When Ole Dame from InFocus approached us a few weeks ago and asked if we’d like to get a sneak preview of the new IN76 HD DLP Projector, we were only too happy to take him up on his offer. Not only is the IN76 one of the new generation of projectors that breaks the $3000 price barrier for true HD resolution with TI’s DLP technology (list price on the IN76 is $2999, with a resolution of 720p, or 1280 x 720), it also represents the culmination of an intensive effort by the InFocus engineers to improve the quietness and design aesthetics of their front projection line. In those two design goals we’ve got to say that InFocus has succeeded admirably – not only is the new IN76 extremely quiet, it’s also one very sexy looking projector, with smooth, rounded lines and a rich black and silver finish. The unit we received from InFocus was a production prototype, so it did not have the final software loaded onto it and will be further tweaked by the design team before it ships (please keep that in mind as you read my comments).

So, how is the picture and how does it compare to other 720p DLP and LCD projectors? That’s exactly what we set to find out over the last week when we evaluated the IN76 on its own, as well as against a few other pieces - the InFocus SP-7210 (a higher end, Dark Chip 3 single chip DLP projector) and the Panasonic PT-AE900 (a very popular 720p LCD projector). As always, we invited anyone interested in seeing the IN76 to come along and add their opinions to our own (we hold these types of informal shootouts on a fairly regular basis, and we have a rather large crowd of folks here in Colorado who come just to check out the new pieces, or new comparisons of old pieces). All of the projectors were evaluated using HD clips that are great at revealing various projector strengths and weaknesses (we have a collection of clips stored conveniently on an HTPC we use for just this kind of evaluation), plus various HD clips off of a Dish Network DVR. Of course, we also ran some tried and true DVD clips to evaluate standard definition performance. All connections were made via HDMI, and all comparisons were done on a 123” Stewart Firehawk (although many times the projector images were zoomed down to 110” or smaller screen sizes, as very few projectors are truly bright enough to fill a 123” diagonal screen).