Talk about extremes. Back in July we tested an LED projector – the H109080FD – from new (for the UK) projection brand Vivitek, which cost a cool 11 grand. But here we are today looking at a Vivitek projector that can be yours for the princely sum of £849. Including VAT.
Most brands don’t have anywhere near this level of price differentials in their range and frankly the mind is amazed at the difference in performance levels I could expect to find between the two models. Which is a fancy way of saying that I can’t help but worry that the entry-level H1080FD will turn out to be as bad as the H9080FD was excellent…
Unsurprisingly, the H1080FD doesn’t deliver nearly as much pure product volume for your buck as its famous flagship sibling. Its dimensions of 335 x 102 x 256mm are fully in line with the sort of coffee-table-friendly fare seen in competing ultra-budget models like the InFocus, Optoma and, more recently, Panasonic.
The H1080FD is also reasonably elegantly dressed for such a cheap device, with a clean white finish and tastefully rounded edges. The only thing that looks a little off aesthetically is the lens. It’s a very small affair – just over an inch in diameter – but it’s been unceremoniously shoved into a barrel that looks like it was designed for a much larger lens array, with a rather cheap-looking black one being one Plastic “shield” is used to hold the lens in place.
The connectivity of the H1080FD is excellent for its money. Two HDMIs get the ball rolling, although I’d really expect only one for a device this affordable. But notably, the projector also has a USB port, an RS-232C control port, a D-Sub PC port and even a 12V trigger output that lets you automatically start a motorized screen.
It’s a bit disappointing to realize that the USB port is for service only and I can’t play my digital photos through it. But such a disappointment is hardly unfair when you’re talking about a projector as cheap as the H1080FD.
As for the projector’s innards, firstly the H1080FD, unsurprisingly for its money, ditched the H9080FD’s LED lighting in favor of a simple 0.65-inch single-chip DLP/230W lamp assembly Has.
Impressive for the price though, this chipset’s resolution is a native Full HD 1,920 x 1,080. In addition, the lamp is said to put out a high maximum of 1,800 lumens, while the projector’s full on/off contrast ratio is said to be a respectable (for this market level) 4,000:1.
The only concern I have with these numbers is whether the brightness is actually too high, which suggests PC-biased picture performance rather than something appropriate for movies, which tend to have a strong black level response versus brightness to prefer.
Setting up the H1080FD is a fairly simple process. There are screw-on legs at the rear of the projector and a fold-down leg at the front to help you position the image correctly on your screen, while the zoom/focus rings are easily accessible via a hole in the top of the projector.
However, there are inevitably limitations. For starters, the optical zoom on offer isn’t exactly spectacular, with a throw ratio of 1.6-1.92. The lens is also designed for short throw distances – to some extent a sensible move given the occasional ‘living room’ use for which it is probably most likely to be bought. But it made the H1080FD the first projector I’ve tested in quite a while that had me lifting my butt – outrageous! – and move my projector stand forward from its usual position at the very back of my 5m test room.
The other annoying setup flaw is the lack of any vertical or horizontal optical image shift. This means many people have to use the projector’s built-in digital keystone correction feature to get the sides of their image looking straight, with all the potential for corrupting the image that any sort of digital stupidity always brings.
Stepping into the H1080FD’s surprisingly well-presented on-screen menus (via a decently organized and impressively backlit remote control), I found a respectable number of functions that helped me calibrate images to my liking. Highlights include a color management system that lets you adjust hue, saturation, and gain for the red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow color components, surprisingly flexible gamma adjustment, and a fleshtone tweaker.
The projector offers three memory banks in which you can save your own preferred settings, as well as three pre-programmed presets: Movie, Normal and Bright.
It’s perhaps a shame that Vivitek couldn’t add presets for sports, and games in particular, to this list, but it doesn’t take long to set up proper presets for these types of sources yourself.
However, if you’re into fine-tuning the images, I highly recommend you always use Film mode as a starting point, as to be honest, the Normal and Bright presets are both pretty dodgy. Indeed, when you first see the H1080FD with one of these latter modes selected, the gray wash hanging over it all, along with some seriously unconvincing colours, are both quite alarming.
Movie mode miraculously and instantly makes colors appear much more believable, while elevating black levels from a disappointment to actually quite respectable levels, at least for movies.
