Cheap Remanufactured InFocus SP5000 ScreenPlay Home Theater Projector (Electronics) Price

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Customer Reviews of Remanufactured InFocus SP5000 ScreenPlay Home Theater Projector

Be good to yourself and buy a different (DLP) model
SUMMARY: This projector is a joke in terms of color accuracy and black levels/details. I played with it for a few days, finally gave up, and sent it back. <
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>If you like Infocus then you would be way better by looking at their entry level DLP model (4805). I personally can swear by Optoma though - I have owned two Optomas (H55 and H31) and I have loved them both since more than 3 years ago. Take a look at H31 or their higher resolution models (HD72 or higher if money is not a big issue and you watch HD programming and want every detail to stay there). <
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>DETAILS. <
>After owning Optoma H55 projector (1024x768, DLP) for three years I bought this SP5000 when Optoma's lamp went over its 2000 hours. My main reasoning was DVI/HDCP input (H55 is not HDCP compliant) and I was hoping that the LCD technology could be at least not too far behind. Man, how wrong I was. <
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>First I was trying to get Infocus's DVI connection work. No luck. Infocus's proprietary DVI-M1 connector requires Infocus-supplied $XXX adapter (yet another joke, $XXX?). I tried to get by and got a third party adapter for 1/3 of the price but it did not work (even though it was specified as completely M1 and HDCP compliant). I gave up, sent the adapter back, and used a component connection. <
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>Now, bad things come in a package. My second issue was that SP5000 had simply terrible colors out of the box (white balance was not there at all). I tried to calibrate it with AVIA calibration DVD for 4 (!) hours and then I gave up yet another time as whatever I did could improve white balance a bit but resulting image still looked bad. <
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>I tried to watch Star Wars Episode I. Dark underwater scenes looked horrible with weird colors (with even visible brightness modulation all over my then 84" DaLite gray (1.0) screen). Shadows... well, there was NO shadows actually, but whatever was supposed to be shadows had NO details in them and looked light gray instead of black. Highlights looked overblown, and the whole picture was a bit blurry (yes, the image was focused just fine, it was video itself that looked this way after 480p to 720p upconversion). <
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>And let me tell you the same DVD looked very, very good on Optoma H55 connected to Denon DVD-2910 player using component input (I used exactly the same setup but Optoma H55 was replaced with Infocus SP5000). <
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>I ended up sending SP5000 back and bought another Optoma (H31). Let me tell you this is what I call excellent colors... After 10 min of calibration and further refinements during watching many DVDs I got it not just simply right but every time I see skin tones from a good DVD I silently say wow to myself. <
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>Shadow details were simply outstanding on Optoma H31. If I watch a DVD on 16:9 screen and there are aspect ratio black bars (right and left of the image in 4:3 format or top/bottom for 2.35:1 movies) then when a scene goes dark I simply cannot tell where my image border is. And this all is in a completely dark room... There were so many fine gradations of black in H31 where SP5000 displayed a plain dull gray image... <
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>Not to mention DVI worked out of the box on H31. <
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>My the only dislike with H31 was initially its screen door effect (I could see pixel borders at 12 feet with 92" screen, which - to be honest - is overkill and is not recommended). It was easily solved by slight defocusing though (did not decrease image sharpness or lowered video quality, just removed visible pixel barriers). <
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>Of course, if this is your first projector and you simply did not have a chance to see anything else you might even like SP5000. It's bright at least. <
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>And yes, I paid for my H31 less than SP5000 costs (and would even pay much more for the quality it provides). <
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>Good luck in your projector hunting.