Introduction In the last year, I took on the costly and often frustrating process of adding on 850 square feet to my relatively small 1,500-square-foot 1959 “post and beam” home in Los Angeles. The process amazingly and unexpectedly included no less than $75,000 in cement to make sure a modest two-story addition wouldn’t come crumbling down if, or should I say when, the Earth starts a-rocking and rolling. The overall design of the addition features a master bedroom and master bath cantilevered over a light-controlled, purpose-built, stadium seating-based theater with a 16x9 screen from Stewart, fabric walls, acoustical treatments from RPG and beyond. While working on the design of my theater with Beverly Hills-based installation and design firm Simply Home Entertainment, I sold off my trusty JVC Professional DLA-HS2U projector, tore out my existing theater in what was always supposed to be my living room and headed toward what I would call the Dark Ages ...

Introduction Without question, front-projection video is where it’s at if you truly want to recreate the theatrical experience at home. It’s all about cinematic impact, and you just don’t get this kind of experience with big box micro-displays or even the biggest plasma screens available today. A number of different technologies are vying for your hard-earned dollars in the front-projection arena: LCD (Liquid Crystal Display, which is transmissive) and its variant LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon, which is reflective technology), and DLP (Digital Light Processing, based on chips made with micromirrors from Texas Instruments’ also reflective technology). I am a fan of DLP, primarily because of its better black level performance, which yields better contrast ratios. Vidikron, a high-end display manufacturer, has both LCoS or what is known as D-ILA (Digital Image Light Amplifiers) and DLP projectors in their line of front-projection systems. Their new Vision Model 50 lies directly in the middle of their front ...

Introduction These are exciting days as the Marantz VP-11S1 is the first consumer 1920 x 1080 DLP front projector on the market. Retailing for $19,999, the VP-11S1 certainly isn’t inexpensive, but if it keeps pace with the precedent set by the VP-12 series, it should be worth it. We will see below how it fares in its attempts to fulfill the expectations set forth by its VP-12 predecessors. The VP-11 builds upon the VP-12 series, using its rigid, noise-deadening cast-aluminum chassis (which can use the same ceiling mount as the VP-12S4) and 200-watt DC super high pressure, 2,000-hour lamp. The processor is the 10-bit Gennum VXP 9351, the next generation of the VXP 9350 processor used in the VP-12S4. Like its predecessor, the VXP 9351 features Gennum’s TruMotion HD, FineEdge, RealityExpansion and FidelityEngine technologies, which were described in AVRev.com’s earlier review of the VP-12S4. The VXP 9351 is twice as efficient as the VXP 9350, which ...

Introduction Price erosion in the home theater business is even reaching the upper echelons of ultra-high-end video. Thanks to Infocus dropping the price of their 777 three-chip DLP projector from $30,000 list, at that time the least expensive three-chip on the market, to an unbelievable $15,000 back in September of 2005, other manufacturers have been forced to drop their prices as well. Enter the Sim2 C3X, the most compact of the heavyweight three-chip DLP projectors, which carries a list price of $18,000. There are two major advantages to three-chip vs. one-chip DLP projector designs. The first is much more light output. The second and perhaps more important from a picture quality perspective is far superior color saturation. Sim2s C3X is a light cannon that will easily drive nine-to-10-foot-wide screens with ample light output, and it has an ultra-compact design with an extremely small footprint. It measures 17.13 x 7.48 x 16.93 inches (WxHxD), and weighs just 24.2 ...

Introduction There has never been a better time to take the plunge into a big-screen, front-projection home theater. Why, you ask? Two reasons: the products available have never been better in terms of picture quality and performance, and the prices have never been this affordable. A virtual plethora of front projectors are on the market in the $3,000 to $5,000 range, vying for your hard-earned dollars. The two technologies in front projection in this price range are LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and DLP (Digital Light Processing). I tend to prefer the latter over LCD, because DLP, when designed well, provides superior picture quality, due mainly to its better black-level performance, and its superior color saturation. Enter the Mitsubishi HC3000 1280 x 768 resolution one-chip DLP projector, which retails for $3,900. This projector utilizes the Dark Chip 2 DMD chip from Texas Instruments, a step down from the newer Dark Chip 3, which provides slightly better black-level performance. ...