Mitsubishi

[arkight]

OK I am going to buy a projector this week i hope. I am looking at a New Mitshubishi HC4000. What do you think about this one or is there something else in this price range i should be looking at. I could also get the HC3800 last years model for about $125 less. Any suggestions

 

[arkight]

I have also seen a Sharp XV-Z15000 it looked nice to me.

I thought i saw the Mitshi 3800 but it turned out to be the 6800 how much of a difference is there?

 

[BMXTRIX]

How big is your room? How big is your screen? Do you have the proper ceiling height/screen heigt capability to get a projector without lens shift? Does the zoom range work properly for your projector mounting location? Do you have proper light control in the space you are in?

I just picked up the Epson 1080UB which is a very good projector for $880, but it looks like that deal is over.

The Epson HC8350 is brand new and similarly priced:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/Epson-PowerLite_Home_Cinema_8350.htm

I would probably take that over the Mits since it has the newer LCD panels in it, has lens shift, and has better zoom range.

 

[jostenmeat]

Wut? How and where did you land such a steal? NIB? Dang . . . why didn't you share the deal (or did you)? *Looks over at deals subforum*

Congrats! What is it replacing?

 

[arkight]

How big is your room? How big is your screen? Do you have the proper ceiling height/screen heigt capability to get a projector without lens shift? Does the zoom range work properly for your projector mounting location? Do you have proper light control in the space you are in?

The room is aprox 13' x 13' see attached picture the bottom dimension is 161 didnt show up in scan. The celing is 9' i want the screen on the top side of pic.

Screen height i beileve i am ok with the Mitshi for a 100" screen the lense needs to be 16.53" above the top of screen i believe i have that. The highest i am planning would be to have the top of the screen is aprox 7' from the floor. I will first get a proj and throw it to the wall and get a screen after so i can know for sure. I will have to make percise measuremets and put the proj in a good spot since you dont get lense shift but i am prety handy that shouldnt be a problem.

Lights will be on a RF dimmer the windows will be coverd with accoustic tratment so i doubt any light will get trough so good there. Room will be a deticated theater room.

What else do you need to know about the room and do you have any projector thoughts?

 

[BMXTRIX]

Wut? How and where did you land such a steal? NIB? Dang . . . why didn't you share the deal (or did you)? *Looks over at deals subforum*

I typically stick my projector posts at Projector Central's forums since that is where I moderate. It is a factory refurb w/2 year warranty. The deal was up and gone in about a day.

Congrats! What is it replacing?

It is either replacing a AE1000U or I will sell it to one of my coworkers. I'm going to shoot out the AE1000 vs the 1080UB then decide.

 

[BMXTRIX]

The room is aprox 13' x 13' see attached picture the bottom dimension is 161 didnt show up in scan. The celing is 9' i want the screen on the top side of pic.

Screen height i beileve i am ok with the Mitshi for a 100" screen the lense needs to be 16.53" above the top of screen i believe i have that. The highest i am planning would be to have the top of the screen is aprox 7' from the floor. I will first get a proj and throw it to the wall and get a screen after so i can know for sure. I will have to make percise measuremets and put the proj in a good spot since you dont get lense shift but i am prety handy that shouldnt be a problem.

Lights will be on a RF dimmer the windows will be coverd with accoustic tratment so i doubt any light will get trough so good there. Room will be a deticated theater room.

What else do you need to know about the room and do you have any projector thoughts?

Thanks for the room drawing, that helps get an idea, and the ceiling height really does open up a fairly long list of projectors, but I would still lean twoards the brand new 8350 from Epson because of the use of the newer LCD panels in it, longer life lamps, brighter, etc. For the money, that's where one of the absolute best deals is right now.

The Mits certainly is a good product, but I think you get more for the same, or less money, witht he Epson.

 

[arkight]

Thanks for the room drawing, that helps get an idea, and the ceiling height really does open up a fairly long list of projectors, but I would still lean twoards the brand new 8350 from Epson because of the use of the newer LCD panels in it, longer life lamps, brighter, etc. For the money, that's where one of the absolute best deals is right now.

The Mits certainly is a good product, but I think you get more for the same, or less money, witht he Epson.

OK so that is what the majority thinks for a sub $1500 projector what about if i bump it up to sub $2000 would that make much oof a difference or just go with one of those?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

BenQ W6000

OK so that is what the majority thinks for a sub $1500 projector what about if i bump it up to sub $2000 would that make much oof a difference or just go with one of those?

For $2K, I would go with the BenQ W6000 on amazon.

I just bought this thing and I've been playing around with it. It is EXTREMELY bright even in economy lamp mode on Cinema mode w/ brilliant color turned off - post calibrated for best picture mode suggested by projectorreviews.com.

The image quality looks great IMO.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I just had a client, who after 3 years, has had his BenQ W5000 stop working half a dozen times and need to be repaired. While the image quality was very good, the build quality was consistently terrible. He got advance replacement units every time, so no two were the same, and every single one failed.

For under $2,000 I would get the new Epson 8700UB or the Panasonic AE4000, or whatever comes out around December to replace it with.

I really wish I could recommend BenQ, but their quality is so subpar it is apalling to me.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I just had a client, who after 3 years, has had his BenQ W5000 stop working half a dozen times and need to be repaired. While the image quality was very good, the build quality was consistently terrible. He got advance replacement units every time, so no two were the same, and every single one failed.