In fact, the infamous torture sequence with knotted ropes and dangling chunks from “Casino Royale” looks far more graphic and compelling in movie mode, with its pitch-black background, tricky skin tones and stylized lighting, than it typically does at a projector priced under a grand.
Do not get me wrong. I’m not talking about colors enjoying the kind of subtlety of mix and tone that characterizes decent projectors further up the price structure – especially when it comes to deep greens. And black levels still look dull enough to hide shadow detail, making dark scenes look a little flat. But at the risk of working on a screamingly obvious point, the H1080FD really doesn’t do a bad job with color or contrast for its money.
Especially since it has another very unexpected chord to its arc: astonishingly good fine detail. HD movies look as textured and sharp on the H1080FD as they do on many projectors four times the price, while displaying all the image detail that distinguishes HD from its standard definition counterpart with amazing confidence. You even get a good sense of the cinematic grain so loved by most Blu-ray authoring houses these days.
It’s also worth noting how dynamic the H1080FD’s images tend to look, as the high brightness output ensures images have plenty of punch without looking anywhere near as washed out as I would have expected. This is especially true if you’re using the Boost lamp output mode (something at least worth trying as it doesn’t distort black levels as much as similar systems on some competing models).
However, there are inevitable signs of the H1080FD’s budget nature beyond the occasional rogue hue and crushed black level.
First of all, images – especially very dark ones or shots with clear blue skies – sometimes look a bit noisy. Next, “medium light” images with a mix of light and dark content sometimes look a bit muted compared to more universal dark or light images.
In very dark scenes, it also seemed to me that there was a slight variation in hue in different parts of the image – although this is only noticeable with content that is almost entirely black.
Elsewhere, I found “Halo 3 ODST” feeds from my Xbox 360 not looking as rich in black levels as regular video feeds – a situation seen recently with Samsung’s LED LCD TVs. However, the H1080FD doesn’t have the HDMI black level adjustment solution that the Samsung TVs offered.
Another odd discovery is that the H1080FD doesn’t seem happy playing 1080p/24 Blu-ray outputs. The weirdness started when my Pioneer LX91 Blu-ray deck’s HDMI “handshake” with the projector resulted in a standard 720p output – despite the projector being a native Full HD resolution. Then, when I forced the Blu-ray output to 1080p/24, the saturation levels and overall hue of the projector changed in a really quite distracting way. Still, 1080p/60 worked absolutely fine, so I don’t see the 1080p/24 issue as a major disruption to the H1080FD’s casual audience.
One thing I predicted when I found out the H1080FD used DLP technology that could certainly be a big problem: the rainbow effect.
This phenomenon, caused by the single-chip DLP color wheel, shows streaks of pure red, green, and blue that momentarily dart into your peripheral vision as you move your eyes across the image. In fact, the H1080FD’s problem is severe enough to be easily visible over very bright parts of the image without having to move your eyes – especially when panning. It should be emphasized here that not everyone sees the rainbow effect. But while I’m generally not as affected by it as some of my friends, I’ve noticed it regularly with the H1080FD.
A couple of other issues I have with the H1080FD are a) it runs a bit louder than I’d like, especially in Boost Lamp mode, and b) the vents are on the sides of the projector and the rather clumsy lens design both let a lot of light into your room.
Normally, when the H1080FD’s picture judging is complete, I would pass judgment at this point. But to make it even more user-friendly for plug-and-play audiences, it has a built-in 5W mono speaker so you can accompany your images with sound without having to upgrade a separate audio system.
Of course, this solution is hardly ideal for movie watching, partly because of the inevitable lack of raw audio performance, but also because the sound is produced at such a distance from the image it’s supposed to accompany. In fact, in my room setup, the projector is behind my viewing position, so the audio/video offset couldn’t be more extreme!
To be fair, the audio quality produced by the speaker really isn’t bad; Decent volumes can be achieved and the mix is clearer than I would expect from a mono speaker. So I would definitely say the sound is good enough to work for a casual gaming session or sporting event.
“‘Verdict”‘
While there are clear indications of the H1080FD’s budget nature in its build quality and some aspects of its performance, it’s still good enough to warrant at least an audition if you’re looking for an amazingly affordable “part-time” projector in the market.
points in detail
value 9
functions 7
picture quality 7
draft 6