Optoma HD20/200X reviews settings and owners thread

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Well, I just got back home with my new hd20, so am now officially 'In the Club' :thumbsup:.

I'll be setting it up soon. I don't have a calibration disc, so thought I'd tinker with the image after seeing what the preset picture's like, using the helpful posts in this thread as a good starting off point. I was wondering if the more recent picture settings posted here would be ok, or should I look at the earlier posts, considering it's a new bulb that's had no run in as yet?

Anyway according to the friendly folks at Roy Jowett, this batch only came in yesterday, so firmware ought to be bang up to date.

Can't wait to give this PJ the once over.

For anyone without a calibration disc download one from this link. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496 The filesize is only about 60meg, once expanded it becomes a 2.15gb picture test/setup disc with superb features, covers a lot of the same areas as DVE.
 
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For basic brightness and contrast, the THX test on Lucasfilm DVD's is good. The rest of the settings can be fine tuned later once the lamp has burned in a little more.
 
Hi people!
I wondering to know if somebody knows or have experimented projecting 1080p using optoma HD20/HD200X on 150" screen size.
I currently have an optoma hd65 and my room can be completely dark.
I want to jump to 1080p and my choice is the HD20, do you think is the right one?

Regards!
 
rmerlano - its good to see you have found your way over here.:smashin:
Nwgarratt is the guy whose photo album i linked to.
 
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Hi rmerlano

Welcome to the forum:thumbsup: That is a big screen you are hoping to get.You will need the projector sighted nearly 18ft away to get a 150" diagonal.

You will need a screen with some gain to achieve an adequate brightness,1.2-1.5 range I would think would be enough.

Other than that the HD20 should be a good projector for your needs.:)


Optoma HD20 Projection Calculator - Throw Distance and Screen Size
 
Thank you Custard and Kbfern.

My screen has a gain of 1.1, I don´t have any problem with the distance of the projector neather light control.

Check my dedicated HT:

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I've tried my hd20 out with a few Blu-Rays this evening, and am impressed overall. Detail and smoothness is an improvement over the 720p hd72 I had previously, although darker scenes don't seem quite as detailed, and tend towards greyish shades. I put this down to a very bright new bulb that needs time to run in. My room did seem more 'lit up', even in economy mode. Monsters Inc looked stunning on my last PJ, but seems even more jaw dropping now. Baraka seemed richer and better defined too. I need more time with it to spin a few discs, but will be away for the weekend so it's gonna have to be Monday.

The factory settings seemed a bit too bright and garish for my tastes, so I couldn't resist a bit of fine tuning. I came up with:

CINEMA
Contrast 45
Brightness 36
Colour 50
Tint 50
Sharpness 7

Gamma Film/Warm
RG -8, GG 0, BG -7
RB -3, GB -1, BB -3.

I quite like these settings, but am sure I'll tinker some more. I'll be interested to see if the dark paint helps pull out more detail in the blacks.

One annoying thing is that the lens is on the opposite side to my last PJ, so the mount will need to be moved to centre the image. I had to aim the beam a few inches to the left, which caused a noticable distortion that would bug me in the long term.

I guess I'm less overwhelmed than I might be because I already had a nice projector with the hd72, with an image I'd fine tuned to perfection and a bulb that'd been run in for a few hundred hours. Nevertheless, I can see a healthy improvement in key areas with the hd20, and think it's a fine bit of kit for the money. And the fan didn't seem noisy to me at all.
 
Detail and smoothness is an improvement over the 720p hd72 I had previously, although darker scenes don't seem quite as detailed, and tend towards greyish shades. I put this down to a very bright new bulb that needs time to run in.

CINEMA
Contrast 45
Brightness 36
Colour 50
Tint 50
Sharpness 7

Gamma Film/Warm
RG -8, GG 0, BG -7
RB -3, GB -1, BB -3.

I quite like these settings, but am sure I'll tinker some more. I'll be interested to see if the dark paint helps pull out more detail in the blacks.



I guess I'm less overwhelmed than I might be because I already had a nice projector with the hd72, with an image I'd fine tuned to perfection and a bulb that'd been run in for a few hundred hours.

you may want to adjust the gamma settings (curve, offset) aswell which may help bring about an improvement in blacks and dark detail.

one of the problems with adjusting brightness (black setting) to 16(reference black) using test patterns is that it does not account for gamma.

when i spent an evening at Keith's(Kbfern) testing the hd20, we also spent a few minutes adjusting the brightness/contrast and grey scale with my colorimeter on his now sold planar pj.
when setting the brightness on his planar to the reference black of 16, we noticed that dark detail had lightened up too much. we ended up resetting the black level back to 25 which was the factory default.

adjusting the gamma can help with differentiating the darker detail if setup correctly.
If i had more time and was able to adjust the gamma aswell we may have been able to keep the black at reference 16 without the black clipping that occurs at 25.

what i'm trying to get at is that sometimes simply adjusting the brightness and contrast setting may not provide an improvement.

i dont know whether your tinkering involved using test patterns for setting the brightness/contast so this may not be relevant to you at all.:D
 
Got my HD20 yesterday, just finished mounting the screen & projector now, Had a quick go with my cables everywhere just to make sure everything works, As i am posting this i still have a cheesy grin on my face, even my GF is very impressed & she hates everything movie/tv wise (more of a bookworm)
All i can say is :D:D:D:eek::D:D:D WOW, i'm glad i did this

I don't seem to have the keystone problem , tried changing the keystone both up and down , no lines at all so far & that was at 1080p @ 60htz from ps3.
 
