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733 Posts
The icing on the cake arrived yesterday and I am smiling from ear to ear. I am becoming, or maybe I already am, a very big fan of NECs. It replaced a unit of mine, no questions asked, and now I have a very stylish leather (I don't want to go there) case for one of my projectors. When I picked up my Marantz HT projector it came in a cardboard box and I paid five times as much for it than what I paid for my Dell LT150!!!
If you think you will get better service from the HT projector manufacturers I would think again!
Anyway, with all this talk about dithering, Matrix, rainbow, crawlies, scaling artifacts, black level etc. -what is one to do? And yes, I have contributed my fair share to this paranoia, however, what have I been doing all this time - collecting LT150s, that's what! Do you really thing I would buy three, count em, one, two three, LT150s if I thought there was something to all this banter? Granted, rainbow is a concern, a very, very minor one for me - you should check it out though.
O.K. the hype has started for the new 16:9 projectors, and since these are HT machines they have HT projector price tags. What everyone seems to have forgotten is that you will be asked to pay a hefty price for a projector that may well be HDTV obsolete within six to twelve months!! From what I have been able to garner these things do not have builtin decorders! The preceeding paragraph is just a reality check - is there anybody out there? I have the funds for a 16:9 projector put aside, right now! I am not going to buy one until all of this gets sorted out - everytime I fire up my LT150 I wonder what in the world I am thinking about? Why pay a ton of money for something everyone will be poking holes in next month and will not be a substantial improvement over what I now have!
I suspect that there are a lot of forum members who are connected to the business of retailing audio/video equipment and that is why the present exposure to all the hype - ever notice that the hype from the Vegas show seven months ago is almost verbatim with the hype from the CEDIA show? DLPs with CRT black levels and so on.
If you're in the market for a HT projector, don't go there -there, being HT projectors. In my humble opinion, it's not the time. Check out the best of the presentation projectors with their superior warranties (replacement policies) and service (in my experience, anyway). The NEC 540, LT 85, 150, 155, Sanyos, Plus units etc. come to mind. Why? These things cost a fraction of the HT units and their obsolescence will effectuate a modicum of the financial ramifications that a HT projector purchase will entail. I believe big changes are coming and in two or three years the landscape will have changed significantly - especially for DLPs and of course, HDTV compatibility.
I bet the HT people would like this forum to disappear - why? Well, it provides an alternative perspective and experience to their marketing hype and hyperbole. I'll bet that the LT150, for example, costs less than the markup on a HT projector!
I watched three excellent DVDs this past week, all great transfers, all non-Hollywood films. Everytime my jaw dropped at the great, and I mean great, image I have been able to obtain with my LT150, AVS HTPC and Da-lite Hipower screen, which is masked by a floating system I devised when I decided to rub my two remaining, and still functioning, brain cells together!
As I have said before, don't believe a thing you read on this forum, especially from me - check it out for yourself! Like Anthony Hopkins at the end of Hannibal - I am just providing you with a little food for thought (intentional pun - sorry).
Cheers,
Grant
P.S. Sorry Les, I couldn't help myself.
If you think you will get better service from the HT projector manufacturers I would think again!
Anyway, with all this talk about dithering, Matrix, rainbow, crawlies, scaling artifacts, black level etc. -what is one to do? And yes, I have contributed my fair share to this paranoia, however, what have I been doing all this time - collecting LT150s, that's what! Do you really thing I would buy three, count em, one, two three, LT150s if I thought there was something to all this banter? Granted, rainbow is a concern, a very, very minor one for me - you should check it out though.
O.K. the hype has started for the new 16:9 projectors, and since these are HT machines they have HT projector price tags. What everyone seems to have forgotten is that you will be asked to pay a hefty price for a projector that may well be HDTV obsolete within six to twelve months!! From what I have been able to garner these things do not have builtin decorders! The preceeding paragraph is just a reality check - is there anybody out there? I have the funds for a 16:9 projector put aside, right now! I am not going to buy one until all of this gets sorted out - everytime I fire up my LT150 I wonder what in the world I am thinking about? Why pay a ton of money for something everyone will be poking holes in next month and will not be a substantial improvement over what I now have!
I suspect that there are a lot of forum members who are connected to the business of retailing audio/video equipment and that is why the present exposure to all the hype - ever notice that the hype from the Vegas show seven months ago is almost verbatim with the hype from the CEDIA show? DLPs with CRT black levels and so on.
If you're in the market for a HT projector, don't go there -there, being HT projectors. In my humble opinion, it's not the time. Check out the best of the presentation projectors with their superior warranties (replacement policies) and service (in my experience, anyway). The NEC 540, LT 85, 150, 155, Sanyos, Plus units etc. come to mind. Why? These things cost a fraction of the HT units and their obsolescence will effectuate a modicum of the financial ramifications that a HT projector purchase will entail. I believe big changes are coming and in two or three years the landscape will have changed significantly - especially for DLPs and of course, HDTV compatibility.
I bet the HT people would like this forum to disappear - why? Well, it provides an alternative perspective and experience to their marketing hype and hyperbole. I'll bet that the LT150, for example, costs less than the markup on a HT projector!
I watched three excellent DVDs this past week, all great transfers, all non-Hollywood films. Everytime my jaw dropped at the great, and I mean great, image I have been able to obtain with my LT150, AVS HTPC and Da-lite Hipower screen, which is masked by a floating system I devised when I decided to rub my two remaining, and still functioning, brain cells together!
As I have said before, don't believe a thing you read on this forum, especially from me - check it out for yourself! Like Anthony Hopkins at the end of Hannibal - I am just providing you with a little food for thought (intentional pun - sorry).
Cheers,
Grant
P.S. Sorry Les, I couldn't help myself.