InFocus ScreenPlay 777 review

Unlike cheaper projectors that have a manual zoom over the lens, the 777 has seven different lenses available, all of which can be focussed electronically. With the standard lens we were able to get a 120-inch image from only 185-inches away. InFocus also allows you to shift the lens so that you can position the projector off-centre to the screen. It's worth repeating: you really do want to employ a home cinema expert to set this thing up. Perhaps most importantly (and indeed surprisingly, given its physical size), the projector is ultra-quiet, keeping under the 30dB mark. It takes about 20 seconds to show an image once you turn it on, and about a minute and a half to cool down after a movie.

The 777's design is clearly intended to cater for ceiling use, but you can use it from the rear as well, and the brightness of the lens means it will cope with a good deal of light intrusion. So while you don't necessarily need a dedicated home cinema room to enjoy its pictures, we'd still suggest complementing it with some decent chairs and a full surround sound system.

Although the 777's price has dropped by half over a year, there are 3-chip DLP projectors coming out from rival manufacturers (Italian specialist Sim2) that are around the same price, but much smaller. We can't compare them side by side (although we do have Sim2's C3X booked in for review), but it's obvious that next generation projectors aren't far off from other manufacturers, and perhaps even from InFocus.

While its hard to fault the 777's performance, there's always room for improvement. The Darkchip3 chipset is the best on the market at the moment, boasting the highest contrast available, but true high-def purists may yearn for a true 1,080 line picture. And of course, if you still want to consider the super-high-end competitors around the £20,000 mark, Sony's Qualia 004 is due to arrive in the U.K. soon. Despite being based on a different (and older) projection technology, it runs at a higher 1,080 line resolution, and when playing Spider-Man 2 from Blu-Ray, it's the single most impressive piece of home cinema technology we've ever seen.

Performance
If you like movies then watching films on the 777 is a rare treat. Like most of the finer things in life -- a vintage wine or a tailor-made suit -- someone who's never experienced the jump in quality may question the price. But when you've seen this class of product, it's hard to go back to 'normal' £3,000 models.

The brightness, rich colours and fine detail combine to make the projector's image seem almost three dimensional. Playing back high definition movie clips from Microsoft and Apple's online libraries was enough to make us go weak at the knees.

Like LCD and plasma TVs, one of the problems with high definition projectors is that they're not that strong with standard DVD movies or digital TV. Playing Ronin back through the projector we saw a small amount of MPEG artefacting, no matter how hard the internal processing worked to sort it out. At least it's not too long to wait until Blu-Ray DVD players arrives -- and we doubt the extra £500 will bother potential buyers. We'd even say it would be a false economy to invest in the 777 without budgeting in the full Blu-Ray player, Xbox 360 and Sky HD suite of accessories, as well as a superb sound system.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Kate Macefield