Optoma HD65

A while back, I mentioned how I was amazed at the quality of one of Sony’s high-end home cinema projectors. Well, a few months later, and I decided to consider getting a projector, albeit a cheaper “low-end” 720p model. I did some research, had a look around, and decided to settle on the Optoma HD65. It seems to be the “must have” projector in the sub-£1000 market, and from what I’ve read, it’s a popular model. So, the price. It’s actually pretty good – it’s on sale for £500-700 or so, depending on where you look, and, despite loads of places being out of stock, I found 4 of them available at “LambdaTek” for £560. So, I bought one.

It arrived today, so I brought the box upstairs to my room, opened it, and I was pleasantly suprised. It’s quite small. The overall footprint is a little smaller then the MacBook. Like I said in that other post, I had previously borrowed a few different SD projectors from my dad’s work back in 2000, and from what I can remember, they were considerably larger. The HD65, however, is nice and small. And it’s mostly white, too, which is nice if you want it to be less noticable in a room.

As for placement – most “permanent” installs are mounted on the roof. However, this poses two problems for me. One of which is that our house is rented, so we’re not allowed to drill holes in the roof, and second, the light on the roof in my bedroom hangs down quite far, so if I was to mount it on the roof, the light would block the picture. That said, I found a pretty good spot for it. My windowsill. It’s just big enough to accommodate it, and it’s a good height too – I didn’t even need to prop up the leg on the front of the projector. It also fills the projection wall perfectly, with only about 10-15cm left on each side of the picture.

So, as it got dark (The one downside about projectors is they need a dark room. Oh, and it’s summer time, and my curtains don’t block out any light. Fun. ) I hooked it up to my HTPC, turned it on, set it up (I really didn’t need to change any settings other then the zoom and focus), and put Back to the Future Part I (in 720p) on. And, wow, the picture really is good, even with an old film like BTTF. Okay, so it’s a projector, and it’s never going to beat a high end LCD TV at this price, and you need a dark room and a huge blank wall, but, honestly, it’s worth losing a wee bit of quality for the sake of having a 90″+ screen. The whole movie was so immersive, after 10 minutes, I didn’t notice anything other then the movie. It’s fantastic!

The picture itself is pretty damn good. Between the projector and my TV, there’s not that much of a difference. The TV works better during the day, obviously, but I think the picture quality on both is roughly the same at night, with one exception – the projector, with daytime scenes on movies, looks slightly more washed out, but it’s not that noticable – a minor issue. The other problem is that if you sit too close to the screen (or in my case, the wall), you can notice the individual pixels. However, if I sit more then about two meters from the screen, I can’t see them, and with this size screen…you’ll want to sit more then two meters away. Of course, this is probably less of an issue on the more expensive 1080p projectors, but for a small-average sized room, it’s fine.

Finally, two more complaints. Firstly, and it’s a bit irritating, is the fan noise. It’s fairly noisy when it’s on, but if you’re watching a good movie with the sound turned up, it should be drowned out. Sadly, this is a problem with most projectors as they need to get rid of the large amounts of heat that the bulb generates. Last, the grille on the front of the projector (as you can see in the photo above) gets REALLY hot during use, so much so that I couldn’t touch it for more then about a second without it burning my finger. This is, again, normal for projectors, but it means that they need plenty of ventilation to keep cool during use, and the HD65 is no exception.

Overall, I’m very happy with it so far, and the picture quality is suprisingly good. If you’re in the market for a budget projector (or even a mid-range one), take a look at the HD65. With a small footprint, good looks, great picture quality, and being easy to use too, it’s a great choice and I highly recommend it if you’re a movie buff.

Now, the only thing I have to do is get my dad to like it. He’s very anti-projector, mainly because he’s used to the horrible quality ones they use in pubs / offices and thinks they’re all like that, among other things. I hope I can prove him wrong.