I gotta be honest
I-I've never been much of a projector guy
From warm-up time
to ambient light issues
to input latency
The terrible washed-out colors
and certainly cost
I've just... I have never been a fan
So, when ViewSonic reached out to me
asking if they could sponsor this video
I.. I kind of ignored them
But they're a persistent bunch
And when I finally looked at the specs
of this PX700HD projector...
I was pretty blown away.
For just $499
You can get a projector that supports 1080p
Outputs at a very bright 3.5k lumens
which makes doing acceptable in
both day and night
Has exceptionally accurate color
that actually looks good
Is 3D capable
... if that's your jam
And boasts a 16 millisecond input latency
Which is not just fast for a projector
but it's actually faster than most of the TVs released year
Which means...
non-competitive gaming on this projector
is actually...
like really good!
I-It works great
My younger brother got married earlier this year
and as any young couple in the middle of college might be
They've not... loaded
And we're using a very small 32-inch TV
So, I've decided to hook them up with a better setup
starting of course with the ViewSonic PX700HD
Now, they're renting their apartment which means
they can't permanently attach a TV or projector to the wall.
So, we built this clever little platform out of wood
that is adjustable by this very firm ball head
but also stable
And, the little ball head is mounted upside-down onto a cheap
... I think the brand is "Pyle"?
tripod stand
It doesn't look... spectacular
It's not winning any interior design awards
But it meet their needs, and as you can tell
it perfectly fits their wall
spanning to the size of nearly 100 inches.
Yeah! 100 inches!
Not bad for a $499 projector, eh?
Next up, audio.
My brother's a musician and subsequently
doesn't want some dinky little soundbar.
Here's a protip for you:
If you're on a budget, just use studio monitors.
Now, sure, you're not gonna get surround sound
... you're stuck to stereo
But if you ask me if we're talking about audio
and I don't know a lot of things but I know audio pretty well
I think quality is WAY more important than quantity.
And quality doesn't mean expensive!
For example, these JBL 3-series MKII
cost under $300 for the pair.
But they sound great for
movies, games, and yes, of course music!
Now, because studio monitors are self-powered
The amplifier is inside
and that's pretty handy
But, there is a downside
and that's that.. um
there isn't a way to control volume
without a preamp.
Which, we've excluded for budgetary reasons.
However,
that's where this little box comes in.
This is the Schiit Sys.
Yeah, uh..
you heard that right.
But Schiit it is not!
It's actually very high quality!
[snickers]
That was the most stupidest joke I've ever made.
The Schiit is a passive preamp which means
you don't have to plug it in.
So, we used the audio out on the projector
which, by the way, is my one complaint with this thing.
There isn't optical out
Which seems a little bit silly
But yeah, we used the audio out jack to RCA
which then we can plug into the Schiit
and the we plug in the RCA outputs
which terminates in XLR that we can then
plug into the stereo monitors.
Now listen to me, audio people
this setup is not ideal.
I know, it's not balanced
And in theory, with longer cable runs
is prone to signal interference.
But, it actually sounded really good...
And kind of surprised me
We didn't have any interference at all
But yeah, if you're using a projector, really any projector
Especially because they're typically mounted in the sky
and don't have that many source in- uh
source options to begin with,
You're really better off getting a home theater receiver.
That can handle source selection, HDMI switching,
and of course, audio output.
I didn't do that though, because they only used
a launch-day PS4
which I actually gifted them for Christmas last year
And for normal people, is actually really great
Now, the projector supports powered USB
so you could use a Chromecast, or Fire TV stick
if you wanted
But, for less than $300, you can get a box that does
Netflix, Hulu, PlayStation TV, YouTube, and oh
plays triple-A games
So, a PS4 it is.
Going from the PlayStation to the projector, we have a
50 foot HDMI cable we got from Walmart for $35
But it's actually, really high-quality
And this low-latency stuff isn't marketing mumbo-jumbo at all
In fact, I was playing Red Dead Redemption II
and there was noticeably less input lag
than my old, but beloved Panasonic P65V10.
It's a plasma screen, and when it came out
it was renounced for low input latency.
So, I was pretty impressed
For around $1000,
my brother, and now sister-in-law
have a killer entertainment setup
Which honestly
I don't think you can get close to beating
for the same price.
If you're interested in any of the gear mentioned
you can check it out via the links below.
But get stoked for a killer Hackintosh build
that is coming in the next video
That is actually 40% smaller
Yeah, smaller
than Apple's Mac Mini.
It's gonna be awesome so be sure to subscribe
and enable notifications for that one.
But most importantly, and as always
Stay Snazzy.