Equipment: 8 ft wide 16x9 Grayhawk Ultimate 4-way; Dell Inspiron 7500 Laptop; DISH 6000 Receiver; Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-C2302; PowerDVD; YXY; Included RGB cable; Radio Shack 12' S-Video Cable; Star Trek 6 DVD; True Lies DVD; Army of Darkness DVD; Friends Vol. 1 DVD; Video Essentials DVD
Here's the link to the pics.
< http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1633995&a=13143361> ;
My subjective comments follow:
** Projector Placement **
I tested the projector sitting on an 18" end table. (It's my second face-off and I'm already too lazy to perform the pseudo ceiling mount) The controls were sufficent such that I could position the picture in the center of my screen. Then I only needed the remote to zoom the picture out to fill the entire screen.
Tilt was not necessary so I did not use keystone correction, though I did verify that the feature was available. Like the zoom feature, it is also available from the remote control.
I was able to set it about 1 ft in front of the LP350 at minimum zoom to cast the same size image which means that it has a slightly larger throw than the infocus and quite a bit less than the NEC.
** Setup **
My goal was to try and compare the XP21N at its best so I connected it via an HTPC for DVD and used RGB from my Dish 6000 for HDTV.
The remote of the XP21N is sturdy and comfortable to hold with real push buttons. I loved the fact that everything could be accomplished via the remote including zoom, power, and keystone. One thing I didn't like about it was the shuttle mouse in the middle which sometimes wouldn't register and other times would register as multiple presses.
The XP21N menu was pretty easy to navigate even though Sanyo used incomprehensible graphics instead of headings for the menus. I have a sneaking suspicion the graphics were designed by Engineers.
Configuration options were fewer than the LT150, but all the right ones were there including contrast, brightness, R, G, and B.
** Calibration **
I calibrated the XP21N with Video Essentials. Brightness needed to be set down a few notches. Contrast was about right out of the box which was lucky for me because the contrast menu was not transparent and came down right on top of the contrast pattern. Color was about on the money so I left those controls alone.
** Fan Noise **
Fan noise of the Sanyo was commensurate with both the LT150 and LP350 and was without the annoying whine.
** Aspect Ratio **
Like the LP350 and LT150, the XP21N is not panamorph ready when watching an HDTV feed via RGB. The Sanyo provides a true mode which is analagous to native mode on the other projectors. Unfortunately I didn't figure this out until I accidentally stumbled upon it when I was combing through the manual later. So I can not report whether the image is placed in the middle of the 16:9 frame like the LP350 or elsewhere like the LT150.
** DVD Picture Quality **
I tested the projectors with the material shown at the link at the top. I tested them through their best connection methods. This meant the infocus was tested through the S-Video/Internal scaler and the NEC/Sanyo through an HTPC connected via RGB.
Surprise! The Sanyo is bright! There is no question which projector wins the king of the lamp competition. This is contrary to when I tested the NEC and Infocus and found the aggressively lumen rated Infocus to only demonstrate a slight edge in brightness if any.
Unfortunately, the Sanyo is so bright (16ft throw) it causes a few negative effects:
o The black level was poorer than both the LT150 and LP350 in my opinion. Certainly *not* so bad that it would cause most viewers stress during the normal watching of a DVD. Heck, when I watch, everything is relative anyway. Blacks look black and whites look white. But I was specifically looking for black in this case and I believe the brightness of the XP21N hurts the black level despite my grayhawk.
o Because the black level is higher, contrast on the XP21N suffers. Still, it was better than what I am now thinking is a relative low contrast on the LP350. The LT150 still stays atop the heap in contrast, in my opinion by a large and noticeable margin.
o And speaking of noticeable, this is the first LCD I've auditioned, so I was introduced to more screen door than I've previously witnessed. At 17ft away from the 8ft wide screen, I thought the screendoor effect was quite noticeable and sometimes distracting. Screen door was more noticeable in bright scenes and I believe accentuated by the brightness of the unit. Text (times new roman font) through the PC was pixelated because of screen door which made it more difficult to read.
Those are my opinions of the effect of the XP21N's brightness. However, I had a friend over while I performed these tests and he had a different opinion. My friend is not a home theater enthusiast, but likes movies as much as the next person. His quote on the XP21N was, "That picture really grabs you and pulls you in." Also, at 10ft viewing distance, my friend didn't notice the screendoor until I showed it to him. Once I did then it started to bother him. So you are free to make up your own opinions based on this tale.
