New Optoma HD33 HD3300 1080p 3D Projector Review - Page 37

Got my 3300 today and, naturally, had a 5:00 meeting pop up at the last minute that made me an hour late getting home and since it's a Friday, wife's not going to get down with me disappearing into the basement with my new toy. So....

I got it unboxed and set it on a cooler and projected to my 120" 1.0 screen just to get a quick tour and play around before dinner. Here's my initial thoughts as a first time PJ owner...

- This projector is kind of big (not a bad thing). Definitely a theater projector as there's no way I'd take this thing on the road for business...the case would be huge.

- Black level out of the box is decent on Cinema or Reference just going by my eyeball. I sampled Gladiator 1080P, Mad Men 720P, Top Gun 1080P, Mars Needs Moms 3D, Avatar 3D, and a bit of a Top Gear episode in 720P... all on a Samsung BD-6700. All looked pretty darned good except Top Gun but that movie needs to be remastered so bad I can hardly stand it.

- There's a scene from Mars Needs Moms that my Samsung 7000 LED ghosts ridiculously bad so naturally I pulled that up with and viewed with my UltimateHeaven DLP Link glasses and there was ZERO ghosting/crosstalk/whatever.

- Avatar is an insufferably horrible steaming pile of a "movie" but this projector in 3D is good enough to distract you from the plot. The scene in the beginning where the dude from Terminator 4 is wheeling his chair down the aisle of the airplane started aggravating my claustrophobia. Yes, it's that good. And yes, the DLP Link mode turns the blacks a red tint without the glasses but I don't notice it with the glasses on (which is the only way you'd watch it so I'm not sure what the big deal is there.)

- I don't hear any "mooing" at any point going from 2D to 3D or vice versa. I also didn't notice the fan, FWIW.

- Several times while switching to a new movie in the Samsung BD player either from the disc or DLNA streaming resulted in the PJ searching the inputs and about 75% of the time it would come back to the BD source fine but several times it lost sync and never found the original source. This could be the Samsung's fault though, more testing needed.

That's it for now. I'm out of town for a few days and hope to get some serious alone time with this PJ middle of next week. So far, no regrets at all... except maybe my 16:9 screen. ;-)

Avatar is like overly strong toothpaste, the first time you taste it, it is very interesting with all the extra colors and glitter, but after seeing the movie more than once, you never want to watch it again.

I think it was the corny acting that made it seem worse than it could have been.

One other thing I was concerned about... screen door. I'm told that I have perfect vision by my eye doctor - so FWIW - I have to get about 3-4 feet away from the screen to see the grid at all.

I pulled a chair up to about 8 feet from the screen (way too close for 120") as a test and there's no screen door.

HD3300 will be here Monday cant wait. Thanks AVScienece and Mike for the
excellent transaction.

Any recommendation here for a good 3D blu ray player? My sony blu ray 3d is functioning well . Im hearing a noise sometimes when playing disc.

I have the Samsung BD-6900. On one hand, it seems to be durable, as I dropped it from my desk the other day while I was moving it.

On the other hand, the controls and menus can be a little klunky, and for Netflix the device doesn't show you ANY resolution bars, which I find annoying because I am never sure if I am getting full res. My old LG-BD390 or whatever the model was, seemed to have very advanced menus and the Netflix interface showed the resolution bars, but the DVD DRIVE went out on it, so the LG (although better in some ways) is now a $400 Netflix only device.

Got my 3300 and extra glasses in today - sad thing is it has to sit in the box until the screen I ordered gets here - and who knows when that'll be

Throw it on a wall or a sheet. This never stopped anybody from at least looking and in some cases is recommended to determine screen size and placement.

I will try to catch up on all the pages so far. Read the first 2 and the last page so far. I have the HD20 and have 2 specific questions about the HD33.

My HD20 has 4 issues that I hope do not exist on the HD33. And they did not exist on my HD70 of 3 years.

