Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater ben q projectors

does anybody have any experience with ben q projectors,ive been looking at the 7220 model and i think im almost ready to jump in the water(merry x-mas to me)any comments appreciated-also ,do the bulbs have to be changed with original bulbs or are there other brands that will fit...thanks...ron

A great place to check out what other people are saying is projectorcentral.com. Here's a link that goes straight to this model. http://www.projectorcentral.com/BenQ-PB7220-user-reviews.htm

Ron;

The 7000 series projector are catered to the business user. Bright bulbs. Having bright bulbs can wash out the color intensity. You are better of going with the 6000 or 8000 series which have better performance for HT. Bulbs are specific to models. You would need to get a Benq type bulb. Misfit Toy points out a great site for resource. That is where I started. http://www.projectorcentral.com/recommended-home-theater-projectors.htm

Saturn,
Are you still running the Optoma?
In a couple of months, shortly after our move, we are planning on finally adding a front projection unit to the mix.
I will probably start looking around again soon myself.

Yeah running the Optoma H30 and it has an awesome picture for the price. The only issue "knock on wood" some had poor QC and some have been havign a hard time to get a proper unit. Mine so far has been a joy. Check my links. The Star Wars links have vivid colours and clarity.
As the new chip comes out both the HD2 and the Matterhorn DLP units should come down in price.

You post brought up a memory when I picked up my Rocket 750's. Go to www.av123.com. They are selling a benq 7800(MSRP $5495.00) for $2500.00 DELIVERED. I do not know about this brand or the model they are selling but for the cost savings you may want to check it out. Let me know how it goes.

I did some reading and the 7200 is for business but the 7800 is for HT. Here is some info from the BenQ site:

Cinema Quality in the Comfort of your Home
Armed with the Matterhorn DLP™ chipset, the BenQ PE7800 is a perfect fit for today's demanding home theater owner. Designed around the Matterhorn DLP™ chipset, this masterpiece can uniformly reproduce the brightest image under a wide range of lighting conditions. At a native 16:9 resolution, the PE7800 projects its images in true cinematic proportions. With a 2000:1 contrast ratio and black levels, the PE7800 delivers lifelike color reproduction in almost any room.

Project the brilliance of the BenQ PE7800 into your home, and let our family entertain yours.




Key Features
DLP™, Matterhorn Chipset
Native 16:9 resolution

800 ANSI Lumens

2000:1 Contrast ratio

EDTV, SDTV, HDTV Compatible

32dB Whisper quiet

Sharper, clearer moving pictures

3-2 pull down recovery

PIP/POP Function

Superb rich color saturation (Six segment color wheel)

Thats the first 7000 series I've seen catered to HT since if you notice the bulb output is in the same level as the HT designs. Thats excellent.

Here is the link from av123.com if interested.

http://forum.av123.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4865

You also might check out the Panasonic PT-AE700U. It is starting to ship in about a week. So far it looks killer, and it is selling for about 2199.00 Not sure what price range you are trying to stay in. It pretty much has better stats then alot of the DLP2+ projectors out their and at a fraction of the price. I am considering the benQ8700+ but the Panasonic seems to be as good if not better that less then half the price. Just my 2 Cents. Best of luck with what ever you decide, but check out http://www.projectorcentral.com/ you will learn pretty much anything you need to know there.

i didnt read everyone elses replys, but

i have a benq 6200, and i freaking love it... very good projector... very good picture quality while watching dvd's.. that’s all i watch is dvd's as im in the military, and do not have cable tv, but i get sitcoms, on dvd, currently watching stargate sg1, and the picture quality is astounding.. and im just using a white wall, no high quality screen, jus white paint, on some sheetrock, or concrete, what ever the walls are made of , the benq 6200 will recognize composite (the red,blue,green channels) video in, on the analog input, just have to get a cable with component to analog, there is a guy that sells 35’ cables on ebay that are made for this use. You get s video, rca, and component all in 1 cable.. pretty nifty.. anyhow, the pq of the 6200 is quite good, I picked my 6200 up for about 1100$ if you look around benq’s website, under the vendors section, you can look around for prices of authorized dealers, and from what I noticed, the prices can vary by several hundreds of dollars..


