Sharp's Notevision A10X (1 Viewer)

[Alfred_T]

I'm contemplating building a home theater in the basement of my new home. I have no experience with this what so ever, so I've been doing a lot of reading. While researching what projector to buy, I came across the Sharp Notevision A10X. It's listed as a presentation projector, but to my untrained eyes, it seems to meet all of the necessary requirements. The resolution is XGA up to SXGA+. The brightness is 1300 ANSI Lumens, and the Aspect Ratio is 4:3 & 16:9. Is there any reason why I can't use this projector for my set up?

Thanks,
Al

 

[Neil Joseph]

The native a.r. is 4x3. The one thing that stands out, at least for me, is the 450:1 contrast ratio. I would have to demo this with movies like Dark City to see if it would past the test (for displaying blacks and shadow detail properly).

 

[Alfred_T]

Thanks Neil. Let me know how it turns out. I'm going to need all the help I can get!

 

[Brian R]

I have one and would definitely recommend it. I personally find the black levels very acceptable. But like Neil said I would recommend that you demo before buying if possible. What are you going to be using as a source? HTPC, progressive scan dvd player, etc...

 

[Alfred_T]

I do have a progressive scan DVD player but is it also possible to use a DirecTV satellite receiver? Or should I even bother?

 

[Brian R]

Mine looks fantastic with a progressive DVD player (Denon DVD1600), and also with HDTV (Dish 811). I tried a Dish 501, hooked up to both the S-Video and composite inputs. It was just watchable with S-Video, but considerably worse with composite. With the 811 the non-HD channels are much better, apparently it does a better job upconverting the signal than the A10X does. I am using an 80" wide 16:9 screen.

 

[Neil Joseph]

How is the scaler in this PJ?

 

[Alfred_T]

Being the novice that I am, I have no idea. I'm not entirely sure I know what a scaler is. Do you know where I can find out?

 

[Neil Joseph]

If your DVD player can switch between interlace (480i) and progressive (480p), perhaps you can compare the two closely, especially looking at 480i for any artifacts (picture anomolies, jaggies, etc).

 

[Alan Wong]

The A10X is a nice pj for the money and works just fine at this price point with DVD. I personally just picked up a SE 1HD (Sanyo Z1 clone). The 1HD has a shorter throw and native 16:9 AR which were plusses for me.