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ViewSonic PJ551D 2300 Lumen DLP XGA Projector

Home Projectors — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:40:47 +0000

ViewSonic PJ551D 2300 Lumen DLP XGA Projector

The ViewSonic PJ551D is a DLP projector that offers great value and performance in a portable six-pound package. Featuring 2,300 lumens, an ultra-high 2000:1 contrast ratio (typ) and Brilliant Color, the PJ551D delivers rich, vibrant image reproduction. Presenters will appreciate the vertical keystone correction for easy image adjustment and the direct off feature the allows you to turn it off and go, no more waiting for a long cooling cycle. Built-in security features include a PIN lock password to protect the projector from unauthorized use and the Kensington security port to deter unauthorized projector removal from classrooms or media carts. It’s the full-featured projector that’s equally at home in the office or the classroom.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars wonderful home theater product
This is my first projector, although I’d tried 2 others that I borrowed from church and work. This is also my first experience with HiDef. At first, I connected it with the yellow composite conection, and the picture needed to be toned down, reducing the brightness of the white that was blown out with the factory setting and increasing the sharpness. The picture was just “ok”, but of course huge. S Video gave similar results. Hooking it up to a laptop to watch a DVD though, was INCREDIBLE! Using the vga connection @ 1024×768 looked absolutely amazing. Then to top it all off, using a home made breakout cable following instructions online (http://myhometheater.homestead.com/vgacable.html)

with rca jacks, cat 5 cable and a 3$ radio shack part, I connected the FIOS set top box using component to vga, and was impressed even more with 1080i. I can’t go back to standard def now. Hi Def on the wall, 8′ across has incredible WOW effect. Painted wall is excellent, or a screen if you don’t have 8′ of clear wall space. The amount of detail revealed was unexpected. Absolutely amazing. Grass, clothing texture, jewelry details, dust and smudges on prop surfaces, were suddenly revealed. A lit room seems good, until all the lights are turned out, and then serious enjoyment ensues. Totally amazed. Others have been impressed with it’s contrast and brightness compared to older, more expensive projectors they’d seen before. I got it for just $499 on Amazon, and it had a rebate from viewsonic for a free bulb. Awesome deal. The only con I know of after a month, is it requires a relatively long “throw.” It’s practically a 2:3 ratio. If you want an 8′ screen, you have to be 12′ away. The zoom funtion merely allows for fine tuning of the size, to perfectly match the edge of your target once you get close to its dimensions. This has been the biggest consideration as I choose where to mount it based on my room’s size. Other projectors have had shorter throw distances. I accept this con in consideration of the price to performance ratio. I’ve never noticed the fan noise while viewing. Shut down time is fast. My remote works very responsively. My intended use was for family movie nights, so I don’t miss a built in speaker, as it would be inferior anyway. As for presentation quality, I can easily read web pages, emails, and documents. Pdf’s are illegible if the screen’s set to “read one page at a time.” I’m not sure yet how much bigger I can go beyond 8′ and still get a good picture, since I don’t have a big enough surface to project against yet.

Update: Dec. 26th still going strong. I notice some delay in detecting my laptop’s VGA input (actually XGA I think, but using “VGA” cable). Could just as well be my laptop’s fault. Actively clicking on items (like desktop items, web pages) seems to hasten detection vs. just waiting “patiently.” I think it’s always been this way, I’ve just become more familiar with what I’m supposed to do and what it’s supposed to do. Delay can be up to 90 secs. worst case. Faster detection with video source. I’ve used it every day for the past 2 weeks, and it’s still wonderful.

Anything with dark scenes, like some PC gaming or most movies requires at least dimmed lights. Page / bright presentation viewing (like business use or web surfing) can easily be done with full ambient light, no problem.

5 Stars Good economy projector
It works as advertised. Be aware of the following, though:

1. The only leveling adjustment is on the front single leg. If you have level it in the back to make it align with a screen, you will need paper shims.

2. The only leveling adjustment is on the front single leg, and the front leg is only adjustable in increments. I had to use a paper shim on the front leg to get fine adjustments.

3. It is bright, but the colors at default settings are not particularly well balanced – white is very white, but yellow is kind of dark, not clean and bright.

