June 2003 Reviewed by Wes Marshall	Boxlight Studio Experience Cinema 20HD LCD Projector

Description Model: Boxlight Studio Experience Cinema 20HD Price: $9999 USD Dimensions: 12.6"W x 6.6"H x 16.9"D Weight: 17.4 pounds Warranty: Three years parts and labor (120-day or 500-hour lamp guarantee) Features Polysilicon with Micro Lens Array technology

Features (cont'd) 1080i, 1035i, 720p, 575p, 575i, 480p compatibility NTSC, NTSC 4.43, PAL, PAL-M, PAL-N, SECAM video compatibility 1366 x 768 resolution (Wide XGA) 2200 ANSI Lumens (brightness) 900:1 contrast ratio 16:9 aspect ratio (4:3 compatible) Computer, video, and audio inputs Control-port outputs 29.7" x 293.5" diagonal image Onboard and remote adjustment options 200W UHP lamp Motorized zoom and focus

Boxlight is one of the largest sellers of presentation-grade projectors in the world. Studio Experience is their home-theater arm. I previously reviewed Boxlight’s excellent Studio Experience Cinema 12SF DLP projector, so I was happy to have the opportunity to review the top of their line: the $9999 Cinema 20HD LCD projector.

What’s a Boxlight?

Boxlight purchases other manufacturers’ projectors, re-badges them, and adds some value through extended warranties and easier-to-use support. The 12SF was an InFocus ScreenPlay 110 with an extra year of warranty; the 20HD is a Sanyo PLV-70. In this case, the warranties are the same whether it’s the Sanyo or Boxlight version. Street prices change by the minute, and at the current minute, the Sanyo version is cheaper. By the time you read this, that may have changed. However, I found the Boxlight technical-support staff to be so good that I would probably choose them. But, more about that later.

The 20HD is an LCD projector with three 16:9 chips (1366 x 768 pixels) allowing it to show 720p high definition. It is also extremely bright (2200 ANSI). These are the normal strengths of LCD. What is newish here is the MLA (Micro Lens Array), which drastically reduces the dreaded screen-door effect. Add a 900:1 contrast ratio, and you have a product knocking on DLP’s door. Before seeing the Boxlight Studio Experience Cinema 20HD, I would have had no interest in LCD. The 20HD changed my mind.

Thank God for good engineers

The 20HD is easier to set-up than any other projector I’ve ever used. First, the three inputs allow every connection you could ask for. Input one will accept a analog 15-pin VGA input or a DVI-D port; Input two has five BNC inputs for either computer RGB+Syncs, or component-video sources; Input three has three RCA jacks for either a composite or component (interlaced or progressive) input plus an S-video port. Firewire is all that’s missing.

Once you’re wired up, positioning the 20HD is also a snap. The ideal is to place the projector in the horizontal center of the screen with the lens somewhere between the bottom and the center of the screen (ceiling mounters would want it between the top and middle of the screen).

After it is properly mounted, everything else is utter simplicity. Big thank-yous to the engineer who made the remote powerful enough and the remote sensor sensitive enough that you can almost aim the control almost anywhere and it works. It is partially backlit (why not all?), and lens shift, keystone, focus, and zoom all have their own buttons. Each input is immediately accessible as are the four image memories. The only letdown is the mini bowl-shaped button that acts as a four-way pointer if you push an edge, or a selector if you push the center. After months of trying, I never could get my fingers to reliably push "Select" instead of a direction. It’s a small issue. After all the years of working with weak remote signals and sensors, any minor complaints about this remote are outweighed by its powerful signal.

Positioning the picture is a snap. The "Lens Shift" button moves the image smoothly up and down on the screen until you’ve got the bottom lined up, then using the zoom, you fill in the whole screen. The power-operated zoom allows 1.3x zoom factor, which yields a throw distance of 12.7’ to 16.5’ for a 100" diagonal screen. Can’t get it exactly on center? No problem. The power keystone adjustment works four ways and can fix any reasonable difficulty. Another really nice feature is the power focus, which includes a little pop-up image with some texture on it that allows you to really dial-in the picture.

Kudos again to the engineering department. The GUI on the 20HD is almost throw-away-the-manual simple. Unless, that is, you really want to dig deep and do an ISF-quality calibration. Even then, everything you want is there, it’s just deep enough to keep you from accidentally screwing up. Those of us who use one of the DVD setup discs will find everything super-simple and fast. This is a huge change from the Cinema 12SF, which has a challenging GUI. For example, the Cinema 12SF takes 29 key pushes to change from anamorphic to letterbox and back. The 20HD takes no more than four pushes to accomplish the same thing.