1. Bottom 6-12 pixels have lag. (I would have to count them again.) So left/right movements of high contrast give streaking. Though it rarely is seen when paying attention to the movie or game. So not a deal breaker, but it's a flaw none-the-less.

2. Red/Blue color tint across the screen. If I project an all black or all white image. The lower left side has a red tint and the upper right has a blue/purple tint. Now it's extremely faint and even with solid colors on the screen it's hard to detect. But it's there and my HD70 didn't have this color uniformity flaw.

3. Lens assembly has some play in it which if you "wobble" it around, it shifts the image around by about 1 inch in any direction. Which is annoying. Focusing is hard as it moves the image around because of this. And more annoying is that if it's not dead center in the play, then the image is not 100% square at all 4 corners.

4. Focus seems to change as the HD20 gets fully warmed up in about 60 mins. I could be wrong, but I swear if I focus when it's cold, then 1 hour later it's slightly soft. And if I focus when warmed up, then the first hour is soft. I could be wrong. But I sometimes refocus because I swear it's changes on me. May as be part of the loose optics assembly.

My HD20 is one of the early units. So maybe they resolved all these things by now. But I am hoping the HD33 doesn't have any of these tiny and somewhat hard to detect issues.

Can anyone who already has their HD33 or 3300 check and tell me if the mounting dimensions in the online manual on Optoma's website are correct? I need to build a custom mount for mine and wanted to do it this weekend so I would be finished by the time my projector arrived next week. I would really appreciate it.

I have the HD33 and the Optoma RF glasses.

After viewing a couple of 3D movies with no ghosting issues I did run into a problem last night. When I popped in Thor 3D I did see some really bad ghosting. It was kind of weird because I hadn't seen this before. I didn't change any settings in my system so I can't imagine why this cropped up.

I changed the projector to DLP-LINK mode and used my DLP-LINK glasses and had no problems at all.

Really weird. Maybe this is what some people are seeing. I wonder if it depends on the movie?

Got my 3300 hooked up and runing. It's a thing of beauty! I am having an issue though. It has "locked up" on my a couple of times already. It will still play the media i'm playing (blu-ray or from the pc) but when in this "locked up" state, it will not let me preform any commands including powering off. I'm sure it's just my unit and I will be giving optoma a call, but was wondering if anyone else had this issue?

On a PQ note, as this is my first projector I can't compare it to another, I find the PQ breathtaking. During the IMAX scenes in the Dark Knight I was like...WOW! Watched 2d Tangled and Despicable Me with the kids and they too were great. Watched Patton on netflix, this too was great. I find the contrast to be very good. BTW, i'm using blackout cloth as a screen! Haven't build the frame for it yet either.

Also, for those who are looking for a super cheap mount, i'm using a $14 monoprice universal mount. It swivals both ways. Fits the 3300 no problem. It takes a little fiddling with, but i'm sure most universals do. Seems very sturdy for the price (it's rated for 50lbs.).

The dimensions from Optoma are dead on. I initially had hoped to keep my new projector in the same place as my old one, an Optoma HD803. However, it would not work because it was outside of the stated range for the HD3300.

I will be watching Thor in 3d tonight and will report back any thieving or crosstalk issues. Did you notice problems throughout the entire movie, or just a particular part?

I've had projector lock up happen on other projectors when the signal isn't strong enough. Do you see any sparklies when the image is showing? If you do, you'll need a better hdmi cable--one rated 1.4, though 1.3 should work. On the other hand there might be ground loop in play.

The DLP-Link glasses are synced to the screen and not an emitter, plus each eye might remain open for a shorter duration because of the flash sync. Neither of these factors might be relevant, but you could test this by adjusting the 'duty cycle' (the amount of time each lens remains open) or the 'delay' on the RF glasses. It looks like you've stumbled upon an ideal test subject.

im pretty sure it was this thread where someone said they got rf glasses dropshipped from optoma or something like that, i searched and couldn't find it on here, anyone remember this?

