[FONT=Arial]I have just finished playing with a TW600 which I had on a demo loan for two days, so to help satisfy the demand here for more information on this unit, here are my comments, which I must stress are only my personal opinions and as such this is not intended to be a technical review. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Unfortunately I only had the evenings free in which to use it, but I managed to spend approximately six hours viewing it. I didn't get to try everything I wanted to, but enough to get a reasonable idea of what this projector is capable of.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I have a light controlled room which is basically completely dark unless a light source is introduced to it. I was feeding the unit via progressive component from a Denon 2900, I don't have a dvd player with HDMI ouput as yet and I intend waiting until HD-DVD or BLU-RAY are readily available rather than purchasing a standard definition dvd player with upscaling (I don't see the benefit of these if the projector itself has good processing capabilities). I did also briefly connect an XBox 360 to run some HD clips at 720p (and play PGR3 for 10 minutes).[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Firstly, before commenting on the overall image quality, I would like to address the main concerns that a few of the earliest reviewers have commented upon:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1. LCD Panel misalignment - no evidence whatsoever of any problem in this regard. Moving right up close to the screen until the pixels were clearly visible showed absolutely no mis-convergence on this particular sample, hopefully this is typical of all shipped units.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2. Vertical banding - not apparent. If it exists at all then it must be very minor, I didn't notice any scenes where it I could detect it.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]3. Screen Door Effect - no pixel structure visible from my viewing distance of 15ft from an 8ft width screen. I forgot to check at what distance this becomes an issue, but I would think that at 1.5 times screen width it would still be perfectly ok, probably at even much less distance than that.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]4. Fan noise - this is definitely not the quietest projector around, it doesn't compete with DLP's in this respect, which seem to be near silent (at least the newest ones do). However, when using the two dimmest lamp modes, Theatre Black 1 & 2, then the noise level is fairly low, still just audible in very quiet scenes (from about 3 feet away), but this is lost when the movie sound is playing and to be honest I didn't find it at all intrusive even when things are quiet. Changing to Theatre mode, the brightness increases very slightly and so does the fan noise, again this didn't bother me. But now move up to any of the other lamp modes and the fan noise increases significantly to a level that I feel would be annoying (unless you sit some distance away from the projector and the soundtrack is played at a reasonable level), so if you plan to use this in a room with a lot of ambient light requiring the higher brightness modes, be aware the fan will be noticeable. As this was a loan unit I didn't try it ceiling mounted, so I can't comment on whether or not the fan noise increases when the projector is inverted and used in the Theatre Dark 1 & 2 modes as some users have mentioned. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]5. Auto Iris – I had this switched on for most of the time and I didn't notice any 'pulsing' in operation, any adjustments that it may have been making were unobtrusive. This may be due to the fact that I was using the Dark1 & 2 modes, so with the lower brightness levels already being projected, the auto iris may not have been very busy anyway. I had intended to test this further with some extreme brightness changes in high lamp modes, but eventually ran out of time and I had already determined that the low lamp modes best suited my viewing requirements.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Overall impressions:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]My opinion is based on comparison with the TW100 projector that I have been using in the same room setting for the last three years, a new BenQ 7700 DLP that a friend has just purchased and various other units that I have seen in use at dealers and shows over recent years.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The default image out of the box is best in Theatre mode, a good compromise of light/dark/contrast settings combined with good colour balance. All modes benefit from some tweaking to improve the image, some more so than others. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I personally did not like Dynamic mode at all, colour was terrible, I couldn't forsee any circumstances where I would want to use this mode. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Living Room mode best suited the Xbox games and I guess this would also suit a PC connection although I didn't get chance to try this out (and don't worry about the fan noise, the XBox 360 will easily drown it out, I can't believe how loud that thing is!). [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]For DVD watching in a dark room, perhaps with a small amount of ambient light, I think Theatre mode would be best. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]If you can setup a fully dark room, then Theatre Dark 1 or 2 modes would be the optimum. It does depend on the type of movie you are watching, they offer much better contrast levels, although you do suffer some loss of brightness. For bright colourful animation (Monsters Inc, etc) Theatre mode is probably still the better choice, although I did find the island jungle scenes in The Incredibles was best using Dark 1. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I did try modifying settings according to what others users have previously posted on various forums around the globe and while some worked better than others, I think they should be regarded as just a starting reference and final settings will depend on each individuals preferences and the room environments being used. What I would say, is don't be put off by what you see straight out of the box if the image is not quite to your liking (although this may suit some people just fine), this can be substantially and dramatically improved with tweaking. I would suggest calibrating with Digital Video Essentials disc or similar first and then adjusting from there to personal tastes for each lamp mode.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The lens shift is a very useful facility. If you can't line the lens up with the center of your screen, this will really increase your location options, the degree of shift is considerable making positioning very versatile. I would still aim to place centrally, but even then final adjustments to fit the screen will be made much easier.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The thing I liked best with this unit, was the 'smoothness' of the picture, no smearing as is often the case with LCD's. Colour rendition, detail and sharpness are all very good indeed. Contrast can be very good with careful setting. Black level – yes it can produce deep blacks, certainly as good as the BenQ 7700 DLP from what I have seen, the better DLP's will still beat it, but you'll have to spend a lot more money for marginal improvement. I watched Sin City and it looked great, a tough test for black levels and contrast.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I lined up many dvd's of different types to watch short clips from and ended up watching longer sections of each than I had intended, simply because I became engrossed in what I was seeing, it made me want to go back through my entire collection and watch everything again, soon, because it all looked so much better than what I have been used to.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I have seen slightly better from the likes of SIM2, but at very much higher cost and I can still see the dreaded rainbows on
all single chip DLP's that I have seen to date, regardless of cost. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]If you are in the market for your first projector, you surely won't be disappointed with the TW600. If you are upgrading from a projector purchased more than 12 months ago, you probably still won't be disappointed. If you can tolerate DLP's, then you may have other options available to you, but if you suffer from rainbows, then this is probably as good an alternative as you are likely to find at this price point with currently available technology. You may need to make the most of the Memory settings to define configurations for different types of movie, but after that it will be easy to call up the optimum settings for your preferences. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Before I forget, the XBox 360 and High-Def clips……Excellent! I look forward to the availability of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray drives and discs, then I think we will find that this projector hits it's sweet spot and proves even better value than it already seems to be.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]It's video processing capabilities are excellent, the resulting image is very pleasing to watch. Compared to what I paid for my TW100, this thing is an absolute bargain for £1,300 and the warranty terms are outstanding.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Don’t be put off by mention of fan noise, it really isn’t that bad at all, you honestly won’t notice it when watching a movie, but I would be lying if I said it’s silent. And don’t be scared off by the need to tweak, for many it will be fine as it comes, but for those who want to get the best possible image, a little time taken to make adjustments to the image settings will reward you greatly. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The bottom line:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Will I be buying one? I think I just might. I had promised myself that I would wait for the C2Fine LCD panels to appear, but it sounds like they might well be at least another year away from making it to market and may potentially be released in more expensive products initially. I want to watch my dvd collection with the improvements that I have witnessed over the last two evenings, starting right now!
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[FONT=Arial]P.S. I don’t want to break any forum rules (not sure if I’m allowed to mention retailers), but if anyone wants to know where I arranged the demo unit from, just PM me and I’ll reply as soon as possible.[/FONT]
Linear Mode
