven't considered the video projector option for your home theater, this is definitely something you should check out and the Optoma H56 is an excellent choice to make. It is compact, easy to setup and use, and delivers excellent performance, even with non-HD source components and material. The Optoma H56 is definitely the best all-around, under $5,000 video projector I have seen.
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