Vivitek H1080FD and Optoma HD20

Some two months ago both Vivitek and Optoma put out news releases of two new 'below $1000' home HD projectors. I expect both these budget projectors to fly off the shelf during this Christmas season. Till now, the most competitive price available online with multiple discounts for a 1080p projector was in the neighborhood of $1300.

These projectors may not have the comprehensive feature set of the higher priced projectors but if you're just planning to watch a movie with a good image, have a tight budget and do not care about one upping your neighbor, these are projectors that will just be right. The higher prices for marginal improvements may not be worthwhile.

The Vivitek H1080FD has 1920x1080 (1080p) native resolution, 1800 lumens of lightness and a contrast ratio of 5000:1. It includes multiple input options; most notable are the two HDMI ports. The others are Composite Video, S-Video, Component Video, RS-232c and a 12v Trigger. The projector is based on the DLP chipset from Texas Instruments to guarantee the digital pictures don't fade or degrade over a period. It has an estimated lamp life of 3000 hours.

The Optoma HD20 also has a native resolution of 1080p, uses DLP technology, has 1700 lumens of brightness and a contrast ration of 4000:1. Optoma states that the ANSI contrast proportion, a better measure of contrast, is 500:1 which matches it against more expensive projectors. The input ports match those of the Vivitek H1080FD (it does not have a S video port) but the computed lamp life is four thousand hours, about 33% higher.

If you are on a budget and a home theater enthusiast, you cannot go wrong by buying either the Optoma HD20 or the Vivitek H1080FD. And, when you reach the end of life of these lamps, innovative, cheaper, technology would have arrived.