Projector Reviews

It's easy to visualize the operation of a CRT projector: three tubes, each operating much as the picture tube in the TV on your kitchen counter, flashing overlapping red, green, and blue analog images onto the screen. If you have a good model in top operating condition, and if you or your installer have slaved over its setup, you'll see an incredible picture—one that, on a home-size screen (not so large as to accentuate a CRT's main limitation of light output), is still as good as home video gets.

Sharp practically put DLP front projection on the map as a high performance solution when it introduced its XV-Z9000 projector a few years ago. That projector featured the first generation "Mustang Chip," the first 16:9 native 720p DLP chipset from Texas Instruments. Sharp's SharpVision projector line has continued to evolve with TI's chips, with each new generation making incremental improvements over past models. We continue to be compelled to look at each iteration because Sharp's line has remained reasonably priced (between $11-$12k MSRP with "street prices" closer to $10k) and never given up much in pure performance even when compared to premium projectors costing much more.

Sharp has a long history in the home theater projector business. It began with a successful run of LCD models. But the company soon shifted its projectors to Texas Instruments’ DLP technology, which appeared to be ready to dominate the projection business for a time.

However, with the development of new and vastly improved LCD chips and designs in the recent past, all that has changed. LCD (and its second cousin, LCOS—a variation on liquid crystal technology) now dominates the projection market. Sharp is sticking to DLP, and its new XV-Z15000 is one of the first DLP designs to sport a new 0.65-inch digital micromirror device (DMD) from Texas Instruments. The DMD is the imaging chip at the heart of the DLP system.

Sharp's XV-Z2000 front DLP projector raised more than a few eyebrows when it first appeared at CEDIA Expo 2004. Was this indeed the first 1280x720 HD2+ DLP projector for less than $5000? If so, it would represent a seismic but long overdue change in DLP projector pricing, which has typically kept the MSRPs of 720p models above $7000—and, by extension, non-competitive with 720p LCD projectors that retail for half of that price or less.

The Sharp XV-Z20000 is the third 1080p single-chip DLP projector to pass through our doors. At $11,999 it bucks a growing trend to less expensive, high resolution projectors. But it's far lower in price than competitors such as the $20,000 <A HREF=" http://ultimateavmag.com/videoprojectors/506marantzvp11s1/"> Marantz VP-11S1</A> or SIM2's $15K <A HREF="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/firstlookvideoprojectors/506sim2ht3000/">
HT3000</A>. And it offers a lot for the money.

I love surprises. Ok, that's a lie. I hate surprises. How is giving me an attack of tachycardia (learned that one on House) anyone's idea of a good time. But, in the HT world, surprises are usually good. Take this $3,000 projector, for instance. By all accounts, it should be an average performing mid-to-low-priced HD projector. Then you look at the contrast-ratio measurement and see it's better than every other projector we've ever reviewed. Surprise!

You want to believe. I want to believe. We all want to believe that, some day, a tiny chip the size of a 35mm transparency in a video-display device the size and weight of a slide projector will be capable of producing a moving video image so exquisitely filmlike that it will banish bulky, expensive, tweaky CRT projectors to the trash heap of technological history.