Having said all this, I recommend this projector as a good economy projector. I purchased this for use at church, and it works for that purpose. Not sure how it would do on video feeds. I would purchase it again, knowing what I know. As long as someone does not bump the projector or the platform it is on, you don’t need to set the level every day.

5 Stars Just a great projector
First off, this projector is a great price. You get 1024×768 for the ballpark of $600, and ViewSonic frequently runs “free spare bulb” rebate offers, which I sent in and recieved in a timely manner. The bulbs supposedly last 3500 hours, which is on the high end for the projector market. They supposedly last 4000 hours in economy mode. At 16 hours per weekend you could get 5 years out of a bulb.

The projector has a fixed throw ratio, so if you want a huge screen you need a long room. Projecting to the ceiling only yields a ~40″ diagonal image, or so (and of course depends on your ceiling height) but longways in a 22′ livingroom yields a 123″ diagonal image! Keystone correction is nice, and lets you mount the projector up high so the beam can be above your head when sitting on the couch, and still give a rectangular picture. (though they implement the keystone within the thrown image, so the more keystone effect you use the more diagonal image size you lose)

The menus are well done, and there are full color adjustment options, to the point where I was able to project on a gray/green wall and not feel the need to buy a screen for it. (though I might still do that eventually)

The bulb can’t really compete with direct sunlight, though with the shades down the image is perfect (in normal bulb mode). It does ok vs. normal indoor lighting though you lose a bit of color saturation (i.e. if you were projecting in a lit hallway where you didn’t have control over the lights). So in other words, if you are making a presentation its fine in lit areas, but if you were watching a movie you definitely want the lights out. At nighttime economy mode provides plenty of brightness.

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Panasonic PT AX200U 720p 3LCD Home Projector

Home Projectors — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:42:58 +0000

Panasonic PT AX200U 720p 3LCD Home Theater Projector

The PT-AX200 is ideal for watching sports events or playing video games in daylight conditions and surely for viewing movies in a dark room. Powerful 2,000-lumen brightness and new Light Harmonizer 2 technology make it easy for people to enjoy vibrant, dynamic images even if they don’t have a special theater room. Together with the 2,000-lumens brightness, Panasonic’s Light Harmonizer 2 technology produces vivid and easy-to-see images even in the kind of bright lighting that makes images from other projectors look whitish, faded or lacking in detail. The Light Harmonizer 2 circuit not only adjusts the gamma curve, but also controls the iris setting, lamp power, and picture sharpness to maintain easy, comfortable viewing at all times. The PT-AX200 features a Game mode that improves signal processing for better response, allowing you to play games with minimal stress. It also reveals gradation in saturated areas to show details that are otherwise lost in very dark areas. The Pure Color Filter was born from Panasonic’s pursuit of optical technology that delivers true Hollywood picture quality. The light spectrum is adjusted to produce a level of light that maximizes the performance of the LCD panels, which expands the color range and produces truer blacks. The high definition picture of the PT-AX200 is remarkably smooth and film-like, while remaining amazingly sharp and detailed. Dynamic Iris has been refined to provide deeper, richer blacks for true image reproduction with stunning smoothness. This technology adjusts the lamp power, iris, and gamma curve according to data obtained from frame-by-frame histogram analysis of the image brightness level. The new Advanced Dynamic Sharpness Control determines image areas that need to be sharpened at varying degrees by examining small changes in brightness levels within the image. This greatly reduces noise amplification and delivers clear and natural looking images.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Essentially perfect
I had a Panasonic PT-AE900U that bit the dust after 3 1/2 years of constant (~4 hours a day) use, so I opted for this unit as a replacement, which is now 2 generations ahead of the PT-AE900U, which was pretty darn good by any measure. All I can say about this latest version is that it is indeed an improvement in every sense, at about 60% of the price I paid for the old one. Better in every way: Brighter, sharper, yet smoother and more film-like in its presentation. I was able to simply plug it in in place of my old one and it looks fabulous right out of the box. I don’t see any need for adjustment. I watched ‘Dark Knight’ on Blu-ray as projected onto my Da-Lite Manual 106″ Diagonal HDTV Format Home Theater Wall Screen with High Contrast Matte White Fabric (1.1 gain) and it looked just gorgeous. Excellent contrast and depth, color is perfect and the blacks are deep and no longer have the annoying “sheen” I was seeing on the older model.

