By now we were very impressed with the Optoma projector. It really appeared to have the skills to function well as a portable presentation and home theater projector. In settling down to watch some different shows and DVDs we snapped off some screenshots with commentary to outline some of our observations.

DVD: Hoodwinked
This animated featured didn't measure up to Pixar or Dreamworks SKG levels, but it was entertaining and provided some good material for checking out the color reproduction of the EP1690. I found the saturation levels of the image to be very impressive and black levels were on par with what I'd expect. Detail was crisp and though this movie wasn't rendered with very realistic textures or hair patterns, the presence of minutia on the screen was abundant enough to get a good feel of how well minor image details came through.

Late Night in High Definition
Late night television always offers some excellent HD source material, even if the lighting and colors found in some of the sets look like they were developed by a crazed baboon who was given the keys to the primary colors closet. Jay Leno's chin looked remarkable, but of course this had nothing to do with the projector - it's just so big it takes up most of the screen on close-ups. Clothing on the guests came through very well with shadow detail and enough detail to let you know that the HD feed was being well-represented by the Optoma projector.

The color shown here is off a bit, but this was due to the camera. Colors were quite natural and pleasing and I was quite impressed when black sports coats showed up clearly against the dark backgrounds of the Letterman set. Overall watching late night TV (or any HD channels for that matter) was very enjoyable.

I had no idea Rick Moranis had a band and could sing. After watching his performance I can now confirm that he does indeed have a band. Rick certainly looked good on stage (how he sounded was another matter entirely). Conan and guests looked great and the set has enough interesting patterns and textures that they actually prompted me to take note and realize that the EP1690 was capturing the smaller background elements in a way that brought the entire picture to life. I really felt that the DLP engine and optics were quite impressive and did a fantastic job on these shows.

Discovery Channel
The Discovery Channel has always been a place that turns almost anyone into a primitive, drooling idiot. For example, merely watch someone flipping through channels and observe how they will pause on a nature show and ogle at nearly anything - ants foraging for food, a lemur grooming itself in a tree, a monkey throwing its own - voice. You get the idea. Now add HD. Yeah, it kind of gets worse. I found myself gazing at the channel for about an hour until I realized I should probably start taking some screen shots. By this time the show had moved on to a safari theme and I grabbed some interesting and mesmerizing close-up shots of a cheetah and elephants. The zebras are in there for posterity, but you can certainly see that this display doesn't show many jaggies (and much of this is due to good transmission quality at the Discovery Channel HD network). The extreme close-up of the cheetah is something I'm sure the camera man working that gig will never forget. After seeing it in my theater, I will likely never forget it either. Elephant skin is "super" textured and this and the colors present in the images were exceptional and very pleasing to the eye.

Austin Stevens, [Egotistical] Snakemaster
This guy goes beyond being a ham and crosses over into the line of "I'll do anything to any animal just to look cool". He really comes off as an ego-driven showman and from what I've seen so far he's not very good at handling any kind of animal without inflicting great amounts of stress on them (the viewer is never stressed, in fact I am always rooting for him to get bit so we can see how anti-venom works). In either case, despite the ludicrous show, there were some very excellent scenes that showed off the black level capabilities of this DLP projector and might make for a good advertisement of DarkChip2 technology.

Conclusion

If you've made it this far you've seen that multi-purpose projectors don't have to lose face in the home theater. In the past, hybrid models have not impressed me all that much, but attention to detail (like updating the chipset to DC2 technology and providing a fast color wheel) and the inclusion of DVI-D with HDCP make this unit a serious consideration for those looking to have a model that can handle both work and play.

Optoma EP1690 DLP Projector

MSRP: $1899

About Optoma
Optoma Technology, Inc., a subsidiary of Coretronic Corporation, is a global manufacturer of high-resolution digital and home entertainment projectors for consumers, businesses, education, professional audio video (Pro AV), and CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) channels. Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, Optoma Technology, Inc. was founded in 1991 and has quickly become an industry leader in high-resolution projection and digital display products.