Vivitek D950HD Video Projector Review

Vivitek D950HD $789.94
By Christian Sherden February 2, 2012

9.1

Overall Score

A home theater projector that costs less than a grand.

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Full Review

Review Highlights

A bright projection

1080p native resolution

Poor detail in black and white values

Not a very accurate set of colors

Score Breakdown

Performance

9.1

Features

9.3

Intro

The Vivitek D950HD ($899 MSRP) is one of a few 1080p home theater projectors out now that cost less than a grand. We liked what we saw in many of our tests: a high peak brigthtness, good color temperature and color transitions, two HDMI ports. But at the same time, this Vivitek model fumbled through some of our more important performance categories like color gamut, shadow detail, and throw distance. For the price and the brightness, this projector will work fine as a home theater in most places in your home, or as a presentation device for smaller meetings. It’s just not going to satisfy either situation as well as a more specialized projector.

Section	The Good	The Bad
Tour & Design	An attractive device	A tad too big for regular portability
Blacks & Whites	A good peak brightness	Lacking detail throughout the black and white spectrum
Color Accuracy	Great color temperature and color brightness transitions	A color gamut that is a bit askew
Motion	Strong detail retention in motion	Showed too many artifacts for our liking
Viewing Effects	The bright projection can be used in a variety of settings	The throw distance requires you to have some space between the projector and the screen
Calibration	Color temperature comes pretty close to perfect out of the box	Could not save all the colors with any calibration
Vivitek D950HD Video Projector Review	It has a laser!	The laser cannot be set to Kill
Connectivity & Media	Two HDMI ports	The arrangement of ports is not best for a permanent home theater setup
Power, Noise & Heat	Really low noise level	Changing lamp modes does not affect the heat or the noise very much