There really is no reason whatsoever to spend 2x as much (or more) to go 1080P. The difference, even doing an A/B comparison, would be virtually unnoticeable. The only format that even has 1080P is Blu-ray, and I cannot imagine that it could look any better than presented by this unit, which accepts the 1080P signal and scales to 720P. High-def is high-def. Indeed, HDTV is all 720P, and ESPN prefers it to 1080P due to the fact that it’s better for motion shots.

This unit is now available for less than ten Ben Franklins. At that price, it’s insane not to buy one. You could buy one of these brand new every time the bulb burned out (2000 hours) several times in a row and still spend less than what one 1080P projector would set you back.

And did I mention the Game Mode? PS3 ‘Motorstorm Pacific Rift’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ are just nuts with this unit! Have your pals over for some life-size gaming action and they may never leave!

So just buy it already!

5 Stars Jaw Dropping
Understand that I’m new to projectors, so I don’t have a lot of background for comparison. I recently moved to a new apartment with a massive living room and I thought to myself “This would be a great opportunity to set up the home theater I always wanted.” I spent a good two months researching online for the perfect entry-level hd projector. After slogging through hundreds, if not thousands, of amateur and professional reviews, it was neck and neck between the Panasonic and the Optoma HD65. The Optoma is significantly less expensive, but I was scared off by the potential for “rainbows”. (Google “rainbow effect” if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) Rainbows tend to occur far more often with high-contrast images, and since I watch a lot of B&W movies, I wanted to make sure this wouldn’t be an issue, and as the Panasonic is an LCD projector, it won’t be. I ended up purchasing a refurb model of the PT AX200u on eBay for a terrific price.

The biggest concern I had was what to do for a screen. If you spend any time on AV forums online you find that, like with many things, there’s an ongoing battle over whether to use a high-end screen from a trusted manufacturer (Draper, Da-lite, etc.) or to make one yourself. I decided that, as a noob, I would just paint a screen on the wall and save up for a nice one. When I got the projector yesterday I set it up (which took about five minutes) just to make sure it was working properly. I hadn’t gotten around to painting the screen yet, since I was planning it as a project for the weekend. I connected my mac mini, which I use as a media center pc, and switched on the projector. Cue the stunned silence. In a moment I had an image of my mac desktop covering nearly the entirety of my living room wall, about 7′x 13′!!! Since I haven’t received my blu-ray player yet (it arrives tomorrow) I decided to pull up Front Row and check out how some of my movies looked. I have a number of dvd’s ripped to an external harddrive. The first one was “Casablanca”. For a regular old MP4 rip of a standard def dvd it looked amazing. For contrast, I pulled up “Kingdom of Heaven” and, with a color film, you can certainly see a bit more grain and the film titles have a fair amount of pixelization, but it’s still totally watchable. Did I mention I hadn’t painted the screen yet? It turns out our pale green walls, which have a fair amount of gray in them, work perfectly well as a screen. I had to do some color correction to make sure the skin tones looked right, but I’m perfectly satisfied.

Now, if a THX tech came by tomorrow he’d probably laugh in my face over how amateur my setup is, but for a first time projector owner, I’m floored by how great the picture looks. The thing is also incredibly bright. Though at night our living room is very dark, I’m currently writing this at 9:30 a.m. on a drizzly morning and the picture is perfectly viewable, even with tons of ambient light. Overall, I’m very impressed. I’ll leave you with this: My wife, who resisted the whole idea of a home theater for a long time, came into the room last night just after I got the projector set up. She stared at the wall in silence for a moment, then said to me “We’re having people over this weekend.” How’s that for a seal of approval?

UPDATE 6/15/09

It’s been about ten days and this may be the greatest thing I’ve ever owned. Hooked up a Panasonic blu-ray player and wow. Just…wow. Had friends over the other night and watched Kubrick’s 2001 in blu-ray projected about 14′x8′ (the size of some arthouse multiplexes I’ve paid good money at in LA & NYC) and everyone was blown away. We’ve also watched standard dvd’s upconverted and they really look pretty darn good. Even Netflix instant watch and Hulu are completely watchable, though I usually shrink the screen to about 120″ diagonal. I’ve got a movie theater in my apartment!!! How cool is that?

4 Stars low noise and high res.
quiet, high res, many features for a really good price. Adjustable throw distance is a plus.

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