Vivitek D537W

Value

The Optoma HD66 retails for much less than the Vivitek D537W, at least by the MSRP (street prices vary widely). Overall, the HD66 is definitely geared for home theater on a budget. Optoma makes much better projectors, such as the HD20, with higher resolution and better color performance. The Vivitek D537W is certainly not Vivitek’s best, either. Both have a hard time competing with strong ambient light and fall well short of a 1080p resolution.

	Comparison Specifications
	Vivitek D537W	Optoma HD66
Price
Resolution	WXGA 1280 x 800 (16:10)	720p 1280 x 720 (16:9)
HD	Yes	Yes
3D Support	Yes	Yes

Blacks & Whites

The Optoma HD66 and Vivitek D537W produce roughly similar peak brightnesses, but the Optoma was better at producing an even illumination across the screen. The Vivitek also had a little more trouble producing a consistent black level.

Color

The Optoma HD66 had some noticeable problems in our color test, particularly in the red channel. It simply didn’t produce the smooth, uniform color curves of the Vivitek D537W.

Motion

Both the Optoma HD66 and Vivitek D537W are DLP projectors, so both produce that annoying rainbow effect in certain patterns. It bothers some people terribly; others don’t mind. We mind (generally speaking), so both lost points here.

Viewing Effects

The Optoma HD66 has a tiny zoom range of 1.1x, which is even smaller than the Vivitek zoom range of 1.2×. That means the Optoma offers less flexibility in terms of where you can place it relative to screen size.

Connectivity

The Optoma HD66 has a VGA output, but beyond that the port changes are nearly identical. Neither are immensely powerful as home theater projectors, but they offer enough to get started.