Projectors have always been an awesome thing to have in the home for those who love their films, games or TV.
Enjoying the big screen experience from the comfort of your sofa has never been more affordable but with the advent of 4K resolution, projector manufacturers have been a little slower to release their models than TV brands have. Up until recently, you’d be paying more than double the price of one of the premium 55” 4K TVs to get that same resolution from a projector, but happily, we’re beginning to see new models being released at more manageable prices than ever before.
Two such models are the new UHD60 and UHD65 from well-known brand Optoma and their first in the 4K market. You might think that as these models are released at a lower price than we’ve previously sold a 4K projector that they’d be lacking in spec or have some kind of catch. Well, that simply isn’t the case with both models being capable of accepting HDCP2.2 signals as well as being able to display HDR (High Dynamic Range) and REC.709 colour space. HDR means the image has a much wider range of colours and larger contrast ratio which renders what you’re seeing in a much more lifelike and vivid way. Though HDR10 is the only HDR format that is supported on these two models this is still fantastic spec for the money. Not only that, but they also have a feature to process Standard Dynamic Range material into HDR so your existing lower quality content should still see some benefit of having an upgraded projector. So whether it’s 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays, 1080p sources or just standard DVDs, it sounds like both the 60 and the 65 should make the most out of what you want to watch.
As with other Optoma projectors, these new models use a Texas Instruments DLP chip which in the case of the UHD60/65 allows them to reproduce 8.3 million pixels. Both model’s connections include two HDMIs (the 2nd of which is enabled for 4K, HDR and HDCP2.2), VGA, a powered USB port for HDMI dongles, 12V trigger out, plus RS-232 and RJ45 ports for network control. Interestingly, there’s also an output for digital audio using an optical cable which is not something that you see on projectors very often.
Though the UHD65 has only 2200 Lumens compared to the UHD60’s 3000, it makes gains by having PureMotion interpolation software for smooth motion, an RGBRGB colour wheel instead of RGBCY for more accurate colours and a better contrast ratio of 1’200’000:1 instead of 1’000’000:1. It’s also worth noting that the UHD60 has a white casing whereas the UHD65 is in black. Standard features such as vertical lens shift allow for the image to me moved up and down by 15 degrees and the 1.39 – 2.22:1 throw ratios means there’s a good window of how far away you place the projector depending on what image size you want.
We’re really looking forward to seeing these come in and to putting them in our demo rooms so that you can check them out yourself. Give your local store a ring to book a demo. Large 4K images have never been so affordable!
Click to find out more about the Optoma UHD60 & UHD65.
Author: Steve, Bristol Store
