Projector characteristics.

Hello

I am currently looking into buying a second hand projector.

I have seen a Sony HS10 LCD and am about to look at a Sim2 HT200DM DLP.

I know that some LCD projectors have colour imbalance (mint green shade on one side and a pale pink on the other) and I know that some people see rainbows when watching DLPs.

Are there any other problems/characteristics I should look out for?

Thanks

[theritz]

Hi Alan, Welcome to the forums....


I know there's lots of discussion of various artifacts, Screendoor, Rainbows, Vertical Banding etc etc.. here and elsewhere but if you're looking to buy your first projector I'd advise that you get a good fix on your budget and look at what's available (second-hand or otherwise) in that range. If you're happy with a demo in terms of picture performance and you're happy that the pj will fit into the scheme of thing (throw distance etc.) then you should be good to go.

You could go out and see every projector on the market (practically) and find them displaying some sort of artifact - neither technology is exempt. You should be demoíng these things to see whether you'd be happy with the image they throw - if you demo them to look for artifacts, you'll always see artifacts rather that the overall image performance.

That said, the main artifacts would be

Screendoor on LCD (try viewing from a minimum of 1.5 screen width, take account of how you'll be setting it up in your own environment - it can be minimised oreliminated by a very slight de-focussing of the picture - some don't like the "softening" of the picture);

Vertical Banding or Fixed Pattern Noise on LCD (look for panning shots in light scenes, like the sky... if you see light coloured vertical lines, or if it looks like your viewing through a rain-streaked window that's VB or FPN);

Rainbows on DLP (colour break-up - there's a link in the FAQ to tell you what it looks like. Some are afflicted by it, some never/rarely see it, some are subliminally affected to the point of getting headaches/nausea, the spped and number of segments in the colour wheel is a big factor in minimising this)

Posterisation, Dithering (blockiness in colours, a "sparkly" appearance in large expanses of dark colours)


I stress that I wouldn't advise anyone to go out looking solely for which artifacts they can see...... My 2c...........


Sean.

Sean

Thank you for such a detailed and helpful reply.

I understand what you are saying about looking for problems. I doubt I would ever have noticed the slight colour uniformity problem on my colleagues Sony HS10 had he not pointed it out to me

My caution is because it seems to take me a week or so before I notice imperfections by which time I may have bought something I might regret.
I know some things I can live with perfectly happily, such as the screendoor effect, whereas the slight convergence problems on a friends RPTV drove me mad.

Thanks again

[theritz]

The colour uniformity issue with LCDs can vary from practically un-noticeable to quite severe - your best option for checking that out is to tote along a dvd of a B&W movie - uniformity (green tint one side, pink/red/magenta on the other) which is quite visible on an all grey screen can be un-noticeable in a normal movie, other than in scenes which are grey/dark in nature.

I understand what you mean by becoming aware of niggles/whatever after viewing for a while - Good luck with your search, even with their various foibles front PJ is ace for movies....

Sean.