Viewing Evaluation - HDTV and Animated Movies

I wanted to see how well the ScreenPlay 5000 did in real world tests using ambient light. To experience it fully I turned on some Discovery HD material. Everyone who has an HDTV has watched the Discovery HD Channel - it's simply mesmerizing. I found that I was able to watch it without much trouble at all with plenty of ambient light in the room (in my case an overhead fan light and a couple large windows on the right wall of the room. Take a look at some of these pictures - taken while ambient light was present in the viewing room:

To say that this projector does not require a perfectly darkened room is an understatement. Don't let the 1100 ANSI lumens fool you. I have seen projectors rated much higher that didn't put out light like this. I also wanted to put on some animation footage which traditionally puts out more light and avoids the typical dark scenes you find frequenting film scenes. Using Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume One, all of the images improved greatly with a darkened room, of course. I did the rest of the viewing tests without ambient light so that those of you interested in the max potential of this projector could take a look at the image quality.

DVD: Spy Game
Spy Game is one of my favorite movies and there are plenty of scenes within to show off skin detail and black levels. In particular, there are some scenes with close-ups of Brad Pitt and Catheryn McCormack that do well to show what this projector can show. 1280x720 pixels covers quite a bit of area and the results show up as a nice seamless picture at the proper viewing distance. The movie's plot is gradually revealed through the use of continuous flashbacks interspersed with interior locations. During the interiors you get a decent amount of shadowed areas which will still be hard to see with ambient room light, but the outdoor scenes and the film in general proved to result in a good viewing experience with the ScreenPlay 5000.

DVD: Farscape - The Peacekeeper Wars
Farscape's cinematography is as colorful as its sub-plots and general story line. I am a huge fan of this show and can only say that the Sci-Fi Channel demonstrated a tremendous abundance of cluelessness in canceling the show a year earlier than anticipated. The result was a year or so off, followed by a final 4-hour miniseries to wrap up the show's remaining loose ends. The photos we captured here detail exactly how spectacular the imagery of this series is. The ScreenPlay 5000 took the colors in the miniseries and practically painted them on the screen. The picture was incredibly vivid and I even flipped the lights on to see that indeed you could watch a show like this with ambient light present in the room. Flipping the lights back off, I couldn't help but notice the clear detail that came through in both the costumes and the prosthetics and aliens provided by Jim Hensen's Creature Shop. The sets looked fantastic as well and when the movie was done I wanted to go back and hunt out particular scenes just because they looked so good on the screen.

Conclusion

I can't say it enough - the ScreenPlay 5000 is a torch. I have seen better black levels in a projector, but I have had to sacrifice ambient light capability every time. There are some improvements that could certainly be made in this unit to be sure. I'd love to see better containment of light from the projector so that leakage is not a problem. The fan could indeed be quieter and there really needs to be an M1 cable or adapter sold with each unit.

With all that said, the ScreenPlay 5000 is the perfect projector for someone looking for a hybrid use device that can handle Sunday afternoon football as well as night-time theatrical presentations in the home. I have run into a LOT of those kinds of people. In the past the stereotype has been that great sacrifices must be made in a projector in order to attain a brighter picture. While this is partially true, when done correctly, a device like this projector can make those sacrifices both minimal and acceptable. In this case, the gains far outweigh the losses.

InFocus ScreenPlay 5000

MSRP: $1,499

About InFocus Corporation
InFocus Corporation, the worldwide leader in digital projection technology and solutions, enhances thinking, learning and creativity in boardrooms, meeting rooms and classrooms and delivers superior home entertainment experiences by vividly projecting and displaying larger-than-life images from multiple sources including computers, DVD players, and PDAs.

From the smallest and lightest mobile projectors and feature-packed meeting room products to the finest home entertainment solutions, InFocus has garnered industry acclaim for design, functionality and intuitive solutions for its InFocus®, InFocus ScreenPlay®, LiteShow® and ASKProxima products.