Rear-projection televisions still offer the best bang for the buck when you want a large screen HDTV in a room with some light. Maybe that’s why they’re so popular, and DLP is the king of the rear-projection hill.

If you talk DLP, the name Samsung has to come up, because they’re a big player in the DLP market. Maybe that’s why audio|video Revolution decided to take a look at their HL-S6187W 61″ DLP rear-projector. Note that this is a 1080p television, and that it goes for an MSRP of $2,999.

What did a|v rev think?

Supposedly this set has a contrast ratio of 10,000:1, which would help give it a good picture quality. The black level is very very good. The set has problems, though, transitioning from dark to bright.

It’s good to note that this 1080p set does indeed accept a 1080p signal. All you HD DVD, BD, and PS3 fans take note.

For the price this is a very good set, but it does have its shortcomings. Check out the full review at audio|video Revolution. Link below.

Samsung HL-S6187W 61-Inch DLP HDTV Review

Vidikron is one of those high-end brands that I’ve been aware of for some time, but I’ve always thought that they were too expensive. That’s kind of true with this Model 50 Vidikron projector. The MSRP is $9,999. Which sounds expensive, but there are lots of other similar projectors in the same price range.

This projector is a DLP design using the HD2+ Dark Chip from TI, with a resolution of 1280 x 720, and it has an HDMI input. It has electronic focus, zoom, and lens shift. Strangely enough, the projector has a PIP feature, which is cool. Another cool feature is the ISF Day and Night modes. Video processing is good. Colour decoding is “dead-on” accurate.

Audio|Video Revolution’s review of this projector lasts three pages, so if you’re at all interested, check it out.

Vidikron Vision Model 50 One-Chip DLP Projector Review

With all the news of 1080p displays, whether that be LCD, DLP, or SXRD/D-ILA, it’s almost like going back home to see a review of a standard 720p DLP projector review. In this case, Ultimate AV’s Thomas J. Norton takes a look at the BenQ PE8720 projector.

With an MSRP of $6,999, I’m not so sure Thomas should have bothered. There are so many good projectors being released for cheaper, and some of them are 1080p to boot. But who knows, resolution isn’t everything, maybe this projector has what it takes after all.

So how does it do? It actually compares fairly well to single-chip 720p projectors twice its price. And even though the MSRP is about $7k, it can be had on the street for about $4k. So this projector does a decent job, and if you don’t care about rainbows or 1080p, maybe this projector is for you. Check out the review for full details.

Ultimate AV: BenQ PE8720 720p DLP Projector

We’ve been awaiting the arrival of LED DLP’s in greater numbers for a while now. (There’s only one other LED DLP HDTV out there now, I think by Samsung, though my memory is very fallible.) Now NuVision has announced that they’ve started manufacturing their LED DLP’s, of the 52″ 1080p variety to boot. So therefore they should ship this month.

The NuVision model 52LEDLP will carry an MSRP of $4,399, pitting it squarely against the higher-end SXRD rear-projection televisions from Sony.

Benefits of LED lighting include the fact that it doesn’t fade, deeper blacks (the light doesn’t have to be redirected, it can just turn off), and a greatly reduced rainbow effect.

NuVision Ships LED DLP

c|net wasn’t totally convinced by Samsung’s new LED-lit DLP projector, but HDBeat Engadget HD had a different opinion, pretty well liking the set a whole lot.

Like lots of other television sets, or should I say most, look terrible right out of the box. And this one is no exception, according to the Engadget HD folks. Or folk - Matt Burns. The image quality is superb, and the scaler does a great job of scaling video to the set’s native 1920 x 1080 resolution. The blacks are better than any DLP set Matt has ever seen. And I don’t know if that’s good or not, because I don’t know how many DLP sets Matt has seen! But still, the black level is one of the few areas where DLP falls down next to its ancient CRT competitors. (Does anybody make CRT displays anymore? Sure they do!)

Game modes are an important feature for televisions because typically they turn off processing that might cause gaming lag. But this Samsung’s gaming mode seems to be somewhat of a wash. Oh well. I guess no set can be perfect!

Review: Samsung HLS-5679W LED DLP

At the CEDIA expo, lots of 1080p projectors were shown off. For a review, check out this CEDIA 1080p projector page at Projector Reviews. One 1080p projector fighting it out with some of the new ones from Panasonic and Sony is the Optoma HD81. Ultimate AV has recently reviewed Optoma’s HD81 1080p DLP projector. This projector has a retail price of seven grand, and comes with an outboard video processor.

The projector has a manual focus and manual zoom, but no lens shift. That makes placing the projector a bit hard, which I find odd for a $7000 projector. The projector reviewed was actually a pre-production unit, so maybe some of the problems encountered by Mr. Norton will have been fixed in the production run. See the articles for full details, but he had problems like the on-screen menu freezing up, strange video settings, and more.

The projector had some good picture quality points going for it, with great optics. But the auto iris mode seemed to have problems as well. Even with all the problems however, Mr. Norton found that the picture quality was the best of all Optoma projectors he’s seen.

Optoma HD81 1080p DLP Projector

I was just writing about McIntosh’s expensive DLP projector, but they’re not the only millionaire-only DLP projectors in town. SIM2 several DLP projectors, including the Grand Cinema HT5000. This beast hasn’t been officially priced yet, but SIM2 estimates a price of $50k, with the projector arriving in early 2007. It will have a 300W lamp and a contrast ratio of 5000:1. For an extra $10k, they’ll have a dual-lamp version of the projector with external processor.

However, if you’re thinking of spending a little less money, they’ll also have a $10k 1080p single-chip DLP projector similar to its current Domino line.

SIM2 Bows Broad Line Of 1080p DLP Projectors, Including Three-Chip Flagship

I’ve never owned a piece of McIntosh gear, and probably never will. I like the retro-style look of McIntosh gear, though my wife would probably say it looks too old. But what stops me personally from buying McIntosh is the high prices. And McIntosh’s newly announced DLP projector continues that tradition by costing upwards of $30k. The MDLP1 projector will be a 1080p affair. You get the MDLP1 with a separate scaler, the VP1000. Whew! For those prices, I hope the image quality is really really nice!

In the above image you see McIntosh’s scaler on top of their new pre/processor. The VP1000 scaler has 4 HDMI and 6 components video inputs. The AP1000 Audio Control Center sitting under the VP1000 uses the VP1000 as its video switcher. Ultimate AV says that both of these will sell for $10k.

McIntosh hits projector-land with 1080p DLP unit
McIntosh Processors