Official InFocus Sp8602 owners thread. - Page 8

I meant what is your current Infocus that you are migrating from.

I have had this one a while it's barely hanging on I'm on my 5 th bulb we watch it alot. I still think it does a great job it's ceiling mounted firing at 109 inch stewart fire hawk it's in our family room.

You should be looking at the Optoma 8600.(if the 8602 doesn't pan out)
Bright with lots of pop and relativly good blacks(not in the same league as the JVC's but a lot more pop)

Scott

i have heard that they break alot atleast thats what i was told will see tommorow.

Hi everyone. Well, I received the SP8602 yesterday and have to say my first impressions are that it is extremely impressive.

My previous projectors have been an IN80 (X10) and laterly the IN83, which I last used on Sunday.

Can't claim to know much about the competition and I will not attempt to breakdown the performance of different attributes of the picture, but in terms of overall picture quality, based on only a few hours viewing, it seems a huge leap forward from the IN83.

The main thing that strikes you is the amazing 3D quality of the image - it is hugely immersive and has incredible depth compared to the IN83, which wasn't bad itself.

That's not a side-by-side comparison, but it is very obvious that the picture has more pop. I swapped my IN80 for the IN83 and have to say that the difference I noticed was much more subtle.

The SP8602 picture is very sharp, not sure if it is minimally less sharp that the IN83, but if so it is more than made up for by the overall picture.

It has a very natural feel and I immediately found myself noticing tiny elements of a scene I'd not noticed on the IN83.

Movement seems to be handled beautifully smoothly as well.

Having read Art's initial review I was a bit worried about the lumens compared with the IN83.

But again on initial impressions the brightness is more than adequate and not really noticeable, probably because the other aspects of the overall image - very bright colors and much improved contrast - make up for it.

To clarify though, my feeling is that, unless you plan to watch a lot in a less than dark room, the brightness of this projector isn't an issue.

The best thing I can say about the dynamic iris is that I haven't really noticed it doing its stuff, so it must be fairly smooth.

Another really evident improvement over the IN83 is, from what I've viewed so far, improved performance in dark or murky scenes.

I always found the IN83 suffered a bit from banding (if that's what you call it) and a sort of bluey-black hue in low-light but low contrast scenes.

So far, this projector looks far more impressive. Again, you can judge its success on the fact it isn't noticeable. It was on the IN83. I will update this if I find out otherwise. Might be too early to tell.

Could be my imagination and will need to be confirmed from longer viewing, but the projector also seems to cope with live sport better too.

My IN83 seemed to judder quite a lot on soccer, but I didn't see this last night on the new projector. Again, I'll need to provide an update on this later, as it may have been luck.

On to the design.

Have to say describing it as a beast is about right. It may not be much bigger than the IN83 in terms of overall size, but the boxy shape makes it appear pretty huge, even when you're prepared for it.

I've got a big room, so in a small room it would look gigantic.

That said, it is an acquired taste and even my wife seems to think it is quite funky in a retro kind of way. At the very least it has character, which is a good thing.

Placement flexibility is much, much better obviously and the first thing to strike me when setting it up in the same position as the IN83 was how big the image could be in comparison. That's got to be handy.

Adjusting the image takes some getting used to from the old swivel stand, but it is actually pretty well designed, as is the very neat remote control.

I actually think the blue ring around the lens is quite neat and a nice touch, plus you can turn it off, so no problem if you don't like it.

Will be interesting to see what the reviews are like. Art's initial thoughts seem a bit unsure, which surprises me based on what I've seen.

In summary, I think that, much like the IN83, there will be competitors with better black levels, better brightness etc, but that, for overall image, the SP8602 will just have that special secret-ingredient x-factor that's hard to describe in stats.

SaintJD, thanks for posting you initial impressions. It sounds like the SP8602 is indeed a nice improvement over the IN83.

You mentioned that thus far the iris seems well behaved, which is good. What I would like to know is how rapidly does it adjust during transitions from a majority bright scene to a dark scene and or dark to bright. On my Benq W5000, the iris adjusts almost instantly when going from dark to bright, but lags by around 3 seconds when going from bright to dark. As a result, the dark scene initially looks flat/low contrast, and improves as the iris stops down. You can see the black level drop as this occurs. Any feedback on how the SP8602 behaves would be appreciated.

Also curious about how much dimmer is this projector? I do like a decent amount of lumens so I hope its over 600.

As I'm new to having a dynamic iris I didn't really look out for it, but I will try to focus in on this tonight if I get the chance.

I watched a couple of scenes where this would have happened, but the fact I didn't notice or think about the iris changing would suggest it must be pretty good, and I was concentrating on the image quality more than I would normally.

I was a bit paranoid about how good this projector would be due to the lack of reviews, the delays and the changes at In Focus, so I was expecting some problems.

