Optoma HD200X 1080p Full HD Home Cinema Projector

Ivor Gotone

at 7:09 am

I’ve never seen anything like it. Maybe I haven’t seen much, but I don’t see how home cinema projection can get any noticeably or appreciably better than this. I have it connected to a Sony BDPS760B Blu Ray player via an Onkyo TXSR577 receiver. I’m using a reasonable quality 5m HDMI cable from Neet (and yes, it does matter about the quality of the cable at these lengths – below 3m you can use virtually anything, longer than that and you need to use something good) and the picture quality is stunning when it is projected onto a home theatre screen. I really think you have to be some kind of propeller-headed AV pedant to find much wrong with this when it is used in a home theatre environment.

When you’re not displaying it in AI mode or have “bright” selected (neither of which I have found to be necessary) the fan noise is very low – for all intents and purposes it’s inaudible once you start watching a film. If you select either of those modes, the noise can become intrusive.

Someone commented that the product is cheap and plasticky. I do think the casing does have a certain low-quality element to it, but I wouldn’t describe it as cheap. The high gloss black finish looks good, and when it’s ceiling mounted, I think it looks pretty smart. It’s bigger than I expected, the pictures are misleading in their perspective, and it’s quite heavy too. I’m surprised there are only 3 x M3 mounting holes to secure this to the ceiling mount. I will be keeping a close eye on this for the next few weeks. The last thing I want is eight hundred quid’s worth of kit falling off the ceiling. It does have a security bar mounting and I am considering attaching a chain to this and securing it to a big hook in the ceiling, just in case.

One reviewer dismissed it for lack of lens shift. I’m not sure why this is an issue when you can ceiling mount it on an adjustable mount, but maybe I’m missing the point. Note that there is vertical shift and keystone shift provided in the software features.

My first film was “Up” as I wanted to try it with a modern, made for Blu Ray film and I wasn’t disappointed. I couldn’t watch the film (which is maybe why I thought it wasn’t good) for marvelling at the detail of the image, the brightness and the depth of colour.

I’m very impressed with this projector.
Rating: 5 / 5

M. Hoade

at 11:34 am

I bought this projector after looking around at the various HD ready projectors on the market, I was surprised that I could stretch to a full HD projector and thought I would have to make some compromises when making the step up the Full HD, however my HD200X ticks all the boxes, the picture quality, colours and blacks have impressed me a lot. I can easily connect my PS3 and Sky HD, meaning that I now have a home cinema setup that makes all my mates look average, I watched the David Haye fight in Full HD in my front room on a 5 ft screen, it was truly awesome. Best of all though, I still can’t get over the price, this is incredible value for money, in fact, I’m surprised such a high quality projector is available at this price.
Rating: 5 / 5

Jomsky

at 2:59 pm

I am really pleased with this projector. It is truly a full high definition projector with the upscaling function; making the usual DVDs appear remarkably good on screen. It is quite light weight and easy to use, with simple and straight forward instructions. I am enjoying movies with my family just as if I am having a mini theatre in my own home! It has inputs for HDMI cables (x2), VGA input, component video input and RCA video input. It is very quiet as well. The audio output from the DVD player/drive has to be attached to separate speakers via appropriate cable/cables. Thoroughly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5