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When the InFocus ScreenPlay 7200 projector was first introduced, its list price was a buck short of $10,000. To me, it seemed a bit overpriced for the features it included. But now that you can get the ScreenPlay 7200 for as low as $6800 on the street, it's looking a lot better. Let's take a close-up look at this home theater HDTV projector, and see if it can deliver on its promise of high-end HDTV nirvana.
If you're looking to deliver presentations, you can with the ScreenPlay 7200, but the main reason for being of this unit is for HDTV viewing. Its TI Mustang DL2 chip delivers 16:9 1280 x 720 WXGA resolution, resulting in an extraordinarily sharp wide-screen picture with highly saturated colors, and with brightness that's so intense, it's almost more than you need, especially if your viewing room is dark. This unit is in its element with wide-screen content, so when you have a 4:3 computer screen you'd like to show, it's only going to use the middle section of the screen, leaving all those extra pixels on either side to waste.
The ScreenPlay 7200 is a rather unassuming unit for one that originally sold for $10K. It has a handle on one end, so you can carry it from place to place with ease, and that's made even easier due to the fact that it weighs a mere 8.9 pounds. I like the way it has a full array of lighted buttons on top, where you can adjust almost any of its many parameters without using the remote. The remote is well-designed, too -- not too big and not too small, with logically laid-out buttons that are easy to use in the dark. Not to pick on InFocus for this, but like many projector manufacturers, it too has omitted backlit buttons on its projector's remote control. It's a natural feature, to have buttons you can see in the dark for a unit that works best in darkness. Maybe it's a battery life issue. On the plus side, I like the way the aspect ratio button is easily accessible on the remote, something you'll need if you frequently switch between 16:9 HDTV sources and standard definition 4:3 video or a computer input.
Starting up the ScreenPlay, I like the way you just press the button briefly and the unit starts right up. Some projectors make you press and hold the on/off button to get things underway. I'm not saying there's no wait for the lamp to warm up, though. As it does, you'll notice the fan noise of this unit. When I first started it up, its fan had an annoying high-pitched noise that I was hoping would go away. After a few minutes, the noise seemed to somehow lubricate itself, but was still too loud for my taste. This happens at the highest power setting, though, but I don't want to operate a great projector at anything less than its best setting -- seems a shame to do something like that. But keep in mind, this is certainly not the quietest projector to ever grace our Midwest Test Facility. For example, the NEC HT1000 is about 20% quieter than this at its brightest setting. Overall, though, the ScreenPlay 7200 is not too noisy, especially if you're watching loud, cacaphonous programs.
After the noise died down, it was time to settle in for some high-performance projecting. I certainly wasn't disappointed. I got out the light meter, and did a double-check on InFocus's specs for this unit. I even found its claim of a 1400:1 contrast ratio to be a bit understated, with our test equipment measuring a 1440:1 contrast ratio from light full on/full off. It's also exceedingly bright, although the brightness is unevenly distributed. InFocus quotes 1000 Lumens of brightness, and that's true, but I measured a marked dropoff of brightness on the right side of the screen, to about 560 Lumens at the top right, and I got a reading of a whopping 1393 Lumens at the center of the screen. The left of the screen was nice and consistently bright, though, measuring at around 1100 Lumens from top to bottom. This is all quite academic, though, because when I flipped on an HDTV signal, this time the pristine PBS loop, the screen appeared to be evenly lit and the colors were magnificent. And best of all, looking at the DisplayMate test suite's Video Obstacle Course, the resolution of this unit is as sharp as I've ever seen, and the edge-to-edge geometry is true and undistorted. Yes, when it comes to displaying fine-looking video images, this unit has it all. I was also impressed with the way the projector handles DVD movies. With its Faroudja DCDi processing system, progressive scan DVD players give you movies that look so good that their quality is even approaching that of HDTV. Well, not quite, but it's pretty impressive.
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