I don't have the HD33, but I do have the HD20 which is basically considered the 2D version of the HD33. A big difference between the HD33/20 and the GT750e is the brightness. I don't know what the wheel speed is in the GT570e, but the 3000 lumens versus 1700/1800 of the HD33 / HD20, is a huge jump.

I also had the HD70 (720p) before the HD20, which was much lower 1000 lumens.

But even with the low 1000 Lumens, with the wrong settings, I could also push that to show rainbows. I too am sensitive to rainbows.

I have found a few things that exaggerate rainbows for me.

1. Distance to screen. If I am closer than 1x from the screen where it requires my eyes to do a lot of left/right travel. If your head has to move, even worse.

2. Can't remember the settings now, but there were some specific settings on the HD70 and HD20 that increased the digital noise and also made the rainbows worse for me at any distance.

3. Source content. Obviously ultra high contrast of bright objects against black scenes moving fast left/right will almost always cause rainbows for me on any 4x speed projector. But I don't know what speed the GT705e is. The HD33 is supposedly 6x (3x plus the high frame rate). But I don't know if the 6x figure is only for 2D viewing.

In the end, I sit further back and have adjusted the settings where my current HD20 does not have any rainbows 99% of the time. I generally have to have some extreme left/right movements in very rare scenes and look hard for them.

If I end up getting the HD33, I am hoping for the same or better performance in every way.

I am wondering if the GT705e is a 2x wheel speed given that in the past, bright (2500+) "gaming" or "business" projectors that don't list wheel speed; have almost always ending up being outed as 2x wheel speeds. But that is pure speculation on my part for the GT705e.

I'd like to hear what Optoma would say about this.

If this is fixed by some one time delay & duty cycle adjustment, that would be ok. But those timings can't be movie dependant (and shouldn't be).

Guitarman, can you reach out to your contact and ask about this ?

the mount plate for my current installed mount for my epson looks like this:



is there a mounting plate that is like this one that would house the screw placement for the 3300?

also, is it safe to say that people using DLP Link glasses are generally having less problems? I am trying to decide with route to go with glasses...

thanks

oleus

I've ordered the HD3300. Now I'm trying to figure out the appropriate screen size for the space. The wall the screen has 16ft of space in front of it and then another 3.5ft of hallway going into a bedroom. With a 120 inch screen, I can place the projector in the hallway out of the main view, but I'm thinking that a 100 inch screen will be more pleasant to watch in this space. Any opinions? Here is the floor plan.

Attachment 222902

Photo with 100 inch screen corners marked on the wall. I took this photo 16ft from the wall.

Attachment 222908

i would go 120, thats the size i'll be doing as unfortunately I can't fit 135 without the screen being practically on the floor. 100 is going to get small fast.

I agree with robl, I think that 120 is the way to go. Especially if 3D is a big focus to you - the bigger the better.

I was targeting 120 inches. The throw calculator for the HD33 recommends seating starting 12' back. Since the back wall is 16' and needs space to get the bathroom I think my dreams of 120 inches have to be suppressed.

Does 3D have any effect of the optimal sitting distance? Also, don't large screens + DLP increase the odds of the rainbow effect appearing?

throw distance for that screen is around 14 feet so you should have the room. as for seating, I say sit where you want to sit. if you watching 3d, you want to have the screen in your full field of view IMHO, even at the movie theatre, its much better when i sit closer and the screen is fully in my vision, we have a huge imax theatre here, 3d is incredible with that screen.

You are very welcome and if there is anything I can help you with, just call or email.

Receiver question here. I am using the Onkyo SR605 that I feed my video sources thru so that I have only 1 hdmi cable going to projector. Will this receiver be ok with 3D? I am also using a HDMI cable purchased from Monoprice, is there a way I can check to see if it will work also with 3D?

Go with a larger screen than 100". I would go 110" using a screen with a little gain.

I'm in 17 x 14 room with 8.5 ceilings and 110 is just about perfect for me.