I have been a Home Theater enthusiast for several years now, and although my name may not seem too familiar here...I participated quite a bit here and on The Big Picture forums 18 months ago when I purchased my Sanyo PLV 60. My screen is a 100" (diagonal) GreyHawk 16:9. I have tweaked and re-tweaked my Sanyo...even purchasing the "Lens Filter Sandwich" from SMART products. In my opinion I have pretty much optimized the performance of my PLV-60, and I am quite happy with the result. The current picture I have with my PLV-60 is very good, but still not quite up there with a good 9" CRT projector.
A friend of mine recently took delivery of a new InFocus X1 and we decided to set it up in my HT room and do some comparisons versus my PLV 60 on my GreyHawk screen. Here are the results of our first comparison:
First of all let me start by saying I have viewed just about every type of projector imaginable from the reference Holosonic Theater at Widescreen, to displays at local trade shows. Although I feel I have a good frame of reference, I have never actually set up and calibrated a DLP.
After we set up and aligned the X1, we took out AVIA to get to work on the calibration. Contrast and brightness were quick and easy, but color and hue (tint) were a different story altogether. After setting up several CRTs and my PLV 60 I was surprised on how different the colors on the "Blue Bars" pattern were from what I was accustomed to. I had always heard about color accuracy being one of the pitfalls of DLP and this was my first introduction to this phenomenon. We dialed in the picture settings to where they should be and the colors still were a bit off. No matter how much we tweaked we couldn't get them to look right. We used both the Warm and Cool settings and settled on Warm in the end. We finally agreed that we weren't going to be able to get all the colors where we wanted them to be and got them as close as we could with AVIA and went on to view some video. On a side note...the biggest and most noticeable color problems were with Yellow, Green and Cyan.
We first viewed Lord of The Rings and then Monsters Inc. Using an A/B comparison and found that the picture on the X1 was indeed, very good. When we would switch over to my PLV-60, especially during the bright colorful scenes in the Shire, the difference in color fidelity and depth were very noticeable with the advantage going to the PLV-60. However, during the darker scenes the differences, while still noticeable, weren't nearly as dramatic. The contrast and the blacks were a little better on the PLV-60, but remember my PLV-60 has been tweaked for months and has 2 lens filters added on.
Screen door was not noticeable on either projector from our viewing distance of 13'. However, both projectors were NOT set up on perfect pixel focus. We went down a couple of notches from perfect pixel focus to focus on words and scenes. I don't call this defocusing, because we lost no resolution, we just slightly took the edge off of the pixels borders. If both projectors were at perfect pixel focus then screen door was slightly noticeable on both from 13'. Why you would focus in this manner is beyond me...since you can lose the screen door without losing ANY resolution with just a slight adjustment.
Projector noise was quieter on the X1 by about 5 db and the noise was not bothersome or distracting.
Light spill from the X1 was evident above and below the screen since the projector was a 4:3 and we were shoing 16:9 material on a 16:9 screen.
Neither of us noticed any rainbows during our testing.
The X1 also has a good amount of light leakage from the front fan vents. I would find a way to block or fix this (which wouldn't be to hard to do) if I was buying this projector.
In my opinion one of the true tests of a good disaplay or projector is how well it pulls you into the picture. Well, the X1 pulled us into the film quite well. Several times I found myself watching the movie and not reviewing the projector. The overall picture of the X1 was VERY VERY good, especially when you consider the price. Had we not had my PLV-60 projector to compare it to, we would have had a hard time faulting this baby.
The X1 is a good projector and it will give many people the ability to enjoy a 100 inch "good quality" picture who never thought they could afford such a luxury. Is it worth the extra money to get the PLV-60. Well, compared as they were, I would say yes, but there are probably going to be some tweaks for the X1 to make it even better and that could change the whole ballgame. If you have $3000 or less to spend on a projector, and you don't mind that it is a 4:3 projector, then there is no doubt that the X1 should be on your list. We were both impressed with the performance from this mighty mite.
A friend of mine recently took delivery of a new InFocus X1 and we decided to set it up in my HT room and do some comparisons versus my PLV 60 on my GreyHawk screen. Here are the results of our first comparison:
First of all let me start by saying I have viewed just about every type of projector imaginable from the reference Holosonic Theater at Widescreen, to displays at local trade shows. Although I feel I have a good frame of reference, I have never actually set up and calibrated a DLP.
After we set up and aligned the X1, we took out AVIA to get to work on the calibration. Contrast and brightness were quick and easy, but color and hue (tint) were a different story altogether. After setting up several CRTs and my PLV 60 I was surprised on how different the colors on the "Blue Bars" pattern were from what I was accustomed to. I had always heard about color accuracy being one of the pitfalls of DLP and this was my first introduction to this phenomenon. We dialed in the picture settings to where they should be and the colors still were a bit off. No matter how much we tweaked we couldn't get them to look right. We used both the Warm and Cool settings and settled on Warm in the end. We finally agreed that we weren't going to be able to get all the colors where we wanted them to be and got them as close as we could with AVIA and went on to view some video. On a side note...the biggest and most noticeable color problems were with Yellow, Green and Cyan.
We first viewed Lord of The Rings and then Monsters Inc. Using an A/B comparison and found that the picture on the X1 was indeed, very good. When we would switch over to my PLV-60, especially during the bright colorful scenes in the Shire, the difference in color fidelity and depth were very noticeable with the advantage going to the PLV-60. However, during the darker scenes the differences, while still noticeable, weren't nearly as dramatic. The contrast and the blacks were a little better on the PLV-60, but remember my PLV-60 has been tweaked for months and has 2 lens filters added on.
Screen door was not noticeable on either projector from our viewing distance of 13'. However, both projectors were NOT set up on perfect pixel focus. We went down a couple of notches from perfect pixel focus to focus on words and scenes. I don't call this defocusing, because we lost no resolution, we just slightly took the edge off of the pixels borders. If both projectors were at perfect pixel focus then screen door was slightly noticeable on both from 13'. Why you would focus in this manner is beyond me...since you can lose the screen door without losing ANY resolution with just a slight adjustment.
Projector noise was quieter on the X1 by about 5 db and the noise was not bothersome or distracting.
Light spill from the X1 was evident above and below the screen since the projector was a 4:3 and we were shoing 16:9 material on a 16:9 screen.
Neither of us noticed any rainbows during our testing.
The X1 also has a good amount of light leakage from the front fan vents. I would find a way to block or fix this (which wouldn't be to hard to do) if I was buying this projector.
In my opinion one of the true tests of a good disaplay or projector is how well it pulls you into the picture. Well, the X1 pulled us into the film quite well. Several times I found myself watching the movie and not reviewing the projector. The overall picture of the X1 was VERY VERY good, especially when you consider the price. Had we not had my PLV-60 projector to compare it to, we would have had a hard time faulting this baby.
The X1 is a good projector and it will give many people the ability to enjoy a 100 inch "good quality" picture who never thought they could afford such a luxury. Is it worth the extra money to get the PLV-60. Well, compared as they were, I would say yes, but there are probably going to be some tweaks for the X1 to make it even better and that could change the whole ballgame. If you have $3000 or less to spend on a projector, and you don't mind that it is a 4:3 projector, then there is no doubt that the X1 should be on your list. We were both impressed with the performance from this mighty mite.
Can't wait to take this baby home.
