4K Projectors?

ssmacc · 24 Oct 2019 at 10:21

Hello All,

I've got a 3 year old Optoma 1080p Projector and am thinking about upgrading (model number in sig). It's pretty difficult to spot these in the wild so thought I'd ask for informed opinions on quality improvements over the last few years and if it's worth upgrading?

For example are the £1k 4K projectors a worth while upgrade or do need to spend £2k to make the difference "worth it" (appreciate that's subjective)

I popped into PC World and viewed the LG OLED65B9PLA TV (£1800), I was blown away by the PQ, I appreciate a projector isn't going to touch this for blacks but are the 4k ones a decent improvement over the older models? I've only ever seen DLP projectors...

Advice / opinions welcome.

Cheers

hornetstinger · 24 Oct 2019 at 10:37

At your budget stick to a better 1080p pj.

ssmacc · 24 Oct 2019 at 10:42

hornetstinger said:
At your budget stick to a better 1080p pj.

Cheers for the response!

Suspected that would be a common answer, same question though, are the newer models a decent improvement over models from a few years ago?

Basically is a £1k projector from 2019 a upgrade from a £1k projector from 2015 or earlier? (if both were new, maybe impossible to answer if tech has not moved on)

Cheers,

Firestar_3x · 24 Oct 2019 at 11:26

Not sure i see the point at 1k, i recently went from a 1080p Optoma to a BenQ W5700 cost 2.6k was on the fence but the difference is impressive.

Hopefully native 4k projectors start coming down in price in the next few years giving me a upgrade path.

ssmacc · 24 Oct 2019 at 12:21

Firestar_3x said:
Not sure i see the point at 1k, i recently went from a 1080p Optoma to a BenQ W5700 cost 2.6k was on the fence but the difference is impressive.

Hopefully native 4k projectors start coming down in price in the next few years giving me a upgrade path.

I guess the problem I'm having is the leap of faith aspect, it's very difficult to see a projector in action...I bought my original projector after seeing one in a London store, I'll stretch the budget if it's worth it but that's the big question!

Tempted to get a OLED TV as I know the PQ is better but I don't think it will replace the wow factor of a 100" screen...

Cheers,

lucid · 24 Oct 2019 at 13:53

There's a parallel between TVs and projectors when it comes to 4K.

With entry-level 4K TVs, you're only really getting the resolution. The rest of the benefits are absent. They aren't bright enough to do justice to HDR. The panels aren't capable of achieving the additional colour range required for Wide Colour Gamut. The blacks suffer because of light bleed. There's no support for anything more than HLG and HDR10 (though some don't even have that), and because of the limitations in all the other areas listed above, even when fed a source UHD/4K source image with either HLG or HDR10 encoding, the TV hasn't a hope in hell of rendering the image properly. As for the dynamic metadata formats of HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, they're just a pipe dream with cheaper TVs.

It's much the same with budget 4K UHD projectors.

Dig in to the specs of stuff sold as 4K up to £1000 and you'll find a lot of the same shortcomings. They're pseudo-UHD because the cost of true UHD resolution DLP, DiLA or SXRD chips puts the tech far out of reach. Instead, you have a pixel-shifting tech sometimes referred to as XPR or e-Shift. The panel is either a 1080p chip or something in the middle of the two resolutions. They play a trick on the eyes by projecting a shifted image to replicate native UHD. TBH though, the results are okay once you get past the audible noise of the pixel shifting tech at work.

What can't be faked is the colour range. Cheaper projectors don't do better than REC709 which is very close to the 8bit colour we've had since we started using colour for TV images in Britain. The sales blurb will spin it like you're getting something new and sparkly, but this is the same colour range that HDTV and your 1080p Blu-rays uses. Its the same story with the contrast required to do HDR.

A properly tweaked-up decent 1080p projector will make you wonder what all the fuss is about budget 4K projection. Once you're spending £5K or more though, the game changes.

ssmacc · 24 Oct 2019 at 13:58

cheers @lucid

I'm getting the impression a 1080p Projector will be the £1k choice for a while yet, given that, I'll probably stick with what I've got but what is your opinion on the below?

"is a £1k projector from 2019 a upgrade from a £1k projector from 2015 or earlier? (if both were new, maybe impossible to answer if tech has not moved on)"

Cheers

lucid · 24 Oct 2019 at 14:46

Yep, impossible to answer because (a) you need to see the projectors side-by-side, and (b), it depends what the buyer is looking for.