You mean BenQ would just send him a brand new replacement unit every time for 6 times?

That is extremely difficult to believe.

Here is one "reliability rating" for the BenQ W6000:
http://www.testfreaks.com/projectors/benq-w6000/

It got a 9.4/10 rating for Reliability, which translates into "Excellent".

You can't base reliability on one customer's experience.

Regardless of what projector you buy, it is recommended to have a 3 - 4 yr warranty.

 

[BMXTRIX]

BenQ would send him a new, or refurb unit every time. The units had the color wheel shatter twice, a complete failure (power supply?) once, and a HDMI board issue where it accepted HDMI from everything except his PS3 once. A couple other issues he dealt with BenQ directly on.

I don't know if this huge issue was isolated to the W5000 and was corrected with the W6000, but I certainly don't trust them as a company, and the need for them to take so many units to get one which worked reliably for more than a month indicates a huge issue with that company.

They are consistently far less expensive than other manufacturers for similar product, which really seems to be the indicator for me. While Panasonic and Epson tend to have similar product for similar price, as does Optoma and InFocus... BenQ seems to want to compete against the cheapest junk out there like Dell and Viewsonic - and I certainly would put their build quality in that class. Just far to unreliable to recommend if someone actually cares about a quality product and their money.

This is where Panasonic I think is a class leader.

I have a huge issue going with a reliability rating scraped from the Projector Central website with no 'length of ownership' time indicated. I certainly was impressed with the look/feel of the projector and the image quality out of the box when I installed it, but the actual electronics and internals were substantially sub-par compared to any single other projector I have ever seen in 10+ years. It was even worse than Runco reliability which was consistently abysmal across dozens of installations.

Maybe the W6000 is better - but I wouldn't risk it.

 

[smech]

I have a BenQ W5000 refurb. I've had it for ~19 months and never have had an issue. The original bulb has 1850 hours on it and the second one has a little over 200 hours on it.

The pj has been anything but a problem.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I have a BenQ W5000 refurb. I've had it for ~19 months and never have had an issue. The original bulb has 1850 hours on it and the second one has a little over 200 hours on it.

The pj has been anything but a problem.

We just can't take one customer's issues and generalize that the company is unreliable.

I've had many issues with my first Optoma HD81-LV - definitely repeat offender. But my friend who works for Optoma finally got me a new replacement HD81-LV and it has worked flawlessly.

I still have a hard time believing that BenQ or any company would just send someone 6 different replacement projectors.

Does anyone else besides me find that difficult to believe?

 

[BMXTRIX]

BenQ has an advance replacement policy for the first year, and that's when they all went until it finally completely broke again last month, outside of warranty, and I replaced it with a Panasonic.

Josh Zyber has also had a BenQ W5000 and experienced similar issues with that model.

I'm not sure what the deal with it (or the client) was, but the issues I ran into reeked of a poorly designed product with lousy QC. Things which are correctable by the company, but I would have thought by the 3rd or 4th replacement that they would have given my client a better offer than ANOTHER replacement unit.

The color wheel of the original projector shatterred within 2 months of ownership when it was new out of the box. That's the piece that should basically last forever you know.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

BenQ has an advance replacement policy for the first year, and that's when they all went until it finally completely broke again last month, outside of warranty, and I replaced it with a Panasonic.

Josh Zyber has also had a BenQ W5000 and experienced similar issues with that model.

I'm not sure what the deal with it (or the client) was, but the issues I ran into reeked of a poorly designed product with lousy QC. Things which are correctable by the company, but I would have thought by the 3rd or 4th replacement that they would have given my client a better offer than ANOTHER replacement unit.

The color wheel of the original projector shatterred within 2 months of ownership when it was new out of the box. That's the piece that should basically last forever you know.

I pray that my W6000 will have much better reliability; but I got the 4 yrs extended warranty from amazon.com just in case.

Waiting for those LED DLP projectors to both INCREASE in brightness and DECREASE in price is a pain.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I pray that my W6000 will have much better reliability; but I got the 4 yrs extended warranty from amazon.com just in case.

That's really good. My client would have dealt with his 7th projector replacement on his own had the warranty still been in effect, but what good is it if it breaks all the time? I really DO wish every single projector owner the best, but I hope you understand where I'm coming from with BenQ being a very sore spot for me since they really made me look bad on a client who dropped $12,000+ on an installation.

Waiting for those LED DLP projectors to both INCREASE in brightness and DECREASE in price is a pain.

You and me both! I've seen the 1,000 lumen Samsung LED projector and it is easily one of the coolest things I've seen to date. I am just wishing they would come out with a 720p and 1080p version of it. At $1,200 and 1,000 lumens it is just asking to go into home theater if the resolution and processing was more acceptable.

As it is, I think it is the classroom dream projector. Will last for years and years without any maintenance required, and no color wheel to break. Give me a 800 lumen 1080p version and consider me sold!

 

[just-some-guy]

I still have a hard time believing that BenQ or any company would just send someone 6 different replacement projectors.

Does anyone else besides me find that difficult to believe?

my projector, the newest incarnation of it, has a banding problem. there are guys that have swapped em out 5-6+ times.

i have the first incarnation, it works great.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

my projector, the newest incarnation of it, has a banding problem. there are guys that have swapped em out 5-6+ times.

i have the first incarnation, it works great.

So you have a BenQ W6000?

 

[just-some-guy]

So you have a BenQ W6000?

ViewSonic Precision Pro8100