InFocus ScreenPlay 4805

No longer a “tarted up” office projector

By Tony Davey

September 2004

InFocus ScreenPlay 4805 DLP projector. $3999

About this time last year, I had my first experience with Infocus and a DLP projector in the form of the Infocus Screenplay 4800.

This projector was released by Infocus in competition to the then hugely popular Panasonic PTAE-300 and was sold via the home theatre dealers’ network. The problem with the 4800 was that it was little more than an office projector with a few tweaks to try to make it more suited to home theatre use and to differentiate it from the X1.

Differences tell

Twelve months later we have another offering from Infocus, the Screenplay 4805. Coincidentally, Infocus have also recently released the X2, the replacement for the X1. This time round, there can be no mistaking the significant differences between the projectors, the X2 is designed as an office projector (brighter lumen count 4:3 native aspect ratio and no component input) with the 4805 targeted at the home theatre market, a native 858 x 480 widescreen panel and 750 ansi lumens. The 4805 utilises the new TI (Texas Instruments) Darkchip2 DLP chip which helps the 4805 achieve its 2000:1 published contrast.

The marketing hype received with the review model stated “easy to use, fun to watch”. Well, they were right, review done, thanks for reading it.

Oh, some details, okay then…

Set up of the 4805 was simple, and provided great flexibility for both placement (medium throw lens had a 100 inch picture from about four metres away) and with connections (all the standard connections as well as the inclusion of a DVI input). I utilised the component output from the NAD 533 DVD player.

There are multiple picture adjustments available, including pre-set gamma levels for film, video, “natural” and PC, each providing differing levels of “brightness”. The film picture mode provided the most pleasing picture in my opinion with deepest blacks and picture depth. Focus and zoom are both manual and the picture is readily adjusted for optimum clarity.

To infinity...

With a young son whom is a huge “Buzz” fan, I seem to be watching more than my fair share of the Toy Story DVD’s lately, but on the 4805, it certainly wasn’t a chore.

For a $4,000 projector, the 4805 presented a wonderful picture. DLP in general suffers from less of the “digital nasties” than some similarly priced LCD projectors (blacks are typically blacker and screen door is less of an issue), this certainly applies to the 4805. I find on my current Phillips LCD projector (which has the same resolution as the 4805) that animation quickly shows up the screen door effect, not so with the 4805. Colours were vibrant on the (recommended for DVD) 6500k colour setting and the 2000:1 contrast ratio certainly assisted their 3D depth and vibrancy.

One advancement over the 4800 was the near absence of rainbows or eyestrain. Both these are relatively common to DLP projectors and can be a deal breaker to many prospective purchasers. The 4800 I found difficult to watch due to both these traits (and my wife couldn’t watch it at all) but not so the 4805. There was the odd “flicker” of colour bursts, but certainly nothing I would call problematic. This is helped by the six segment, four speed colour wheel, a significant improvement from the four segment, two speed wheel of the 4800.

Shadow detail and depth

Not content with only animation for review, I also sampled multiple  scenes from various movies. From the party scene in Gladiator after the victory in Germania, through to the wonderful Japanese (okay, New Zealand) scenery in The Last Samurai, the picture presented was stunning. Black levels were more than acceptable (certainly an improvement over the Epson TW-200) with plenty of shadow detail and depth and given its resolution limitations, detail was quite satisfactory. The vibrant colour in Toy Story carried through to live film, where they felt lifelike and well represented. I would caution people over trying to get a picture bigger than 100 inches, the resolution and image quality tends to degrade and brightness suffers.

While no direct A/B comparison could be made between this and the TW200, if it was my money crossing the counter, I’d give very careful consideration to taking home the 4805. The DLP issues that plagues earlier models seem to have all but disappeared, resolution may not be as high on the 4805 as the TW200, but for DVD viewing, this is not a significant factor and if you don’t need the lens shift capabilities of the TW200, then in my opinion, the 4805 is the stronger performer.