Michael K
04-10-2004, 02:45 AM
Hi guys i finally bought an Infocus 4805 last Friday after a lot of thought.
I beleive I should give an honest assessment of it as others did when i was
trying to choose.
I initially set it up at 100inch and the room was pitch black. I was so
bloody happy with the image I could not beleive my eyes. I am projecting on
an off white wall at the moment, but the colors are superb and the faroudja
processor makes the image very sharp and clear. Watched Mystic River on DVD
(progressive scan) and went to bed a happy man :)
The next day I turned it on during daylight hours. I currently live in a new
home and do not have curtains as of yet. We have bed sheets up on the
windows at the moment which do a bad job of keeping light out however I just
wanted to check it out. To be honest, the image was unwatchable in both low
and high power modes. Even though there was no direct sunlight on the
screen, just having ambient light killed the image. Apparently the projector
does around 350-450 lumens, not enough to watch during the day. I beleive
even with curtains blocking out some of the windows in the home it may still
not be that good. I recommend anyone wanting a projector to watch both
during the day and night probably to go with the Benq 6200. Projector
Central says this projector does 725 lumens when calibrated, almost double
the Infocus.
A friend of mine has a Benq 6200 and I can say that even with a bit of
ambient light the projector does a good job in terms of brightness. In terms
of picture quality between the 2 projectors I can say the Infocus delivers
the better picture in all modes but more noticable on DVD and S-Video. The
Benq processor doesnt do the same job for these 2 sources, the image looks
soft. HDTV on the benq 6200 is quite good however because of its high res.
SDE is not noticable at all 2X away for both pj.
I have not tested HDTV on the Infocus yet as I do not have a set top box. As
of tonight however i was projecting an image 145inch (approx 3.2m wide and
1.8m high) and I tell you what, the image is still spectacular. The contrast
drops off slightly but the much larger image compensates easily for this.
Ive rethought my whole plans for this projector and will now be projecting
the 145" image in another room in my home as I loved it that much. Sitting
about 6 metres back I cannot see any screendoor and the image is still very
very sharp and clear. Although the 4805 is low res, it doesnt seem to make
much difference to me and im pretty picky.
In the dark, the 4805 seems to be the perfect projector especially for the
price. In ambient light, Id have to say its not that good which is
understandable for home cinema. Overall im reasonably happy with my purchase
and hope it doesnt get too old in the near future, especially compared to
the Panasonic ae700.
If you are looking to buy a projector could I just say 1 thing:
There is no 1 perfect projector out there. You have to plan in detail how,
when and where you will watch the projector and try find the best projector
for your particular solution. If you have to sacrifice certain things to get
an overall good projector then you should do that. Dont just buy a projector
based on specs or what others (in a totally different situation) say.
Hope this helps you guys decide on a projector
I beleive I should give an honest assessment of it as others did when i was
trying to choose.
I initially set it up at 100inch and the room was pitch black. I was so
bloody happy with the image I could not beleive my eyes. I am projecting on
an off white wall at the moment, but the colors are superb and the faroudja
processor makes the image very sharp and clear. Watched Mystic River on DVD
(progressive scan) and went to bed a happy man :)
The next day I turned it on during daylight hours. I currently live in a new
home and do not have curtains as of yet. We have bed sheets up on the
windows at the moment which do a bad job of keeping light out however I just
wanted to check it out. To be honest, the image was unwatchable in both low
and high power modes. Even though there was no direct sunlight on the
screen, just having ambient light killed the image. Apparently the projector
does around 350-450 lumens, not enough to watch during the day. I beleive
even with curtains blocking out some of the windows in the home it may still
not be that good. I recommend anyone wanting a projector to watch both
during the day and night probably to go with the Benq 6200. Projector
Central says this projector does 725 lumens when calibrated, almost double
the Infocus.
A friend of mine has a Benq 6200 and I can say that even with a bit of
ambient light the projector does a good job in terms of brightness. In terms
of picture quality between the 2 projectors I can say the Infocus delivers
the better picture in all modes but more noticable on DVD and S-Video. The
Benq processor doesnt do the same job for these 2 sources, the image looks
soft. HDTV on the benq 6200 is quite good however because of its high res.
SDE is not noticable at all 2X away for both pj.
I have not tested HDTV on the Infocus yet as I do not have a set top box. As
of tonight however i was projecting an image 145inch (approx 3.2m wide and
1.8m high) and I tell you what, the image is still spectacular. The contrast
drops off slightly but the much larger image compensates easily for this.
Ive rethought my whole plans for this projector and will now be projecting
the 145" image in another room in my home as I loved it that much. Sitting
about 6 metres back I cannot see any screendoor and the image is still very
very sharp and clear. Although the 4805 is low res, it doesnt seem to make
much difference to me and im pretty picky.
In the dark, the 4805 seems to be the perfect projector especially for the
price. In ambient light, Id have to say its not that good which is
understandable for home cinema. Overall im reasonably happy with my purchase
and hope it doesnt get too old in the near future, especially compared to
the Panasonic ae700.
If you are looking to buy a projector could I just say 1 thing:
There is no 1 perfect projector out there. You have to plan in detail how,
when and where you will watch the projector and try find the best projector
for your particular solution. If you have to sacrifice certain things to get
an overall good projector then you should do that. Dont just buy a projector
based on specs or what others (in a totally different situation) say.
Hope this helps you guys decide on a projector