Official InFocus Sp8602 owners thread. - Page 20

Originally Posted by joerod

I'm going to have to get my hands on one of these.... See what the fuss (or buzz) is about.

Originally Posted by mark haflich

Well I have had in my own HT for considerable periods both the Planar 8150 and the RS35. I myself prefer DLP machines to DILA and the like primarily because of the greater sharpness. The DLP machine I presently use is much higher in price than either of these and the difference is primarily due to the better and much more expensive lens it uses. It does use a .95 DC4 chip too. That said, the RS35 is one fine machine as is the Planar 8150 now the LS5. The LS5 lists for about $7K if I remember correctly and like evey other projector out there big discounts are available.

I am not trying to pick on the Infocus. But it does seem to me at present it has its share of problems which I suspect Infocus will solve. There are things in the design I don`t like such as the range of the lens shift and the maner in which it is optically implemented. I would be much more impressed if the machine use a .95 chip too. Using a smaller chip is a pure economic move to lower costs. $5K MSRP and below machines really of necessity have to make significant performance compromises that say machines in the $7k MSRP range do not have to make. I`d save my pennies, shell out say a grand and one half more and be truly happy. That`s just me.

Originally Posted by rjyap

Great. If you can compare to H5080, I would like to know does this unit worth the extra money.

Originally Posted by mark haflich

This is an Infocus SP8602 thread. Many here are brand loyal to Infocus for whatever reason (many owned one in the past, including myself many years ago and I certainly sold many years ago too). Many here have a sub $5K budget( and actually the street price number is considerably lower but we can`t discuss anythung but MSRP here). So we have a this thing makes sense and more expensive doesn`t. Safety in numbers. The general concensus of the all knowing here.

Someone even went to far to justify a decision based on replacement bulb costs and coming lasers and led lit mahines. Given the infrequency of bulb replacements, does it really matter if one bulb costs $200 more than another. I am not going to go on further about bulb cost per hour.

Laser and led machines will be expensive for quite some time and will not be in the sub $4K budget class. Wanna shell out $15K to avoid the cost of a replacement bulb. Want the availability of a color gamut for which there are no sources.

I am a projector nerd. Pure and simple. I have sold many many projectors. Replacement bulbs. Most customers get maybe one or two over the life time of a projector. That`s it. A projector is usually not a 7 to 10 year purchase. Give it 5 years at most and the thing will be archaic. But hell, in 5 more years so will I. I will be, god willing, 70 then. But you know what? I want to enjoy the next 5 years with a machine that I can afford and which gives me the best image for my viewing priorities. I`d say the same thing if I were 35, but I would be watching my HT a lot less and doing a lot more of yopu knowwhat instead. In 5 years, just like over the past five years, there will be huge technology changes. same for the 5 years after that. Wait till then. You will always be waiting. But what`s the sensible choice till then. It depends on you means and budget. Come on you guys. Why spend for an Infocus. That`s the right balance for any sensible purposes somesay. Anything more would be pissing cash away and anything less an unacceptable picture some say. Yea right. Sure. Others FAR moresensible and in their mindsresponsible and more prudent shoppers wouldsay don`t buy the Infocus. You are pissing it away you morons. Go down to the box wharehouse store and buy a $1K projector. Go visit the sub $3K forum. Get the concensus there of what makes sense. After all, one must make the concensus choice. Right. Priovided its sensible.

Now I don`t sell Runco and I did sell Planar but that brand is gone. BUT I would get the Planar in a heart beat over the Infocus. Why. Because I can afford it and it is a really good projector with a lens much better than the Infocus, a .95 chip, uses the Gennum processing chip, the size and quality of the lens allows for the use of lens shift with minimal chromatic aberration costs not to mention use without gobbling up light. So whats the cost difference. One lists for $5K and the other $7K. So that`sa $2K MSRP difference. After discount, you fiqure it out. I`d much rather haver the Planar for x number of years than the Infocus. Is that stupid? It depends on your budget. If you can afford it, to me it would be stupid not to get the Planar. And I have something similar to the Planar but more expensive and better for my viewing quality priorities. Sorry for the rant. Remember even that $1K projector is pretty good. but don`t ever kid yourself that when you make your choice you have maximized the value balance. Charge of the light brigade. Buy the one I bought. My choice is maximized. Yea right.

