Where will ultra short throw market be in 1 year?

[MG-FIDO]

Following my previous long winded post which garnered no interest I thought I'd rephrase the question.

Where do you think UST projector technology will be in 12 to 18 months? This seems to be a relatively recent market to boom in the projector world and we all know things move on in tech.

Having seen the Samsung The Premiere LSP9T which has had generally great reviews in the last 18 months being reduced from it's original retail price of £6999 to just £1999 on the Richer Sounds VIP special offer I'm wondering whether to jump on the deal now or whether things in the market are moving fast enough that another major manufacturer with usable warranty (e.g. a Richer Sounds 6 year warranty rather than an Aliexpress 2 year "warranty") are likely to be offering similar performance at that sort of price point in the next 12 to 18 months because at the moment £1999 seems to be very much at the budget end of the 4K UST market whereas the LSP9T has regularly been voted the best or in the top 2 UST projectors in the general consumer market.

[Lucid_AV]

At £1999 I'd say it's a no-brainer. It's £2999 on their standard price and the same at other retailers too.

Projectors will always be a niche market. USTs need the ALR screens to give their best performance, and not every potential buyer understands this. Having said that, the UST platform flattens a lot of the other projector hurdles such as the need for long and expensive 4K HDMI cables, handling sound, and signal management.

The original launch price was too much IMO.

The future path for USTs is likely to follow what happened with conventional projectors. Other manufacturers will bring out cheaper models, but those machines will involve greater numbers of compromises as the price lowers.

One big issue that's hard to get around is lens quality. Cutting corners here shows up in the image. What it's possible to get away with in a 1080p classroom UST firing on to a 60" smart board won't pass muster with a 4K image at 120" or even 80".

Look at the traditional projector market. If the cheaper 4K models were 'all that' then the higher-end Sonys and JVCs at £6k and £10k wouldn't exist. Performance has its price.

[MG-FIDO]

Hi Lucid_AV,

Many thanks for your thoughts, they reflect they way I'm seeing it at the moment. With the projector still being £3999 from Samsung and the other brick and mortar suppliers and Richer Sounds' 6 year warranty on top I can't see myself getting a better deal any time soon so I've decided to keep it and enjoy it. It helps that my long suffering partner didn't bat an eyelid when I told her I'd bought a second projector!

[NewNameNeeded]

Can't speak for future prices but I can say life is short and it's a bloody great projector. Get it bought!

[MG-FIDO]

NewNameNeeded said:

Can't speak for future prices but I can say life is short and it's a bloody great projector. Get it bought!

Opened it up this morning, got to say it impressed me by managing a picture that is both brighter and bolder in daylight conditions at 110" than my ViewSonic X10-4K managed at 80.

I look forward to testing it in dark conditions this evening.

[h0b0]

Lucid_AV said:

Look at the traditional projector market. If the cheaper 4K models were 'all that' then the higher-end Sonys and JVCs at £6k and £10k wouldn't exist. Performance has its price.

As a Sony 4K owner, I would say the biggest step in experience was buying a bargain $250 second hand epsom and moving into projectors. I had to leave that projector behind as the buyers of the house made it a deal breaker in their offer. When we moved into the current house 4 years ago, I needed a new projector. I bought an ES285 (I think) and was amazed by good quality 4K movies. However, most of what is streamed isn’t good quality 4K.