   
|
||||
 April 1, 2007Mitsubishi HC-5000 LCD Projector   Someone’s been putting
nitroglycerin in the Cheerios over at the Mitsubishi design department. It all started
about a year ago with the release of the 720p Dark Chip DLP HC-3000. In one brilliant stroke, Mitsubishi brought to market a
projector that had all the latest bells and whistles, unsurpassed black levels, and a
price of $2495 USD -- about $8000 less than the next best projector. Then, last August,
they put out the HD-1000, in many ways a better projector than the HC-3000 due to the
addition of a seventh section to the color wheel. Price: $995. I love downward price
compression. Consumers win.
Mitsubishi’s latest salvo comes in the form of a 1080p LCD projector. Just as everyone was celebrating the dramatic price drop caused by Sony’s VPL-VW50, at $5000, Mitsubishi slipped in at $4495 with the HC-5000. Mitsubishi has once again brought in a projector with all the latest design goodies. My first impression on unpacking the HC-5000 was that it’s inconspicuous -- only a few graceful curves on its black plastic shell give away the fact that it’s Mitsubishi’s flagship projector. Setup was a snap. With their LCDs, and unlike with most DLPs, you don’t have to offset the HC-5000 above or below the screen; you can start within the screen’s boundaries. Added the HC-5000’s generous amounts of vertical and horizontal shift, and it’s close to being a no-brainer for positioning. All you have to do is get it perpendicular to the screen. Most projectors with this much budget-priced muscle have only manual lens focus and zoom, but the HC-5000’s lens is powered: you can sit in your viewing seat and get the picture out to the edges of your screen, then dial in the perfect focus. A powered lens isn’t a necessity -- most of us will set up a projector only a few times during its life -- but it sure does make life easy. The recommended throw distance for a 100" screen is between just a hair over 10’ and over 16’. You should stay as close as possible to 10’ to preserve the highest degree of light intensity. The HC-5000’s light engine comprises three 1920x1080 LCDs with ultrathin spacing between the pixels, to reduce the screen-door bugaboo. The 160W UHP lamp is specified at 1000 ANSI lumens. Years ago, manufacturers used to spec their power amps with every last ounce of oomph, no matter how high the distortion. That’s how a $49.95 receiver could be claimed to put out 1000Wpc. The same folks who cooked up such specious specs seem to have since migrated to the television business, but kudos to Mitsubishi: At least the HC-5000 is described honestly. If the projector is close enough to a small enough screen, it will put out 1000 ANSI lumens, but less optimal conditions will result in lower numbers. Since most other makers’ specs are more "creative," you can assume that the HC-5000 will be brighter than all but a few LCD light cannons, which are anyway primarily aimed at the presentation business market. The HC-5000 uses the premium Silicon Optix Reon-VX HQV chipset, another example of Mitsubishi’s largess. This all-in-one solution to scaling, deinterlacing, noise reduction, and cadence detection is the mass-produced brother to SO’s top-of-the-line Teranex system, used by a lot of Hollywood postproduction houses. Many higher-priced projectors don’t offer as much computational horsepower. Connections are simple for 21st-century home-theater enthusiasts: Just plug in the HDMI cable. Everyone else can use DVI or component connections, and there are even inputs for VHS or laserdisc players. Working your way through the setup menu requires a good test disc -- or, even better, setup by someone trained in the workings of the HC-5000. There’s sufficient depth and flexibility of programming to suit most folks’ particular situations, but that also means that there’s enough power to get hoist with your own petard. My first impression of the HC-5000’s performance was of its almost surreal clarity. There was none of the squashed dynamic range you see in big-box showrooms. Colorful DVDs such as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, or any of the Pixar CGI features, showed deep, intense colors without the tendency to flatten the most forceful colors. The HDNET feed of Boz Scaggs Live had a burnished, golden hue with minute but lucid shades of red. LCDs occasionally have a problem with fast-moving action. Whether we can thank Silicon Optix’s Reon-VX HQV chipset or the Mitsubishi design engineers, I never saw a single artifact. The NFL playoffs, with their alternations of rapidly moving athletes and long panning shots of the stands, are a great test. No problems at all. LCD projectors and displays have been criticized over the years for their inability to reproduce dark gray, let alone true black, so the biggest surprise with the HC-5000 was its ability to project something very close to true black. It delivered significant deep-shadow detail in such dark films as the Blu-ray versions of The Departed and The Illusionist. Mitsubishi has confronted the black problem with a dynamic iris, a device that’s showing up in more and more displays in the never-ending quest for ridiculously high contrast ratios. The HC-5000’s iris must be working overtime to achieve its rated contrast ratio of 10,000:1 (full on/off). I tried all of the different dynamic iris settings, and sometimes saw a dramatic increase in black level. But finally I left the dynamic iris turned off; with my larger-than-normal screen and using the low-level lamp, I never felt short-changed. I was perfectly satisfied with the Mitsubishi’s black level. At least I had a choice.
Foes of DLP say they suffer from the "rainbow effect," but DLPs’ black levels normally beat those of LCDs. Mitsubishi’s dynamic iris solves the black-level problem, and LCDs don’t show rainbows because they don’t use a color wheel. Pick your poison, but because the HC-5000 looks fine even with the dynamic iris turned off, and because it can’t create rainbows, currently it’s the best of both worlds. If I had to pick one nit, it would be the visibility of the HC-5000’s pixel structure. I’m unusually sensitive to LCDs’ screen-door effect. Only Panasonic has figured out how to eliminate the problem; with one of their LCD projectors, you can get within inches of the screen and see not a single pixel. Mitsubishi hasn’t quite gotten there yet. My screen is 8’ wide and 4’ 6" tall, with a diagonal dimension of 9’ 2". I sit 12’ 4" from the screen and I could clearly see the pixels, especially in large areas of static light colors. With real programming, the problem largely disappeared, but to get rid of it completely, I had to move my seat back to about 13’ 4". If you share my sensitivity to the screen-door effect, be prepared to sit around three times your screen’s height away. Otherwise, the HC-5000 is a winner. The competing 1080p projectors from Sony, Panasonic, and Optoma will have a tough time beating it. In fact, the Sony already looks a little long in the tooth. But Panasonic recently lowered their price below Mitsubishi’s. Which probably means another price war. Yippee! …Wes Marshall Mitsubishi HC-5000 LCD Projector Mitsubishi Electric Website: www.mitsubishi-presentations.com
|
||||
|
