ViewSonic has presented a new high-end flagship video projector, the Pro9000. This is one of the first LED laser projectors to arrive in the consumer home-cinema market, and we've had a sneak peak of it in action.
According to ViewSonic's reps who talked us through this new projector, LED laser technology maintains the same advantages as traditional DLP but with none of the drawbacks. In other words, the "rainbow effect" (brief flashes of red, green, blue) often associated with DLP projectors should have been drastically reduced in the Pro9000. And, indeed, when ViewSonic fired up the Pro9000 to give us a demo, we didn't notice any rainbow effects even though we're usually quite sensitive to them (they bother some users more than others).
Teaming this technology with a Texas Instruments DarkChip 3 processor and 1080p Full HD makes this projector a top choice for home cinema set-ups. According to the spec sheet, it should ensure brightness levels of 1600 lumens for contrast announced at 100,000:1 (which seems like a slightly unrealistic figure to us).
However, the Pro9000 isn't 3D-compatible and has no kind of motion-compensation mode to keep fast-paced scenes flowing smoothly.
There's a pretty good choice of connections on the back of the projector, with two HDMI ports, one VGA connector, a composite connection, an S-video port and an RS-232 serial port.
Otherwise, the Pro9000 has a zoom function and offers manual focusing, although there's no lens-shift, which is a bit of a shame.
The Pro9000 is due to land in the UK in October with a suggested retail price of £1,600.
> Video Projector Reviews
According to ViewSonic's reps who talked us through this new projector, LED laser technology maintains the same advantages as traditional DLP but with none of the drawbacks. In other words, the "rainbow effect" (brief flashes of red, green, blue) often associated with DLP projectors should have been drastically reduced in the Pro9000. And, indeed, when ViewSonic fired up the Pro9000 to give us a demo, we didn't notice any rainbow effects even though we're usually quite sensitive to them (they bother some users more than others).
Teaming this technology with a Texas Instruments DarkChip 3 processor and 1080p Full HD makes this projector a top choice for home cinema set-ups. According to the spec sheet, it should ensure brightness levels of 1600 lumens for contrast announced at 100,000:1 (which seems like a slightly unrealistic figure to us).
However, the Pro9000 isn't 3D-compatible and has no kind of motion-compensation mode to keep fast-paced scenes flowing smoothly.
There's a pretty good choice of connections on the back of the projector, with two HDMI ports, one VGA connector, a composite connection, an S-video port and an RS-232 serial port.
Otherwise, the Pro9000 has a zoom function and offers manual focusing, although there's no lens-shift, which is a bit of a shame.
The Pro9000 is due to land in the UK in October with a suggested retail price of £1,600.
> Video Projector Reviews
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