Optoma Home Theater Series HD66 - DLP Projector - 3D Ready - 2500 ANSI lumens - 1280 x 720 - widescreen - High Definition 720p

I bought this projector 3 weeks ago from Amazon. Delivery was prompt and on time. The projector came in the usual Optoma box but without a carry case. Of course I knew that, but one would have been nice anyway. I had already printed out the manual (at work of course) from the Optoma website.
Set up was easy enough but a little time consuming as the settings where totally off. I believe everyone using this projector primarily for home theater will and should set the bulb to standard. The extra lumen will come in handy however when using the 3D glasses to view 3D content.
Once calibrated, picture quality was very impressive for a 720p projector. Blacks were black enough, color and shadow, rich and detailed. The projector does a good job (imo) of scaling 1080p content. I have two Blu-ray players and the projector showed Blu-ray content a lot better with my Philips player so like everything else the source is important.
Overall I'm very happy with my purchase. Couldn't convince the wife at this stage to let me spend the extra money on a 1080p projector, so I was already looking at the HD65. I was encouraged by what was being said by the very early adapters that had pulled the trigger on the dedicated AV forums (God bless them). Early veiwings included Iron Man and Transformers, and Walle and UP for animation, all in Blu-ray on a 72" 16:9 screen and I'm truly impressed. The harshest critic is too, the wife. Picture is as good, if not better, than my Sanyo 42" 1080p plasma. I'm English; my wife is American so were now looking forward to the World Cup being shown in 3D. By the time the tournament begins hopefully the price of active shutter glasses will have fallen enough so were not passing one pair around the room to everybody.
If you have bought this projector from Amazon just post a review good, bad or indifferent. I was compelled to do so because for a long time the only one posted nearly caused me to pass on the HD66. $700 is a lot of money (to me at least), so I utilize reviews all the time without giving back. This was my first one ever, hope it helps.

Very nice projector, good colors, brightness and black levels. This is not going to compete with a $2k projector, but for its class, it does a really impressive job.

I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because out of the box, the settings make the image look quite poor, complete loss of detail in faces, skin tones are definitely off. After some quick calibraiton, Specifically:
- I turned down the bulb to standard
- turned "Brilliant Color" way down
- reduced the contrast to about 42-45.
- I also turned down the brightness to 43, but after doing a THX optimizer, brought the brightness back up to the standard 50.

AFTER CALIBRATION, I am VERY pleased with the colors, the black levels are good (not great, but pretty darn good) and the shadow detail is much better than what I have seen in the past.

I would recommend this projector to anyone looking for a ht projector in this price range.

(Also, as others have reported, the remote is not laid out well at all (although this would not sway my purchase decision, it is worth noting))

....but ended up going with the HD20.

This is my first projector and I use it solely for watching movies; blu-ray, DVD, and streaming HD from VUDU\Netflix. I had nothing to compare it to except for my brothers which was a Optoma 1080p projector with a throw of 15-18 feet.

I was very impressed out of the box. Blu-ray looks great @ 11' throw\85" diag. picture. Works quite well in ambient light, but really comes alive in lights off. HD stuff looks really good from viewing distance of 12'.

There is some rainbow effect, but not often at all and usually during credits. Certainly not a deal breaker for me. We watch it directly off our light gray painted wall and it looks very good. Older DVD's are blurry, but that is just the nature of the lower res DVDs. The texture of the wall and no gain gray paint will require a screen eventually.

The controls are pretty basic and simple to use. There are some advanced calibration settings that I didn't mess with.

Overall this was a very satisfying experience for the money.

However....

I felt that the 11' throw\12' viewing distance put me right on the cusp of being able to benefit from 1080p. I got the bug and started obsessing about it and decided to order and HD20 to compare it to, realizing I may take a restocking hit on the returned projector. I really wanted to see the difference because I felt that at 85" to 95" inch diagonal I could really make the hd stuff crisp.

Set up the HD20 yesterday. First run was in soft ambient daylit room with shades drawn. I immediately noticed the difference in brightness. The HD20 at 1700L vs. HD66 2500L was definitely not a good viewing experience in ambient light. Even on bright mode, the picture seemed washed out. I became somewhat discouraged, but since my gf and I pretty much only watch with lights off at night, no cable, I waited to make my decision. Fan noise a little louder on HD20 especially on bright mode.

Once it became dark outside, the experience totally changed, even with low light in the room, the image began to get brighter and clearer. I watch several HD previews off of VUDU and Up in standard DVD and Avatar on DVD.

Verdict, The HD20 really made a difference in 1080P. It just seemed more comfortable displaying it's native res than the HD66. From my viewing distance it was really really awesome. My girlfriend came home, I didn't tell her I swapped them out, and she immediately said, "Is there a screen there, the image seems really sharp." I chuckled and said no.

Final Thoughts:

If you are throwing from 12" or less and viewing from around 10' to 12' AND you want viewing in ambient light AND your budget is limited, The HD66 is a great buy. You won't be disappointed. If however, you can spend the money and you are throwing from farther than 11' AND you will be watching primarily in dark or near dark room, I would say go for the HD20. I was a bit nervous until I put UP in standard DVD in and it looked better than in the theater. It was really crisp and that was without a screen(which does help a lot, I tried the HD66 out with one.)