I came across your site while doing a second round of research on projectors, and decided I'd take you up on your offer of advice. Heres my story.
I have setup my garage as a home theatre, using a dvd player and a pc as the main input sources. A mate of mine does gyprocking, so with his help I have made up a projector screen that covers the garage door, and at 4:3 it is 123" diagonally. During the day I can get the room pretty dark also.
So I had all this ready, and was using an old projector I had access to from my Church, but its old, and I was sick of returning it all the time. So I searched for a new projector.
After a bit of research I bought the BenQ MP622, as I found reviews that said it was a solid machine with no rainbow effect. When it arrived, it lived up to the reviews.. almost. It was an awesome picture, amazing contrast, but the rainbow effect was so bad I got headaches. It could be that the projected image was so big, but the rainbows were awful. I rang BenQ and they basically said too bad, you bought a data projector, its built for data, not movies... I can't return the unit, so Im going to try to sell it in the trading post or something.
So thats basically what has brought me to now. Hopefully you will be able to help me out here. Im a bit overwhelmed with all the options, and I'm probably one of those annoying customers who want lots of quality for not much price... Basically my budget doesnt really extend past $2000 (I picked up the MP622 for $1400).
Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!
Yili, Mengniu and Guangming - big brands consumed and trusted by hundreds of millions of Chinese - were affected by the recall after authorities checked their products and found traces of melamine, a chemical used in plastics.
“All problem products have been banned from our stores,” an executive at Jian-Mart, a popular supermarket chain, told Agence France-Presse.
“Products from Yilin, Mengniu and Guangming have been pulled off the shelves, including milk, milk powder and yoghurt,” she said, giving only her surname, Zhao.
..China's most recent product safety scandal, and more than 6,000 have fallen ill.
Toy garden tools, trains latest 'made in China' recalls
Posted Thu Sep 27, 2007 9:01am AEST
US retailing giant Target Corp announced a voluntary recall of Chinese-made toy gardening tools and children's lawn furniture containing "excessive levels of lead," the company said in a statement. [Link]
Recall Request Of Dental Toothpaste Made In China
Toothpaste Recall
Pitusa, National Lumber, Everything To Weight, Supermarkets and Supermarkets Pitusa of Carolina, Puerto Rico, is asking for return to our stores of all dental toothpaste of origin "Made in China". [Link]
Dangers of manufacturing in China...
Prior to deciding to manufacture in Australia we actually were going to have our designs produced in China because it is so much cheaper. We ended up deciding against it and this is our story why... [Link]
China Behind Japanese Recall of US-Made Heparin
Mar 11th, 2008
Three Japanese companies recently recalled the drug, heparin, because its manufacturer in Wisconsin uses ingredients from China. They cite precaution as their reason for the recall. Scientific Protein Laboratories in Waunakee, Wisconsin, gets its product from its own plant in China. It also provides the active ingredient in heparin to Baxter International Inc., in Deerfield. Last month, the Scientific Protein plant in China was forced to close after hundreds of people in the US reported life-threatening allergic reactions, at least four of which resulted in death, to the heparin linked to the China source.
A similar outbreak of allergic reactions to heparin, with a supply link to China, occurred recently in Germany. The supplier of the German heparin, Rotexmedica, purchased the drug from a supplier other than Scientific Protein. [Link]
Big Bird, Elmo Hit in Latest 'Made in China' Recall
Toys based on Sesame Street characters Big Bird and Elmo have joined Thomas the Tank Engine in a U.S. recall of "Made in China" products Thursday as Beijing pledged to work with Washington to improve product safety. [Link]
*Never trust a robot!
"..if two people buy the last item one will miss out but both will pay for it.."
"..you have a one in three chance of paying but missing out.."
"..Sometimes saving a few bucks is like finding fools gold.."
*Apart from "Gart" - The Day The Earth Stood Still 1951..
With recent high-profile incidents involving dangerous goods imported from China..
..the American media has finally begun to warn consumers about the dangers of cheaply producing goods in a country hardly known for its strict safety regulations. After spending some time digging through product recall press releases, we've found that the mainstream media is still only reporting the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dangerous products imported from China. [Link] below also:
Toxic Overalls : Samarra Brothers recalled Chinese-manufactured children's two-piece overall sets because the coatings on the snaps in the overalls and shirt contain excessive amounts of lead, posing a serious risk of lead poisoning and adverse health effects to young children.
Fire Hazard Heaters : Family Dollar Stores recalled 35,000 oscillating ceramic heaters that were found to overheat and smoke, which could pose a fire hazard to consumers.
Bad Wiring In Fans : Holmes Group recalled about 300,000 Chinese-manufactured oscillating tower fans that were found to have bad wiring that creates a fire hazard.
Dangerous Candles : Sally Foster recalled over 46,000 sets of imported Tea Lights candles after it was reported that the candles have a clear, plastic shell that can melt or ignite, posing a fire or burn hazard to consumers.
Dryers With Electrocution Hazard : Metropolis Beauty recalled about 18,000 Travel'N Baby Mini Hair Dryers, which were not equipped with an immersion protection plug to prevent electrocution if the hair dryer falls into water. Electric shock protection devices are required by industry standards for all electric hand-held hair dryers.
Improperly Wired/Flammable Lamps : Hong Ten Trading recalled about 4,000 electric oil lamps that had power cords that were not correctly secured and had no strain relief on their switch housing. The switch housing was also not flame-retardant, which poses a fire hazard.
The best you can get ..for a cinema room.. 10,000:1 CR Unless you want to spend 15K
Twice as black blacks..
We have genuine Aussie (Warranty) stock now!
WARRANTY
Often overlooked! Find out who will repair your projector in the event of a malfunction?
Is it a 3rd Party company or the manufacturer?
Are you buying "Grey Market" or does the projector have a true Australian warranty, i.e. Will BenQ or Sanyo pick up and deliver back? (They do it's an Aussie warranty..)
Who imported the projector? Have you ever heard of them?
When you've been around as long as we have, you learn to dig a bit deeper!
Resolution
Compare apples with apples, all things being equal the more "true" or "native" resolution the better but you have to weigh this against the price.
Rainbows
DLP Only. Consider the speed of the colour wheel, the faster the better, if you're not sure look out for companies that offer some way out if you're one of the few that can't live with DLP.
Sold on the net?
If you can't get a competitive quote on the .au net you can assume the dealer has a "closed shop" product and they could be making around 30% profit no wonder they say it's the best!
While there are all sort of claims why you should pay more, at the end of the day similar specification projectors give a similar image.
In the case of DLP/LCD the DLP/LCD chips, they all come from the same place.
What changes is the build quality and country the projector is made in and the warranty.
Beware buying "Grey Market" from auction sites in spite of what they say you could be on your own in the event of a warranty claim. If in doubt call the local head office for that brand.
Information on this page is to make the reader aware of problems with some China made products, we do not intend to infer that all products from China have such problems. A company that chooses to use China rather than another country needs only to have effective quality control to prevent problems arising which ever country they use.
We think that people should be informed of country of manufacture when making a purchase so they can make their own informed decision.
