For many home cinema buffs, “1080p” and “less than £1000” will be all they need to hear to get them scrabbling for the plastic, but the X10 actually has a great deal more to offer than price alone. Its 1200 ANSI lumens output is more than adequate for home cinema and its native 2500:1 contrast ratio can be boosted to 7500:1 by means of a manual iris adjustment.
Designed with ceiling mounting in mind, all the inputs are labelled such that they'd be upside-down if you were to use the projector on a coffee table. Composite- and s-video are provided, along with component video, HDMI and, that favourite of InFocus, the M1-DA port, which can be used in conjunction with a supplied adaptor to enable a PC connection via DVI or VGA. This should allow you to hook up just about any kind of kit capable of putting out a video signal.
The ports are clearly labeled, but a second HDMI port would've been nice
A second HDMI port would have been nice, but at this price we’re more than happy to make do with the M1-DA port and whatever adaptors we may need to get that second digital input going.
With 10-bit video processing and HDMI 1.3 support, the X10 is set to take advantage of the highest quality digital inputs. It can display up to 1.07bn colours, and Texas Instruments’ BrilliantColor technology is available to boost image brightness according to your preference – although ours is to leave such features disabled.
Of course, on a budget projector like this you’re not going to get motorised image adjustments or any form of mechanical lens shift, but the X10’s large, chunky cog-like manual controls are easy enough to use and a digital vertical image shift is provided.
COMMENTS
Re: Have you ever heard of the Optoma HD800X?!
Agreed - i'd emailed similar comments to this to the author this morning, no reply or change in article. Seems very strange that even casual research would not bring this up, and makes me wonder if this is based on a recycled press release..
@Peter Kay
Good to see another CRT owner on here. I got a Barco Graphics 808s for $400 last year - utterly black blacks, fantastic shadow detail, and gorgeous colors with some modded color-filtered lenses. And it'll keep on truckin' for another six or seven thousand hours or so, I'd guess - dirt cheap to buy, dirt cheap to run, and will handle pretty much the same resolutions as anything. Love it, love it, love it.
Then again, it's taken me 18+ months to learn how to set it up and I'm still not done. :)
@Luna
It looks like both the X10 and the HD70 have a 4x colour wheel, so the rainbow effect is reduced. I remain a little sceptical though despite the fact it's been some time since I've watched a 1 chip DLP and the colour wheel I saw was undoubtedly much slower. The statement is always that certain people see 'the occasional rainbow' - a few years back I was shown a demo of the batplane sequence in Batman (Tim Burton version) and it wasn't 'occasionally' - it was a rainbow every couple of seconds.
Have you ever heard of the Optoma HD800X?!
"Full HD is what we all want, but until the release of the X10 from InFocus, a projector capable of displaying a full 1080p image would have cost you the proverbial arm and a leg."
The first sentence gives away this badly researched review already, the Optoma HD800X 1080p DLP projector has been available for the best part of a year even in the UK, for just above 900 quid and with a 6 speed colour wheel which all but eliminates rainbow effect and has gotten very good reviews all over the net.
But if you search for Optoma or HD800X on TheReg you get no results...
@Peter Kay
When I decided I wanted to go the PJ route poor color reproduction, DLP rainbow or LCD screen-door effects were among my biggest worries. I couldn't (and still can't) afford a top of the line unit so it was either bottom of the crop or a ~36" LCD. I finally pulled the plug and got a 720p HD70 for a whopping $920 and ya know what, I couldn't be happier. Well I suppose I could actually as I'm sure a $5k PJ would have been even more awesome, with many more features. Would-have could-have should-have - fact is I don't have that big a coin to drop.
Ever since I got it set up my house is fairly often used for movie-nights and none of my friends or family ever complain. Of anything. I don't see any rainbows and no one else ever did, the colors may not be 100% true, but what is true anyway?
I would agree with you to the extent that HQ = money and if you were watching the likes of the X10 and some high priced, high quality unit side by side it would likely be a no-brainer verdict, but in the absence of that, the only question is do you like what you (can) have - I do. I certainly prefer it to a 50" plasma which is not only twice as expensive but in my case less than half picture size. So when my bulb finally gives up the ghost I may well go for the 1080p X10.
