ViewSonic LightStream PJD7830HDL Review - Review 2022

The ViewSonic LightStream PJD7830HDL ($809.99) is dissimilar from about current projectors. Instead of being sold—and presumably designed—specifically as a habitation or data model, it's a piddling bit of both. ViewSonic calls it a crossover model, suitable for either kind of utilise. Our tests suggest that it's certainly worth considering as a data projector. Whether yous consider it suitable for abode amusement, however, will depend on how hands you see rainbow artifacts and whether yous find them annoying.

ViewSonic designing the PJD7830HDL ( at Amazon) for both data and video is more than than just unusual. Most projectors are made to requite their best image quality for ane type of input or the other, as appropriate. For DLP projectors in detail, models for dwelling entertainment, like the Optoma HD28DSE , are typically tweaked to show rainbow artifacts (reddish-green-blue flashes) less oft with video. Models designed for business presentations, like the InFocus IN119HDx ($725.00 at Amazon) , are tweaked to testify them less oftentimes with data images.

The problem for the PJD7830HDL is that it can't be tweaked both ways. In my tests, the projector did an excellent chore of fugitive artifacts with data images, only non with video. If yous discover the rainbow effect bothersome, this projector is more advisable for information images, despite ViewSonic'due south expectation that more than people will buy it for home use with video.

Nuts and Setup

At four.3 by fourteen.3 by 9.1 inches (HWD) and simply half dozen pounds 3 ounces, the PJD7830HDL is pocket-sized and calorie-free enough to bear with yous or store away when you're non using it and then set it upwardly quickly as needed.

Setup is standard, with a manual focus and manual 1.36x zoom. The choice of connectors is appropriate for either business or habitation employ. Epitome inputs on the back panel include an HDMI port, a VGA port for a PC or component video, and composite video ports. At that place's also a second HDMI port subconscious in a compartment behind a slide-out embrace on the top front of the projector. Both HDMI ports offer full 1.4a support for connecting to a 3D video device. The hidden port is too MHL enabled.

Effulgence

Like near DLP projectors, the PJD7830HDL has a lower colour brightness than white brightness, which complicates any discussion of its effulgence level. Briefly, a difference between the two can affect colour quality, and it can also fill up-color images dimmer than y'all would expect based on the white brightness. (For more on color brightness, meet Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.)

Strictly as a point of reference, and co-ordinate to recommendations of the Club of Move Motion-picture show and Boob tube Engineers (SMPTE), the PJD7830HDL's rated iii,200 lumens makes it bright enough, using a 1.0-gain screen in theater-night lighting, for an prototype size of 221 to 299 inches (measured diagonally) at 1080p'southward native 16:ix aspect ratio. In moderate ambient light, the advisable size drops to 145 inches. For smaller screen sizes or lower light levels, you can lower the brightness by switching to Eco mode or the fifty-fifty dimmer Super Eco fashion, use one of the lower-effulgence predefined modes, or both.

Quality for Data Images

The PJD7830HDL offers good to near-fantabulous quality for data images. Color balance in my tests was well-nigh perfect, with suitably neutral grays at all levels from black to white in almost all modes. Similarly, colors in all but one mode were vibrant, well saturated, and bright.

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The exception in both cases was the brightest mode, which showed a slight tint in the brightest shades of gray and a notably dark red, blue, and xanthous in terms of a hue-saturation-brightness color model. Still, it'south not unusual for projectors to take color-quality issues with their brightest modes, and DLP models tend to have nighttime colors in any predefined manner that has a big difference betwixt their white- and color-effulgence levels.

More important for most information images is that the PJD7830HDL did a proficient task of holding detail on my tests. White text on black, for example, was highly readable at six points, and black text on white was crisp and readable even at v points. The one upshot that kept the image quality from being fantabulous was obvious pixel jitter and dynamic moiré on images that tend to crusade those problems.

The practiced news is that unless you utilize pattered fills rather than solid blocks of color, yous may never see this upshot. The bad news is that y'all tin't get rid of it by switching to a digital (HDMI) connexion, as you can with most projectors that take the aforementioned trouble. When I tried that with the PJD7830HDL, I saw a flickering consequence on the aforementioned patterns.

2d and 3D Video Quality
If you don't see rainbow artifacts easily, or don't observe them bothersome, second video quality is also about outstanding. The PJD7830HDL did a great chore with shadow particular (details based on shading in dark areas) in my tests, and I didn't see whatsoever posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually), fifty-fifty in scenes that tend to cause the problem. Color quality was good with most test clips and at least acceptable in all of them. Peel color in one clip was a fiddling greener than it should exist, for example, just nonetheless within the realm of reasonable.

Epitome quality for 3D is usable, but a clear stride below the projector's 2D image quality. Colors were noticeably duller than with the aforementioned moving picture in 3D in my tests. Nevertheless, I didn't see any crosstalk or 3D-related movement artifacts.

Sound and Lag Time

The built-in audio system offers a xvi-watt speaker that delivers reasonably practiced sound quality, with enough volume to hands fill a family room or modest to medium-size conference room. If you need better quality, higher volume, or stereo, you can connect an external sound organisation to the PJD7830HDL's stereo sound output.

I measured the lag fourth dimension, using a Leo Bodnar Video Signal Input Lag Tester , at 50 milliseconds, which works out to a 3-frame lag at 60 frames per second. In most cases this won't be an issue, merely if y'all play games where reaction fourth dimension matters, you may consider it a petty sluggish.

Decision

If you find rainbow artifacts bothersome, you're better off avoiding the ViewSonic LightStream PJD7830HDL for dwelling house-amusement use. Instead, you lot should consider the Optoma HD28DSE or the Epson Abode Movie house 2040 3D 1080p 3LCD Projector ($784.99 at Walmart) , which is our Editors' Choice moderately priced dwelling house-amusement 1080p 3D model and, as an LCD device, is guaranteed non to show rainbow artifacts. That said, if rainbow artifacts aren't an issue for y'all, and so you may want to consider the PJD7830HDL for use equally your home-entertainment projector, and even more so if you lot need a data model as well.