Upgraded from X1 to a 4805! (1 Viewer)

[George_W_K]

Hey guys,


It's been awhile since I've really posted anything here. My girl came home around Christmas after being away for two and a half years for health reasons so we've had a ton of catching up to do.

I've been enjoying FP with an Infocus X1 on a 92" Silver Star for about a year and a half now. It was a really nice combo, but there were some things that the X1 was lacking for my situation. I didn't ever use the 4:3 mode since my screen in 16:9, so there's a waste of pixels and lumen output right there. Having bars above and below my screen was rather annoying and tended to wash out the picture slightly.

When Infocus released the 4805, it seemed like a perfect fit for me, but I didn't feel like spending the $$$ on the slight upgrade. Enter the current deal and I pulled the trigger. All I can say is WOW!!! I am really impressed with how big a difference there is between the X1 and 4805. My black levels are a lot better, not only because of the better chip, but also because of the native 16:9 display, so there are less reflections in the room, compared to what I had. Then the contrast is frickin' amazing! I really had no understanding of what a difference that made in a picture, until now. I see more detail in darker scenes and objects have more of a "3D" appearance. Combining the contrast with the much better color of the 4805 gives me a picture that I can't believe only cost me an entry level price!

My favorite improvement right now is how much better my X-Box looks. I never have a problem seeing the darker levels, and the colors just jump off of the screen.

I've had the projector a week and the smile is still on my face. Even my girl really likes it better! And the best part is, since I didn't break the bank too bad (though, a "g" is still a "g"), I can upgrade to an HD unit in a year or so and not worry about spending the $$$ I just spent. This projector is really terrific for the price and I highly recommend it for someone who still watches mostly DVDs and plays games. I haven't tried HD yet to comment on how that looks, even though I've heard a lot of good things about how it's scaled.

Later guys,
George

 

[KirkP]

Welcome to the club! I couldn't agree more with your comments. HD scaled looks great on the 4805.

 

[Scott L]

Thanks for the mini review. I came very close to getting an X1 when the buzz hit HTF but I held out for an affordable 16:9 projector (the 4805), and I'm glad I did.

 

[terence]

Great review buddy!

The 4805 is the real deal, not hype and now it's a steal for anyone looking for a entry level pj. Tommorow starting at 10am i'm running the LOTR EE trilogy for me and some friends who are fans. I know, what the hell??! You only live once and with a great pj like the 4805 it should be a real blast! I may not have any ass left after siting thru all three, but hey what the hell, why not! Enjoy your new toy.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Congratulations!

Oh yeah, nice projector.

 

[JohnnyKretentiv]

This looks like the way to go. I might be ordering mine soon.

 

[George_W_K]

Thanks for the kind words about my girl, Jack.

And thanks for everyone else's comments too!

I was leaning toward this projector a lot lately, and then one of my buddies from here bought one. He brought it over and we set it up on my old projector mount (my old PC 20-39 box), and then fired up both projectors. Unfortunately, I didn't have a long enough component cable to connect them both so we had to the composite cable I use for the VCR to connect my DVD player to the 4805.

Although the picture was blurrier, the extra brightness and color saturation was highly evident already. We watched some movie clips and a little bit of SDTV. To compare we would take one lens cap off, and put one on the other machine.

Finally, we tried to take a cable from the VGA out of the X1 into the M1 connector of the 4805. At first nothing happened, until I turned on the X-Box. (I later found out that the VGA input of the 4805 only syncs with computer signals, which isn't what my DVD player outputs obviously.) So now we have both machines connected with the same signal. This way we blocked off half of one lens and half of the other so the image we watched was split into two equal pieces of each projector. That's when the difference really stood out. The brightness was night and day, with the 4805 being a lot brighter. But, my favorite observation was looking at ELISE from SSX snowboarding down the hill. On the X1 side of the image her red outfit looked almost like a crimson, darker red. On the 4805's side, she was a bright red. And just seeing the rest of the colors of the background jump out compared to the X1 was the selling point for me. I bought mine a couple of days later.

