NEWSLETTER APRIL 2008
www.dreamvision.net DreamBee2 and a beautiful red DreamBee were displayed during the recent High End Show in Munich - Germany. Thousands of attendees visited Image Vertriebs’ booth, the official Dreamvision distributor for Austria & Germany.
Australia : DreamBee review featured in Sound & Image magazine. The review was written by Steven Dawson, one of Australia’s most influential AV journalists. Rather than a full, in-depth, review this was a projector shoot out featuring several different technologies at quite varied price points. The DreamVision was clearly one of the reviewers’ favourites as he now has a DreamBee as his reference projector. This means the DreamBee is mentioned in every AV review he writes. A yellow DreamBee was also prominently featured on the cover of the magazine (prices mentioned are in Australian $)
GROUPTEST:
Dream Vision Dream Bee Price: $12,995
Well, this projector was easily the widest of this lot, measuring an extraordinary 585mm. It is styled, um, interestingly — strangely reminiscent of the aliens’ fighter spaceships in Independence Day. Bonus points for sci-fi fans, then, though irrelevant when it comes to performance. What we have here is the sole LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) projector of the bunch. Since its specifications talk about ‘D-ILA’, it’s safe to assume that the projector is based on a JVC D-ILA engine. And since it uses three chips (rated at 4ms response time), it omits any need for a colour wheel. One possible problem with three-chip projectors that won’t afflict single-chip DLPs, is misalignment of the three colours. This projector has a ‘pixel adjust’ feature which allows you to adjust the alignment of the chips with respect to each other.
www.dreamvision.net
Installation was easy, with a massive zoom range (2:1) and wide adjustment for lens shift, both vertically and horizontally. Dream Vision claims a 20,000:1 native contrast ratio. There is no dynamic iris, nor seemingly any need for one — the black levels were impressive and the colours excellent. And bonus green stamps for the projector having its lower lamp level labelled as ‘Normal’, and the brighter option as ‘High’. In fact, the ‘normal’ brightness levels were excellent in a dark room, and I didn’t feel any need to keep ‘High’ after quickly checking it out. However, this seems to make no difference to lamp life, which is stuck at 2000 hours. The projector uses the highly-regarded Gennum VXP processing, and this seemed to provide excellent results with 1080i and 1080p input, but was a little disappointing with 576i input from a DVD player. It tended to trip up on our difficult PAL DVD test clips, accidentally choosing the incorrect deinterlacing mode. Indeed, unlike most projector deinterlacers, the Gennum VXP seemed to lack a ‘film bias’. Nor can you force a film mode onto the projector, with only ‘On’ and ‘Auto’ being available. In scaling 576i up to its native 1080p, the results were also a touch jagged
Full-HD projectors
on the diagonals compared to the other projectors, as though it wasn’t as clever in smoothing sloping lines. As for 1080i processing with the HQV test disc, it was quite excellent. The unit’s remote control is also worth a mention for having all the necessary keys on its face, as well as being powerful enough to easily bounce its beam off the screen, and back to the projector.
VERDICT • Excellent picture quality • Excellent black levels • Good value for money • A touch jaggie on 576i material • No 4:3 aspect ratio with HD signals • No force film mode
SYNERGY AUDIO VISUAL TEL: 03 9416 4161 WEB: www.synergyaudio.com WARRANTY: 2 years
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