Optoma HD73 720p DLP Home Theater Projector

I bought this projector to be used with a media center pc and a few game consoles. I do really enjoy the projector as it looks sharp and has good black levels.

I only have 2 complaints. The first is that this projector runs natively at a 1280x768 resolution which is meant to cater to the pc market, I believe I read that it was more friendly to pc resolutions (being 15:9 vs the norm 16:9 for tvs) I find this more of a hindrance than anything since if you run a 16:9 source and have black bars from a movie or something else, you get two different colored black bars (annoying). Bottom line on this issue is that a 16:9 would have been much better and the option to run 15:9 just seems to get in the way.

The other issue is the rainbow effect. I believe I may pickup on it more than most people, but I see it a good amount on this projector. Even though it has a good color-wheel. Again, oh well. Still a great projo for the money.

I purchased the HD73 after reading many specs for other units due to its high contrast ratio. I was very impressed after installing it by the clear picture and deep blacks. I think it is about as good as I could get without going to full HD, which is far more expensive. I have an old Epson TW10 LCD projector which when purchased seemed very good, but there is no comparison to this new unit.

I was coming off of a 7 year old Sony LCD projector and was hesitant with a DLP because of mounting issues and the possibility of being sensitive to the "rainbow" effect that is common with DLP. The installation was straight forward and the "rainbows" only appear once in a great while but the piccture quality is amazing. The black levels are sooooo much better then my old LCD. I know newer LCDs having better black levels, but it would be tough to compete with this product. Color was nice and it is bright enough for my 120" screen. A few years down the road I will look into a 1080p DLP.

We had a Sanyo Z2 projector for three years and were getting close to the realization that technology had moved along quite a bit since our purchase. In the world of Sanyo, they had gone from the Z2 to the Z3, Z4 and most recently the Z5. Some of the performance changes were more incremental than revolutionary, but it was hard to argue that the picture quality difference between the Z2 and Z5 was anything other than significant.

Still, I was lured by the DLP "DarkChip3" technology as opposed to the LCD of the Sanyo. We had experienced problems with dust blobs, dead pixels and finally dead LCD panels. Sanyo did repair the machine under the warranty, but the process was anything but seamless and it required a threat of legal action to get the warranty coverage.

First the down side. As a DLP machine, there are limits of image adjustability (offset) that come into play when mounting the projector. If you have low ceilings (<8 feet), you might have an issue. OTOH, LCD projectors are famous for being able to cast the image high or low or and right or left. In our case, we have a 9 foot ceiling and plenty of mounting flexibility so small offset was not an issue. That's it for the downside.

On the upside, the color is eons ahead of the Sanyo. Blacks are really black and whites are really white and all the colors in between are vivid and natural. A well made HD DVD like "King Kong" has astounding picture and color quality on the HD73.

Optoma still has a free lamp ($400 or so value) offer until the end of June. Mine also came with a free Oppo 981 DVD player that upscales to 1080p. All in all a great deal and a very satisfying upgrade.