Got my HD20 yesterday, just finished mounting the screen & projector now, Had a quick go with my cables everywhere just to make sure everything works, As i am posting this i still have a cheesy grin on my face, even my GF is very impressed & she hates everything movie/tv wise (more of a bookworm)
All i can say is :D:D:D:eek::D:D:D WOW, i'm glad i did this

I don't seem to have the keystone problem , tried changing the keystone both up and down , no lines at all so far & that was at 1080p @ 60htz from ps3.

welcome on to the happy bandwagon.:thumbsup:
 
I don't seem to have the keystone problem , tried changing the keystone both up and down , no lines at all so far & that was at 1080p @ 60htz from ps3.

Try putting it in superwide, it makes mine do lines straight away when using negative keystone. Turning it off or no keystone will make them go away. For me, the lines come when either switching the PJ on or going back to the BD player screen. They are not that common know and not nearly as bad when new.
 
Custard10 - what firmware does your machine have? Mine came with version 04 and I don't seem to have the line problem others have seen.
 
Custard10 - what firmware does your machine have? Mine came with version 04 and I don't seem to have the line problem others have seen.

Afaik, there is no 04. What is the date? 9th July is C002.
 
Custard10 - what firmware does your machine have? Mine came with version 04 and I don't seem to have the line problem others have seen.

mines C01 and i can simulate the line problem under certain conditions. as mentioned by Nick it is unlikely that you have c04. the firmware can only be found by accessing the service menu.
 
As Custard has said you will have firmware version 1 or 2 as there is no 3 yet.

While projector is on press Off once followed by left left & up and you will find yourself in the Service menu where it will show you firmware No along with other interesting stuff.

I like you thought initially that I had version 4 firmware from looking at a different part of the menu,then someone kindly pointed out my error.:)
 
Originally posted by Richnoob

One question my Mrs asked me last night which i couldnt answer was....are these projectors expensive to run and will our electric bill be noticeably more expensive if any at all...?

I took a few measurements and the PJ uses about 240 Watts when running, so a 2 hour session would be just under 1/2 KW. To get the actual cost of a film you would need to add in all the other bits and pieces, but I reckon it should come in well under a 1KW so it depends on how much a unit of your electricity costs, but I'd say about 15p for a film all in?

Also checked it in standby mode, and it uses only about a 1 watt, so thats excellent and a good saving on my old pj which used about 17 watts in standby.
 
For anyone wanting to do any of the basic colour calibrations, this months What HiFi Sound And Vision (November's) has a pair of the free THX Optimizer glasses (blue filter). I tried these out on my old Sony TV last night and adjusted it (colour and tint) as a practice before trying the PJ. Have to say the colour was way out and looks much better now. Just about to have a go on the HD20, but need to find a way to kick the little one off so I can have a play.
 
Try putting it in superwide, it makes mine do lines straight away when using negative keystone. Turning it off or no keystone will make them go away. For me, the lines come when either switching the PJ on or going back to the BD player screen. They are not that common know and not nearly as bad when new.

Tried that, still no lines at all......

Or should i say YET?
 
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i have the hd20 and i have tried using keystone on the lowest negative setting and i do not get any lines what so ever

can i just ask why you would need to use keystone correction ?
i dont know much about projectors but i thought if they were set up correctly then there should be no real need for that adjustment ?
i assumed if you get the lens perfect centre to the screen thats all you need to do ?
well thats what i did and i have the keystone on 0 no need to adjust any settings
 
i have the hd20 and i have tried using keystone on the lowest negative setting and i do not get any lines what so ever

can i just ask why you would need to use keystone correction ?
i dont know much about projectors but i thought if they were set up correctly then there should be no real need for that adjustment ?
i assumed if you get the lens perfect centre to the screen thats all you need to do ?
well thats what i did and i have the keystone on 0 no need to adjust any settings

Its not always possible to get the PJ centre and level to the screen. Mine is in the centre but I have had to lift the back up or the picture would be on the ceiling. I have had to do that for all my projectors so far.

Projectors do no project directly in front. They have a offset and so actually project upwards (or downwards when on the ceiling). The offset on the HD20/HD200 is actually less than a lot of projector at 7.3" high/low.

I used no keystone for a long time when using a blind but now I have a screen, with black edges, I can see the picture has been wonky since the start and I haven't noticed it before.
 
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ah i see well thats a fair comment and as i said i am new to projectors guess i am lucky that its my first projector and i have not had to use any keystone adjustments :)
 
I tried my projector lower down to not use keystone and not to lift the back up. However, I have a TV under the screen and the picture went over the top of the TV. I moved the PJ back up higher.

Even with -6 keystone, the HD200 fits my screen better than it ever did with the HD700. I had to use more zoom on the HD700 to fill the screen which made the sides of the image spill over almost the entire black edges. I didn't like it.
 
Got my HD20 setup today - what a cracking budget projector:thumbsup: hardly miss the JVC HD350 I've just sold. Its a pain to setup compared to the JVC and build quality obviously not in the same league but in terms of picture quality its just the deep blacks that I'm missing but adding an ND2 filter has improved things quite a bit.
 
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