Buying Infocus 4805 in LA

[achjimmy]

Hi

I am from Australia and travelling to LA next month. Discovered a company called TV Authority in LA that are offering the 4805, through this excellent forum and I am considering taking one home with me. Has anyone any issues i should know off? The guy I am dealing with at TVA seems swicthed on and OK, just will have limited spare time and a long way from LA if i have problems.

Rgds

[Dean McManis]

I've generally heard of TV Authority, but I haven't had any personal dealings with them.

The only considerations of buying one to use in Australia are the obvious ones to make sure that the unit can run off of the different power and can handle PAL video signal input. Beyond that I would be good to see if Infocus offers service/support in Australia (they might).

And definitely open the box and test out the projector with a video/computer source to comfirm that everything works fine before you ship it over.

-Dean.

[achjimmy]

Thanks

The 4805 is multi voltage and the signals seem ok, and i will take your advise to check it out at the shop before i walk away. Infocus are in Australia and have told me this carries an international warranty!
TV Authority seem to be quite big and specilize in a lot of Infocus gear.

[Brandon B]

From what I know of TVA, they are a good reputable company. Alot of users on another forum use their power buys and I have not seen any complaints about them.

BUT, you can buy the 4805 at Costco, with a free crappy screen thrown in. You will want to join Costco when you arrive here. They are a membership warehouse bulk buy store, but all that aside, they have a virtually unlimited return policy *the exception is computers). So your 4805 can be returned anytime for a few years for any reason for a full refund. Best place to buy it in my opinion. Worth the slight price bump over cheaper dealers.

If that doesn't sway you, then I would go ahead and use TVA.

BB

BB

[achjimmy]

Thabks Brandon

Is the crappy screen a 92" pull down?

Rgds jim

[Brandon B]

Might be, don't recall. Seems to me it might have been smaller than that. I am in Tokyo at the moment so I can't really check.

BB

[achjimmy]

Just checked out the SP5700 wow! Anybody know what there going for?

Rgds

Jim

[Dean McManis]

The best price for the SP5700 that I've seen so far is around $2600.
I think that the SP5000 is a better buy at about $1000 less.

The SP5700 is a 1024 X 768 DLP projector.

I previously owned a NEC LT150, which was also a 1024 X 768P DLP projector, and that's what I sold to buy my SP5000.
The SP5000 is LCD and has 1280 X 720P resolution which is better for high definition material and still has good contrast and black level.

The potential disadvantage of DLP is rainbows, but I had no problems with my DLP projector. The disadvantage of the LCD is that it has a larger pixel gap compared to DLP, but that only shows up if you are sitting very close with a large screen (mine is 180").

The SP4805, SP5000, and SP5700 are all nice projectors, so you can't make a bad choice. 8)

[achjimmy]

Can you let me know who is doing the 5700 for $2,600? The 576 fits very well with our PAL source?

Jim

[Dean McManis]

Jim, I just did a cursory search on the 5700 on Google to check prices.
That found a ton of price-search engines that compare different vendors online prices for each model requested.
Did you think that $2600 is high or low? That was the lowest price that I saw on that model, but sometimes there are sales or group purchases that can drop the price a few hundred dollars more.

I was surprised to find the SP5000 for $1600. Remember that the 5000 does 4:3 mode in 1024 X 720 resolution.

[Harl]

I think the screen included w. the 4805 at Costco is 76". I am considering buying one there. It's $1,199 now.

I was wondering about the screen they are including as well. Does anyone know if it can go in front of your center speaker? I would imagine it is not sound transparent at that price, anyone ever got one??

[Dean McManis]

A screen tossed in as part of a package deal is definitely not going to be accoustically transparent (perforated). It's most likely a 1.0 gain, white, manual pull down screen that should work fine for most people.

You can just place your center channel just below the bottom of the screen and aim it up slightly to get good sound in front.

$1199 is a pretty great deal considering many 35" (non-HDTV-capable) tube TVs cost that much.