Viewsonic Pro8200 -- it exists. - Page 25

I have an Elite manual pull down screen "106"Inch Diagonal, 1.1 Gain Matte white material with a 16:9 aspect ratio." The only thing that throws me off with the Mitsubishi HC4000 is the lower lumens compared to the viewsonic pro8200. But to be honest, I don't exactly know how that all works. I'd be using the PJ in my living room, mostly at night but sometimes will be gaming during the day with ambient light. I'm not as picky as some when it comes to blacks. I just want a great picture with no judder or anything that would make someone dizzy from motion issues. Also dark scenes should be viewable/watchable without having to squint. The Mitsu has a great price on amazon and good reviews there. I'm going to search here for more opinions as I haven't really considered that one either. Thanks for the information and suggestions so far though, I appreciate it!

You had the Acer hd5360, how was the brightness for you in gaming, and for the room.
The Acer had is 2500 lumens
The pro8200 is 2,000 lumens
The mits hc4000 is 1,300 lumens

If you don't care about blacker/blacks like you just wrote, I'm thinking the pro8200 would be good if the acer brightness worked for you. Maybe it would be a little less bright, which is not a bad thing, and I am in same viewing as you, room with some ambient light during the day for gaming, no problems and no motion issues, I'm back from screen about 7-8 feet, works for me.

Now one user on amazon states about the mits hc4000:

Very nice sharp colorfull clear picture, a slient and great product. My living room has ambinet light and this projector will not cut it even in bright settings. Good for light controlled setups.

Now, once you go to brighter setting on the mits hc4000 , you go to lower bulb hours, 3000 hours. Maybe Coderguy can tell us when he was using the mits hc4000 was he using the lower or higher brightness mode.

Others that had the mits hc1000 before and then bought the mits hc4000 , said it's too dim. The mits' hc1000 is 1500 lumens and the hc is 1,300, and if you look in that thread that compares them, they do have actual measurements. And it is around 440 lumens in lowest setting and 560 in highest setting for the mits hc4000 and the hc1000 is about 490 and 650 I think going from memory. For gaming, I want the lumens, and the pop. Also, maybe people can give measurements on the mits hc4000 after 2,500 hours on bulb. Because you know it's not gonna be as bright as a brand new bulb.

Thanks rgtaa for your input as well. I think for me, lumens is important. I can live with the 500 less lumens than the Acer h5360. My choices seem to still be pro8200 and the Panny. I'm not pulling out my hair with this decision, I will be satisfied with either. I forgot to say, HD movies and HDTV are my main attractions. I will have it connected to my PC. I have a GTX 680. I do not have a receiver, nor cable, or sattelite. My pc is my entertainment center, i have a Logitech 5.1 speaker system. It's one of those expensive ones. I forget the model number. But yeah, I am a gamer and wlll be doing some gaming on the PJ, just not as much as watching movies and tv shows in the evening. I am satisfied with my 27inch monitor for that. I also have a 42inch hdtv, my wife loves watching Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. My daughter would stand right in front of the projector screen if i put an animated movie on This forum is awesome for resources. I have been a reader for a long while, I don't have a whole lot to contribute so I don't post often, but I am here often, coderguy, bse53, and even you grtaa are familiar to me, I was reading the calibration thread, so yeah lol. And rgtaa I am aware of how satisfied you are with the pro8200. Whichever projector I choose, I am going to add a 4 year Squaretrade Warranty, odd the 3yr and 4yr both cost the same. On amazon that is.

I switched my screen to a grey screen and I can use the pro8200 with the lights at full. With my older projector, I had to have the dimmer set to 40% light output or lower just to make out what was on the screen. My screen size is 96in diagonal.

Hey w84n01 Don't suppose you have a link to the screen you got? Or give a few more details about it?

Has anyone had any success with updating their projector?

Nope I don't think so, but if it's under warranty Viewsonic will most likely do it for you.

hmmm just went on sale on Newegg... sometimes price alerts can be quite dangerous!

Hey klown07,

I just bought a grey screen to use with this projector as well so I can report back how it works out for me as well since I will be using this projector in a room with ambient light at times. Only catch is I won't be getting the projector until next month but the screen is bought and paid for... Its a Draper Grey Acoustically Transparent Accuscreen in case your wondering. Got a great deal on one on Amazon for $106 shipped. I figured I cant even do DIY for that price with decent quality. Sadly its only a 92" screen... my room wont allow for anything larger. Ill report back in a month, LOL.

