Y'all. It's not 4K. Don't even pretend. I mean, c'mon. It's 1080P display resolution. It may be able to downscale from 4K, but no one cares about that.
That said, just know that for its price class, this thing is just amazing.
I'm using a 14-foot diagonal cloth screen outdoors. I upgraded from a $50 Blusmart projector, and I got what I paid for on that one. It was only 480p, I had to crank up the color values to get enough brightness to barely suffice, and it was fine (but not great) as long as there were no other lights on whatsoever in the vicinity and the movie scenes weren't overly dark. And it couldn't quite fill the whole screen and stay in focus. I could move it closer and get a brighter and much smaller image, but that's lame.
The Redeer projector is like a night and day difference. The image fills the whole screen. It's bright enough that the porch lights were on through half the movie and no one noticed. At 1080p, it's clearer — SO much clearer. The colors are truer because I don't have to compensate for brightness. The fan noise is lower. My cheap projector threw some light out of the fan exhaust port, which was distracting; the Redeer doesn't do that! The Redeer is not as fiddly to set up — because of the keystone correction, the projector can sit lower relative to the screen and doesn't block anyone's view. However, note that the keystone correction is digital, not optical, as it seems to be on all projectors in this price class. That means that once you deviate from a standard, flat rectangle, focus is no longer uniform; the center may be in focus and the edges may not be. It does also have auto focus and auto keystone adjustment, and it's okay, but it doesn't get those settings as finely tuned as I would like.
I have tried the HDMI port with a laptop, and contrary to what the manufacturer states, there was a lag. I didn't measure the lag, but it was enough to make it difficult to click on things with the mouse. I didn't try all video modes, but there doesn't seem to be a "Game" mode to cut lag by disabling postprocessing.
I've also tried the USB port. This is not a unique feature, but it's a really great one. I like a real movie theatre experience, with a trivia reel playing as people are seating, followed by some previews that I pick out for my guests, an authentic theatre policy trailer, the actual movie, and sometimes an intermission reel. People get a kick out of that. I can load up a USB drive with all the files to play, name them with numbers at the beginning of the file names, and it plays them in order. I saw another review stating that the projector will NOT play multiple files in order, instead returning to the menu after every file, the manufacturer couldn't solve the problem, and they had to return the projector! But there actually is a solution built in (at least on the latest firmware). This is how to do it:
1. Start a video playing (paused is okay also).
2. Press 3 lines button on the remote or arc + line button on the unit.
Press Down to select Play Mode and press OK.
3. Press Down to select Single, List, Single Repeat, or List Repeat and press OK.
4. That's it, but the setting is not sticky, so you must set it again after powering off.
The only drawback I've found with List play mode is that the projector shows the file name at the top and seek bar at the bottom for a few seconds every time it starts playing a new file, which is distracting and takes away from the authentic movie theatre experience a little.
Also, the manual states that the USB drive must be formatted with FAT32, which would limit every file to a maximum size of 4 GiB. This is not correct, either; the projector can also read a drive formatted with NTFS.
I use Handbrake to convert video files that I put on the flash drive and the settings I use are MKV format, H.264 (x264), 1080p HD resolution limit, framerate same as source, constant quality @ 18 RF, encoder profile high, encoder level 4.1, AAC codec for the audio at 192 kbps and a stereo mixdown. If you're running Handbrake on Windows, for the best quality audio, look for the mod of Handbrake that uses the FDK-AAC codec.
I haven't tried any of the wireless casting features. Those are secondary value-adds to me. But I definitely will.
The projector has an air filter that slides out easily. It looks like it could be cleaned with a vacuum, but it can't be disassembled and reassembled. If you ever need to replace the filter material or find a whole replacement years later, good luck.
My one gripe is that the remote is required for basic functions. You can't even adjust the focus if you don't have the remote. You can go through the menus with the buttons on the unit and activate auto focus, but there is no way to tweak it manually. This is a pretty big oversight. The usual precautions apply: Take spare batteries with you if you're not projecting at home, and don't leave batteries in the remote whilst in storage.
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