Test Report: Dreamvision Starlight LCoS Projector

SETUP

I’ll say one thing right up front: This thing is damned quiet.
But like a Toyota Prius, it’s sometimes too quiet. There
was so little noise that I often wondered during the warmup
if I’d actually turned the thing on. The addition of a soft
beep when the power comes on would have saved me repeated
punching of the remote control’s On button.

Aligning the Starlight2’s image with my 2.35:1 aspect
ratio Stewart Filmscreen StudioTek 100 screen was barely
more diFFcult than taking a sip of my Diet Coke. Thanks
to the motorized lens controls, I could sit on my couch and
get the picture sized and positioned, then walk up to the
screen to do fine focusing. The projector offers a wide
lens-shift range: ±80% vertically and ±34% horizontally.
However, DreamVision cautions (and I concur) that you’ll
lose some picture detail if you run the lens all the way out
near the limits of its vertical shift range.

Calibrating the Starlight2 proved more diffcult, although
not absolutely necessary. The TH-Pro mode (a
rather blatant reference to the THX mode found on some
similar projectors) came closest to the ideal 6,500-kelvin
color temperature, averaging 6,672 K. I was able to
nudge the color temperature closer to 6,500 using the
off set and gain controls for red, green, and blue, achieving
an average of 6,403 K, but even after an hour of experimentation,
I couldn’t prevent a slight dive into the red
zone (below 6,000) at 20 IRE (dark gray). Still, the picture
looked great before and after calibration.

Mounting the optional Schneider lens was simple:
eight screws and about 60 seconds of lens positioning
so that I got the least distortion, then fine-tuning the
lens’s focus.

There’s one control feature I really didn’t like, though:
the aspect-ratio adjustments. In order to fill the screen
with ultra-wide 2.35:1 material, you select the projector’s
16:9 aspect ratio display option, then go into the
menus and select the Vertical Stretch mode. The process
requires at least eight button punches, which is
annoying, although it can be simplified through use of
a touchscreen control system connected to the Starlight2’
s RS-232 control port.

To watch standard 16:9 material from Blu-ray Discs,
DVDs, and HDTV programs, you select the projector’s
4:3 mode. So what do you do when a 4:3 image appears?
You’re forced to watch it stretched to 16:9 — such that,
during my ritual 10 p.m. viewing of old Star Trek episodes
on Los Angeles’s KDOC, the William Shatner of the late
1960s looks as fleshy as he does today on his new show
on CBS, $#*! My Dad Says.