It was a DIY screen made from Wilson Art Fashion Grey laminate. Here is the thread I used for info. http://www.avsforum.com/t/708240/laminate-screen-material-and-testing

675 hours on my pro8200 and I've loved every minute of it! I'm using it with a DIY 98" screen on the Hardy whiteboard ($14 from Lowes) painted with Sherwin Williams paint - I think it was called Something "Ice"

So far I've talked one friend into buying one for his house and he also bought one for our work. You can't beat these projectors!

Anyway, quick question, has anyone been able to program their Directv remote to power on/off the Pro8200? I tried all the 8-10 remote codes the receiver suggested for a Viewsonic TV, but none of those worked.

i just bought my 8200 and it arrived today. i'm trying to change some settings and wanted to try the settings that coderguy mentioned on page 12 of the thread... anyways i can't change a lot of my settings. in my picture menu i have color mode set to standard and if i head into video settings, i cannot change saturation/sharpness/tint, they're all on 0. i also find in the video/audio menu i cant change the H or V positions either. is there something i'm missing?

There is thread on calibrating the pro8200, look for it. It should explain your options. Remember you have new bulb so follow the settings on someone else who has about the same lamp hours as you do, since settings change as you put more hours on it.

Also if you can't adjust some settings, maybe check to see which mode you are in, try USER 1, instead of STANDARD mode, since it gives you more options to change stuff since you input YOUR settings and not factory defaults.

I'm calibrating mine again right now with 2500 hours on the lamp (mostly just for fun), I will post results in the calibration thread.
I am using new software and doing a more sophisticated run this time.

well i tried the different profiles, specifically user1 because when i saw it i knew it'd allow custom settings, but i have the same issue. when i go to user1 more options gray out than when i'm in standard....

Are you using the HDMI 1 port or something else?
Try resetting the projector factory defaults (its in the information menu, or use the button on the remote).

Also change the color temp from Medium to USER not the overall mode.
Edited by coderguy - 10/3/12 at 10:36pm

yeah im using hdmi1. i'll have to try again when i wake up. night!

okay so all the settings just magically started working, so im fine and dandy, 1 last question / thing thats been bothering me is the angle of projection. it is shooting the image so much higher than the projector it'self i have my projector on my kitchen counter but i have to use books AND the built-in adjustment legs to really point the projector downwards so the image isnt on my ceiling. i have it at a really steep angle and the top of the projected screen is still right at the edge of my ceiling, the only way i could even get this centered is if i had the thing on the floor i think. this also forces me to be stuck using keystone for my image to be square, which lowers the quality. is this adjustable or something? i found settings for H position and V position but they aren't changeable. also, does this keystone stuff only account for vertical misalignments? it seems to compensate for non-90 degree angles that are vertically related to the wall but not from the side. okay thanks guys

Is your Pro8200 connected to a PC? This may be way off base, but I had a similar issue recently with my PA70G LED projector. There were various settings disabled like you mentioned. The fix was to change the resolutions setting on my PC. Not the actual resolution, but the frequency. I changed it from 60hz to 59hz, and suddenly all the projector settings were enabled. Just throwing that out there in case it might help your situation.

Edit: cool, sounds like your settings issue already just resolved itself
Edited by indio22 - 10/4/12 at 7:32am

I would recommend that you get a stand or mount it on the wall or something upside down. You can shelf mount it upside down with some ingenuity. You can use vertical keystone but you need to get the projector centered horizontally, as I don't think it has Horizontal keystone (well I don't remember, but if it does I wouldn't use it anyhow).

yeah only issue with ceiling mount is that i live in an apartment so i can do a ton of holes or wires in the walls, nor do i want to have to buy a really long hdmi cable to run up to the ceiling. thanks for all the info though. i think i'm all set and after some time i'll figure something out about that angle

You've ran into the one drawback on this great projector > its vertiical offset. For this price range, (and I think DLP especially), you don't see projects with an adjustable vertical offset (lens shift). And this particular projector has quite a large amoun of built-in offsett. For ceiling installations, it actually can become a feature to have such a high offset (if you have a tall ceiling). If you have a low ceiling, it can mean that the image is too low. The offset on this projector can limit the ability to use this projector in some installations The projector also has no horizontal adjustment, I believe the keystone is only for vertical.

Good luck finding a way to install it that works for you. Maybe you can do a shelf mount on the back wall, and mount it upside down from the shelf? HDMI cables can be purchased relatively cheaply online (Monoprice.com). You can buy a "chase" to cover the cables running up to the ceiling.

Another option is to tilt the screen to match a titled projector, thus reducing the keystone effect.

