Price
AU$1999.00
Review Date
Saturday, 2nd of October, 2004
What's Hot
Great contrast ratio, no real flyscreen effect
What's Not
Quite pricey, playback usually has to be re-sampled, noisy
The Final Word
The ScreenPlay 4805 is capable of producing perfectly acceptable images, but is let down seriously by intrusive image conversion artefacts. There are better projectors available, and for less money.
Note: This product is no longer available directly from the manufacturer. It may be available in retail channels or second hand. The price displayed is the price at review time.
InFocus ScreenPlay 4805 - Perspective
InFocus ScreenPlay 4805
Laurence Grayson (PC World) 02/10/2004 14:10:37

Few will be taken with its utilitarian lines, but inside the ScreenPlay 4805 you'll find a Texas Instruments DarkChip2T DLP engine. This provides a stunning contrast ratio of 2200:1, with a combination of increased mirror angle and improved light-absorption, providing the tonal range that home theatre enthusiasts are looking for. However, like all Widescreen VGA (WVGA), even standard TV and DVD playback has to be resampled to fit the projector's native resolution. Video processing from the Faroudja DCDi chipset helps maintain image clarity to a degree (and it smoothed out interlaced source material admirably), but the ScreenPlay 4805 inevitably lacks the crispness of a WXGA product.

Colour reproduction was good--though lacking the vibrancy of LCD projectors--and the DLP engine minimises the visibility of lines between pixels. Additionally, the high-speed, six-segment, four-colour wheel makes the rainbow effect of DLP projectors less obvious, but it was still detectable in dark conditions. Yet the real disappointment was the projector's tendency to introduce image artefacts when running from analog inputs. These were most apparent in areas of shallow tonal change, like clouds of steam or blue skies, where the shimmer proved very distracting.

The InFocus is relatively noisy to run. You may not hear it in Eco mode if your movie soundtrack is loud enough, but run it at full power, for the peak 750 lumen output, and you'll definitely hear it. You'll also need to keep the remote with you, as the projector control panel curiously lacks a power-down button.

 
Dell Shop