Infocus 4805 vs 5000 (DLP v LCD)

[Doop]

I was fortunate enough to have the use of a new 4805 & 76-inch Infocus screen for a couple of weeks. I'm planning to buy a projector and screen in mid-February.

(Incidentally, it will definitely be a step up, no matter what: It's replacing a Kloss Novabeam built around 1982. Works great; if anybody out there can lift it, you can have it).

I was feeding the 4805 through a component hookup with a Samsung DVD player that upgrades the signal to 1080. I loved the 4805, and I imagine that by the time I get one, they'll just about be giving them away, but I wonder if the 5000 is worth the extra bucks.

Is the failure rate comparable for DLP and LCD technology? Am I going to have a screen door problem if I go with the LCD? I had absolutely no pixel or rainbow problems with the 4805.

I'm planning on getting a Da-Lite "B" series high-contrast white matte screen, 92-inch diagonal, 16 x 9 format, using a ceiling mount for the projector and having the primary viewing area about 12 feet away. Does that seem reasonable?

I can make the room virtually black at night, but during the day I can't. Will the 5000 give me the extra brightness I need to handle the ambient light for afternoon viewing, like football games?

Forgive me any redundancies. I assume the DLP vs. LCD thing has been batted around ad nauseum in the past, but I didn't see any threads on the subject.

[Nick M]

I've also been eyeballing these two projectors as of late.
Right now I'm building my audio setup, but I fully intend to move to a projector this spring. From what I've heard, the 4805 has much better colors due to it's higher contrast ratio, but can have problems with SDE when viewed up-close due to its 480p resolution. The screenshot photos I looked at of the sp5000's display looked amazing, with much smoother lines and curves, effectively having an anti-aliasing property because it upgrades the 480p signal to 720p, which reduces "The Staircase Effect". I'm hoping to pick up an sp5000 sometime in the spring, and hopefully it will be a little cheaper too. I might even be able to get one used by then too.

[Brandon B]

I have just received one ofthese. I will be trying it out this weekend on my Sanyo PLV70 clone, and will post in the front projection forum how it worked next week. Something to keep in mind if SDE is the only thing keeping you away from LCD.

However, if the 4805 looks good to you, it is definitely a super deal for a first PJ, and you will probably have the upgrade bug in a couple of years with the way competition between the 3 technologies is going right now. If I were getting my first PJ today, I would go for the cheaper model and start banking for something new in about 2 years, if the differencein $ will matter to your purchase down the road.

BB

[Doop]

The 4805

I had no SDE or rainbow problems with the 4805. In fact, every aspect of the picture was stunning as long as the room was dark enough. Part of that might have been the source, a DVD player that converted the signal to mock-HD.

My only reservation is whether the additional brightness of the 5000 justifies the additional $700.

[Brandon B]

If anything, an upconverting (mock HD) DVD player would probably degrade the image a miniscule amount, since unscaled DVD ouput is the same resolution as the 4805. So I would say it sounds like the 4805 is good for you.

Brightness is certainly nice (I have one of the brightest HT PJs you can get), but unless during uncontrolled lighting is going to be a time you watch a lot of movies, I'd just stick with the 4805. I thought I would watch more movies during daylight, but after living with the thing and getting spoiled by the better image at night, I rarely do it, even in the summer when it isn't dark until 9pm or so.

And I think you'll be happy with the contrast advantage of the 4805 of the 5000.

BB

[Nick M]

I think I may have just changed my mind on the sp5000 in favor of the sp4805. Take a look at the actual display comparison photo below. The first screenshot is with a 4805, and the second is with an sp5000. The difference the increased contrast ratio of the sp4805 makes clearly puts it ahead of the sp5000. I borrowed these photos from another popular forum.

[SpOoNmAn]

I adore my 4805. Although from what Ive seen, anything bigger than a 92" screen and it loses its beautiful picture. A friend has the 4805 and a 92" dalite, while I have the 77" and mine looks better. Ill take a smaller screen with a better picture over a bigger picture and a slight PQ degradation. Sorry, got off topic, lol.

[BlazeMaster]

spoonman, how are you sitting away from the 4805 w/ a 77'' screen and how far would you sit away w/ a 92'' screen? I've spent about half an hour with it at my local Magnolia Hi-Fi. They had it on top of a cabinet at ear level and the fan noise is really annoying when it's right next to your ears. They also had a 7205 in a demo room where it's ceiling mounted and it's much quieter.
My question to you folks is that, comparing the fan noise of the 7205 and 4805, is it about the same? The way they set it up in the store, they obviously favored the 7205 by giving it a dedicated room where the 4805 was just on a table. That was the only thing I had against the 4805 was the fan noise, the PQ with DVDs and HD were great, IMO.
BTW: it seems like it's a good time to pick one of these PJs up, since it's MSRP just got reduced. Are they coming out with a newer model?