I don’t know about the bulbs, but I am going to say, you should go with a manufacture bulb, because the bulb is built into a casing that the entire assembly slides into the projector I think…. Not sure though… the blub will last 3000 hours on economy, and that’s all I use, and I think I maybe have 3-400 hours on my bulb, in 3 months…. Don’t know how much time you spend watching movies/tv tough…


Hope this help bro.

hey guys ,thanks for all the replies,as the replies helped they also left me even more confused.i thought the brighter the fp the better it would be,so what would be a sufficient amount of lumens for a typical living room?im going to either have to buy online with someone who offers a refund if im not happy with the pq or stay local....thanks again....ron

Again this is based on information about 4 months old. It might have changed since then. Brighter lumen out is great for business use as it can be seen in a fairly lit room. HT projectors will suffer from a bright room because lumen output is lower. But in a dark room with some ambient light lumen output as low as 800+ is good enough to get a great picture. The projectors at the point of time I was looking with the lower lumen output had contrast ratio of 2000:1. You definitely want projectors in that range. The blacks are close to black and the colors are vivid. Don't let the lumen output fool you. MY X1 has 1000 lumens my H30 has 800 lumens. Once properly calibrated using a light meter the H30 was actually brighter. And the H30 had more vivid colors. See pic of Samuel Jackson in the H30 HT site. At point of time I was looking the DLP projectors in each price range had smaller SDE(screen door effect) than the LCD counterparts. But I think that has change for instance that Pany 700 that BlainTx sound really fantastic for the price. And its predessesor Pany 500 had this special function that cleans up the picture and SDE was on par with DLP. Make sure the DVD player you have is progressive or if not you can tinker with a HTPC. IF you plan to use a non progressive DVd player check to see if the PJ has a decent scaler/deinterlacer/interlacer. Check out avsforum for up to date info.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=68

I never thought that I would read so much about projectors but I have found it interesting. Here is a blurb I found off of the BenQ site. You may want to check the FAQ's section of their site.

Everyone wants to have the brightest image possible, I suppose — it's only natural.

The catch is that a projector's perceived brightness depends largely on the size of the image it is projecting. A 600-lumen projector will look great on a 60-inch-diagonal screen, but the same projector will look fairly dim if you're using it to fill a 120-inch-diagonal screen, which has four times the area.

Projector manufacturers like to brag that even their smallest projectors can be used to fill a 300-inch screen, but to do that effectively you need closer to 6,000 lumens of brightness, or 10 times the light output of the average ultra-portable.

In general, ultra-portable projectors shoot from 400 to 1,000 ANSI lumens, heavier conference-room projectors from 1,000 to 2,000 lumens and large-venue projectors anywhere from 2,500 to 10,000 lumens.

Some manufacturers are prone to fib about brightness, the way most people lie about their body weight or annual income. There can be hundreds of lumens of difference between the brightness a manufacturer claims for the model line and the actual brightness of individual projectors. Try to buy a projector from a reputable, trustworthy salesperson who will be honest with you about these discrepancies.

lomb7:

Yeah there is some misleading info. Like for instance some have a bulb life of 3000 hours but what they don't say is that you need to run it an economode 1100 lumens. Most people will run it in normal mode 2200 lumens and will only have a bulb life of 1500 hours. This is why in the business PJ the bulb goes out pretty quickly.

You are correct in pointing that link where I only have a 64 inch diagonal screen $500 portable floor mount that is hipower (hi light reflective) and that 800 lumens on my projector can be very very bright...sometimes too bright on really sunny scenes. While that same projector will only have a dismal performance having a 110 inch picture on a $125 standard white el cheapo screen.

if or when i get a fp,i will shoot for about 100 inches or so,so should i look at something at or above 2000 lumens?thanks again for your responses,cause im friggin lost....ron

again, I would go on www.benq.com and other sites to learn about this. I know benq had a great FAQ section that covered a lot of the questions you had. I know that 2000 lumens is high. I think you want to stay around the 1000 range. In my reading 2000 seems to be for VERY large conference rooms.

In reply to:

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if or when i get a fp,i will shoot for about 100 inches or so,so should i look at something at or above 2000 lumens?thanks again for your responses,cause im friggin lost....ron

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Thats actually not necessarily true. Your screen is important. Some screen fabrics like Dalite HiPower & WidePower or any of the High Contrast Grey screens illuminate more light back to your eyes and gives the perception that you do have a 2000 lumen PJ. Some people have the Hitachi Home-1 that run a 700 lumens and use a Dalite HiPower and have a 110 inch screen. Colors are fantastic.
You also need to consider if you plan to get a 4:3 or 16:9 projector. 4:3 is great specially if you still use regular digital cable or older movies. But 4:3 will have some light spill when showing a 16:9 pic. 16:9 is good for DVD and HD but all 4:3 material will look really small ie. if you kids wanna do xbox, ps2

well,i went to the projector calculator on projector central.com,and if i go with the benq 7800 i will be able to get roughly 150 inch diagonal screen in 16:9(BOING) it measured something like 132 inches wide by 75 high.the stanley cup games will definetly be at my house this year if i get it....unless im in jersey watching my devils take it home(probably not this year)anyway-im a little concerned about pq when going to such a big picture,so im going to head out to some stores over the weekend to see what i can find,hopefully i can get to try a display model in my home....thanks again for all replies....ron

Good luck and let us all know how it goes.