Hi joined the forum last week ....great site
i,m looking to buy a pj with a £2000.00 budget. i was interested in a h56 but i noticed the h57 at a lower price, can anyone tell me if the h57 is a replacement for the h56, or a new range with lower quality compared to the h56.........cheers

[KraGorn]

Hi

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong , but I'm pretty certain the 57 is a replacement for the 56. Several threads on here discussing the 57, seems to be a pretty damned fine projector at the price.

Hi,

I'm in pretty much the same situation as yourself, having a 2K budget and
also having joined this forum last week. I took a trip up to the What Hi-Fi show a couple of weeks ago thoroughly expecting to confirm that I was going to buy the Screenplay 5700. This projector was on display there along with the H57 and has a similar (but slightly inferior spec) and costs about 400 quid more. Having seen both projectors in action, I can definitely say that in my opinion, the H57 is the superior projector with better contrast to the image and quieter operation. The demo totally changed my mind and this is now the model I shall be buying.I cannot comment on the H56 as I haven't seen this particular projector, but at this moment in time I would thoroughly recommend the H57.

Cheers !

[Bogeyed]

Hi all, glad to hear you thought the H57 was the better projector as I recently had a demo of the H56 and was told it was indeed to be superceded by the H57. Unfortunately the dealer ,although he had several pre-orders has yet to receive one for demo so perhaps I will just have to wait a bit longer.Christmas perhaps?

[KraGorn]

Yeah, Optoma do seem to have a perennial delivery problem .. they promise delivery then don't , IIRC the same thing happened last year when the H56 first came out.

That does seem to be the case. I rang Audiovision a couple of days ago and apparently they've been told to expect delivery of the H57 sometime this week. So, fingers crossed but I ain't holding my breath

[Bogeyed]

The Vorlon, Hi what was your opinion on the dreaded rainbows (or lack of them)on the H57? Or have you never been affected by them?

Hi Bogeyed. Nope. Had no problem whatsoever with rainbows. Just couldn't see them. I know a lot of other people in this forum have had issues with them, which is one of the reasons I went up to the show so that I could see for myself. They showed a variety of films including Monsters Inc. & ET on the H57 and I was just blown away by the image quality . There is no way I would consider an LCD projector after this.

Hi All
i went for a couple of demos on sat and sun (h30 on sat at hollywood at home in leven) (infocus 5700 on sun at the hifi show near edinburgh on sun) i found the rainbow very bad with the infocus, less so on the h30 but bad enough for me to be very disapointed. mebe i'm just one of the people to be badly affected by these rainbows.....so now i'm off to do some research on the best lcd with a budget of £2000.00......any ideas would be welcome
cheers

[KraGorn]

Given the problems people are reporting with AE700s and Z3s then I think the Sony HS50 sounds like something to be looked into, though it's too new to form a conclusion as to what vices it has.

[kasumi]

H57 has landed at Optoma UK finally... though, apparently the RS232 port doesn't work on this first batch, but I said doesn't bother me, so should have my mitts on it soon...

[Bogeyed]

Well that is good news!, wonder how long it will take to send a few up north!

Originally Posted by kasumi

H57 has landed at Optoma UK finally... though, apparently the RS232 port doesn't work on this first batch, but I said doesn't bother me, so should have my mitts on it soon...

If the RS232 port doesn't work you can't firmware upgrade the unit...
I was told that the first batch had problems with the scart/rgb input, and the remote control was missing. Now they are awaiting a new firmware to fix some bad colors on the scart/rgb input... Hopefully it will be in place this week

[kasumi]

The RS232 port is a 3 pin MINI DIN socket too. Don't know how you'd do a firmware update to this anyway, but at least the machine has a 3 year swap warranty...

Not bothered about it too much, nor the RGB/scart input, not a good connection to use anyway & I won't be using it. Just connecting my dvd & xbox and thats it, no tv etc...

Still, i wish they'd use BNC sockets instead of crappy RCA's. Will be modding my new dvd player this way but can't go changing them on a £1800 projector.

Diablito. Where did you hear about the SCART & RC problems ?

Originally Posted by The Vorlon

Diablito. Where did you hear about the SCART & RC problems ?

Some salesrep told me...

I have had a H56 for nearly 1 year. Over the last 4 weeks the image had been getting darker and darker and so I returned it back to the shop. After sending it away for checking they said it needed a new bulb costing £250. It hand only done 217 hours and the bulb was supposed to last at least 2000. Not a happy chappy

I would have recommended the H56 having had one for nearly 1 year but I have had a problem with mine over the last 4 weeks. The intensity of the image was getting worse over a few weeks and have found out I need a new bulb. The bulbs as supposed to last 2000 hourse but mine only lasted 217. At £250 each its hartbreaking to have to fork out that much in less than 1 year of purchase.

[Dwayne Dibley]

Hi Gwyn,

I'm in the "excitedly clutching a wodge of 50's looking for a good price" stage... it's always disconcerting to hear stories like yours..... surely if it's less than a year old you should be covered by the warranty? I hope you sort it out.

[benji_m]

We are into second batches now certainly, even here in the north! I know there are a few owners with som interesting (positive!) comments around these parts

[Moonlighter]

I have the H57 and must admit I do see rainbows on this projector. It all depends on what film you watch. On Gladiator you can see rainbows. Another film that showed a lot of rainbows was Angel Heart. It seems to happen whenever there are dark scenes with light scenes(White on Black) Even though I do see the odd rainbow overall this projector is great. The colour and contrast is excellent. I also play games through my PS2 and there are no rainbows with this. Long term plan is to keep this projector until 3 chip DLP's come down in price or a new technology gets invented that has a clearer picture.

I have had my H57 since the end of November (one of the very first in the UK) and love it to pieces. It looks simply awesome. In my opinion DLP is a significantly better technology than LCD -- it just looks more "film like" (I mainly watch DVDs).

As for reliability, Optoma has a 3 year hot-swap warranty, which is very tough to beat. I recently had an issue with the unit "freezing" so it had to go to their service centre. They picked it up when they said they would and it came back very soon after, all sorted. I have had no issues since and am glad the repair service was as advertised.

Panasonic and Sony only have a 1 year warranty, you have to pay for shipping it to them and you do not get a replacement unit in the meantime. This and the picture quality made my decision to go with the H57 very easy. I haven't regretted it since.

-- J