Projector advise for sports

You can always add a external Darbee to any projector. Some people think they work well others think they are worthless. I doubt any of those Optima's will look any better then the BenQ. The Sony 45es is known for its excellent motion handling and image processing so that might be the right direction for a upgrade. I assume sports are watched from a cable feed that is most likely highly compressed 720p so as the saying goes crap in crap out.

@rekbones is right. The HT2050 is highly rated for sharpness. If your HT2050 is sharp with some content and not with other content it's the content and not the projector that's at fault. Sports broadcast quality varies quite a bit, which is especially obvious with large projected images. Adding a Darbee to your HT2050 may help a little with perceived sharpness but will not magically transform mediocre content.

I'm going to agree with others who are pointing at your content provider, not the projector. DLP is the king of sharpness, and if you are very happy with the sharpness most of the time, then take a look at a still image of what you aren't happy with and see if the sharpness is actually there compared to images that you are happy with.

Motion, especially from cable television, tends to be dismal. The requirement for real time compression of video is very demanding, and the low bit-rates provided for transmission to homes can really strain the image quality that is possible. Especially with certain content providers. So, you definitely want to look into the quality that your provider is giving you.

But, yes, a Darbee can be added to any projector and is the better way to go if you want to see the quality of what it can do and if you are happy with it.

Thanks everyone for your input. I don’t have any issues with motion just sharpness overall. I agree it’s probably more to do with Directv than anything. Some games are better broadcasted than others. Maybe I will look into a Darbee add on and try it out.

I have noticed depending on the sport and level of the sport, I think some of them are mixing and matching camera equipment new and old. It is pretty obvious when they do highlight, and are switching between games and the sharpness is hit or miss.

So some is your cable or satellite some is the equipment recording it and lastly I would say it is the projector showing it.

I have OTA with a good antenna I put up a year ago and the quality is amazing. I don’t have cable or satellite where I live but I have cable providing my Internet and then I stream cable over the Internet as I pay for it at another home. I think the streaming version is much better than the cable box method at the other house as crazy as that seems.

I sit pretty immersive for most sports often 8’ away from a 110” screen size and I’m still at 1080p projection and I feel it is more than sharp enough.

Everyone has their own subjective things they like but Id actually not rule out LCD (if following is still an advantage).

With my Epson projectors (have owned 6100, 8100, 3010, 5020ub, 5040ub), there are multiple image modes with different brightness levels that all look good (for example, new lamp measured 800-3500 lumens for 5040ub depending on mode https://www.projectorcentral.com/epson-5040ub-review.htm?page=Performance) . This means for a movie or normal use I could stay in dimmest/best mode. For sports, seems like Id want to leave on significant ambient lighting, in which a very bright mode would be important and the image quality is less important (because the broadcast source quality is low and because most sports are very "bright" not shadows).
Do the current DLPs this price range allow the same utility in brightness settings ?