Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Home Theater Question

Generally DLP has had a better overall contrast, however, LCD is getting better and better. My z2 is rated at 1300:1, and I think the Z3 that just came out is 2000:1 Painting the back walls black or using a black fabric will increase the perceived blacks very well. I am even going to paint my side walls and ceiling black about 5' out from the screen.....

I bought an Infocus 4805 a couple months back after doing quite a bit of talking around....I think I made a good choice.....best bang for the buck.....haven't seen any rainbows and have seen an awsome picture plus I got a free 76" pulldown screen and 30 ft of s-video cable. Now I'm sure there are better projectors out there but what I got for around 1200 bucks?.....I ain't complain'in I'm totally happy.....of course ask me in a year or so.....as I am sure we will see better and cheaper projectors.

i have a benq 6200, and i am very happy with it. i think i paid 1300$.. use it for DVD'S and for digital cable, no HD service yet, dont really feel it is worth the extra money per month for the service, and the extra money i would have to spend for a component switch.. even with digital cable the picture is quite good.. and dvd's the picture is theater quality.. and this is just a 1300$ projector.. one thing to keep in mind, is get a decent screen, i have a dalite 1.5 grain screen.. so in the 2-3000 you might want to have that include projector + screen? unless you already have that figured out.


good luck

when i was thinking about fp i looked at the infocus 4805 it was nice but they replaced that with the 5000 which is supposed to be really nice. i have read that it does not have any rainbow effect. its about $2000 leaving you money for a decent screen. i have never seen either of these in person but have read good things.

Dakkon - I must disagree with you on the HD issue. Even with my X1, HD looks MUCH better than the digital cable. Given the added resolution of the 6200, you will get an even better picture than I'm getting. So, do yourself a favor and take the HD plunge. You'll be amazed. An 80" 1080i HD image is just a thing of beauty.

Sorry, here is my room layout and what I want to do with it.

I am wanting a screen size of 100 in. I will be using the projector as my primary viewing. So 70% tv (hd/standard) 10% movies and 20% xbox. My room is light controlled but at times will want to open the curtains. I don't care if the picture would suffer in quality if the lights were on just as long as it is viewable. I will be sitting about 14 feet from the screen. I have been looking at the Mitsu. 450u and the Panny 700. I don't have any dealers in phoenix that have those projectors setup. I know the Mitsu is 4:3 native and the Panny 16:9. I don't mind going with a 4:3 I would just get a bigger screen to still have a 100 in screen in 16:9. I like the Mitsu it has good contrast, high lumin, 3000 + hrs for bulb, waranity on the bulb is 1 year and 3 year on the projector. It doesn't have a filter to clean either. My only problem with it is when it is doing 16:9 the resolution is 1280 * 576. That and I haven't seen it.

Thanks for all your help so far.

Humble opinion: Go w/ the XGA Mitsu (or the BenQ 6200 if you want to same some dough). If you're going to be doing a lot of standard TV watching and you go WXGA, you're going to lose all that resolution on the sides. I am in the camp that does not want to lose any resolution on the sides of my screen. I like it as wide as my screen and as tall as the source dictates.

FYI...not trying to start a 4:3/16:9 war. Aspect ratio is a personal choice based upon your viewing tendencies. Each configuration has it's pros and cons. In my case, I have dead white space above and below my widescreen formatted material. Those with 16:9 screens do not. But, that's something that I can rectify with proper masking. On the other hand, I get a much larger picture w/ 4:3 material. It really comes down to your personal preference.

Agreed with TurboDog on the HD issue (says the guy who took over 6 months to get HD cable after buying his home theater)

TurboDog what kind of loss in picture quality will I have going to a lower resolution on the Mitsu? Do you own the BenQ?

I'm w/ Turbodog and foghorn. HD is incredible. I have HD on my EDTV plasma and it's stunning.

If you are in decent antenna area, you can get OTA HD for possibly less than $100, if you shop right. That would be for an external antenna and OTA tuner from ebay.