WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.640 Did you know that you can get a TV that is 100 inches or even larger? 00:00:05.640 --> 00:00:10.640 All you need is a 10, $15,000 or a bit of creativity. 00:00:11.600 --> 00:00:16.320 Today, sponsored by Nextigo, we are gonna be unboxing the Aurora Pro, 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:20.840 which is a 4K laser ultra-short throw projector 00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:27.380 that can be equipped with a screen like this one also from Nextigo for a TV-like experience 00:00:27.380 --> 00:00:34.540 at a fraction of the cost. Let's go ahead and start cracking this bad boy open. 00:00:34.540 --> 00:00:40.380 All the key specs are here. 4K resolution, up to 120 Hertz refresh rate 00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:44.880 for gaming on the latest generation consoles, support for Dolby Vision, 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:49.460 and it's laser, meaning that compared to a conventional projector, 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:55.380 the contrast is extremely high, so you don't get that same washed out appearance. 00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:58.500 I'm a big advocate for laser projectors. 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:03.700 Quick look at the remote. Actually, that is a surprisingly not cluttered remote. 00:01:03.700 --> 00:01:07.780 Power, navigation, home volume, track skipping, mute. 00:01:07.780 --> 00:01:12.100 Yeah, completely absent is the billboard for all the various streaming services 00:01:12.100 --> 00:01:16.060 that I can cumulatively pay more than my cable subscription for. 00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:20.680 And this is the projector itself. This is a really cool thing about these. 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:26.060 I noticed immediately that the front is equipped with a giant speaker grill. 00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:31.080 That's because the way ultra-short throw projectors work, unlike a conventional projector, 00:01:31.080 --> 00:01:35.040 it doesn't go way back here on your ceiling 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:38.460 or whatever else, all inconvenient. Oh, that was close. 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:44.420 Instead, it goes right here under the screen 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:49.160 where having a speaker on the front of it actually makes any sense. 00:01:49.160 --> 00:01:53.520 You ever notice that, projectors? They have speakers on them. They're behind you. 00:01:53.520 --> 00:01:57.280 What's up with that? And just to make sure I'm not misleading you about the speaker grills. 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:01.840 Yes, there's two 15 watt woofers and two 15 watt tweeters. 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:04.920 On the side, we've got a couple of cooling fans. 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:14.320 Something that hopefully wasn't pre-adjusted. Oh, that's just leveling for the little footsies. 00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:18.080 USB port for playing back media on the built-in Android 9 operating system. 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.380 And then here at the back, we find some really good stuff. 00:02:21.380 --> 00:02:24.560 We've got three HDMI 2.1 ports. 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:28.400 One with EARC, if you wanna hook up the soundbar for a home audio receiver. 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:33.840 Something to note about the video inputs though is that the HDMI 2.1 spec has some optional components, 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:37.460 including the ability to run 4K 120 Hertz. 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:41.520 So only input three supports high refresh rate at 4K. 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:45.680 We've got two more USB ports. Spittif out, regular audio out, 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:52.260 and gigabit LAN as well as our power in. Of course, the star of the show 00:02:52.260 --> 00:02:57.600 is the short throw projection lens right here. And this is the key for any short throw projector. 00:02:57.600 --> 00:03:01.480 I mean, realistically, any projector, but especially for short throws. 00:03:01.480 --> 00:03:05.600 Cause with a regular projector, right? You got your screen here. You got your projector over here. 