[SpOoNmAn]

the 4805 just came out. I have mine ceiling mounted and get so engrossed with movies that Ive never noticed its fan noise. I believe My eyes are about 13.5 to 14Ft from the screen.

[Doop]

Resolution question & noise comment

Brandon, I'm confused. The 4805 was set for 1080 and I thought the DVD player was up-converting to 1080. Where have I erred? I won't be watching many, if any, movies when I can't make the room very dark, but I may be wanting to watch some sports events.

BlazeMaster, for the couple of weeks I had the 4805 I was using a temporary setup, so I was sitting on a couch with an end table in front of me, sort of between my legs, and the 4805 on top of it. I don't recall ever noticing any fan noise during movies. I can't imagine fan noise being a problem if it were ceiling mounted unless I was watching "Silent Movie," and that's my least favorite Mel Brooks movie.

[Brandon B]

The physical resolution of the the DMD chip in the 4805 is 854x480. This is in fact where its name comes from (the 4805 is 480p, the 7205 is 720p, that is 1280x720). There are no consumer 1080p DLP devices yet.

So when you feed it 1080i, it is scaling the output back to its actual resolution of 854x480. If you feed it 720p, it scales that to 480p. If you feed it 480p, no scaling is required.

So your upconverting player is scaling it up, and the projector is scaling it back down. Two unnecessary sets of calculations being performed on the video data. You may be better off without them happening.

What the projector is "set" to just tells it what the incoming information is formatted as, and therefore whether it needs to process it or not.

BB

[Brandon B]

On the sports events, they rarely have areas of darkness and deep shadow detail, so you would probably still be able to use the 4805 in daylight, it will just be more washed out. If your priority here is PQ, the 4805 is going to be a bit better, no question.

At the price point, it seems pretty plain to me. To spend more for a brighter but slightly lower quality picture doesn't make a lot of sense unless you need the brightness. If you really need the brightness, then you have no choice.

Keep in mind, I have a 2200 lumen LCD PJ with one of the highest gain screens on the market, and can't watch single chip DLP because rainbows irritate me, so I am certainly not advising you along my lines of bias.

BB

[Doop]

Rainbows

That's another thing that kind of spooks me. Apparently some people can see them and some can't? So my wife and I can invite friends over to watch what we think is a perfect picture, and our friends will get a bad headache after a few minutes?

Sorry for the dumb questions. I am but a lamb in the wilderness. Well, not quite. But a lot of this stuff is still new, and I haven't read enough yet.

What you say about DLP vs. LCD in my case otherwise is reassuring, especially since even some relatively expensive LCD machines I've seen at dealers exhibited screen door effect.

Moreover, since Infocus is currently selling the SP4805 for $1,295, I wouldn't be surprised if it will have a street price fairly close to a grand by the time I pull the trigger in mid-February. Still a serious chunk of change, but not such a huge investment that if it turns out to be untenable I couldn't sell it, buy something better and swallow the difference.

[Brandon B]

Typically people who get headaches from DLP get it after prolonged viewing, i.e. more than two hours. Haven't heard of anyone who gets one in minutes. So unless you plan on regular movie marathons with friends, not likely an issue.

I don't get headaches from them at all (or frmo anthing else, really), I can just easily see them and they ruin the movie for me. I would guess from my personal experience with friends, coworkers and reading on forums, the percentage of people bothered by rainbows is 20% max, and maybe somewhat lower. So don't sweat it.

All LCDs exhibit SDE, even Fujitsu's new $24K 1080p machine. However, it's harder to see on that. But it is always there. It's a tradeoff. I couldn't afford DILA when I bought mine.

BB

[Dean McManis]

I had a DLP projector before and had zero problems with rainbows for me or any of my friends who came by. But some people are definitely sensitive.

But I upgraded from a XGA DLP projector to the Infocus SP5000 because I have a bigger screen (180") and watch a lot of HD programming.

My XGA DLP did a very good job with HDTV media, as well as DVDs.
And from watching the 4205 it's even better than my previous NEC unit was.

