AV News 192 - May 2013
I went to the Lichfield branch but because the projectors are mounted on the
ceiling and my laptop has a DVI socket not an HDMI socket, we could not
connect them together.
A few days later I went to the Birmingham branch armed with a long DVI
to HDMI lead and was able to spend a happy couple of hours in the company
of the manager who was most helpful and well-informed. I had narrowed the
choice to two machines and it was no trouble to keep alternating between
these two. The results were very revealing: on paper they had very similar
specifications and the BenQ W1200 was initially my preferred choice (and
£100 cheaper!) but the difference in picture quality was amazing. The BenQ
had a grainy quality, didn't seem as well-defined, and exhibited some awful
'jpeg-like artifacts' such as prominent white halos on horizons. No matter how
we tried, we could not get into the menu to change the sharpness settings.
The Optoma HD33 on the other hand was so much better, the colours of
my AVs looked exactly like at home, the Blu-ray movies were absolutely
stunning, and even an ordinary DVD looked almost as good as the Blu-ray
disc, presumably the result of upscaling. I was also pleasantly surprised to
find that the manager was open to a bit of haggling over the price, and that
there was a free 5 year guarantee too!
Acknowledgements
There are a few other things you might want to consider, such as bulb life,
and the type and number of connecting sockets. I'm sure there are many
people out there who have far more detailed knowledge than me, but having
had to spend some time researching the subject I thought it would be nice to
share the findings with you.
Thanks go to the staff at Progressive-AV in Tunbridge Wells who were very
knowledgeable and understanding of the specialist needs of AV workers. If
you live in the South East I would definitely recommend giving them a call.
My thanks also goes to Tim at Richer Sounds Birmingham who went out of
his way to help me compare the projectors.
Equipment suppliers
Richer Sounds:
www.richersounds.com
Progressive-AV:
www.progressive-av.com
Amazon:
www.amazon.co.uk
Projector Point:
www.projectorpoint.co.uk
Just Projectors:
www.projectors.co.uk
Projector Planet:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/projectorplanet
ViewRight Projector Centre: www.viewright.co.uk
ProjectorShop24:
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www.projectorshop24.co.uk