Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HD front projection??

Craig,

$6000 will give you an excellent 720p DLP projector today, and the price will only go down in the coming months.

That said, go visit one of those snobby "high-end" HT dealers in your local area. They usually have nicely set up FP demo rooms. After all, you don't have to buy an expensive projector from them (such as the overpriced Runco or Sim2).

In fact, that's exactly what I did: I demo'ed my beloved projector (Yamaha LPX-500; 720p LCD) initially in one of my local high-end shops, who was selling it at near MSRP ($5500). In the end, I picked it up in Tokyo while I was there in a business trip, for ~$2800.

Not that screenshots are everything, but seeing is believing. So, just to demonstrate the level of picture quality I am talking about, here are some photos of screen images thrown by the JVC G1000 D-ILA projector onto three different kinds of screens (white/gray/silver fabrics). Digicam pictures were taken by the AVSforum member "tryg" (he is a screen-fabric guru), and posted without any processing.



You can in fact get a better projector than the one used here for ~$6000.

How about FP vs. some of the new DLP Tv's Sushi? Have you compared? Obviously the FP is the bigger picture, but how do they compare in quality?

Do I dare even ask how much a big silver screen costs? I know even at work, we have a screening room with a white screen, and one with silver. The silver is much better.

Hmmmm....and on first glance I thought the white was the good one out of those 3.

Wow...I just topped the boards for the first time...must be getting my axiom fix before I leave the board for a week.

Panny L300U
http://dustin.bunnyhug.net/current.php
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=274225&highlight=screenshots <-- see attachments

Sanyo PLV Z1
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=2415631&fullpage=1
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=2415638&fullpage=1
http://www.devotionsbyerik.com/HT-Screen%20Shots.htm


Infocus X1
http://www.geocities.com/riverarichard_rrr/My_page.html
http://www.leodler.com/ <-- see screenshots
http://home.mindspring.com/~jhovis/cobble_creek_cinema016.htm <-- just click next..next
http://www.spacelofts.com/x1/ <-- my setup suxs at the moment still learning to calibrate

Panny L200U
http://home.earthlink.net/~peregrinefalcon/driftwood/id6.html


All these projector are under $3000USD...some in the range of $3000-$5000 are fantastic. Sushi has more experience on those.

Silverhawk and Greyhawk screens which a lot of DIY screen makers are trying to achieve are in the range of $1500-$2000 just for the screen.

Zarak,

Well, as you would expect, latest DLP RPTVs and FPs basically exhibit same basic parameters for picture quality (resolution, black level, shadow details, color saturation/accuracy, etc), except that:

(1) Because RPTV has a smaller screen with highly directional gain-tuning (especially vertical) so that the image is brighter and hence better tolerates ambient light. On the other hand, FP typically uses a larger, wide-viewing-angle screen material, which translates to less image brightness and less ambient light tolerance (As I always tell you, a dark room is one single key to the FP).

(2) As I mentioned above, I personally do not like the highly directional, dithered screen of RPTVs -- besides the brightness variations and hot-spotting, the image lose "film-ness." In comparison, FP images look like, well, film.


Craig,

The silver one is the Vutec Silverstar screen with a whopping screen gain of 6.0. It is a hard-board material. It's about $60 per sq. ft. So, a 100"-diagonal screen would be ~$1800. Just in comparison, my pulldown (120"-diagonal, retro-reflective High Power fabric with 2.8 gain) is ~$600.

My own projector is approximately on-par with the one shown above in image quality/performance. Including the projector, screen, and long video cables, the video display portion of my system costed about US$3600. Not cheap, but not outrageous, either.