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:08.660 And it's kind of like mostly the same distance 00:03:08.660 --> 00:03:13.120 to every corner and to the center of the screen. Here, that's not the case at all. 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:17.480 You're gonna have screen that's this far away from the lens, and then you're gonna have screen 00:03:17.480 --> 00:03:22.480 that's like, almost my entire ARM span away from the lens. 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:29.800 So achieving that with minimal distortion and with even brightness, very, very tricky. 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:33.680 Now, I see a couple of sensors here. Does this have some kind of like autofocus 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:38.320 or something like that? Oh, might be to turn off in case your eyes look at it. 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:43.240 Okay. Why don't we try this bad boy out? Look, we've got studio lights on right now. 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:47.300 Honestly, all things considered. Look, there's a light right here. 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:53.520 Not bad. It's an ambient light rejecting Fresnel screen from Mexico. 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:57.320 It costs about $1,000, so you guys can check that out. 00:03:57.320 --> 00:04:00.740 It's a gray screen, and the idea there is to improve contrast. 00:04:00.740 --> 00:04:04.720 If you're in a completely dark room, I would recommend a lighter screen, 00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:09.880 but if you're trying to use it with a little bit of ambient light around you, this is a pretty good strategy. 00:04:09.880 --> 00:04:13.460 I'm just trying to get it aligned while I can still see what I'm doing. Then yeah, we're gonna turn it off. 00:04:13.460 --> 00:04:18.860 I'm pretty excited to try this out because not only does it do 4K, 120 Hertz, 00:04:18.860 --> 00:04:22.700 they advertise less than 15 milliseconds of input lag. 00:04:22.700 --> 00:04:26.940 I think what, 12 in gaming mode or something like that? Not bad. 00:04:26.940 --> 00:04:31.940 On a projector, that is like pretty good if it's true. 00:04:32.380 --> 00:04:36.880 Not gonna lie, it took us a little longer than I would have liked to get this set up and aligned. 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:40.300 I think that sponsored or not, that's something that Mexico could improve 00:04:40.300 --> 00:04:45.620 about the setup process, just providing more guidance in terms of exactly where you should position your screen 00:04:45.620 --> 00:04:49.260 relative to the height of your console, but we got there folks, 00:04:49.260 --> 00:04:54.780 and all it needed was a little bit of keystones. So, ah, now we can give this a shot. 00:04:54.780 --> 00:04:58.020 We're starting with the built-in Android interface. It's got a MediaTek processor, 00:04:58.020 --> 00:05:01.180 three gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of EMMC memory. 00:05:01.180 --> 00:05:06.060 Actually, no, we're gonna start by turning off some of these lights and talking about some of the trade-offs 00:05:06.060 --> 00:05:09.860 for an ambient light rejecting screen. For one thing, your viewing angles tend to be 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:15.580 a little bit weaker because they're going out of their way to reflect back the light from the projector straight 00:05:15.580 --> 00:05:21.020 and then ignore anything that's coming in. So, that means that you're from the projector 00:05:21.020 --> 00:05:26.980 not really gonna bounce as much out to the sides. For another thing, especially if you go with a gray screen, 00:05:26.980 --> 00:05:30.300 well, what you gain in deeper blacks, 00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:35.380 you're gonna lose in your peak brightness. Now, I'm expecting when I hit this one, 00:05:35.380 --> 00:05:39.220 we're going to go from, yeah, that's a washed-out projector too. 00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:41.020 Oh, that actually looks pretty decent. 00:05:42.260 --> 00:05:47.300 Hey, that's not bad. Especially from right in front of it. 00:05:47.300 --> 00:05:50.620 See, you'll see what I mean. Here, Glenn, can you go this way a little bit? 00:05:50.620 --> 00:05:54.060 See, right over here, you're gonna start to lose some of that brightness 00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:57.220 and it's gonna look less even. But dead center in front of it, 00:05:57.220 --> 00:06:01.580 which is actually a surprisingly big zone 00:06:01.580 --> 00:06:05.180 when you're at the distance that you would be from a projector. 