Optoma HD20

Throw (3.18)

The throw is the distance between the projector and the screen. The Optoma HD20 requires more distance than many of the projectors we’ve reviewed. Fortunately, the Optoma HD20 has a 1.2x zoom lens that increases the overall flexibility. All the details are in the chart below.

	Optoma HD20 Required Distance for Screen Size
	64-inch screen	80-inch screen	100-inch screen	120-inch screen	140-inch screen
Wide Angle	7ft 9in	9ft 8in	12ft 1in	14ft 6in	17ft 0in
Telephoto	9ft 2in	11ft 6in	14ft 4in	17ft 3in	20ft 1in

Screen Brightness

The sad fact is that the Optoma HD20 is not the brightest projector, and the bigger the screen you’re throwing a picture on to, the dimmer that light gets. All projectors suffer from this problem, but the Optoma HD20 is dim from the outset, so it gets to be problematic on really large screens. Basically, don’t plan on using this TV in a sunny room, or even a room with lights on, especially if the screen is larger than 80-100 inches.

	Optoma HD20 Projector brightness
64-inch screen	856 lux
80-inch screen	548 lux
100-inch screen	351 lux
120-inch screen	243 lux
140-inch screen	179 lux

As you can see in this next chart, the relationship between ambient light and screen size does not need a lot of room for flexibility. The Optoma HD20 is designed for dedicated, dark home theaters.

	Optoma HD20 Screen Visibility for Screen Size and Room Brightness
	64-inch screen	80-inch screen	100-inch screen	120-inch screen	140-inch screen
Darkened Room	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Dimly Lit Room	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Moderate Lighting	Yes	No	No	No	No
Bright Lighting	No	No	No	No	No

	Ambient Light Performance Comparisons
	Optoma HD20	Optoma HD66	Epson Home Cinema 705HD	Canon SX7 Mark II
Darkened Room (10 lux)
Dimly Lit Room (15 lux)
Moderate Lighting (500 lux)
Bright Lighting (1500 lux)

Screen Materials

In a pinch, people sometimes point projectors at any flat surface. To test its flexibility in this regard, we project onto four different surfaces. White board, beige walls, and even green chalkboard are suitable surfaces. You’ll lose some color accuracy, but you can definitely make out fine details and read text.

Optical Issues (7.00)

The Optoma HD20 has a manual focus ring, which feels extremely cheap but gets the job done with reasonable satisfaction. Don’t get too close to the screen, though, because you’ll definitely see some fuzziness.

Image Sharpness

Video Processing (2.00)

The Optoma HD20 has a small selection of video processing features.

Setting	Claimed Function	Our Impression
Overscan	Overscan function removes the noise in a video image. Overscan the image to remove video encoding noise on the edge of video source.	The official explanation (to the left) makes no sense. Overscan simply blows up the picture about 2-3%. Yes, it can remove some of those little artifacts around the edge, but that’s not really “noise.”
SuperWide	SuperWide is a feature that uses a special 2.0:1 aspect ratio screen enabling both 16:9 and 2.35:1 aspect ratio movies to be shown without black bars at the top and bottom of the screen	As advertised.
Image AI	Image AI improves the contrast of the picture by optimizing the brightness of the lamp according to the picture content.	Boosts saturation and contrast.

Formats (10.00)

The Optoma HD20 has a native 1920 × 1080 (1080P) resolution. That’s about as good as you can get for an affordable home theater projector. So many projectors that categorize themselves as “home theater” fall short of 1080p and must downscale 1920 × 1080 content to fit. The Optoma HD20 can, of course, handle all lesser resolutions.

Read Reviews of Comparison Products
Optoma HD66	Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 705HD	Canon REALiS SX7 Mark II