InFocus Projector, any good?

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CoRPS

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 19, 2004
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I just got my income tax return and I've been looking into getting a projector for quite some time. Well, since the refund has already come back to me, I'm finally ready to get something. I was at Tiger Direct yesterday because I had to buy a new HDD, and I noticed an HD Projector for $469.99 after Mail In Rebate.

Here's the link:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2168974&Sku=I427-1118

Any information on this thing? I don't know much about projector specs, is this worth the cost? Thanks for any and all information you may be posting here.
 
Well first of all the resolution of that projector shows that it is not capable of hdtv. Plus with that res i would never consider it for pc use. The hd projector thing is kind of misleading since that is not an hdtv capable display. Plus the lumens of the projector are pretty low at 900. As a result your room will have to be almost pitch black.
 
thefewtheproud said:
Well first of all the resolution of that projector shows that it is not capable of hdtv. Plus with that res i would never consider it for pc use. The hd projector thing is kind of misleading since that is not an hdtv capable display. Plus the lumens of the projector are pretty low at 900. As a result your room will have to be almost pitch black.
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Really? Damn. They had this projector on display projecting a small image onto a screen. It didn't look bad at all, and the entire store was lit up very well, and it didn't seem to look bad at all. As for the HDTV thing, I don't have anything that is HDTV compatible anyway, although I do plan on getting a 360 within the next few months.
 
CoRPS said:
Really? Damn. They had this projector on display projecting a small image onto a screen. It didn't look bad at all, and the entire store was lit up very well, and it didn't seem to look bad at all. As for the HDTV thing, I don't have anything that is HDTV compatible anyway, although I do plan on getting a 360 within the next few months.
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I used to work at Circuit City--it's night and day (literally) between an inexpensive projector and a high-quality one.

Spending an extra few hundred bucks in the projector field gets you a world of useful features and higher quality images. It is COMPLETELY worth the investment if you aren't going to be in a very dark room!

202276
 
thefewtheproud said:
Well first of all the resolution of that projector shows that it is not capable of hdtv. Plus with that res i would never consider it for pc use. The hd projector thing is kind of misleading since that is not an hdtv capable display. Plus the lumens of the projector are pretty low at 900. As a result your room will have to be almost pitch black.
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Well it can take HD signals (in fact it can even take a 1080p signal) but it will downconvert them to its native resolution so most of the extra detail will be lost. However if you're sitting far enough away its not going to matter anyways (and a projector lets you sit pretty far away and still have a nice big screen). As for the lumens, its one of those specs that really doesn't necessarily tell you much as its one that a lot of manufacturers like to inflate and the room you watch it in will determine how bright it is (you want the room as dark as possible).

This is actually a pretty well liked projector, mostly because its very good quality for the cost. In fact I believe that they've compared it to 720p native projectors and it actually can beat quite a few of them in image quality (although I think you can get some nice ones for right about $1000 now).

The thing with projectors if you need to research them even more than most TVs and things as specs tell you almost nothing as far as the actual image quality you'll end up with. Also you really need to have the proper setup for them, but if you do then they are just plain amazing. Also realize that you probably won't be able to replace your TV with one unless you only watch a couple hours a night as bulbs only have a few thousand hours life and cost a few hundred dollars to replace (I think the bulbs for this one are about $300-400 with about 3000-4000 hour expected life).

Here's what you need to get the most out of a projector:

-Room you can control the light in. You really want it as dark as possible.
-A nice blank wall or better yet make your own screen.
-Good distance between your seating and the where you're projecting.

For the latter you need to take into account the throw of the projector (how big of a screen it projects at what distance). If you have a small room a projector won't really be worth it as the screen will be too small and with one of this resolution the screen door effect will probably be pretty noticable and the image will look lacking.

Projectors are very nice and they can be very impressive provided you have a decently dark room, but to get the most there's a lot more you'd really want to do. The nice thing is that once you do get things setup properly you'll be set and can always buy a much nicer projector later when prices are better (I believe there is some new bulb tech that should be nice and also 1080p projectors will probably fall below $2000 before too long).
 
All shitting aside, will it be good enough to watch movies and play WoW, or is it so shitty that even those 2 things won't look right. Honestly, it's oly $500 so all I'm expecting is a HUGE semi decent looking screen. I don't need anything that looks like I'm ONE with the movie, just something that makes it look huge (I don't have the best eyes) and bigger is always better right?!

The room will be pretty dark, although not film developing kind of dark :p The distance from projector to screen/wall will be about 16 feet in the one room, and about 12 in the other.
 
It should be fine for you then. I'd be surprised if you didn't enjoy it a lot even without an optimal setup. :)
 
woot.com has projectors a lot, usually for some decent prices.
 
CoRPS said:
I just got my income tax return and I've been looking into getting a projector for quite some time. Well, since the refund has already come back to me, I'm finally ready to get something. I was at Tiger Direct yesterday because I had to buy a new HDD, and I noticed an HD Projector for $469.99 after Mail In Rebate.

Here's the link:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2168974&Sku=I427-1118

Any information on this thing? I don't know much about projector specs, is this worth the cost? Thanks for any and all information you may be posting here.
Click to expand...

Another thing that hampers projectors is the cost of bulb replacement. Most are rated for 3000 hours which sounds like a bunch but you could burn through one pretty fast depending if you gamed or watch alot of movies.

I almost got a really nice sony projector used recently til i found out it costs 489 dollars a replacement bulb.
 
Yeah the replacement bulbs are near $400. I just plan on making a once-a-month automatic transfer from my checking to my savings of like $25. This should cover the costs of the bulb.

I did some math, if I were to watch the projector for 8 hours a night, everynight, it would take me 375 days to burn out. But, I honestly don't plan on using it for 8 hours everynight.
 
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