Yeah, lots of options on getting it to work, some have been suggested.
Upside down on table, or right side up.
Tilt it
Move PJ closer to screen and zoom
Move PJ further from screen and unzoom

You could buy stacking drawers in walmart and find the right height and just stack to that level. Or rolling cart, coffee table, night stand, bookshelf, shelf mount on back wall at right height. Depending on how high or low, get creative. As long as you can go straight back from screen, you just have to figure out the height that works and you are done. PJ could be placed in front of you coffee table height, or right above your head right behind you when seated (which is my preferred method about 4-5 feet height). It could be portable setup. Packing it up in 10 seconds and putting it away when done. Try it in different rooms, den, bedroom, living room, porch. That is the beauty of the pro8200 it's good in lots of lighting settings.

You could in theory use the PJ for 4 hours a day for 5 years (6,000 hours) before bulb change (200 dollars) . And if you mostly use it just on the weekends, you would get lots of years on the bulb.
Edited by rgtaa - 10/4/12 at 2:29pm

ok so a quick question (projector newb here)... i have a drop from my ceiling at 90" (so assume this to be ceiling height) to which i want to mount this projector too and I want the top of my screen surface to be 19" from the top off the drop on the opposite side where the image will be projected. The screen is a 92" 16:9 screen. The projector will be mounted 10.83' (130") away from the screen. I just want to confirm that I should be able to achieve, yes? Will I need to use vertical keystone correction? I hope not...

Thanks in advance as I know the question is a little complicated.
Edited by Thunder_God_Thor - 10/4/12 at 8:13pm

I"m not sure I followed you on the drop in your ceiling, but running the numbers on the calculator at ProjectorCentral, this is what you have for a 92" screen, with a ceiling mounted VS Pro8200: the top of the image will be 15.4" below the center of the lens, and the lens should be approx 10.8 feet from the screen (this is flexible about a foot either way due to the manual zoom, but the image drop won't change).

So calculating how high/low the image will be on the screen wall will be a factor of how high the ceiling is above the projector and how much drop the mount has from the ceiling, as well has distance below the mount to the center of the lens. In my experience, THAT is the tough thing to determine, especially because it can be tough to figure out how much drop a particular mount has when you are shopping online for mounts.

For me, I had a rough calculation of how high I wanted the image to be on my screen wall, then I mounted the projector, and then mounted the actual screen to match the projector image. I actually installed part of my mount above the sheetrock (I had attic access) to get my desired height.

Thanks a ton. That pretty much answers my question perfectly. I gotcha' on the whole distance below the mount to the centre of the lens. I guess its just something everyone has to deal with on the fly and hope the mount you get works out, lol.

As for the drop part... I can see how you were confused. Here is a picture of the drop going all the way around the room in the spoiler below:
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Basically I want to mount the projector where the lower arrow is pointing underneath the drop since on the oppositte wall the screen will be going underneath the drop as well. I essentially have lost 18" to the drop vertically unless I were to make modifications obviously. Thanks goodness its a 9 foot ceiling instead of 8 as even with 18" lost I still have close to 8 feet to work with. Im putting together just a small everyday projector setup for gaming and some movies as you can see so its nothing all that hard-core.

I updated the calibration thread with 2600 hours on my lamp. Figured what the heck.
I used the new version of Calman 5 and a NIST certified Spectracal C6 colorimeter.
Note that even at 2600 hours on the lamp, I was still able to calibrate it perfectly.

CALIBRATION CHARTS HERE:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1390576/viewsonic-pro8200-calibrations#post_21564597

^^ Thanks for sharing the calibration charts coderguy.


Any VS Pro8200 owners got any suggestion for a good ceiling mount that is low profile (as less of a drop from the ceiling as possible) ? Thank You

How's the reliability of Pro8200? Very little failure rate?

I think it has a pretty good track record so far. I think it helps that it has a 3 year warranty and 1 year on bulb. Sometimes newbies get horizontal lines and we generally tell them to change hdmi cables, and that seems to fix that problem, but people might not come here and ask, they might return it to viewsonic instead.

We haven't gotten anyone that had a bulb pop yet, at least none that I can remember seeing. Coderguy has the lead in the bulb department, he has over 2,500 hours on bulb, and still going strong. We will have to celebrate if he gets to 6,000 hours on the bulb. Maybe look through this thread and see if you can find people that had a problem. Then go to other threads of other PJ's , so you can compare.

Even if something does go wrong , we all have 3 years to get it fixed under warranty, unless you get refurb or buy used with no warranty or limited warranty.