First keep in mind that when looking at the pictures of the wall with the NESN game on it looks far better in person compared to the picture. I will work more with lighting with my digital camera.
So I went into my local Circuit City store and price matched the price at Best Buy. So I ended up getting this unit for a net upfront cost of 774.00. I'm also going to buy the extended warranty for 145 bucks as it will extend the unit warranty from 2 years to 4 years. But the key feature of the extended warranty is that it covers one free bulb replacement which is valued at 300 bucks. The bulb only has a 30 day warranty and it will burn out before the four years is up so I consider the warranty a very good investment on my part.
Now I'm not one of those people who will expect crazy good detail but I'm comparing the picture quality of this set with all my past HDTV sets I've owned including my current 26" LCD HD set. So I'm going to sum up my first look in a very short way below.
The Optoma HD70 fed via HDMI to a Motorola 3416 HD DVR from Comcast without a doubt has surprised me. I'm using a white wall (yes no screen yet) to project the image on from the HD70. I've watched many HD channels including live Red Sox games via NESN HD and all I can say is WWWWWWOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW. I've setup the Optoma to display about 90 inches of viewable screen area and NESN looks "just" as good as it does on my puny old 26" LCD set. The picture looks very sharp and detailed at 10 feet away and looks just as good at 5 feet away.
Now yes some who expect perfection can find much better at a much higher cost. But I expect very good picture quality "but" I don't notice perfection as much as others. But for a Joe Six Pack who would tend to buy the cheapest set he/she can afford I believe you just cannot regret this specific purchase.
The only drawback with this unit (most projectors suffer this issue) is that outside lights (sun light) makes it very ummm bad. But if you can block out most outside sunlight you will be fine with indoor lighting. Just get the balance of enough light so you can see your way around but not much more than that for the best quality.
I'm going to say this much that for the rest of my life I'll never watch TV (HDTV even more so) at anything less than 90 inches of screen. I think these front projectors are only going to go down in cost and if the results via a white wall without a screen stay the same I'll never go back to anything less ever. Hey once you go big you'll never go back lol.
Again keep in mind that my pictures are very crappy but they will give you a decent idea but don't worry you can expect much better pictures in the coming weeks I promise.
So I went into my local Circuit City store and price matched the price at Best Buy. So I ended up getting this unit for a net upfront cost of 774.00. I'm also going to buy the extended warranty for 145 bucks as it will extend the unit warranty from 2 years to 4 years. But the key feature of the extended warranty is that it covers one free bulb replacement which is valued at 300 bucks. The bulb only has a 30 day warranty and it will burn out before the four years is up so I consider the warranty a very good investment on my part.
Now I'm not one of those people who will expect crazy good detail but I'm comparing the picture quality of this set with all my past HDTV sets I've owned including my current 26" LCD HD set. So I'm going to sum up my first look in a very short way below.
The Optoma HD70 fed via HDMI to a Motorola 3416 HD DVR from Comcast without a doubt has surprised me. I'm using a white wall (yes no screen yet) to project the image on from the HD70. I've watched many HD channels including live Red Sox games via NESN HD and all I can say is WWWWWWOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW. I've setup the Optoma to display about 90 inches of viewable screen area and NESN looks "just" as good as it does on my puny old 26" LCD set. The picture looks very sharp and detailed at 10 feet away and looks just as good at 5 feet away.
Now yes some who expect perfection can find much better at a much higher cost. But I expect very good picture quality "but" I don't notice perfection as much as others. But for a Joe Six Pack who would tend to buy the cheapest set he/she can afford I believe you just cannot regret this specific purchase.
The only drawback with this unit (most projectors suffer this issue) is that outside lights (sun light) makes it very ummm bad. But if you can block out most outside sunlight you will be fine with indoor lighting. Just get the balance of enough light so you can see your way around but not much more than that for the best quality.
I'm going to say this much that for the rest of my life I'll never watch TV (HDTV even more so) at anything less than 90 inches of screen. I think these front projectors are only going to go down in cost and if the results via a white wall without a screen stay the same I'll never go back to anything less ever. Hey once you go big you'll never go back lol.
Again keep in mind that my pictures are very crappy but they will give you a decent idea but don't worry you can expect much better pictures in the coming weeks I promise.
