Optoma's High-End Projector = Video Nirvana

Last month, I got an invitation from Optoma to check out the company's latest projectors. I sauntered into the cushy demo room of a midtown-Manhattan electronics store, sunk into an overstuffed lounger and prepared to be disappointed. But when the lights dimmed and the picture came on, I felt like I was at the movies. Seriously. I didn't even care about the $8,000 price tag.

I'm taking about the Optoma HD81-LV, a 1080p projector with a DarkChip3 DLP chipset for viewing in less-than-ideal lighting conditions (that is, in a non-pitch-black room), a 2500-lumen lamp and a 10,000-to-1 contrast ratio (which, given the various ways manufacturers calculate contrast ratios, doesn't mean much). Make no mistake—this is a high-end projector, with an $8,000 sticker price to match. You can also get a $4,000 anamorphic lens to go with it; the lens (similar to the ones in movie theaters) stretches and optimizes compressed 2.35:1 widescreen images, eliminating the thin letterboxing bars on "scope" movies like "Star Wars" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." So at the end of the day, we're talking $12,000 for the pair. Whoa.

For our demo, we watched scenes from a pair of movies: a Blu-ray disc of "Casino Royale" and a standard DVD of "Spider-Man 2." Now, I'm a fanatic when it comes to image quality, but I was blown away by what I saw—the roughly 12-foot-wide picture was razor sharp, with no screen-door effect to speak of (that is, no sign of individual pixels), deep black levels, rich, accurate colors (even with the lights turned up a bit) and a smooth, film-like quality (this was with the anamorphic lens activated, mind you). Sure, the bright, outdoor "African rundown" scene in "Casino Royale" looked appropriately vivid, but I was also impressed by the tricky nighttime airport chase. We then switched to the standard-def DVD of Spidey, and while the SD image quality was naturally a letdown after Blu-ray, I was still pretty wowed. I could have watched all day.

Optoma has also announced a slightly more wallet-friendly model, the $3,000 HD80, a 1080p DLP projector with a 1300-lumen lens that's less forgiving of so-so lighting conditions; however, it makes for one of the cheapest 1080p projectors on the market. Optoma didn't have a working model ready for our demo, but once I get a production unit on site, I'll post my eyes-on review.