Originally Posted by mark haflich

Well I have had in my own HT for considerable periods both the Planar 8150 and the RS35. I myself prefer DLP machines to DILA and the like primarily because of the greater sharpness. The DLP machine I presently use is much higher in price than either of these and the difference is primarily due to the better and much more expensive lens it uses. It does use a .95 DC4 chip too. That said, the RS35 is one fine machine as is the Planar 8150 now the LS5. The LS5 lists for about $7K if I remember correctly and like evey other projector out there big discounts are available.

I am not trying to pick on the Infocus. But it does seem to me at present it has its share of problems which I suspect Infocus will solve. There are things in the design I don`t like such as the range of the lens shift and the maner in which it is optically implemented. I would be much more impressed if the machine use a .95 chip too. Using a smaller chip is a pure economic move to lower costs. $5K MSRP and below machines really of necessity have to make significant performance compromises that say machines in the $7k MSRP range do not have to make. I`d save my pennies, shell out say a grand and one half more and be truly happy. That`s just me.

Originally Posted by mark haflich

Now I don`t sell Runco and I did sell Planar but that brand is gone. BUT I would get the Planar in a heart beat over the Infocus. Why. Because I can afford it and it is a really good projector with a lens much better than the Infocus, a .95 chip, uses the Gennum processing chip, the size and quality of the lens allows for the use of lens shift with minimal chromatic aberration costs not to mention use without gobbling up light. So whats the cost difference. One lists for $5K and the other $7K. So that`s a $2K MSRP difference. After discount, you fiqure it out. I`d much rather haver the Planar for x number of years than the Infocus. Is that stupid? It depends on your budget. If you can afford it, to me it would be stupid not to get the Planar. And I have something similar to the Planar but more expensive and better for my viewing quality priorities.

Originally Posted by scottyb

larry,

You should look at the Optoma 8600. go to www.projectorreviews.com

Scott

Originally Posted by scottyb

Larry,
I see that in the middle of his review but go to the summary and read about brightness.
http://www.projectorreviews.com/opto...00/summary.php

He says 696 lumens in best mode and 1166 in brightest mode.

Originally Posted by mark haflich

Hi Larry. The Planar 8150 and Runco LS5 are the same machines, just different badging.

Question. What screen gain are you considering.Roughly, you have roughly a screen of 42 sq. ft. I am going from memory.

The real question is how bright is bright enough. I have a 1.78 aspect ratio 110 inch D1.3 gain screen and evey single digital projector I have used hasb een way bright enough. My room is a non reflective black pit.

Howquickly the bulb agesand the throw you will use with respect to the zoom rangeall enter into the brightness issue. Also, it has been discovered recently that bulb housings give of fumes which have coated the first glas after the bulb. Talking JVCs here specifically. Cleaning the glass with a micro fiber cloth resores brightness thought in the past to be lost by bulb aging.

Anyway. Hard question to answer. I guess the first info I need is screen gain.

Originally Posted by mark haflich

I prefer the extra sharpness of a good DLP but the JVCs aren`t bad in this regard. I would go with a .95 DLP chip over the smaller ones. It all boils down to ones budget.

Originally Posted by mark haflich

The SP-A800B Samsung lists for around there and there are some Sim2 I believe with .95 chips. newer cheap machines use the smaller chip as a cost savings measure. Smaller chip, cheaper,smaller cheaper lens. In many ways the last generation of machines using the larger chip are better than the newer machines.

Many now want a machine that doesn`t use a bulb. Coming but not cheap, many some how want 3d projectors BUT. And I am not going to explain here, 3D eats up about more than 80% of the light one gets on the screen for 2D. The present generation of machines can`t get it for 3D with minor modifications. One needs lots of lumens. This is somewhat counter to great 2D presentation where light can be traded off by manufacturers for better blacks.