But the SP5000 is clearly brighter, and visibly more detailed with HDTV material, so it was worth it to spend a little more to get the 720p native projector.

Now after a couple months of owning the SP5000 I'm nothing but pleased with the projector's performance, and glad that I upgraded.

-Dean.

[Doop]

Reference to HD leads to my next question

If I understand correctly -- which is a huge "if" in this area -- with the 4805 I'm not really going to be getting the HD programming I'm paying for from my Dish satellite system, at least not at the same level I'm getting it on my tabletop Samsung conventional TV.

This makes me wonder if it's going to be worth the extra buckaroos to run a DVI or component line from the satellite receiver to the projector, or whether I'd be just as well off with an S-video cable.

In a related matter, the 4805 DVI input is an M1 socket, so I need an adaptor. The projector is going to be about 25 feet from the source. Infocus sells an adaptor, and it also sells a 10-meter cable with M1 on one end and DVI on the other. Is the unnecessary 8 feet of cable a good tradeoff for eliminating the extra connection?

As the saying goes, there are no stupid questions....but there are an awful lot of very inquisitive stupid people.

[Dean McManis]

There is definitely a visibly improvement of any progressive scanning display with a HD feed over a standard NTSC-only TV.

You won't be losing anything having 8 extra feet of cable, but your picture quality will suffer with HD material and DVDs if you only use a S-Video connection.

With a conventional TV (especially viewed from a distance) most people cannot resolve the picture detail loss from an S-video connection. But with the relatively BIG picture of a projection display, it shows up all of the flaws of a bandwidth-limited analog connection like S-Video. It will look OK, just not fantastic.

-Dean.

[ktaillon]

Now the 4805 has the 16:9 ratio 854X480 but the BENQ 6200 (about the same price) has a 4:3 ratio (1024X768). I play DVD's and would like to play HDTV in the future. Which style ratio would be better fit? And wouldn't the higher lumen of the BENQ be better for in light situations?

-Ken

[Evil Twin]

If you're primarily intersested in DVD now, and HDTV soon, then a 16:9 format projector is what would make the most sens. XGA projectors in 4:3 would always be projecting large black bar areas top and bottom.

HDTV will look good on the 4805, because of the higher color resoultion, but you'd be best off getting something like the 5000 or some other native 1280X720 projector as an entry point.

[Jurgen]

rainbow

Doop,

Here's an (simulated) example of rainbow effects.

http://www.dietforum.net/balagee/projected/rainbow.html

If you want to make sure that you are/aren't sensitive to this artefact, you could test it by displaying the circle in the THX optimizer menu found on many DVD’s(it's the final test of the video "tweaking" menu). It's a white circle on a black background. If you move your eyes rapidly over the circle, it's probably the best chance you'll get on seeing the rainbows.

This example has made 3 friends of mine aware of the artefact, who before stated that they couldn’t see it.

Don’t get me wrong: I do not wish to spoil your or anyone else’s viewing pleasure, nor am I on a mission to increase “rainbow” awareness :lol: , but considering the decision you are about to make, this might be an important factor.

Regards,
Jurgen

[George Bellefontaine]

I own a dlp PJ and although I have seen them on occasion, like Dean, I am not bothered by the color artifacts ( rainbows) that seem to really affect some people. Now I have had many people in my theater watching movies and so far no one has ever complained about headaches or rainbows. Another thing, it seems the longer you own dlp the fewer color artifacts you see.

[BlazeMaster]

Jurgen, LOL...why did you have to teach me how to see the rainbows? Now that I know exactly how to look for one, kinda glad I'm looking the other route a 42HD plasma as my next display).

[Jurgen]

I really am sorry. I guess I'd like to prevent you from any nasty surprises afterwards. I would have been more happy for you if you couldn't have spotted the rainbows, because DLP is in almost any other aspect superior to LCD (although the latter is rapidly improving!)

Every technique has it’s downsides (as a famous Dutch sports guy once told: "every advantage has its disadvantage" :B ) and I'll assure you that Plasma is no exception (i.e. "image burning").

In the end it comes down to your personal taste, budget and how you measure the strong and the weak points of each technique. For me: LCD projection was the way to go, but perhaps in a few years it will be an entirely different story (3chip DLP?)

[SpOoNmAn]

I am still baffled at the discussions of the rainbow problems. Wasnt it found out that a very small percentage even see them? I forgot where I read this but I know a study was done on it.

