Customer Reviews

InFocus IN76 720p DLP Home Theater Projector

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just bought this projector after reading a review from projectcentral.com. I also just got a DirecTV HD DVR. I am projecting onto a 137" Dalite permawall screen in a light controlled room. The image quality with recent HD material is stunning. When looking at bright daylight images it looks like a window, with amazing detail. I am replacing an Infocus X1. I also had a Sanyo Z4 for about two weeks. The image from the Sanyo was too harsh because of the LCD (also I was sitting 1x the distance from the screen which should really be 2x for LCD's and 1.5x for DLP's).

Let's get the bad things out of the way first. The projector can be a bit on the noisey side, particularly when ceiling mounted. There are not a ton of inputs on the back (one each of the major ones). There has also been issues reported by some people with the screen flickering a bit during warm up. I experienced this a bit myself with the first unit, but had it repaired/replaced for free. The projector is also natively 720p while 1080p is now becoming the HD standard for home theatre. It does however accept 1080p input.

Now that's out of the way, I have nothing but love for this projector. I've looked at a ton of projectors and there's just something magical about this one.

InFocus is one of the only major brands to perfectly calibrate your monitor to 65K at the factory, and then zeroes out the settings for you based on this calibration. What this means to you - it comes out of the box with perfect calibration with everything set to 50/100. That means you can tweak slightly for your room conditions, but you'll always know how close you are to perfect.

The image quality is just amazing. Everything looks sharp and crisp and three diemensional. You won't see a bunch of miniature artifacting like you will with most other high def displays, but at the same time the noise reduction doesn't detract a single bit from the fine details that bring the image to life.

Having perfectly calibrated colors means you won't see banding even in the subtlest smokey scenes and hazy blue skies.

Black levels are amazing for a single chip DLP and put to shame anything on LCD. Put up a black and white checkerboard pattern on this baby and you'll see true black and true white, not some mottled half ways in between like you'll see on other simialrly priced projectors.

It's also very easy to get a huge projected image with very little depth i your room. I have my projector roughly 13' back from the screen and am projecting a 133" screen. I'm sitting a little closer than I should at 12', but even at that distance there is no visible screen door effect.

I've had tons of doubters and skeptics over to my place. You get plenty of people that swear that their native 1080p is better, or that there will be a screen door, or they're going to see rainbows since its DLP. Every single person I've sat in front of this thing has walked away saying "you're right, that was amazing".

Truth be told, I'd love to upgrade this to a native 1080p version of the exact same thing, but the image quality is just so over the top amazing that I'd be scared that anything else would be a downgrade, regardless of tech specs. I've been to shows and seen $20,000 projectors that just made all that much more proud of my InFocus IN76.

- The picture is stunning!
- Easy instalation
- Greate input options with HDMI/DVI
- HD video/TV looks...well it brings a tear to my eye
- Bright enough to use with "some" light
- Fills a 100" screen with ease

But

- The unit stoped working after two weeks. No power at all. Infocus customer service has been great to work with though. If you can't live without your system I recomend getting the exchange program. They recieved my faulty projector and shipped out a new one the same day.

If not for the "power" problem I would have given it 5 stars.

I made a lateral move from an Optoma HD72 to the Infocus IN76. These projectors have a very similar spec and street price. I switched because the HD72 required a new bulb every 900 hours. At $400 per bulb (every year) this was too much. HDTV looks great on both units. I have had both set to 120" screen in a 13'x13' room with some ambient light.

The IN76 is noticeably brighter.
The IN76 was easier to setup.
The IN76 does a better job scaling DVDs up to 720p
The HD72 is slightly quieter fan noise
The IN76 has been much more reliable
The IN76 has a sexier looking case

At the time I bought the Optoma hd72 it was cheaper, but it has proven to be far more costly to operate. The IN76 prices have fallen to match the Optoma and I am much happier with it.