Optoma H56 Letterboxing Test
Since the H56 has a native 4x3 DLP chip, it has to letterbox a widescreen image in order to project it, which results in slight lower resolution in the actual image itself. The films, selected for this test were: The Time Machine (1960 version), The Mummy (1999), and Six Days And Seven Nights (1998).In brief, I was not disappointed, the aspect ratios of the films were faithfully projected. Also, the color and detail rendition of these widescreen films were excellent. The exceptional color quality on The Time Machine jumped right out at me and the special effects and action sequences in The Mummy showed no signs of motion artifacts. In addition, the excellent contrast capability of the H56 proved itself in the many dark scenes in The Mummy. Eveything was perfectly viewable. Lastly, the South Seas locations of Six Days And Seven Nights looked fantastic. Greens, blues, and reds were never overblown and the natural layers of color were easily distinguished in foilage and landscapes.
Testing Text Display Performance
Another test of the performance of a video projector is how good it can display text, which, in home theater terms, means smoothness and readability of opening titles and closing credits. Many LCD-type projectors display severe jaggedness of text and severe overblowing of the whites often used in closing credits. This is especially noticable as the screen size gets larger. Although the Optoma wasn't perfect, text was much smoother and readable than many projectors in this class that I have viewed. I had to get fairly close to the screen (too close for normal, comfortable, viewing) to actually see minor jaggedness present in the text display. If Optoma and other manufacturers can completely conquer this weakness in video projection, DLP video projection will be truly indistinguishable from film.Overall Impressions
The Optoma H56 video projector, right out of the box, with minimal setup and adjustment, provides an excellent projected image of stunning detail and color accuracy. In addition, unlike many video projectors, there is no hint of annoying anomalies, such as green tinted blacks or overblown whites. Colors and shadows retain their intended characteristics even in the darkest scenes, while dominant primary colors such as red and blue do not become overwhelming in bright scenes. Even though the H56 is a fully capable HDTV video projector, even standard resolution 480i DVD images, through the S-Video connection look outstanding. With a more attentive setup procedure than I employed, it is hard to imagine many video projectors in this class being much better that the H56.Conclusion
The only real negatives I found with this projector were that there was no focus from remote control, the sharpness control was not linear, but stairstepped (although I never really needed to use it), and that was no internal sound system or speakers in the projector (a very minor point in home theater applications, where you would use an external AV audio system anyway), but since this is a portable projector, you need to provide an external speaker system or hope that your computer or laptop speaker system is adequate for an on-site presentation.In essence, despite the minor concerns listed above, I just cannot say enough about the excellent performance of the Optoma H56. If you haven't considered the video projector option for your home theater, this is definitely something you should check out and the Optoma H56 is an excellent choice to make. It is compact, easy to setup and use, and delivers excellent performance, even with non-HD source components and material. The Optoma H56 is definitely the best all-around, under $5,000 video projector I have seen.