Color saturation on the XP21N was as good as the other machines. But because of how LCDs are touted for such remarkable colors, I was really expecting to see a big difference which I can't tell you I saw.
I generally don't see rainbows. I didn't see any distracting rainbows in my tests for either the LT150 and LP350. And, of course I didn't see any rainbows on the XP21N because it is LCD.
The XP21N had no halo which definitely is nice since you won't have to worry about covering the darn thing up.
** Website Challenge **
All projectors failed the dreaded yellowish website challenge. The LP350 and :LT150 showed as an olive green demonstrating how they tended to shift toward green. The XP21N tended towards red. The websites showed as bright yellow.
I didn't include pictures of the websites with the XP21N because the snapshots came out bright green on my end and I didn't notice until it was too late. My hypothesis is that my Olympus does that when it's running low on fuel. If I remember correctly, I needed to change batts right after the website pics.
** Sync **
I plugged in the cable, and something came on the XP21N. The XP21N, like the LT150, was also MUCH more tolerant with non 1024x768 resolutions than the LP350.
** NTSC Viewing **
I did not try any NTSC viewing. For that matter I didn't try viewing with the lights on. That just isn't one of my areas of focus since I have a light controlled room.
However, I would imagine that the XP21N would do quite well comparably in a room where some light was let in, making it more tolerable. Of course, the picture would also still be washed out like all FPs.
** HDTV **
When I first started watching the DISH HDTV loop there was a strange jerkiness like the XP21N was showing less than the optimal number of frames per second. This eventually went away though and I never saw the symptom again, so it might have been in the feed.
HDTV displayed the same picture deficiencies as when viewing DVD, but otherwise looked as good as HDTV usually looks.
** Conclusions **
I had very high hopes for the XP21N and it didn't meet my high (possibly unfair) expectations. If I chose to fiddle with an HTPC, between these three projectors I would opt for the LT150. For plug n' play, the LP350 does a nice job.
I should say that all these projectors are valiant performers. All of them will do the job and there's nothing I have seen yet that makes one or the other a must have. My LP350 is comfortably mounted on the ceiling behind me until something really jumps out at me as a great leap in picture quality and usability.
That's it! I'll update this review as necessary.
--Les
[This message has been edited by arrow (edited 06-11-2001).]
Here's the link to the pics.
< http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1633995&a=13143361> ;
My subjective comments follow:
** Projector Placement **
I tested the projector sitting on an 18" end table. (It's my second face-off and I'm already too lazy to perform the pseudo ceiling mount) The controls were sufficent such that I could position the picture in the center of my screen. Then I only needed the remote to zoom the picture out to fill the entire screen.
Tilt was not necessary so I did not use keystone correction, though I did verify that the feature was available. Like the zoom feature, it is also available from the remote control.
I was able to set it about 1 ft in front of the LP350 at minimum zoom to cast the same size image which means that it has a slightly larger throw than the infocus and quite a bit less than the NEC.
** Setup **
My goal was to try and compare the XP21N at its best so I connected it via an HTPC for DVD and used RGB from my Dish 6000 for HDTV.
The remote of the XP21N is sturdy and comfortable to hold with real push buttons. I loved the fact that everything could be accomplished via the remote including zoom, power, and keystone. One thing I didn't like about it was the shuttle mouse in the middle which sometimes wouldn't register and other times would register as multiple presses.
The XP21N menu was pretty easy to navigate even though Sanyo used incomprehensible graphics instead of headings for the menus. I have a sneaking suspicion the graphics were designed by Engineers.
Configuration options were fewer than the LT150, but all the right ones were there including contrast, brightness, R, G, and B.
** Calibration **
I calibrated the XP21N with Video Essentials. Brightness needed to be set down a few notches. Contrast was about right out of the box which was lucky for me because the contrast menu was not transparent and came down right on top of the contrast pattern. Color was about on the money so I left those controls alone.
** Fan Noise **
Fan noise of the Sanyo was commensurate with both the LT150 and LP350 and was without the annoying whine.
** Aspect Ratio **
Like the LP350 and LT150, the XP21N is not panamorph ready when watching an HDTV feed via RGB. The Sanyo provides a true mode which is analagous to native mode on the other projectors. Unfortunately I didn't figure this out until I accidentally stumbled upon it when I was combing through the manual later. So I can not report whether the image is placed in the middle of the 16:9 frame like the LP350 or elsewhere like the LT150.
