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Review 1 of 4
Price Paid:
$9000.00
from Audio Shop Summary:
To set this projector up properly you will need to place full length black curtains at the sides of your screen with black borders above and below the screen. This will counter the halo effect caused by light spill around the screen. Next, either paint the ceiling flat black or tack black fabric to the ceiling starting at the projector's lense and continuing in front of the projector for three or four feet. This eliminates light spill from the lense onto the ceiling thus preventing any reflected light from reaching the screen. Now place a small curtain in front of the fan vents at the front of the projector, but do not block the air intake. This prevents light from the vents from hosing your screen and lowering your potential contrast. To demonstrate how this effects your screen just turn out the lights, cover the lense and then run your hand in front of the vents. You will notice the shadow of your hand on the screen. These suggestions will eliminate light spill problems which are endemic to all DLP projectors and dramatically increase contrast and black level. Once done this projector has a black level and contrast ratio which satisfies me, and I am extremely picky! It may not be as good as the black level and contrast of a good CRT projector, but the picture can be bigger and brighter, so take that you CRT fanatics. CRT is going to go the way of tube amplifiers, no question.
The internal processing does an adequate job, but some motion artifacts are evident. You will see wavey lines on the railings of the search ship at the beginning of Chapter 2 for Titanic, the waves on the blinds and wicker chair in the famous porch scene in Rules of Engagement, the grill of the car in Titus, the head armour in Braveheart and so on. These scenes only last a few seconds and the rest of each DVD is solid. A progressive scan DVD player would clean this up but, the Marantz, as pointed out in a previous review, will not accept one. I have seen some of these scenes with a Home Theatre PC using Power DVD and it wasn't perfect! An expensive outboard processor would probably do the trick, but is it worth the extra cost? I guess it depends on how picky you are.
I am using a 10 foot diagonal da-lite high gain screen with a 2.8 gain. There are no hot spots and the picture is amazing with lots of contrast and good blacks, as mentioned earlier. I am curious about the new grey screens, but they may be better for LCD projectors with their weaker blacks and poor contrast. I have also used a 1.3 gain screen with this projector and it worked well, but the high gain screen is better even with the complete control over room light that I have.
I paid $9,000.00 U.S. or $12,500.00 Canadian. Seems like alot, however, the Selico retails for $15,000.00 and the Runco is $18,000.00 in Ottawa (ridiculous) and $15,000.00 in Kingston. It doesn't have HDTV capability at this time. I haven't seen HDTV on the Marantz, but I have heard it is stunning even with the down-conversion. The new Infocus LP350 looks interesting at $10,000.00 retail in Canada. It has higher resolution but no component input and has received some very good reviews, although some consumers who have bought trash it (www.avsforum.com).
LCD will have to improve significantly before I will be interested. The Sony received excellent reviews and is a good machine, but the pixels are still visible and the contrast level, at least for me,isn't there yet! This may change, but for now DLP wins!
The good anamorphic transfers are amazing on this projector. Try, The Cell, Act of War, The Cider House Rules, MI2 and many others and you will be impressed. Make sure you use the component inputs, the S-Video is not as good. To prove my point just watch the movie Flawless with Robert DeNiro. In the livingroom scene with the satin cushions on the couch the cushions should look shiney and vibrant. With component they do, with S-Video they look flat!
The standard settings on this projector are next to useless. Start with contrast set at 90, brightness at 23 (which is really your black control), tint at 0, colour at 75, sharpness at 45 and white enhancement either on or off. Experiment with these settings for both normal and dynamic settings and you will be pleased.
The Marantz is not the best DLP projector on the market, however, considering its price, features and stellar picture, it is worth a long hard look. If Marantz had included proper 3:2 pulldown video processing there would be no competition at this price and maybe there isn't anyway! Strengths:
Excellent anamorphic video, no dot crawl, satisfying blacks and very good contrast, excellent resolution, great colour, stunning picture on 92 inch wide screen with best anamorphic transfers. Ease of set-up and no hassle maintenance. Weaknesses:
Light spill, some motion arifacts, fan noise Similar Products Used:
Have seen the Dream Vision, Davis, and the new Selico and the Sony VLP-VW10HT (good but no cigar)
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