I see the rainbow in that test pattern in the post above, but in 2 years have NOT seen it in a real world setup. Not on the X1, and definitely not on the 4805. I have never seen it on any DLP projector ive demo'd, and neither have any of my friends or relatives. Ive demo'd probably 25 different PJ's, from all makes, on different sized screens, you name it. Im glad I dont see them, because I feel a DLP picture far exceeds that of a LCD, atleast to my eyes it does.

I think showing that test pattern above might worry people, and scare them away from DLP. Ive shown that pattern to 4 friends, they all saw it, its very obvious. Thats been floating around on the net for years, Yet none of us see them in our theatres. I dont think its an accurate rainbow demo, just my opinion. :E

[Brandon B]

It is a definite minority, but it is not a tiny percentage. I'd guess about 7-15% or people can see them. However, I'd bet only a few percent are BOTHERED by them. It depends not only on the projector, but the entire setup, the media being shown, etc.

I have seen them on absolutely every single chip DLP I have seen (probably 60+ different models including presentation type units). I see them on even the best performers like Marantz' spiffy HT units. But I am prone to seeing phenomena like this (monitor flicker, fluorescent light flicker). Amongst friends and coworkers, about 4 or 5 of a few dozen see rainbows on their own. only 1 of them finds them objectionable as I do, and a few more I hav been able to show them to who didn't see them before.

There has not been any definitive study outside of TI, who's conclusions are not something I would go by.

In short, I agree with you that above linked demo is unrealistic in determining whether an individual actually sees them. Its only purpose is to demonstrate what to look for in an actual application.

My general recommendation to anyone considering DLP is to go see one in action, FP or RPTV, and just watch for as long as reasonable. If it isn't something that stands out to them, then don't even bother worry about it. The cases of people who find after pruchase they get headaches or eyestrain from the technology are pretty few and far between.

And bang for buck DLP picture is better in most other ways than LCD.

BB

[Jurgen]

Brandon,

:agree: (totally I might add) Again: I didn't mean to disturb anyone’s viewing pleasure. I'm just one of the few unfortunates who can spot rainbows and are bothered by it. The example that was used is accurate though: it replicates the artefact that I have seen on every (single chip) DLP projector.

Jurgen.

[tubeman]

While travelling this week, stopped into a Magnolia to try and compare different projectors at the same time.

I've looked at the 4805,5700 and the 7205 and was trying to justify the $$ between the 5700 and the 7205. They had the 7205 and the new Sony VPL-HS51 (LCD) set up in the same dedicated HT room. When going back and forth between the two units, using Discovery HD via DTV they were almost the same except the Sony is almost half the price.

Does anyone have the Sony yet?

Tubeman

[Brandon B]

The InFocus is far brighter, and a DLP. Both of these attributes command some price premium.

That said, the 7205 has been replaced by the 7210, and should be discounted a bit more substantially than Magnolia is doing. Perhaps they haven't heard (or hope you haven't).

A sort of co-worker (different division) has a new HS51 which he want to bring to my house to try out my IMX on. I will report back then what I think, although it wil likely be a couple of weeks away.

BB

[ticotva]

4805 Promotion Issue

Hi guys
Just case there is anyh confusion on the current 4805 promotion running . We're running it now . We can take pre-orders now but we wont ship till Monday. ( We can get them to you b4 the Superbowl)
Infocus 4805 promo $999 and this includes ground shipping

The screen and cable are sent by InFocus after they receive the claim form we will email/fax to you.

For more Information , pls contact me guys by email tico@tvauthority.com or PM
888-286-5353x504
TC

[ticotva]

btw, I do like the 5000 b/c its native high-definition 720p...Great price for HD proj.
But now I have the
Epson PowerLite Home 10+ (854 x 480) at
home. Not bad for low end LCD, picture seems to have less pixelation than some of the lower end DLPs.. just my 2 cents

[tubeman]

720 resolution and price won out. I've purchased the 5000 for the 720p and added a few bucks to the screen and bought the Stewart Grayhawk.

Starting construction in a couple of weeks and will be finished by the middle of March.

Looking forward to seeing it in action.

Tubeman 8)

[George Bellefontaine]

Happy viewing.

[Dean McManis]

Congratulations Tubeman! I also have the SP5000 and a Grayhawk screen. 8)
They make a great combination. :T

Enjoy!
-Dean.

[tubeman]

I really think that it's the best bang for my buck! The 7205 has dropped to 5K, but I think that this setup will bring me very close, without breaking the bank. I'll break it in other areas of the basement!

Tubeman