Optoma HD8000 and HD80 DLP Home Theater Projector Review - General Performance-5

Posted on October 15, 2007 by Art Feierman

Optoma HD8000 Audible Noise Levels

Audible noise levels is a chronic Optoma weakness. In all fairness, it shares this flaw with most (but not all) DLP home theater projectors. It is the usual formula: if you are really adverse to any fan noise, you are probably, just probably, going to be OK, with the HD8000 or HD80 in eco-mode (low lamp brightness). With the lamp in full power, these projectors will drive those really noise adverse, crazy

For the rest of us, well, the HD8000 and HD80 projectors are a bit noisy, definitely acceptable in low power, and probably just fine in full power. We're talking about a projector in that 32db - 33db range, with lamp on bright. The trick for most of us, is that the fan quicky is blotted out by our brains, much like we rarely notice if our refrigerator is "running" or not. We might notice when it kicks on or off, but almost immediately we forget about its noise, because it is consistent, and low pitched.

Overall, not a problem for most of us, but your sensitivity, size of your room, and acoustics could make it an issue.

Optoma HD8000 Brightness - Measured Lumens

he Optoma HD8000 and HD80 brightness performance is good, overall, brighter than average. In best mode, using default settings (degamma = film, gamma set to 1, Color Temp = Warm) the projector put out 858 lumens in "best mode".

Sadly, default best movie mode, isn't that good. After adjustment, with a great looking image, brightness measured in at a still brighter than most 561 lumens. These measurements were taken with the iris open.

Dropping the lamp into its low brightness mode only brought about a drop in lumens measured to be about 11%. That should be consistent across various presets.

In Brite mode the HD8000 measured 868 lumens and did even better in TV mode, at 1006 lumens. Still, it comes up shy of the 1300 lumen claim. I have no doubt, however that you can sacrifice some overall image quality and crank the HD8000 up close to 1300 lumens by creating a user setting focused on achieving the brightest picture. This lack of a really tricked out "brightest" mode, is a mystery to me. I don't understand why they haven't set one up, and especially if they are going to call it a 1300 lumen projector, they shouldn't have to make us work hard to get our 1300 lumens.

Optoma HD8000 Lamp Life and Replacement

Oh, how typical: 2000 hours in full power mode, and 3000 hours rated for low power. That has to be the "industry norm".

When it comes to replacing the lamp, the lamp door is on the bottom of the projector. That means you are going to have to unmount a celing mounted projector to change the lamp. That's a pain, but typical of most projectors. Problem is, its competition includes the BenQ W10000 and the Panasonic PT-AE1000U, neither of which requires unmounting to change their lamps.