So how did it look?

After installing the 20HD I ran through my favorite torture tests. The colors and black level were superb, but there were horizontal and vertical lines appearing in the picture. I was expecting little or no screen-door effect, given the Micro Lens Array. However, this wasn’t screen-door effect and they weren’t little rectangles as would usually be the case; they were larger and the lines were forming trapezoids.

The anomaly was mostly visible in large, single-color areas, like the intro sequence for Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. I tried a number of things to get rid of the lines: I ran the DVD direct, tried three different DVD players, switched to a JVC D-VHS high-definition signal, all to no avail. In the pre-MLA days of LCD, you would get rid of screen-door issues by de-focusing the lens. I tried that, but had to go four or five steps off perfect focus to get rid of the lines. Shrinking the picture from 100" screen width to 50" screen width (both with a viewing distance of 150 inches) got rid of the problem, but I wanted the full picture.

Finally, I called Boxlight, who forwarded me to a special Studio Experience support line. As usual, I did not identify myself as a reviewer. The help was almost instantaneous and the person I talked to really knew his product. When I explained the problem, he was stumped. I sent the projector back so he could analyze the trouble.

A few days later, a Boxlight rep called and said they could find no problem. They thought the picture looked great. They sent the projector back to me. When I reset the projector, the lines were still there. I tried using less tilt and more lens shift, which made the lines less trapezoidal and easier to ignore, but the problem was a nagger. The only solutions, defocusing or using a smaller picture, didn’t appeal to me. But I couldn’t help myself and kept futzing with it, because every other aspect of the picture was so beautiful. So I compromised -- I kept the picture big and defocused just enough to get rid of the lines. Don’t get me wrong, though, the defocused picture was not in any way blurry. In fact, it was a little more film-like in its smoothness. But I wanted that beautiful picture in full focus.

There were other aspects of the 20HD’s performance that were quite good. The brightness of the picture was startling. After years of watching CRT and DLP projectors, the 20HD looks as if someone turned on the Kleig lights. Projecting an already brightly lit and colored scene, like chapter 10 of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, the 20HD delivered colors more intense than you generally see in a movie theater. What really surprised me were the darkest blacks I’ve ever seen from an LCD player. Citizen Kane had true shadow detail, an attribute rare in the LCD world.

Other than being at the event, I have never seen the NBA playoffs so clearly. No matter how fast the action, there were no jaggies. The clarity was so accurate you could see the tiny pixelization of the clear part of the digital overlays. The 20HD uses Pixelworks processing, an industry leader without the advertising prowess of Faroudja and Silicon Image. Their circuitry seemed imperturbable.

One day, while watching Minnesota blast the Lakers, we heard a loud pop. Suddenly there was no picture. I called tech support again and described the problem. They told me the light bulb had blown up. They sent me a new one, which I carefully installed, and there was still no picture. I returned the 20HD, they checked it out and found the replacement bulb was defective. They put in a new bulb and had it back to me within a week. I secretly hoped that something would have miraculously fixed the line problem described above, but it was still there.

Other choices

I was able to compare the 20HD to all the projectors listed below. None came close to its brightness, and its ability to differentiate shadow detail was bested only by the $9999 InFocus 7200. The 20HD’s colors were almost Technicolor in their intensity. The $3299 PLUS Piano Avanti HE3200 and InFocus seemed comparatively restrained, although they also seemed a bit more accurate. When I defocused the 20HD, it had similar clarity to the PLUS Piano Avanti, but less than the InFocus 7200.

Hands down, the easiest setup was the 20HD. It also had the best remote control and was the easiest to use. One area that LCD players still have a problem is chassis size. The 20HD is way smaller than my refrigerator-sized Runco 750, but it is five times the size of the PLUS Piano and four times the weight.

Finale

Even with the nagging issue of the line anomaly, I hated calling FedEx to pick up the 20HD. The bright picture, excellent rendition of dark colors, and incredible ease of use hooked me. In the world of DLP projectors, like the PLUS and InFocus models referenced above, some folks complain about seeing rainbows generated by the spinning color wheel. I’ve never seen them unless I was rapidly blinking my eyes trying to force the issue. Similarly, the lines in the 20HD that bothered me may be invisible to you. Since the positives do trump the negatives, I encourage you to try a test spin with the Boxlight Studio Experience Cinema 20HD projector and see for yourself.

Manufacturer contact information:

Boxlight
19332 Powder Hill Place
Poulsbo, WA 98370-7407
Phone: (800) 762-5757

Website: www.boxlight.com

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