For example, lamp tech in terms of brightness per £ has improved, so if you're looking for a short-throw gaming projector to use in a room with some ambient light then you'd probably feel that projectors have improved.

The flip side is that chip and driver tech hasn't changed so much, so getting better black level hasn't really changed all that much.

Pottsey · 24 Oct 2019 at 14:54

ssmacc said:
cheers @lucid

I'm getting the impression a 1080p Projector will be the £1k choice for a while yet, given that, I'll probably stick with what I've got but what is your opinion on the below?

"is a £1k projector from 2019 a upgrade from a £1k projector from 2015 or earlier? (if both were new, maybe impossible to answer if tech has not moved on)"

Cheers

There can be a noticeable improvement depending on what you are moving from and what you are moving to. Not all upgrades will be automatically better. I went from a 4 year old 1080p Optoma that didn’t support rec 709 to a newer 1080p Optoma that did support rec 709 and there was a noticeable improvement in colour.

Saying that I wouldn’t at this stage upgrade to a new 1080p projector. I would try and keep the old projector working another year or upgrading now to 4K. The problem is 1080p projectors are not only behind in image quality but they are also massively behind in sound quality when streaming from Netflix or Amazon. If you like high quality Atmos Sound from those two sources you need a 4k projector. 1080p limits sound to much for me to considering getting a new 1080p

The £1k projectors at 4K are not that good but 1k isn't far off what you need. A BenQ W2700 also known as HT3550 is around £1300 or £1400 ish which looks great at 4k and HDR along with DCI-P3 color.

ssmacc · 24 Oct 2019 at 18:13

Pottsey said:
There can be a noticeable improvement depending on what you are moving from and what you are moving to. Not all upgrades will be automatically better. I went from a 4 year old 1080p Optoma that didn’t support rec 709 to a newer 1080p Optoma that did support rec 709 and there was a noticeable improvement in colour.

Saying that I wouldn’t at this stage upgrade to a new 1080p projector. I would try and keep the old projector working another year or upgrading now to 4K. The problem is 1080p projectors are not only behind in image quality but they are also massively behind in sound quality when streaming from Netflix or Amazon. If you like high quality Atmos Sound from those two sources you need a 4k projector. 1080p limits sound to much for me to considering getting a new 1080p

The £1k projectors at 4K are not that good but 1k isn't far off what you need. A BenQ W2700 also known as HT3550 is around £1300 or £1400 ish which looks great at 4k and HDR along with DCI-P3 color.

I'll have a look into a BenQ W2700 and whatever "rec 709" is!

, cheers, you've lost me with the sound as I already have ATMOS via my AMP? The AMP is 4K compatible it's just my TV and Projector that aren't...

hornetstinger · 24 Oct 2019 at 18:19

Atmos is when you use the display for a source or usb playback, streaming, or Netflix.

If you use a android box which does all that plus more I guess not really important. Bit like having DD/DTS out from TV not really that important as route sources to amp, TV is more of a monitor

Pottsey · 24 Oct 2019 at 19:22

hornetstinger said:
Atmos is when you use the display for a source or usb playback, streaming, or Netflix.
If you use a android box which does all that plus more I guess not really important. Bit like having DD/DTS out from TV not really that important as route sources to amp, TV is more of a monitor

Actually its very important. If you plug that android box into a 1080p display you lose ATMOS sound via Netflix/Amazon. But plug it into a 4k display and you gain ATMOS sound.

ssmacc said:
I'll have a look into a BenQ W2700 and whatever "rec 709" is! , cheers, you've lost me with the sound as I already have ATMOS via my AMP? The AMP is 4K compatible it's just my TV and Projector that aren't...

Atmos sound only works via Amazon/Netflix if you have an ATMOS supporting AMP and a 4K projector or TV. If you have a 1080p projector/TV you won’t get Atmos sound. So as strange as it sounds upgrading to 4k also upgrades your sound quality by a large amount. This is only for Amazon/Netflix. A blueray player and disk will play ATMOS sound on a 1080p projector/TV. Most people don't realise this but its worth considering the sound quality difference when choosing between a 1080p or 4k Display.

