kenshingintoki
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So, some may know I recently bought the Epson 9400, loved it, sadly it had a lamp failure or something within 17 days so I returned it in a hissy fit about reliability of expensive products. This was projecting a 95-100'' image. Then I decided to go down the 77 inch OLED route.
Visual TV Size Comparison : 95 inch 16x9 display vs 77 inch 16x9 display Just so people can see the size difference.
After playing with both for a substantial period of time and testing if on the family, I feel confident in drawing some comparisons between the two if anyones interested and in a similar position.
So, for gaming, the OLED absolutely destroys the projector. I think games are very dependant on colour reproduction and have a much heavier reliance on the colour black. These both play in OLEDs favour and good games are quite finicky with HDR and very customisable with sliders. OLEDs respond well to these sliders. The Epson doesn't. For example some scenes in TLOU after the HDR calibration still showed the sky in some daytime scenes with snow.. looking very very very dim/dusky. However on the 902B calibrated reference mode, they were bright. The OLED obviously deals with them flawlessly. Games use a lot of specular highlight detail and again... the OLEDs just have many many many gaming advantages over a PJ including the instant pixel response time. Size wise, for gaming, I don't see THAT much of a better experience with a big screen. If anything its detrimental because the pixels are less sharp, and games really rely on that for photorealistic graphics.
Moving on to films & TV shows. I'd summarise it as trying to decide what type of person you are. Are you someone who just enjoys the experience or are you someone who strives after perfection and wants to see the best representation of every scene? If you're the former, I think a projector with a big sound is just absolutely phenomenal. For the average Joe, a projector like the 9400 is going to blow people away every single day. the IMAX scenes which covered my entire wall in Aquaman was surreal.
Immersion the projector gives. The 77'' OLED does to an extent.. but its still a TV IMO. Just a big one.
Now where I was shocked was immersion at night time. Due to the instant black and the HDR which can shoot light off into the room, I found in a pitch black room, the 77'' OLED was MORE immersive than the projector. However in a dimly lit room, I LOVED the projector. I think this is down to in a dark room, your eyes are drawn completely to the OLED. In a room which isn't as light controlled, the PJ fill sin your whole field of vision.
Now I hate to break it to PJ fans but the issue is if you're an enthusiast, you have to accept you are missing out on A LOT of the HDR experience. Dynamic tone mapping on a PJ only goes so far and the specular highlight detail and striking brightness variations within a scene and from scene to scene is amazing on an OLED and something PJs don't offer. When its a night scene.. I feel the night.. when its a day scene.. well my whole room is brought to light... with a PJ you don't get this. You just get a very nice picture.
3D content Projectors destroy cos they actually have 3D. 3D on a 100 inch projector is amazing. I love it. And for some films, its probably better or just as good as the 4K/HDR version. However it brings up some issues of crosstalk et al which might annoy some people who want perfection.
_____
Overall.. well I'm not going to return or sell the OLED so I think that speaks volumes. I still think projector is phenomenal and the ultimate setup involves BOTH devices. I still think a 77'' OLED is not good enough to immerse more than 1-2 to people. A projector can easily enthrall an entire room.
I think if we were to compare projecrtor to big 75'' LCD FYI, I'd pick the projector. I just think OLED's 'perfect' image and pixel level control which has an enhanced 3d-like pop and sharpness to the image is difficult to compete with.
I didn't bother to compare 120'' projector to 77'' OLED because they're too VERY VERY different use cases. If you need 120 inches.. you need 120 inches (and oh god am i jealous of the room you must have).
Visual TV Size Comparison : 95 inch 16x9 display vs 77 inch 16x9 display Just so people can see the size difference.
After playing with both for a substantial period of time and testing if on the family, I feel confident in drawing some comparisons between the two if anyones interested and in a similar position.
So, for gaming, the OLED absolutely destroys the projector. I think games are very dependant on colour reproduction and have a much heavier reliance on the colour black. These both play in OLEDs favour and good games are quite finicky with HDR and very customisable with sliders. OLEDs respond well to these sliders. The Epson doesn't. For example some scenes in TLOU after the HDR calibration still showed the sky in some daytime scenes with snow.. looking very very very dim/dusky. However on the 902B calibrated reference mode, they were bright. The OLED obviously deals with them flawlessly. Games use a lot of specular highlight detail and again... the OLEDs just have many many many gaming advantages over a PJ including the instant pixel response time. Size wise, for gaming, I don't see THAT much of a better experience with a big screen. If anything its detrimental because the pixels are less sharp, and games really rely on that for photorealistic graphics.
Moving on to films & TV shows. I'd summarise it as trying to decide what type of person you are. Are you someone who just enjoys the experience or are you someone who strives after perfection and wants to see the best representation of every scene? If you're the former, I think a projector with a big sound is just absolutely phenomenal. For the average Joe, a projector like the 9400 is going to blow people away every single day. the IMAX scenes which covered my entire wall in Aquaman was surreal.
Immersion the projector gives. The 77'' OLED does to an extent.. but its still a TV IMO. Just a big one.
Now where I was shocked was immersion at night time. Due to the instant black and the HDR which can shoot light off into the room, I found in a pitch black room, the 77'' OLED was MORE immersive than the projector. However in a dimly lit room, I LOVED the projector. I think this is down to in a dark room, your eyes are drawn completely to the OLED. In a room which isn't as light controlled, the PJ fill sin your whole field of vision.
Now I hate to break it to PJ fans but the issue is if you're an enthusiast, you have to accept you are missing out on A LOT of the HDR experience. Dynamic tone mapping on a PJ only goes so far and the specular highlight detail and striking brightness variations within a scene and from scene to scene is amazing on an OLED and something PJs don't offer. When its a night scene.. I feel the night.. when its a day scene.. well my whole room is brought to light... with a PJ you don't get this. You just get a very nice picture.
3D content Projectors destroy cos they actually have 3D. 3D on a 100 inch projector is amazing. I love it. And for some films, its probably better or just as good as the 4K/HDR version. However it brings up some issues of crosstalk et al which might annoy some people who want perfection.
_____
Overall.. well I'm not going to return or sell the OLED so I think that speaks volumes. I still think projector is phenomenal and the ultimate setup involves BOTH devices. I still think a 77'' OLED is not good enough to immerse more than 1-2 to people. A projector can easily enthrall an entire room.
I think if we were to compare projecrtor to big 75'' LCD FYI, I'd pick the projector. I just think OLED's 'perfect' image and pixel level control which has an enhanced 3d-like pop and sharpness to the image is difficult to compete with.
I didn't bother to compare 120'' projector to 77'' OLED because they're too VERY VERY different use cases. If you need 120 inches.. you need 120 inches (and oh god am i jealous of the room you must have).
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