Projector Reviews

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Feb 28, 2001  |  First Published: Mar 01, 2001
Better than I pixelled it.

The first step in overcoming any problem is admitting that you have one, so I'll admit that I don't normally like LCD projectors. There's no point in hiding the fact—it was bound to come out. Of course, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm prejudiced against an entire class of display devices. This is America, after all, where products should be judged on merit and not the composition of their pixels. But, you know, they're fine for other people. It's just not the kind of projector I'd have in my living room . . . . So, I was fully prepared not to like Sharp's XV-DW100U LCD projector. Sure, it can accept input signals from an analog NTSC tuner all the way up to 720p and 1080i from an outboard DTV tuner. So what if it easily connects to your computer, too? All right, it is amazingly easy to set up. OK, it works as a front or rear, floor or ceiling projector. I'll even give you the fact that it's a blast to watch. But, hey, it's still an LCD projector, remember?

Mike Wood  |  Jan 18, 2001  |  First Published: Jan 19, 2001
"It's not dead yet! In fact, it looks like it's going for a walk."

Monty Python's take on the plague in the Middle Ages could just as easily be applied to the CRT-based front-projector market. Pundits have long proclaimed that CRT technology, at least 30 to 40 years old and an admitted setup and maintenance hassle, is dead, or at least in its last years of life. Upstarts like DLP and D-ILA and adolescents like LCD are ready to take CRT's place in the front-projector market. Then, as other consumer-projector manufacturers close their doors, a new CRT company pops up.

Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 29, 2000

Audio considerations seem to be the top priority of most home-theater enthusiasts. But once you reach a certain plateau of sound quality you begin to take a good look at your video display, and most of us end up wanting a separate projector and screen for that real movie experience. At <I>SGHT</I>, we've reviewed some of the most exotic video-display products on the planet. But when the daydreaming stops, we realize that these projectors are the video equivalents of Ferraris. As much fun as they are to write and (we hope) read about, only a few lucky readers will ever park them in their homes.

John J. Gannon  |  Nov 29, 2000

Ever since the days of David and Goliath, the world has rooted for the little guy. In the underdog we invest our imagination and our collective hope: we want him to win&mdash;or at least put up a good fight. And every once in a while, the little dog gets to choose weapons that can skew the results in his favor. Such is the case with the newest entry in the residential CRT market, the Theater Automation Wow HD-800 CRT projector.

Mike Wood  |  Oct 28, 2000  |  First Published: Oct 29, 2000
We've often said that a projector is only as good as the processor that feeds it. The most expensive projector on the planet won't save your picture from a bad video processor. Until now, most people bought projectors and processors like dim sum: à la carte or piece by piece. With few exceptions, they would buy a projector from one company and a processor from another. Runco is looking to change all that by tailoring their processors to work with specific display devices so that you can get the most out of both.
Mike Wood  |  Mar 28, 2000  |  First Published: Mar 29, 2000
Sèleco shows us that you can get excellent color fidelity and great resolution at a budget price.

If you don't want a front projector, you should. Projectors rock! A big-screen image is the only way to get that cinematic feel with home movies (prerecorded movies, that is—not the jittery Handicam shots of your baby's first steps).

John Sciacca  |  Mar 14, 2011
I first experienced Runco’s new D-73d 3D projector at the CEDIA Expo last September and was pretty impressed. By “pretty impressed” I mean that it was the best display of 3D technology I witnessed at the show. I find myself prone to headaches and discomfort when viewing many 3D demonstrations, and the D-73d was the easiest-on-the-eyes solution I’d seen. But there is a big difference between being wowed by a 10-minute demo and evaluating something critically for hours on end. So, when an opportunity to review this new projector at Runco’s factory headquarters came up, I jumped at the chance!
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Mar 23, 2011

To understand the greatness of JVC’s DLA-X7 projector, it’s important to understand contrast ratio. Every TV and projector company rattles on about a million-to-one this and a billion-to-one that. How come? Because there’s no standard method to measure it. Result: Manufacturers can pretty much make up whatever they want.

Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jun 16, 2011

Sharp was once king of the $10,000 projector class, a class now nearly disappeared. With the 3D era under way, it returns to the game with this $4,995 offering, only to find the market far more competitive than before. Most notable is the $500-cheaper JVC DLA-X3, the baby brother of the X7 model I reviewed in the April/May issue. 

Geoffrey Morrison  |  Aug 24, 2011

Plenty of people reading this review may exhibit a rather visceral reaction to the Runco LS-10i projector’s $20,000 price. After all, the Sharp XV-Z17000 DLP projector that I reviewed in Sound+Vision’s last issue was 25% as expensive, was nearly as bright, and did 3D. So what gives? What does the extra money get you? A fair amount, it turns out.

Michael Berk  |  Sep 08, 2011

Well, it looks like another major manufacturer has followed Optoma's lead in bringing the cost of 3D projection down to a reasonable figure.

Michael Berk  |  Sep 08, 2011

Doing its part to bring cutting-edge theatrical digital projection technology to a price point that's still hazy but should at least be less thanstratospheric, Sony announced the VPL-VW1000ES projector - the first of its 4K capable SXRD units to be aimed at the home market.

Geoffrey Morrison  |  Sep 12, 2011

Perhaps it was because I wasn't paying attention, but I didn't expect a lot of big projector news to come out of this show. Yeah, I was wrong.

Pages

X