Originally Posted by LarryChanin

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the response.

I'm using a 120" 1.3 gain Stewart Firehawk. The location of my projector mount puts my projector's lens at 16' from the screen I figure this would be roughly at mid-zoom in most cases.

My room is totally light controlled. The walls and rug are neutral gray and the ceiling is dark blue. 90% of my viewing are movies with the wall sconces on the lowest setting, barely on. The stairs and edge of my seating platform are illuminated for safety. During parties or sporting events I also turn up the overhead halogens over the seating a little. With my current InFocus 7205, even with over 3,000 hours on the lamp and in low lamp power, there is ample brightness, even in the high ambient light conditions, and the image does not look unduly washed-out.

So I've gotten used to a bright, sharp 720p projector with fairly accurate color with just average black levels. I'd like to upgrade to a 1080p projector that still has those characteristics with improved black level. The projector mount is over the rear row of seating so I want a projector that is no noisier than my current projector which I believe is about 29 dB on low lamp power.

Larry

Originally Posted by smithfarmer

Home Theater Magazine has a new review of the Runco in it's May issue that you might find pretty interesting. The reviewer states it has the best out of the box color performance he has ever seen from a projector. The measured black levels match the JVC HD950(0.0013).

Originally Posted by smithfarmer

I have the LS-5 ceiling mounted slightly forward of the second row at 18' 4" from the screen(120" diagonal SilverStar, around 3 gain) and I have to use a Hoya HMC ND2 filter to reduce lumens. With the filter on and in economy mode, the LS-5 is as bright as my 7210 was in economy mode without the filter.

Home Theater Magazine has a new review of the Runco in it's May issue that you might find pretty interesting. The reviewer states it has the best out of the box color performance he has ever seen from a projector. The measured black levels match the JVC HD950(0.0013).

Originally Posted by smithfarmer

Hello Larry,

Home Theater Magazine has a new review of the Runco in it's May issue that you might find pretty interesting. The reviewer states it has the best out of the box color performance he has ever seen from a projector. The measured black levels match the JVC HD950(0.0013).

I do not doubt that the 8602 isn't a good pj but if you can afford to spend a little extra coin, the LS-5 might be worth the time to get a demo.

Originally Posted by scottyb

Is the review online or just in mag? If online where plz?

Scott

Originally Posted by mark haflich

The LS5 is a rebadge, nothing derogatory in that, of the Planar 8150. Planar and rinco are essentially the same companies. Although this is an infocus threadm I would not call it a competitor to the Infocus, it is a better machine than the Infocus. It has a .95 chip, the lens is bigger and better, the processing chip is better, the DI implementation is better, It costs MSRP $2000 more and this allows a bigger chip, a better processing chip, and a better lens. The color out of the box is right on on the machine I had. Tom Huffman calibrated my demo machine and he found it right on. I use a ND2 filter on this and similar machines to improve the reference black level. Such a filter will cut the light in half. The on off ratio remains the same. The ND filter will lower the ANSI CR. I only use the filter for movies prefering the extra brightness for sports but I do find the brightness with the filter fine for sports too.

My screen is a 110 inch D 1.78 aspect 1,3 gain. would urge again not to put much emphasis on 100 or 200 differences in ANSI Lumens. Increases in ANSI lumens are nowhere near a linear increase to the apparent brightness to ones eyes. All these machines are plenty bright for thescreen sizes and gains being discussed here.

The Adaptive contrast is a function built into the gennum processing chip. While the chip allows setting from off to wat way up in integer steps. The Runco allows only a 0 or off and guessing about a 3. I use an adaptive contrast setting of 1, using the function in my Gennum based video processor, and leaving it off in the projector. As near as we can figure oit, the adaptive contrast boosts the standard gamma curves at the top and bottom ends. The effect is like someone washed the basketball floor making it cleaner or brighter. Sort of like being at a basketball or hockey game when the TV lights go on.