In answer to the other poster, I think the brightness is more than fine, although I know Art had some reservations he's hoping to settle with a new review unit.

I can only go by what I'm seeing and, having expected a very noticeable difference to the IN83, was pleasantly surprised.

SaintJD, where did you have the manual iris set on your IN83? Was it stopped down, or where you running it full open? Low lamp or high?

It was a new lamp, not on high power because of the extra fan noise, but with the Iris generally between 100-70 depending on what I was watching. So pretty bright.

Thanks Scottyb. I will look at the Optoma 8600 as well.

SaintJD's impression of the SP8602 is everything I was hoping to hear from a user of the IN83. The fact that he can't say much about the auto iris is a very good thing. It means that it's good enough that he didn't notice it, even after coming from the IN83 without an auto iris.

I want my next projector to have at least the same pop from ANSI contrast as the IN83, but with deeper black levels than the IN83. So a projector with an equivelent compromise in brightness for deeper black levels would be nice. Since SaintJD says the SP8602 has noticeably more pop and with much deeper black levels, there must be significant gains in both areas. Plus it has creative frame interpolation. I think this is the projector I've been waiting for. The IN83 will still have it's place for rooms with ambient light.

What an exciting thread!

I have news

The InFocus SP8602 before summer will receive an update of firmware , and will become a 3D projector.

What in the firmware would make this 3D?

I just put mine up this morning and iRis is very quick the projector is huge bigger then the jvc it is quiet it's above my head about 6 ft away and I don't hear anything. compared to my 7210 blacks are great 3 d depth on startrek is amazing the images almost don't look real. The only thing that concerns me is the motion smoothing it seems to act like a lcd on sports I am still tweaking. Keep you guys posted

I don't know if it's true or not (I really hop it is), but your question has an easy answer: support 1080P48Hz and frame interpolation of it to a higher refresh I would think.

It's true news.
I don't know what to do the new firmware , maybe to accept to HDMI 1080 120p.
The hardware is capable to reproduce 3D.

Clearly the "Motion Smooting" goes to 120Hz.

Thats the thing they dont spell it out like that they just have ajustments high low off fast ect not like on he old ones that you could see that 1080P48Hz stilll messing with it. i am also using it with the color wheel at speed 4 with no rainbow efect at all.

where did you here this info from?

From the Ufficial Italian distributor of InFocus.

I actually just got off the phone with US tech support. He only said that he didn't have specifics but did hear about a 3D firmware update. I don't know if he was just blowing smoke up a$$ or not.

Do you believe me now?

I didn't doubt, I was just curious what a firmware update would need to provide for this capability.

How audible is the color wheel compared to the IN83?

As long as the hardware is capable of accepting the required signal via HDMI and is capable of displaying the signal as the spec requires, the firmware would simply need a function added to read and decipher the signal and to instruct the hardware accordingly.

Mostly all I hear on my IN83 is the cooling fan.

It's amazing normal volume on my receiver 5 ft above my head and it's so bright on low

On my IN83 at least, I find that "high" mode does not much affect black levels. More than anything it makes the blacks "appear" deeper because the ANSI contrast is much improved.

Just wanted to say that I got mine today
I am upgrading from an X10.

Hi there.

A couple more quick comments from some very quick viewing last night.

The dynamic iris definitely isn't noticeable to me so I'd say there is no delay. That said, I've not had a projector with one before, so someone who has something to compare it to would be better placed. That said, I simply don't notice any obvious changes that would tell me it is operating.

I mentioned the 3D aspect of the picture last night and it is very good, but particularly noticeable with motion smoothing (which is on by default).

That effect reduces slightly when turned off, but the image does still have plenty of pop.

The problem with motion smoothing is that there is some occasional, but definitely distracting, flashes of static-like image noise.

Funny how so many companies put special features on their hardware that obviously don't work perfectly!

So best turned off I'd say, but I think I could live with it on sports because it does much improve the fluidity of movement.

Noise wise it is probably comparable to the IN83, but I find it even less distracting because of the low pitch.

I'd say pitch rather than volume of noise is the key thing here, because I have an Hitachi TV that is much less noisy, but the slightly higher pitch is much more off-putting.

User interface is better and having decent touch controls on the unit itself is a real bonus and important, as I was always concerned I'd lose my IN83 remote or break it.

As with anything, I'll really need to sit down and watch a few films normally to make a better rounded assessment, but initial thoughts are good.

I'll also need to watch a few films that are likely to be more of a general movie experience than the ones I've viewed scenes from so far, which naturally have been from movies that look impressive on the big screen, such as The Spirit, Kung Fu Panda, Doomsday, Sex and the City, and Quantum of Solace (OK, not necessarily great movies, but great looking in terms of colour, quick action and sharpness).

By the way, I've been viewing all content from Sky HD, so I'd expect the Blu Ray experience to be an extra step up too.