CEDIA 2007 - Day 2: 1080p Projector Roundup, High Def Players & Ferrari Sound
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Manveer Wasson on September 7, 2007 3:21 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Our CEDIA Projector Quickies
If you keep in mind that we could hardly make apples-to-apples comparisons of the projectors at CEDIA, here are our subjective impressions on everything we encountered at the show.
JVC DLA-RS1: An older projector, but an absolutely beautiful picture. Great black levels and tremendous detail in dark areas. No built in vertical scaler though, so 2.35:1 aficionados need to look for an external scaler or the...
JVC DLA-RS2/HD100: We didn't see a huge improvement over the RS2, but these projectors looked great. Built in vertical stretch mode fixes one major problem with the RS1, but at a sub-$8K price these two aren't cheap. They manage to fit in perfectly between Sony's VW60 and VW200, it's almost as if JVC is augmenting Sony rather than competing directly with the giant.
Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 1080 UB: Very reasonable picture, although definitely lacking in detailed blacks. This could either be a great buy or a yawn depending on the street price. If it takes $5K to get this thing, then definitely not, but if we're talking $3K then Epson may be on to something. Darker blacks than the Panasonic but not necessarily more detailed.
Panasonic PT-AE2000U: Looked decent, slightly grey appearance to the picture especially compared to the DLP/LCoS based solutions we saw. Not bad but definitely not the best we saw, especially at ~$5K.
Runco RS-400: How much for a 720p projector? We're sorry, but we just don't get the Runco appeal yet, especially not at the entry level.
Runco RS-900: At least this one is 1080p, but only single-chip DLP which may cause rainbows for some viewers. And at $9K, honestly, we'd take the JVC DLA-RS2. The Runco didn't look bad, but it didn't exactly look better during our highly informal comparison so take that for what you will.
SIM2 C3X1080: Absolutely amazing, even put our favorite LCoS projectors to shame. VW200 who?
Sony VW60: Good blacks, good picture, good price - the only drawback? The JVC RS2/HD100 may be better, but this thing is also around $3K cheaper.
Sony VW200: Impressive 120Hz technology, the improvement over the VW60 doesn't seem large enough to justify the price difference though.
Our favorites from the show? JVC's RS2 and the SIM2 C3X1080, although Sony was a close runner up with the VW60.
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zemane - Saturday, September 8, 2007 - link
I don't know much about projectors but, is it too difficult to manufacture a native 2.35:1 projector? This way only 16:9 and 4:3 movies would have black bars on each side. Imagine, a true 2538x1080 image... :-)Fluppeteer - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Well, there are 4K projectors, if you've got the input and the money. (Or you can just run two SXGA projectors on their sides, overlapping.)This is the first I've heard of the anamorphic business. I'm confused: given that there's no more data available to add pixels, why digitally scale up (removing some high frequency information in the process, unless there's something exceptionally clever going on) to fill the 1080 pixels of the image, then stick an additional anamorphic (expensive and complicated, and probably not quite as high quality as a "normal" lens) lens in front of the existing optical elements? What does this gain you that sticking a bog standard wide angle lens on the front of the projector (and putting a couple of bits of cardboard over the borders if your projector has a poor black point) doesn't?
It just sounds like a really complicated and expensive way of making the image worse. Am I missing something?
Guuts - Friday, September 7, 2007 - link
The last (bottom-most) picture on Page 7 appears to be upside down.BigToque - Friday, September 7, 2007 - link
The projector could also be upside down and attached to a ceiling mount.