Optoma H56 DLP Video Projector

Video projectors are making their mark in home theater as prices go down and quality goes up. The Optoma H56 DLP video projector is an excellent, affordable unit that can turn your living room into a true home theater. For more details, check out my review.

Despite all of my home theater gadgets, I really enjoy going to a real movie theater for that giant screen motion picture experience. However, that may all change now that I have had the experience of using the Optoma H56 DLP video projector.

The Optoma H56 is one of a new breed of extremely compact home theater video projectors based on Texas Instruments DLP technology. In addition, the H56 renders 16.7 million colors with 1,000 ANSI lumens, and has a 2000:1 contrast ratio. In addition, this unit is fully HD-compatible (720p, 1080i) with Progressive Scan and built-in deinterlacer for analog signals. In addition, the H56 has a full complement of Composite, S-Video, Component, and DVI video inputs, and is NTSC/PAL/SECAM/VGA/SVGA compatible. To round things off, the H56 comes with a 200-watt user replaceable lamp with 2000 hour life, a wireless remote control, and a very nice and functional carrying case. Of course, the user must provide their own screen to take advantage of the video projector.

Setup of the Optoma H56 is extremely easy. If you are not familiar with video projectors, read the owner's manual to get a good understanding of how to operate the unit, but for an experienced user, a quick glance at the on/off procedure and the menu functions is all that is needed. The owner's manual is suprisingly easy and brief. After setting up a screen (size of your choosing), all you have to do is position the unit at the optimal distance from the screen (your choosing). For the purpose of this review, I chose to place the unit on a mobile cart, but the H56 can be easily be ceiling mounted with an accessory mount.

Starting up the projector is very easy. After you plug in the power, hookup your DVD player or other source to it, all you have to do is turn on the main power switch, wait for the projector to warm up for a minute or so, then an indicator light will signal you that it is OK to turn on the lamp. When you see the Optoma logo projected on your screen, you are all set to go.

Now, all you have to do to get going is adjust the zoom and focus so that your screen filled and that the detail is where you want it. For a permanent set-up I would definitely use one of many home theater setup DVDs available, however, since my purpose was to see how a quick setup would go, I forgoed that method and just eyeballed it.

The only drawback the projector had at this point was that the focus could only be manually done at the focus ring on the lens, not from the remote. This is fine for a table-top installation, but would be inconvenient in a ceiling mounted setting.

After setting up my screen size (which was a 10-foot diagonal 4x3 theatrical screen), I turned on the DVD player (a Technics DVD-A10) and, before I could pick up the remote to select the correct input, the projector automatically detected the correct active input and the DVD player's logo was showing on the screen. This is very convenient.

The first test of the H56 was with the DVD version of the classic B/W film Casablanca. The reason I chose this as my first test disc, is that many projectors exhibit an annoying green-tinted B/W image, with muddy blacks, and overblown whites. To my surprise the H56 exhibited none of these common defects. I, and my test audience, were impressed with the film-like quality, brightness, and excellent gray scale of the projected image. All this without using the remote to make any adjustments.

It was now time to check how color images would look. I selected five films (two old Technicolor classics, a Metrocolor classic, and two recent films). For the older color classic films, I chose the lastest DVD releases of Duel In The Sun (1946) and The Garden Of Allah (1936). Despite obvious issues involving the age of these films, the Optoma did an excellent job of capturing the technicolor characteristics of the films. The reds were fantastic, the dark scenes very watchable, and the flesh tones were consistent (except for actual film print variations). It was like being in a small movie house in the 1940's. Once again, with no additional adjustments. I, and my test audience, were very impressed.

Proceed to Page 2 - Evaluation Continued