00:06:05.180 --> 00:06:09.320 Not bad at all. And we still have one of the studio lights on here. 00:06:09.320 --> 00:06:13.660 Hello. Ha, ha, ha, ha. 00:06:13.660 --> 00:06:18.580 This is about what I'd expect, not midday sun or even early afternoon sun, 00:06:18.580 --> 00:06:22.620 but kind of dinnertime sun to be coming in through the window. 00:06:22.620 --> 00:06:26.460 Let's go ahead and fire up some Dolby demos. Oh, I didn't mention it's Wi-Fi six, 00:06:26.460 --> 00:06:31.500 so you never know with Wi-Fi, but theoretically, we should be able to stream, 00:06:31.500 --> 00:06:34.660 you know, high bit rate 4K content without too much trouble. 00:06:34.660 --> 00:06:37.700 Like any projector, it's obviously going to perform its best 00:06:37.700 --> 00:06:38.860 in a dark environment. 00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:46.180 But this is very usable. Something I'd actually like to see next to go improve though 00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:49.780 is on their screen. This is a hundred inch screen. This bad boy will do, 00:06:49.780 --> 00:06:53.260 they rate it for anywhere from 80 to 150 inches. 00:06:53.260 --> 00:06:57.140 But while it looks really nice, that they have like this brushed finish 00:06:57.140 --> 00:07:00.540 and the super slim bezel can actually be helpful 00:07:00.540 --> 00:07:03.540 to have a more matte material on the bezel 00:07:03.540 --> 00:07:06.700 and to have a bit of a thicker bezel because no matter what your projector is, 00:07:06.700 --> 00:07:09.940 getting it pixel perfect lined up is basically impossible. 00:07:09.940 --> 00:07:14.700 So having a little bit of area for it to bleed over into can be a benefit. 00:07:14.700 --> 00:07:19.940 A really nice thing about ultra short throw though is that you don't need any down in front. 00:07:19.940 --> 00:07:23.460 I mean, it'd be annoying if someone was standing right here and you're trying to watch a movie or whatever, 00:07:23.460 --> 00:07:26.660 but you're not actually blocking the image. 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:31.300 It is wild how bright projectors are getting and how good HDR can look on them. 00:07:31.300 --> 00:07:35.100 We're not even in a dark room yet. This will do 2400 MC lumens. 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:38.940 Belle, do you want to go ahead and hit the light and we can see what it's like in an actual dark environment? 00:07:39.700 --> 00:07:45.700 Whew, you can argue all day TV versus projector pros and cons, 00:07:45.700 --> 00:07:48.420 but if you want a big friggin' screen, 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:52.660 it's very hard to argue with the value. 00:07:52.660 --> 00:07:56.740 It's kind of a funny thing about a projector is that you go out of your way to make your room 00:07:56.740 --> 00:07:59.860 as dark as possible and then you shine this bright projector in it 00:07:59.860 --> 00:08:03.980 and it inherently impacts its own black levels 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:08.940 just from light bouncing around in the room. It's not too bad in here because most things are kind of darkish, 00:08:08.940 --> 00:08:11.860 but that looks sick. Let's hear the speakers. 00:08:18.740 --> 00:08:21.060 Those are surprisingly usable, actually. 00:08:26.260 --> 00:08:31.020 I don't know the best speakers I've ever heard in my life for anything like that, but if all I wanted was a sound bar 00:08:31.020 --> 00:08:36.100 and I wasn't gonna put in a full surround set for anything, this is very usable. 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:40.500 This is 50%. 00:08:47.500 --> 00:08:52.700 It's got support for Miracast, AirPlay and DLNA, but the big one for me is actually 00:08:52.700 --> 00:08:58.820 not the onboard Android TV thing, but rather support for 4K, 120 Hertz gaming. 00:08:58.820 --> 00:09:04.300 Let's go ahead and get the Xbox fired up. Hmm, no dedicated button for inputs. 00:09:05.300 --> 00:09:06.980 Oh, wait, there's a button. 00:09:08.540 --> 00:09:13.060 Okay, I thought this button was like turned the Wi-Fi on and off or something. 