Apr 6 Podcast #525: Acer H6500 DLP projector
When we started the podcast back in 2005, CRT projectors dominated home theater. As great as they looked, they were big, expensive and required routine maintenance to keep them in top form. Today there are a wide variety of digital options that are both inexpensive and very easy to install and maintain. One option for those interested in trying out a 100” or 120” TV in their home theater is the Acer H6500 DLP projector.
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- Google TV is coming to Europe this September
- Yamaha Adopts AirPlay, Cuts Networked AVR Prices
- More People Want Projectors
- Have TV Manufacturers Given Up on 3D
- Best Buy Closing 50 US Stores After $1.7B Quarterly Loss
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- Video Streaming Comparison Chart
- TV Will Evolve To 'Pandora-Like' Model
- Best 5 HDTVs: Picture quality
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Acer H6500 DLP Projector Review
When we started the podcast back in 2005, CRT projectors dominated home theater. As great as they looked, they were big, expensive and required routine maintenance to keep them in top form. Today there are a wide variety of digital options that are both inexpensive and very easy to install and maintain. One option for those interested in trying out a 100” or 120” TV in their home theater is the Acer H6500 DLP projector.
About the Projector
The Acer H6500 is a small projector, not nearly the size you expect to see in a built-in home theater projector. The fact that it comes with a carrying case makes you think that it might play in that segment between dedicated home theater and portable projectors. It boasts specs that would fit in a home theater, but lacks a few of the key features that would make it a slam dunk among projectors in its price range.
It is a native 1080p DLP projector with 10,000:1 contrast ratio and a reported 2100 ANSI lumen output. That number can be reduced to 1680 if you run it in Eco mode. It has support for 24 fps movies and plenty of input connections, including 2 HDMI, component, composite and VGA. It can support screen sizes up to 330”. The one biggest feature it lacks is any lens shift capability. That can make installation a bit tricky, depending on the layout of your room. It sells for around $865.
Performance
First of all, 2100 lumen output is quite bright, and we did find that the picture had ample brightness, not enough to overcome any amount of ambient light, but enough to overcome what we would consider to be normal or moderate ambient light. Acer touts their eColor Boost II+ technology, which is supposed to provide “exceptional color fidelity even in environments with bright ambient light.” The colors were good, very bright and very vivid.
The 10,000:1 contrast ratio is respectable, but not overwhelming. When you look at a $850 projector, you can’t expect it to produce the inky blacks you get from a $2500 or $5000 projector. We didn’t have expectations of that sort, but maybe in the back of our minds we were hoping for a bit more. The H6500 did a solid job with contrast and black levels, probably exactly what you’d expect to see at a projector in its class, but nothing that would put it head and shoulders above the competition.
One feature of the H6500 that we didn’t try out was the wall-color compensation. According to Acer, this technology allows the H6500 to make “colors pop on any surface, even tinted walls.” We figured that if you’re buying a home theater projector, you’ll get a screen with it, so we stuck to our two Dragonfly screens, a high contrast gray and a bright white. While we didn’t try the wall-color compensation, it did lend credence to the idea that this projector is somewhere between the portable and the built-in classes - better than a portable, but will still look good if you just want to throw an image up on a wall somewhere.
Conclusion
At $865, the Acer H6500 will set you back about the same amount as a 42”-47” HDTV. Add in a screen and wireless HDMI and it’s probably roughly the same as a 55” TV. So for the same investment, you can double your screen size. And the projector is so small, it’s a snap to install and is very low maintenance. Years ago you wouldn’t have been able to consider anything like a 120” home theater projection system for such a small investment. Of course, years ago a 55” TV would have been a lot more expensive as well.
But just like many other areas of home theater, if you’re interested in trying out a front projection system, we recommend you go for it. Ease into it with a small investment like the Acer H6500. You can always upgrade in the future if your needs change or you save up enough to get something better. And if not for a dedicated home theater, you might want to consider the H6500 for portable viewing. Braden is in the market for a somewhat portable projector that is quite bright but still does a good job with video (not just meant for data). The H6500 fits those requirements quite well.
Reader Comments (4)
Onkyo used to make a blade-architecture receiver, priced near or at the top of their range. Fry's carried it. I don't know how much Onkyo put into developing blades for it, but I could not find a place that carried any
and Yes Braden, James Cameron did direct the Terminator, and Terminator 2, starring Linda Hamilton, who had previously starred in Beauty & the Beast for its first 2 (of 3) seasons
One of the listeners asked about Media Center extenders. I am an avid user of Media Center and have been using 3 Media Center PC's with tuners in each to do over the air and cable ready recoding for quite some time as well as an Xbox 360 for a media extender. I am moving to FIOS TV and needed a cable card tuner and went with the Ceton InfiniTV4 usb 4 tuner model (Ara and Braden see your Amazon store for that purchase.). During that research I learned that Ceton is coming out this year with the Ceton Q and Echo. The Q is a 6 tuner cable card set top box that includes a Blu-Ray drive. The Echo is a Media Center extender with a small foot print. The UI for both is based on Windows Media Center and will be skinable.
If the listener is willing to wait, the Echo will be out some time this year. Pricing and ship date have not been announced.
In addition to these devices to round out things Ceton is developing IOS, Android, Windows 7 phone, and Windows 8 applications to access your content.
You can view a good video on all of these products demonstrated by a Ceton engineer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRZ5SkAR1Q0
Alan
Regarding the "3D love affair," I disagree with the blog author and both of you guys saying that it's dying due to a lack of content. It's more due to a lack of desire to even have the content.
The only people who saw stars in their eyes were the TV manufacturers. The public and most pundits repeatedly told them that we didn't want it from the very beginning. And now they're paying the price for not listening to the customer.
Sure, it's fun to see a 3D movie every now and then - as in once or twice in a year at most. Watching 3D in 2012 is no different from the 60s and 70s: it takes effort and can be exhausting. After an hour and a half of it, you've had all you can take. That is, if you're not one of the persons who becomes nauseous and throws up from it. We don't watch TV sitting up square with the screen - we recline, we lie on our side with a blanket, we go in and out of the room, we talk on the phone, we read a magazine, we surf the web, looking up and down. We don't want to expend extra effort to do something that should be casual: watch TV.
Further, let's look at the theaters where they have all the 3D content they need. In every case, there are at least twice the 2D screenings of the same movie as there are 3D - because people don't want the effort and the hassle. And in many cases, it flat isn't worth the effort: After seeing Hugo in 3D, I'm about done with 3D movies in theaters for a long while. It wasn't worth the hassle and I wish I'd seen it in 2D instead. And it has nothing to do with price.
Ran into your site today and wanted to say hello. I'll be checking in from now on. Be sure to visit my home theater site.