Vivitek H538W-3D review

As its name suggests, the H538W-3D can play 3D content from a compatible source. Although it doesn’t require an external transmitter, the projector doesn’t include any active shutter glasses in the box – you’ll need to buy them separately, at an additional expense. The projector supports any glasses which use the open DLP-link standard – such as the Optoma ZD201‘s, which are £51.

Watching Avatar in 3D, we were impressed with the depth effects – we had to turn up the lamp brightness to compensate for the dark active shutter glasses, but colours were still surprisingly accurate. Like all active shutter glasses, we still struggled with flicker from overhead fluorescent lighting. If you don’t have any 3D content, you can also enable 2D-3D conversion using the remote control – we aren’t fans of the upscaling effect used by many TVs and projectors, but were surprised by how well the H538W-3D managed to separate 2D images into separate depth layers.

Although we liked the D538W-3D for its compact size and clear 2D picture quality, the lack of 1080p support is disappointing and it suffers from the DLP rainbow effect. Unless you’re desperate for 3D now, its 720p resolution might limit its appeal as a projector for the living room. However, we can see the appeal if you’re looking for something compact for the office or bedroom.