Bought a beamer

[Demon Cleaner]

After reviewing for almost 2 weeks beamers online, I finally decided to buy one, as I already wanted to do this longer time ago.

3D beamers are now on the market since some time, and the latest generation is very good, so I had a bit problems deciding which one to get.

I checked all the latest beamers from Panasonic, Sony, JVC, Epson, BenQ and Mitsubishi, where the Panasonic, Sony and the JVC made it in my last top 3.

I decided in the end to get the Panasonic, as it got almost everywhere great reviews. There was only one guy, here from Luxembourg, who has a high end Hifi shop who didn't like the Panasonic so much. So I called him, and he invited me to go to his place, where he could demonstrate me different beamers.

So last Friday I went there together with my girlfriend, and he made us a demonstration during 2 hours.

I now bought the JVC DLA-X30, because when I saw it running, it was just overwhelming Everything was truly perfect in my eyes. 2D, 3D, BluRay, games or even only DVD, everything looked just great. He even showed my an old, badly recorded DVD, which was still showing fine, not worse than some .avi files look on my actual plasma TV.

He showed my WipeOut HD 3D, and after 1 minute, I already felt dizzy, that was really amazing, but I guess that after 10 minutes of playing, you eventually will puke Gran Turismo also looked good, although feels less puky. He told me that still at the moment 3D games don't look very good yet, they are fine, but nothing groundbreaking. He said that the only real good one is Killzone 3. He also told me that once you played f.ex. Call of Duty or FIFA on a big screen, you never will want to return to normal sized screens again.

He showed my Avatar in 3D, and that was fantastic, but he mentioned that Avatar is at the moment one of the best 3D movies out. He then showed me something less good, but in my opinion, it was still great. He pointed me some minor ghosting in one scene, but I didn't even notice or see it.

2D is absolutely stunning, the JVC has by far the best luminosity, and you can clearly see that in dark scenes. The beamer ran the whole time in eco mode, but it was light enough to watch everything he showed me, absolutely perfect. When playing 3D material, the beamer of course switches to normal, because you lose almost 50% of the light because of using the shutter glasses. And it was still running very silent, louder than in eco mode, but still no PS3.

The big disadvantage of the Sony was that you have to put the 3D emitter in front of your projection screen, which forces you to pull another cable from the beamer through your room. Panasonic has that built in, which is obviously the best, and the JVC also has an external emitter, but you can just put it on top of the beamer.

The JVC has also a fixed iris (aperture), which gives you the same amount of black in the middle than at the edges of the screen, whereas Sony and Panasonic use dynamic iris, which first of all makes some noise when opening or closing, and the colors or black f.ex. fade towards the edge of the screen.

And the JVC is also the only one who uses an automatic lens shift, Sony has wheels on the beamer, and Panasonic has a stick, which, according to EVERY review I read, is really bad.

All of these beamers are in the same price category, between 2500€ and 3000€. That made it even more difficult to chose. I will get the JVC from the guy for 2500€, plus he will give me 2 3D glasses, which are around 100€ each. He will also come to my place to calibrate it, once it is installed, as it's already good in the default setting out of the box, but he explained me that with proper calibration you can get even better results.

As projection screen, I bought a motorized 16:9 Ultraluxx with a dimension of 240x135cm, which is around 110 inch, with a gain factor of 1.3 and it is also tensioned on the sides, which prevents waves in the canvas, which is not always the case with non-tensioned screens. The screen was 850€.

I will get the beamer on Friday, I have the screen already, and will start with the first preparations coming Monday. I cannot set it up yet, as I am also redoing the ceiling in my living room, where the beamer will be installed. Also the ceiling in the whole hallway will be redone. The wood I ordered will only get delivered on the 1st of June, so that coming week, 4th of June, I will install everything, quite big project.

Here are some reviews of the beamer:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/jvc-dl...ojector_review

http://www.projectorcentral.com/jvc_...tor_review.htm

http://www.avclubhouse.com/blog/2011...30-review.html

Verdict (from one of the reviews)

Well, whaddya know: with the X30 JVC has yet again set the bar for projection quality in the £3,000 projector class. It might almost be boring if the projector wasn’t so darn brilliant.

The X30 is overall a bigger step forward from the X3 then we’d expected, which means pretty much by default that it’s the finest projector in its class.

[Harrison]

Cool. I had been tempted by home cinema projectors years ago, but never too seriously.

I hadn't realised 3D home projectors even existed. Is the 3D image effect better than a LCD 3D HDTV?

And do these projectors work in bright rooms? Or do you still need to dim the lights for the best image?

[Demon Cleaner]

Never saw an LCD 3D HDTV, I guess beamer is better, as bigger and more realistic.

You still need to dim the lights, otherwise it's too bright, but my room is quite dark already, and if I'm watching or playing, it's 90% in the evening, then it's dark anyway.

[Harrison]

And it is safe to play games on it? In the past I know playing games on a projector could reduce the life of the projection bulbs, and those can cost a lot of money each time they need replacing.

Are these projectors LCD projection?

[Demon Cleaner]

These projectors are all LCD projection.

As long as you can keep your projector in eco mode, the lamp can last 4-5 times longer, and for gaming, at least with the JVC, eco mode produces enough light to be able to play, not different than watching a BD.

Btw, the JVC X30 is a D-ILA projector.

[Demon Cleaner]

I'm also buying a new A/V receiver, as the Pioneer (VSX-520) I have, doesn't support TrueHD and that stuff, and I have so many optical cables, splitters and switches, so that I decided to buy a good receiver, probably the Onkyo TX-NR609, which was product of the year 2011.

It comes with 5 HDMI inputs, that's exactly what I need, then I can get rid of all the stuff, and only plug my devices with HDMI only, instead of also having the optical cables.