*Official* Optoma HD80 thread - Page 2

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You mean Guitarman (Tom) hasn't got one yet? lol

For that kind of money, you could get a Panamorph and hire someone to move the lens in/out when needed.

Darkchip3 or nuthin'...

What's the wheel speed of the HD80 and HD81-LV?

What RPM is 1x wheel speed? I assume all manufacturers use the same base RPM for 1x?

Right after Infocom I'll get the both of them. The HD80 looks like the budget one to get. It has allot to offer for under 3k and it's DLP.

I'm hoping it'll be fairly long throw, almost every sub-$3K pj is already short throw...and a good many over $3K are as well.

Do you know whether HD80 will have lens shift ?

Looks like very very few DLP machines have lens shift - whereas most LCD ones have lens shift. Is there an inherent technical reason for for that ?

I've been looking at LCD PJs primarily because of lense shift ... rather than a DLP machine.

Any new info on this projector? Reviews???

Nobody has one yet. After Infocomm they're make one available to me. Infocomm ends this Thursday.

This question might be a little odd but my english isnt very good so there are a few things in the announcment i didnt understand. Will the HD80 be ready or will it be delivered with the "Fully Automatic 2.35:1 with Anamorphic Lens". Will i need to buy this or is it included? And another thing, will the scaler be included in this pack also? If so this projector looks alot better than the HD81 one, but as i said i didnt understand the announcement.

I will be anxious to read your review on this unit. I have the Panasonic AE900 and I would like to be able to make my next projector purchase a 1080P DLP unit.

Unfortunately, my room dimensions make it hard to acheive this and that is why I have the Panasonic.

It looks like it's finally "game on" for 1080 DLP.

This is a stand alone unit, all connections are on the projector, no scaler box needed, no 2.35 lens. It's got 2 HDMI 1.3, 1 DVI component probably S-video and VGA.

The HD81LV will have the scaler box and lens option.

You say as an option, does like in i CAN buy them as an option but it wont come with the standard package? So i need to buy all those items seperatly then, if i understood that right that is.

They won't split off the scaler box because the PJ just has the HDMI and RS-232 connections it needs the box, the lens I guess you could do without. No everybody want's to do a 2.35 setup, like me.

Hey Tom - looking forward to your review! I am sensitive to rainbows unfortunately and I currently have the Mitsu HC3100 DC3 720P DLP and at 5X wheel speed I still see rainbows Let me know how this unit fairs in this area (other 1080p DLP threads have posts stating less/no RBE?) Also, audible noise level please! Thanks.

I saw the HD80 last week at Infocomm. Optoma had it in their fully blacked out theatre projecting onto a 150" diagonal 2:35 screen with the optional anamorphic lens. They were running Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl.

I took a quick look at it on Wed, but our booth was very busy so could only spend a few minutes there. Fortunately things slowed down Thursday afternoon, and I went back and spent about half an hour watching it. By Thursday afternoon a lot of the engineering staff had left, so no one was really sure about the screen material, or the specifics about the source. Since it has the anamorphic lens as an option, I would imagine that the scaling was done by the HD80 itself, and it was simply the BluRay disk directly to the unit, however I couldn't confirm this.

I was quite impressed. It was VERY bright and VERY sharp. I didn't notice anything wrong with the colour. It was well saturated, and primaries and secondaries seemed to be in the right place. There were quite a few scenes with near primary yellow, and it looked fine to me. The ANSI contrast was great, probably because of the brightness, and I was quite impressed with the On/Off CR as well during the many dungeon, below deck scenes in the movie. I don't have the BluRay version of this movie, so I can't really comment on the shadow detail, but it looked fine to me. No evidence of flattening or BC. I also didn't see any evidence of dithering, but I didn't walk right up to the screen either.

Before I got my HD1000 ( which I love ) I never saw rainbows when I watched a DLP. Over the past 6 months I've began to see them quite frequently. Fortunately for me, it doesn't bother me. Now, I've never owned a DLP before, so it might have been something my brain had to get used to before seeing them ( the opposite effect of most ). While watching the HD80 I was on the lookout for them, but, I couldn't see them at all. Perhaps my rainbow perception has something to do with the white segment on the HD1000, and perhaps if I watched the HD80 long enough my brain would figure it out on that colour wheel too, but, during the half hour session I used every trick I could to see them during bright scenes, and couldn't.

Physically, it looks exactly like the HD81, except it has a white case. The Optoma reps said it was going to 'street' for $3k. There was no mention of the actual MSRP. They also said that they were shipping to dealers right after the show.