** DVD Picture Quality **
I tested the projectors with the material shown at the link at the top. I tested them through their best connection methods. This meant the infocus was tested through the S-Video/Internal scaler and the NEC/Sanyo through an HTPC connected via RGB.
Surprise! The Sanyo is bright! There is no question which projector wins the king of the lamp competition. This is contrary to when I tested the NEC and Infocus and found the aggressively lumen rated Infocus to only demonstrate a slight edge in brightness if any.
Unfortunately, the Sanyo is so bright (16ft throw) it causes a few negative effects:
o The black level was poorer than both the LT150 and LP350 in my opinion. Certainly *not* so bad that it would cause most viewers stress during the normal watching of a DVD. Heck, when I watch, everything is relative anyway. Blacks look black and whites look white. But I was specifically looking for black in this case and I believe the brightness of the XP21N hurts the black level despite my grayhawk.
o Because the black level is higher, contrast on the XP21N suffers. Still, it was better than what I am now thinking is a relative low contrast on the LP350. The LT150 still stays atop the heap in contrast, in my opinion by a large and noticeable margin.
o And speaking of noticeable, this is the first LCD I've auditioned, so I was introduced to more screen door than I've previously witnessed. At 17ft away from the 8ft wide screen, I thought the screendoor effect was quite noticeable and sometimes distracting. Screen door was more noticeable in bright scenes and I believe accentuated by the brightness of the unit. Text (times new roman font) through the PC was pixelated because of screen door which made it more difficult to read.
Those are my opinions of the effect of the XP21N's brightness. However, I had a friend over while I performed these tests and he had a different opinion. My friend is not a home theater enthusiast, but likes movies as much as the next person. His quote on the XP21N was, "That picture really grabs you and pulls you in." Also, at 10ft viewing distance, my friend didn't notice the screendoor until I showed it to him. Once I did then it started to bother him. So you are free to make up your own opinions based on this tale.
Color saturation on the XP21N was as good as the other machines. But because of how LCDs are touted for such remarkable colors, I was really expecting to see a big difference which I can't tell you I saw.
I generally don't see rainbows. I didn't see any distracting rainbows in my tests for either the LT150 and LP350. And, of course I didn't see any rainbows on the XP21N because it is LCD.
The XP21N had no halo which definitely is nice since you won't have to worry about covering the darn thing up.
** Website Challenge **
All projectors failed the dreaded yellowish website challenge. The LP350 and :LT150 showed as an olive green demonstrating how they tended to shift toward green. The XP21N tended towards red. The websites showed as bright yellow.
I didn't include pictures of the websites with the XP21N because the snapshots came out bright green on my end and I didn't notice until it was too late. My hypothesis is that my Olympus does that when it's running low on fuel. If I remember correctly, I needed to change batts right after the website pics.
** Sync **
I plugged in the cable, and something came on the XP21N. The XP21N, like the LT150, was also MUCH more tolerant with non 1024x768 resolutions than the LP350.
** NTSC Viewing **
I did not try any NTSC viewing. For that matter I didn't try viewing with the lights on. That just isn't one of my areas of focus since I have a light controlled room.
However, I would imagine that the XP21N would do quite well comparably in a room where some light was let in, making it more tolerable. Of course, the picture would also still be washed out like all FPs.
** HDTV **
When I first started watching the DISH HDTV loop there was a strange jerkiness like the XP21N was showing less than the optimal number of frames per second. This eventually went away though and I never saw the symptom again, so it might have been in the feed.
HDTV displayed the same picture deficiencies as when viewing DVD, but otherwise looked as good as HDTV usually looks.
** Conclusions **
I had very high hopes for the XP21N and it didn't meet my high (possibly unfair) expectations. If I chose to fiddle with an HTPC, between these three projectors I would opt for the LT150. For plug n' play, the LP350 does a nice job.
I should say that all these projectors are valiant performers. All of them will do the job and there's nothing I have seen yet that makes one or the other a must have. My LP350 is comfortably mounted on the ceiling behind me until something really jumps out at me as a great leap in picture quality and usability.
That's it! I'll update this review as necessary.
--Les
[This message has been edited by arrow (edited 06-11-2001).]
