Optoma UHZ65 4K Laser Projector Review – Summary

Optoma UHZ65 4K Laser Projector Review – Summary: Overview, Performance with HD Content, Performance with UHD Content, Use for a Business/Education Application, The Competition

I’ll start off with a few observations about the Optoma UHZ65.

• This projector is in many ways similar to Optoma less expensive UHD65 that previously reviewed (HERE),but upgrades from the lamp-based light engine of that $2500 model to a laser light engine for this $4500 model.
• A very sharp image – as sharpe as anything else I’ve seen yet for $4500 or less (when viewing 4K content).
• As one of Optoma’s first generation of 4K DLP projectors, the UHZ65 is a bit “rough around the edges” when it comes to all the new 4K related capabilities.
• It provides pretty good, but not exceptional, placement flexibility.
• Although it didn’t calibrate as well as a number of other home theater projectors in this price range, overall I was fairly pleased with the color, and skin tones with HD video content.
• In 4K, the color and skin tones were similarly good looking, but the overall balance of the image, especially relating to HDR and BT.2020 leaves  room for real improvement.
• It’s reasonably bright for a dedicated home theater projector, but like all consumer projectors, there is always a need for more brightness for displaying 4K HDR content.
• No support for signals from Blu-ray 3D.
• Like the other brand new DLP UHD projectors with 2716×1528 DLP chips and 4K support, this is first generation!  Gen 2 should show some real improvements where I mention weaknesses
• If you aren’t convined you really need a laser light source, then Optoma’s UHD65 sells for $2K less than this model.
• Support for network based control and management makes this model suitable for multi-projector installations for business and education applications.

Like all the 4K capable projectors out there, I find it necessary to look at 4K content handling separately from traditional 1080p and lower resolution content that we’re used to. HDR poses a challenge for all projectors and most LCD TVs because HDR is dependent on having a whole lot of brightness available. As a result, whether you are buying a projector with 1000 – 3000 usable lumens, or the typical lower cost LCD TVs (that handle 4K), the brightness HDR calls for just isn’t available.  Translated, that means some compromise in achieving what HDR promises.

Forgetting 4K for the moment, I’m fairly pleased with the picture.  I’ve viewed a couple movies from HD Blu-ray discs as well as a few TV shows from Directv during the evaluation of the UHZ65..  Generally the flesh tones looked good, but off a little in a few cases..  I can say that the usual JVC, Sonys and Epsons are more precise when it comes to looking “on the money” in terms of color accuracy, but we don’t need to be perfectionists to enjoy a good picture.

The Optoma UHZ65 is good at sports viewing, thanks to it’s sharpness and lack any visible motion blur. The Pure Motion (CFI) is a little “strong” but that’s fine for sports. Most home theater owners will probably won’t use it anyway for movie viewing.

For a $4500 MSRP projector, it falls short of the non-DLP competition is delivering really good black levels.  Its Dynamic Black feature helps, but over use causes noticeable black level pumping.

Here’s where the improvement is needed, not that there’s anything particularly bad about the picture. HDR could use improvements in terms of handling the dynamic range of the images.  I found that the brighter highlights were being clipped (i.e., blown-out), and lowering the contrast adjustment didn’t seem to help much.  Optoma’s attempt isn’t bad for a 1st generation UHD/HDR projector, but its a step behind other manufactures that are now on their 2nd or 3rd generation of HDR enabled projectors.  I would note that I was informed just as this review was being finalized that there is new a firmware release for the UHZ65 that is said to make some improvements to HDR, but I have not had the opportunity to review what improvement may be included.

Also the lack of the ability to display a wide color gamut, something close the DCI-P3 color space, is needed in order to take full advantage of what UHD has to offer and the UHZ65 is stuck with what is essentially the more limited Rec. 709 color space.

While Optoma is marketing the UHZ65 for home theater use, they are also marketing this model for use in business and education applications.  The priorities, in terms of a projector’s performance and features, for these markets are frequently different from the what a typical home theater user is most concerned about.  Business and education projectors typically do not have really low black levels, high contrast, nor highly accurate colors.  Rather, buyers of such projectors are frequently more concerned about low maintenance, high brightness, the ability to remotely monitor/control the projector via a network connection, sharp image, etc.  The UHZ65 does “check the box” for at least several of the capabilities that a buyer of business/education projector may be seeking.

The UHZ65 is spec’ed as a 3000 lumen projector and meets that spec. value in its brightest configuration.  However, as with most projector’s brightest mode, the color accuracy wasn’t very good.  Even so, it could be considered usable for many business or education applications where maximum light output is needed to overcome less than ideal ambient room lighting conditions.  To get to a picture mode with more accurate colors the projector’s light output drops to the 2000 lumen range.  Optoma does offer laser powered projectors in their professional projector series with substantially higher light output (up to 8200 lumens), but none of those models offer the pseudo 4K resolution of the UHZ65.

The competition for the Optoma UHZ65 among home theater projectors falls into two categories.  First will be similar 4K DLP projectors, with laser light sources, coming from other manufacturers.  This includes the Acer VL7860.  The other category of competing projectors will be the lamp based models from the likes of Sony and JVC.  For just $500 more than the Optoma, Sony is offering their new VPL-VW285ES (reviewed HERE).  This is a native 4K projector that includes features, such as power zoom and focus, missing on the Optoma UHZ65.  The Sony also offers lower native black levels and a higher contrast ratio as well as  better color accuracy.  JVC offers their model DLA-RS540 at a list price $500 less than the Optoma and the JVC uses pixel shifting along with 1080p chips for the display of 4K content.  It also has more features including full lens memory as well and support both HDR and WCG for 4K/UHD content.  Finally, don’t ignore Epson’s Home Cinema 5040 (reviewed HERE) for just $2700 that also is a pixel shifting 1080p projector with plenty of features.

If considering the UHZ65 for a business or education application them the competition will include many 1080p and WUXGA (1920 x 1200) models, both those that are lamp-based as well as those using laser light engines.  As for competition offering 4K compatibility, either via pixel shifting or native 4K, there are also a few of those, including some similar 4K DLP models with laser light engines coming from other manufacturers, such as the Acer VL7860.  A good starting point to learn about competing projectors in this price range is our 2017-2018 Classroom Projector Report – HERE.  However, some of the more recent models are not included in that report.

We recently reviewed the Casio XJ-L8330HN (review is – HERE) which uses the same DLP 4K display chip but incorporated in a commercial grade 5000 lumen large venue laser projector.  This high-end model is much more expensive than the Optoma UHZ65.