Hign Definition 720P Home Theater Projector
TI DDP3020 Dark Chip 2 with Brilliant Color
1600 ANSI lumens, 2500:1 Contrast Ratio
Upto 3000 hour lamp life, filter free operation
1-Year parts and lable warranty, 90 days lamp
This review is from: Mitsubishi HC1500 720p DLP Home Theater ProjectorThe HC1500 is a very nice projector, especially for the price. I upgraded from an InFocus Screenplay DLP Front Projector - SP4805. By comparison, the HC1500 is much brighter, quieter, and more crisp. It also fit my existing ceiling mount, which was very convenient.The only problem I've not found a fix for is the aspect ratio selection. The SP4805 was native 16:9, but also had a mode for 4:3, and another which cropped a 4:3 picture to 16:9 and enlarged it to fill the whole screen. This mode was really nice for TV broadcasts and old DVDs filmed in 16:9 but broadcast in 4:3 with black bars. Without that zoomed/cropped mode, you have to watch it in 4:3 mode, so you see the black bars both on the sides of the screen and then again on the top and bottom. This means you're basically looking at an image 2/3 the size of your screen.As far as I can tell, the HC1500 does not have an aspect mode that works well with this problem. It is also native 16:9, and has the following aspect modes; auto (which as far as I can tell is identical to 16:9 regardless of input signal), 4:3, 4:3 stretched to 16:9 (with serious distortion on the left and right sides), and two zooms. The user's guide says the two zooms are optimized for cinemascope and vista images with subtitles, but they don't expand the projected area out to take advantage of the better screen/picture aspect ratio match. Instead it simply crops the image within the 4:3 display boundary and leaves the black bars on the sides. This is very annoying when watching 16:9 TV show (broadcast non-HD) because your picture is miniaturized and surrounded by unused black bar screen area. The show is being broadcast specifically to fill your whole screen, but the projector leaves bars on all 4 sides of the image.I don't understand why Mitsubishi omitted that feature, it seems requisite these days. The fine print in the user's guide does mention that zoom modes will make the image of a 480i signal smaller. Again, it looks fine when you have 480p input, which I only get from my DVD player, or a native 4:3 TV 480i input (normal TV). And the picture is fantastic with both.Overall I'm happy with this machine, especially for the price and bright HD picture. But if anyone has a work around for the aspect issue, I'd love to hear it....
This review is from: Mitsubishi HC1500 720p DLP Home Theater ProjectorI would like to first state this projector will do 1:1 pixel mapping through the HDMI port from a computer. This was my only concern as there is little to no evidence this works properly from other reviews. Within the first five minutes of owning this unit I successfully output 1280 x 720 @ 60Hz through a DVI to HDMI cable from an Nvidia 7800GT video card. The only real adjustment to produce this 1:1 pixel mapping was to set the projector to "real" in the aspect option, and then set the overscan to 100% (default is 97% overscan). The projector will now display a perfect 1:1 pixel mapping as you would expect from a XGA projector or a PC monitor with no artifacting, frequency noise, or shimmer in text/fine lines due to scaling. It is perfect.Now for the review, this is our fifth projector and four of those were DLP. My last projector that I can compare it to directly is the BenQ PB6240 XGA projector with 2700 lumens and 2000:1 contrast ratio. This is a wonderful projector but the HC1500 is much brighter at the same throw distance and is natively wide screen. The black levels and color reproduction are outstanding; the HC1500 really stands out for a home theatre.My intent for this unit is for big screen movies and for viewing web content clearly from the couch and going through pictures when we have family in town. I do have a PS2 connected via the S-Video port and it is better than any other projector using the S-Video port; very colorful, bright and surprisingly sharp/clear. As I stated, we purchased this unit mainly for movies and I would recommend a Septre 37 inch or larger 1080p monitor for high resolution games on the pc with a 8800GTX for the most immersive experience (through the DVI- HDMI port for 1:1 mapping of course).The HC1500 is about 14.5 feet from the wall (no screen yet) and produces 100 inch diagonal image, this size can be zoomed larger (aprox 130") at this point but I wanted the smallest screen size possible from this distance. Let me say even at this distance and sheer size the amount of color and clarity is phenomenal and the black levels are better than ANY projector I have ever seen, period. I would recommend a High resolution DVD player such as a Blu-Ray, HD-DVD or equivalent for the highest quality image. We are using the computer to play movies but DVD players have come along way too. The projector is very, very quiet, even in full lamp mode. I have tried all setting regarding brightness and `True color' modes and all are very acceptable. It really depends on your preference, low lamp and `True color' set to `3' works great for our size, but some would maybe like "more" which the projector can accommodate. It is like having a 100" plasma wall, it is that impressive.The only draw back that I have encountered is a heat haze on the left side of the projected image. I can only describe this effect as you would see waves directly above a dark colored car on a really hot day due to the intense heat distorting light as it the light passes through. I have isolated this to an external issue; it is not internal or part of the unit at all. The exhaust port is right next to the lens and the air exiting the projector is not exhausted quickly due to the low noise fan, so the heat lingers in front of the lens. I tested this by placing a fan 8 feet a...
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