Rroff · 24 Oct 2019 at 19:39

lucid said:
They're pseudo-UHD because the cost of true UHD resolution DLP, DiLA or SXRD chips puts the tech far out of reach. Instead, you have a pixel-shifting tech sometimes referred to as XPR or e-Shift. The panel is either a 1080p chip or something in the middle of the two resolutions. They play a trick on the eyes by projecting a shifted image to replicate native UHD.

The results are hugely varied as well over the range - some look more like an interlaced image looks like others will be close to identical to UHD for movie use but noticeably inferior for general desktop usage or games with heavy HUD/UI implementations, etc.

ssmacc · 24 Oct 2019 at 20:04

Pottsey said:
Atmos sound only works via Amazon/Netflix if you have an ATMOS supporting AMP and a 4K projector or TV. If you have a 1080p projector/TV you won’t get Atmos sound. So as strange as it sounds upgrading to 4k also upgrades your sound quality by a large amount. This is only for Amazon/Netflix. A blueray player and disk will play ATMOS sound on a 1080p projector/TV. Most people don't realise this but its worth considering the sound quality difference when choosing between a 1080p or 4k Display.

Actually that's incorrect, I get ATMOS from my Nvidia Shield if I'm playing a source that supports ATMOS (in 1080p) unfortunately Netflix does not support ATMOS via the Shield but the HTPC and XBOX both do, in either 1080p or 4k. (I could be mistaken, so happy to be corrected - My amp tells me it's decoding ATMOS)

hornetstinger · 24 Oct 2019 at 21:20

That's stupid. So box to amp then onto 1080p won't get Atmos? What a joke.

Pottsey · 25 Oct 2019 at 00:08

ssmacc said:
Actually that's incorrect, I get ATMOS from my Nvidia Shield if I'm playing a source that supports ATMOS (in 1080p) unfortunately Netflix does not support ATMOS via the Shield but the HTPC and XBOX both do, in either 1080p or 4k. (I could be mistaken, so happy to be corrected - My amp tells me it's decoding ATMOS)

I have never tried an XBOX but the Firestick, Fire TV and all other set top boxes I have tried don't work with ATMOS via Netflix or Amazon unless you have a 4k stream active which you cannot do on a 1080p display even if it does support ATMOS.

Perhaps its a case of some devices work and others do not. I am wondering on your Xbox if you watch Jack Reacher on Amazon on a 1080p display, press pause and go into subtitles audio options what options do you have? Is ATMOS listed?

ssmacc · 25 Oct 2019 at 06:53

Pottsey said:
I have never tried an XBOX but the Firestick, Fire TV and all other set top boxes I have tried don't work with ATMOS via Netflix or Amazon unless you have a 4k stream active which you cannot do on a 1080p display even if it does support ATMOS.

Perhaps its a case of some devices work and others do not. I am wondering on your Xbox if you watch Jack Reacher on Amazon on a 1080p display, press pause and go into subtitles audio options what options do you have? Is ATMOS listed?

It's to do with the player and obviously the sound set up (AMP in my case) not the display (1080p or 4k makes no difference), I've not got Prime but Netflix supports ATMOS on Windows 10 and the XBOX one (although content is limited), I see the ATMOS sign and the info in my AMP tells me it's ATMOS on my supported devices and I've not got a 4k screen.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/64066

Netflix have disabled support for Android and ATMOS...for no apparent reason...

mid_gen · 25 Oct 2019 at 19:07

I have the Optoma UHD300X and am very glad I went for it over a 1080p model.

Pixel shifting works, you can walk right up to the screen and see your 4k pixels, looks fantastic on the One X.

For a little over 800quid new it's an absolute steal if you want a big 4k picture.

ssmacc · 26 Oct 2019 at 20:13

Cheers everyone, what are your views on the Optoma UHD60? From my research it looks the best for it's price point...

As ever advice appreciated.

Pottsey · 26 Oct 2019 at 20:31

ssmacc said:
Cheers everyone, what are your views on the Optoma UHD60? From my research it looks the best for it's price point...

As ever advice appreciated.

Its decent enough but does not have the best black levels and is limited to Rec.709 colour space. From what I have read the BenQ W2700 is better at the same price point and goes beyond Rec.709 colours. But I have not seen them run side by side. Also the UHD60 is large, very large compared to some other projectors. Personally I would put the UHD60 is in the top 3 choices at that price point. But for me at least the BenQ W2700 wins out.

The UHD60 and UHD300X are practically the same the only real difference is the 300x is not as bright but £550 cheaper.