Only a few steps from the Optoma booth was the JVC booth demoing the RS1. They were projecting a variety of trailers. Unfortunately the room wasn't totally light controlled, and the trailers weren't the best for judging colour accuracy. The screen was significantly smaller than than the HD80 demo.

My VERY cursory comparison is that the RS1 was dimmer on the smaller screen. It also had a much more CRT like image. I say this because my primary theatre is CRT, and it's what I prefer for film. What this translates to is the HD80 appears to be sharper and brighter. So, for those who prefer that would like the HD80 image . For those who like a CRT like image, the RS1 is the closest I've seen so far, even in the less than ideal room I saw it in.

Hopefully Tom will be able to give a much better review than my quick one here very shortly.

Jonathan

Thank you Jonathan for that info! I'm very interested in this projector.

Jonathan,

Can you make any comparisons of black level (in dark scenes) between the RS1 and HD80?

Thank you.

Hi Jim,

The demo theatre where the RS1 wasn't a total blackout. The entrence was an alcove, and there was enough light spill to affect the image. I could clearly see the screen and mask in the brief moments between trailers. Also, the couple of times I dropped in they were only showing trailers, which didn't have any extended dark scenes. I'm willing to belive the pundits in the >$3K forum that the on / off is the best there is right now.

As far as the HD80, all I can say is that the dark scenes were satisfying to me. Clearly better than my HD1000, but not quite as good as my old CRT.

Jonathan

I just saw that the big box retailer that laid off all their employees has this pj on their website for what the rep said it was going to "street" for...if I could only get a long throw version. It says its "comng soon."

Thanks for your review Jonathan.

Now I'm really regretting not going to Infocomm as the convention center is almost "across the street" from me...

I checked out their website as well and if they are going to sell it for that price, that might give me some hope that other online retailers will have it for less when it comes out.

If they don't, then I might take advantage of a no interest offer and pick it up from them. Of course I need to find out if it will work within my room dimensions..

Hi Robert,

"Across the street from the convention centre"? You don't have big round ears and a tail do you?

Jonathan

looks like it has a 4x color wheel speed; I was hoping for faster wheel since I still see rainbows at 4x.

No but I have an annual pass...

A spec sheet I have from a British site lists the HD80 as having a " 7 segment, 6x speed wheel, featuring NDG (Neutral Density Green) technology. NDG increases visual color resolution in green, creating a higher bit-resolution image, and dramatically reduced low-level dithering artifacts." The projector is also listed as having a 28 dB acoustic noise level (same as HD70).

I wonder what the real difference is between the 80 and 81. With the 81 you no doubt get better processing, better lens and probably better build quality.

Also the 81 is only $1K more than the 80 and most importantly available now and at the dare-not-speak-its-name warehouse. I would imagine the 80 wiould most likely not be shipping in any quantity until a few months post Cedia. Probably 6 mos out.

I, too, sat in on a demo of the HD-80 at Infocomm and can also attest that it does not have a CRT like image. It is very sharp and well saturated, but lacks the overall image and color depth that a CRT provides. In the enclosed, blacked out room that was being used, a good 9" CRT in a side by side comparison would have smoked the HD-80. In the viewing room, I'd estimate they'd brought down the brightness and had ANSI lumens at somewhere around 385 - 425 max. However, economies of scale being predominate, the HD-80 has an image that on a scale of 1 - 10 I'd rate somewhere around 7.5 to 8 simply because you can still tell that it's a digital projection and you still can't get "black". Having been involved in AV for the better part of 15 years, my eyes tell me that I've seen much, much better but those were $30 - $40k projectors with a Snell and Wilcox $25k interpolator.

The DLP projectors are continuing to improve, but still an awfully long way from obtaining the immersiveness, saturation and depth that you can get from a quality CRT. However, for the masses, it's not too bad and actually quite good. How these will look coming in from the factory is yet to be seen.

"CRT in a side by side comparison would have smoked the HD-80."

It's all according to what you're smoking. I don't have a great CRT Dwin HD700 but I turn it off when it comes to HQ HDTV viewing. The Dwin is too mushy for me and I've grown to like the clean sharpness of a 1chip DLP machine. Contrast and blacks have come along nicely on the recent digital machines, easy to live with.

Talked with my Optoma contact today and he'll send me a machine asap, oh boy!. A couple of details, the HD80 has the same colorwheel as the HD81 RGB/dg/RGB 6x speed, it uses a Pixelworks soluiton chip to cover the 1080 deinterlacing. The Pixelworks will do a decent job, not up to the level of Gennum though. Still $2999 you can't get it all but the machine does have many of the HQ items in the Flagship HD81.

I am starting to drool over this guy.... but I am just worried it will not work with my room setup... So I am anxious to see the final specs on this baby.