Don't get me wrong about the X1, though. It had nice colors, the 4805 is just that much better. I'm sure having a dedicated HT color wheel helps with that one.

Another thing I've noticed now, after playing around with it for a few days, I can see a bigger difference between crappy DVDs and nice ones. (I'm talking about transfers!) I don't know why that would stand out more, it might be because of the color saturation. I popped in Star Wars: ATOTC and some scenes were nice, but others weren't really impressive. A lot of detail just doesn't seem to be there. Now I know why some people don't consider this a reference video disc. (Though, I wouldn't say it is on the crappy end of the spectrum like my proofread shows I implied.) Then I popped in Matrix: Reloaded and that was a beautiful picture. The detail in all of the scenes I browsed through was terrific. Gorgeous.

Ok, I gotta go get outside or something so I remember what the sun looks like!
George

 

[GregK]

George, the sun is very over rated. It hurts the eyes and can cause skin cancer. Nahhh... Add that it's just above freezing here in Indiana, I'll stay inside with my 4805.

About a year ago I started doing a serious look at front projectors. Things then and now are changing rapidly. Did I want to spend what for me would be a lot of $$ on a decent full HD front projector, just to have something far better and cheaper on the horizon? My game plan was the same as yours, so last August I pulled the trigger on the 4805 as a very acceptable compromise and have not regretted it for a minute. It displays 720x480 NTSC and other 16x9 480p sources quite nicely. HDTV and computer sources look markedly better over my best NTSC DVDs, which suprised me given the EDTV 16x9 DMD has a 854x480 limit. In a few years when I do upgrade to a true HDTV projector, I have no doubt the offerings will be better and cheaper than most HDTV projectors currently available. (I wouldn't mind 1080p myself.. )

 

[Jordan_E]

I have a quick question. Does the 4805 have the same upward/desktop throw like the X1? I'm going to be putting in a dedicated HT within a couple of months and am trying to justify buying a new projector. The only problem I have with the X1 is figuring out the angle when having it mounted up high.

 

[Pat Frank]

It does have a slight upward throw. In fact I've noticed that when I zoom to a larger image, it goes even higher up the wall.

I assume they designed it that way beacuse people tend to mount them off-axis. I'd kinda like to be able to switch that off somehow, though. My cart is almost as high up as the screen, and it kinda makes fine adjustment trickier.

 

[George_W_K]

I mounted my 4805 on the same mount I had the X1 and it is pretty much in the same position. Hope that helps.

 

[Jordan_E]

I checked out your theater page, George. Liked the way you mounted the X1!

 

[George_W_K]

Thanks for the compliment. A friend of mine did me a really nice favor by making that for me.

 

[Scott L]

I'm surprised your wife let you live after you did this:



j/k nice job

 

[George_W_K]

You should have seen her reaction to all of the equipment I bought while she was away. When she was well enough be allowed to come home for a visit, what do you think the first thing she said was, when she walked through the door for the first time? "What the HELL IS ALL OF THAT?!" Not, "Wow, it's nice to see home again." "It's nice to see the dogs again." ETC. (That did come later, of course.) So, I had to butter her up. At the time, "The Matrix" was her favorite movie, so I fired up the X1 and put on the movie. This is what she did, "Wow, it's like we're at the theater......I can't believe you spent all that money.......wow.......this is cool.....I can't believe you spent all that money .....this is really cool!"

Needless to say, she has grown to like our little set-up very much. She still tries not to show it too. The other day she said while we were playing "Dead or Alive: Ultimate" on X-Box, about the 4805, "This is a much better picture. These colors are beauti-I mean, (changing to a cute voice) I don't see a difference."

Aren't women great. They just can't admit when we're right.

Geo

 

[Jordan_E]

I've long turned my wife into a HT amatuer, so she doesn't complain too much, EXCEPT when I want something new; my Pioneer Elite receiver almost broke her, but she appreciated the 7.1 when I got it going.

Now to only convince her that I need those new Martin Logans....