Epson PowerLite S1+ Multimedia LCD Video Projector

Use this in my classroom, it has been on all day, every schoolday for the past FOUR years on the original bulb! (knock wood)
Wonderful machine.

It's a very usefull video projector, my wife use it for her conferences of 20 to 50 persons and it looks great. I personally use it wiht my XBox in a big white wall and it makes complete different game experince. It is a basic video Projector, with basic features but just enough for my wife and myself and the best is the low price!

I've had my Powerlite S1+ for a little over a year now, and I have virtually no complaints. Through some creative shopping, (ie. pricematching and mail in rebates) I only paid about $350 for this projector. I have it permanently mounted in the ceiling of my basement and have a screen that is about 113" diagonal. It has over 1000 hours of use now, and everybody that has been over to watch a movie on it has been totally blown away and they all want one. As far as the $100 component video cable from epson, I was worried about this too until I found a local company that makes custom data cables. I paid $13 for a 15 foot cable that works beautifully. Initially I thought maybe when my bulb wore out I would upgrade to a higher end projector, but now that I've had so much enjoyment out of this over the last year, I'm planning on sticking with it and just buying a new bulb or two.

This is a magnificent projector, "A lot of bang for the buck" I have been using it since I bought it almost a year ago and have nothing but good comments for the machine. Every one of my neighbors have enquired about it once they see it in action.

I bought this little projector mostly to attend on-line classes with, and to have a way to play games when my brain was full (which is very often;)). I also wanted a way to watch TV without having a big & ugly TV in my home office. A projector seemed the best solution, so I gave it a go.

The Epson has generous connectivity options, which allowed me to hook it up to numerous video sources simultaneously, and then switch between them all (yeah!). I have it as S-Video from my cable system's DVD R/W recorder, computer / component video from my main computer, and the 3-RCA video/audio (composite) connectors from my x-box.

In fact, the Epson sits right on top of my x-box, making for a highly cool, highly compact gaming unit with awesome capability. It takes a few minutes to transition from gaming in a fishbowl to playing in a life-size environment & getting accustomed to so much motion. Screen is plenty bright, though some of the darker interior scenes from the likes of Halo-1 are best played with the lights down (my screen is about 6 X 8 feet, 1.83 X 2.44m).

The device has fittings for ceiling mounts, but I'm more inclined to the portability of the included carrying case, if anything.
Switching between the video channels is either by hand-held remote or via the little control panel situated on top of the Epson. There is a second remote that is for operating your computer's mouse for presentations, including page up/down & L/R clicking, and it works great on xp pro with the included IR (InfraRed) USB receiver. Sounds complicated but installation was all of plugging the little IR cable/module into a USB port & then playing with the neat-o mouse remote. This is great for remotely fast-forwarding through commercials when playing DVDs through a computer. The projector has IR receivers fore and aft, BTW.

The main remote controls the video input selection, speaker volume (including mute), on-screen menu (very easy to use, with lots of selections for picky people), freeze video, a handy one-button color mode (Theater, Presentation, etc), Aspect ratio (2 settings), and ZOOM.

Video quality largely depends on the type of video input you apply to the Epson, with composite at the low end, s-video in the middle, and computer / component as highest picture clarity. The differences between these input types are about an order of magnitude, everything else being equal. By all means opt for computer / component input! Its like night and day as far as video quality goes.

Presentation fonts come through crystal clear, as do digital images, and watching a cable program or DVD on the unit is great fun (especially through the computer / component video port, where the picture is crystal clear). Although not what you would build a breathtaking home theater system around the Epson is nevertheless a practical, fun, truly plug & play projector that will connect to just about anything and go.

5-stars, among the entry-level projectors.