00:09:13.060 --> 00:09:17.820 HDMI 3 game, only tips, let's go. 00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:22.780 And there we go. Everything immediately picks up. We've got HDR enabled, Dolby Vision enabled, 00:09:22.780 --> 00:09:25.820 including for gaming, auto low latency mode. 00:09:25.820 --> 00:09:30.140 I'm expecting my latency to be very low, 120 Hertz. 00:09:30.140 --> 00:09:34.900 And that's it. Wheeeee, it's just kind of floaty, you know? 00:09:34.900 --> 00:09:38.860 It's not the smoothest motion handling I've ever seen on a high refresh rate display, 00:09:38.860 --> 00:09:42.460 but it's definitely markedly better than naming on 60 Hertz. 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:46.420 Oh, you know what though? Hold on, I'm on an Xbox. 00:09:46.420 --> 00:09:52.300 Did they want us on an Xbox? Like is that why we're here? Next to go, next time, ask me. 00:09:52.300 --> 00:09:55.900 I'll help you out. It's probably motion blur in a stupid game. 00:09:55.900 --> 00:10:00.260 I just don't know how to change it. I think there's, I think that, 00:10:00.260 --> 00:10:03.700 well, none of the other buttons do anything, smart guy. 00:10:03.700 --> 00:10:07.500 Pretty quiet. You get a little bit of fan noise, obviously, 00:10:07.500 --> 00:10:09.380 because, you know, lasers. 00:10:11.580 --> 00:10:15.460 By the time you have a game running or whatever though, I don't think you're gonna notice that. 00:10:15.460 --> 00:10:19.900 Motion blur long. There's your flippin' problem. 00:10:21.180 --> 00:10:27.260 You had doofs. Wait, this game doesn't even run at 120 Hertz. 00:10:27.260 --> 00:10:32.580 Man, next to go, really though. Next time, next time, let us just game on a PC. 00:10:33.580 --> 00:10:38.220 It's better. No offense, Xbox lovers. 00:10:38.220 --> 00:10:41.500 Xbox is great. I love Xbox. 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:45.020 Well, what? I mean, at least on a PC, what? You don't have the most powerful PC, no problem. 00:10:45.020 --> 00:10:50.020 Turn the details down, get that FPS up. That's way better. 00:10:50.020 --> 00:10:56.300 There, you can really see the difference without that gross motion blur at 30 frames per second. 00:10:56.300 --> 00:10:59.580 And that's why it felt floaty too. Yeah, no, this game is fine 00:10:59.580 --> 00:11:05.620 for evaluating the input latency. It's, we could barely even read people's names though before. 00:11:05.620 --> 00:11:08.500 See, that's way better. Okay, let's try a different game. 00:11:09.540 --> 00:11:11.680 Whew, that is bright though. 00:11:13.180 --> 00:11:16.780 Laser projection. I cannot not like it. 00:11:16.780 --> 00:11:20.920 HDR makes such a big difference too for something like a projector. 00:11:20.920 --> 00:11:23.680 We still don't have the alignment of the screen, absolutely perfect. 00:11:24.820 --> 00:11:28.500 But it's the kind of thing that neither is my one at home. 00:11:28.500 --> 00:11:32.180 And you don't notice it when you're just consuming content. 00:11:32.180 --> 00:11:35.700 How long did it take you guys to get it aligned after all? 00:11:35.700 --> 00:11:39.500 Probably half an hour, okay. And as long as it's not something you're doing all the time, 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:44.680 I don't mind that too much. Man, how frickin' awesome does this look? 00:11:44.680 --> 00:11:50.900 And the concerns I had about motion handling are clearly primarily just forza being forza. 00:11:50.900 --> 00:11:53.940 It's hard for me to say for sure whether their claims of 12 milliseconds 00:11:53.940 --> 00:11:57.980 of input lag are accurate. But what I will say is I'm not noticing anything, 00:11:57.980 --> 00:12:02.980 which is a pretty strong endorsement from me. You're gonna get more than 12 milliseconds of delay 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:08.580 just from the dead zones on an Xbox controller. Like it's not, it's not a problem. 00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:12.340 In conclusion then, the Aurora Pro's MSRP is $29.99, 00:12:12.340 --> 00:12:16.060 but they're currently having a sale that drops the price down to $26.99. 00:12:16.060 --> 00:12:19.380 And next to go has provided our viewers with a coupon code 00:12:19.380 --> 00:12:24.780 for an additional $300 off, bringing the total price down to $23.99. 00:12:24.820 --> 00:12:28.540 This coupon code is limited to 200 uses and will be valid for one month, 00:12:28.540 --> 00:12:31.940 so make sure you act fast. You guys can check it out at the link in the video description. 00:12:31.940 --> 00:12:34.940 Thanks next to go for sponsoring this video and thanks to you for watching it. 00:12:34.940 --> 00:12:36.940 Don't forget to subscribe to ShortCircuit.