The on off is nowhere as good as the JVCs, especially the RS35. However, the black reference level has a long way still to go on the JVCs not to mention the Runco. The big difference is the higher on off in the JVCs allows one to run a gamma of 2.5 on the JVCs without black crush, while the lower on off in the Runco really only allows a gamma of 2.35 or 2.4.

The Runco is sharper and punchier.

Hope this helps a little and I hope you Infocus guys don`t get too upset with us discussing other machines in this thread. ll said, the Infocus is still a very good machine.

$3500 - $10,000 Home Theater Projectors
It's interesting that in this category, the "best" mode brightness as a group, is much brighter than the mid-priced group. At the same time, collectively, these are not quite as bright in brightest mode. These differences are primarily due to there being no 3LCD projectors in this group, instead, a balance of DLP (6) and LCoS (3) projectors.

InFocus SP8602 projector:
The InFocus SP8602 projector really has some curious performance when it comes to brightness. Don't get me wrong, overall, it's the brightest projector in our $3500 - $10,000 class.

What's weird about the SP8602 is the significant affect lens shift has on brightness, and also the unusually large amount of affect the zoom lens position has on brightness. For the measurements shown in the chart, the SP8602 was measured with the zoom at mid-point (as is the case with all reviews), but, of note, the lens shift was set to 0 offset. That means the projector is mounted with the center of the lens even with the top of the screen (when ceiling mounting). The thing is, if you mount the projector higher, compared to the screen top, the SP8602 measures brighter and brighter. In fact, by the time you get to the maximum offset (about 14.9 inches above the top of a 100" diagonal screen), the projector brightens by 18.5%. That would take our 785 lumens up to about 930 lumens.

As I stated above, the lens zoom positioning has a lot more effect on brightness than I normally expect for a 1.5:1 zoom. In fact, it's more like the typical 2:1 zoom. The InFocus gets a healthy 16% boost in brightness as you move from center position on the zoom to wide angle.

Finally InFocus'es Brilliant Color implementation adds still another 35%.

What you end up with is a projector who's overall brightness varies more on how you place it in your room, than any other projector in this report. In almost all situations, this ScreenPlay 8602 is the brightest projector in its class.

Let's add in the boost for turning Brilliant Color on, and the 930 lumens jumps 35% to 1255 best mode lumens, and that's still at the mid-point of the zoom. If you are ceiling mounting (almost certainly with this projector), and can mount it up high (not a chance with low ceilings), above the screen by that almost 15 inches, and go with Brilliant Color on, and mount it with the lens at wide-angle, and all of a sudden, you have 1456 "best mode lumens". OK, few will be able to position it perfectly to get every last lumen out, but still consider that the 1255 mid-point zoom lumens make this projector capable of a "best" mode that's brighter than any other projector in the group's "brightest" mode.

It took a lot of work, and help from InFocus engineers to sort all this out. Our intial measurements were disappointing compared to claims, until we sorted through everything. At first I complained to them that it wasn't as bright as last year's IN83. As it turns out, depending on your setup, it's typically going to be brighter than the IN83.

As is typical for these higher end projectors, none, not even the InFocus, have as many bright mode lumens as some of the lower priced projectors.

In reality "bright" mode lumens aren't significantly brighter than "best mode".

Remember, the numbers in the chart assume mounting at 0 offset, not at the brighter maximum offset, and with the lens at mid-point. In the review itself we reported at "best mode" of 1059, but that was with Brilliant Color set to On.

Planar PD8150 projector:
The Planar PD8150 is average in brightness for 1080p home theater projectors although it is well lower than average for this group. Still, for movie watching, it's got enough to handle some of the larger screens. The problem is that if you want some lights on - even at pretty low levels, the PD8150 projector is not going to cut it, with a measured 606 lumens. That makes it the dimmest of this group of projectors, in its "brightest" mode. Bottom line, The PD8150 is best as a small screen projector, and in most situations, you'll want to limit your screen to a maximum of 100 inches diagonal, unless you are only interested in movie viewing.