Tim Walbridge doesn’t do ordinary. When envisioning the showroom he would build to show off the customized cars he and his team at 503 Motoring in Portland, OR were creating, he saw much more than a glossy cement floor with sexy cars parked on it. What Walbridge imagined was an event and entertainment space that would not only impress and inform his clients, but also dazzle friends, family, and business associates.
To do this, Walbridge planned out a multi-channel audio system comprising 70-volt Sonance speakers and amplifiers, an Integra A/V receiver, multiple Apple TV boxes, wireless HDMI system, and two very impressive projectors and screens to round out the install.
When it came time to pick the projectors, Tim reached out to Digital Trends for some advice. He would need high-brightness projectors capable of doing battle with some intense shop lights, but he also wanted theater-quality images for watching movies and TV when the lights were low. Oh, and he didn’t want to blow up his budget, either.
Having spent many hours testing projectors from several manufacturers, and considering the specific needs for this installation, we decided to partner with BenQ, which provided us with one SH915 projector, and one HC1200 projector.
Bright ambient light would not be the only challenge for this installation. We needed one projector to provide a fairly large image from a short distance, and the other to provide a huge image from almost 45-feet away without the picture falling apart entirely. It turned out that the HC1200 handled the former, and the SH915 the latter, perfectly.
With 4000 lumens of total brightness, the SH915 not only keeps the image looking crisp at the very large format, but does so at an affordable $1100. The HC1200 is the real showpiece for movie watching, though, and at $1300 offers outstanding contrast and color, plus large images from a short throw distance.
Watch our video above to see how BenQ’s projectors filled out the space, and how Tim Walbridge feels about the final installation.
