Themescene HD81 Review

£5000Jul 2007

Stuff says 5 Hot Buy

A seriously good projector that offers the kind of tech and performance that you’d expect in rivals that cost three times as much

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Stuff magazine Mon, Jul 30 2007, 6:00AM

Themescene's stunning HD81 projector certainly has the potential to make waves. Its aim is to provide the kind of home-cinema loveliness that fast-talking Hollywood producers take for granted as they kick back with a single malt in their private screening rooms.

And on paper at least that's exactly what you get: a two-box DLP projector offering the latest ultra-high-resolution 1920x1080 Texas Instruments DarkChip3 chipset, teamed with an offboard video-scaler.

Cheap as chip(set)s
If you're not down with the whole projector thing, the reason people are excited about the Themescene is because you'll find an identical chipset in Projectiondesign's £15,000 Model Three 1080. That £5000 is looking a lot better now, isn't it?

 

Of course, there's more to a projector than chips and processors and the Model Three 1080 is still a superior beastie. But every other DLP in the £5000-class has 1280x720 resolution, and next to them, the HD81 is king.

Colour rendition, detail resolution and black depth are awesome, and whether in standard or high defintion the picture has terrific depth and colour accuracy.

There were a few usability gripes. Switching from one video input to another is painfully slow and installation is fiddly. But aside from that this is a very serious contender.
 
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