QUICK PICK REVIEW: DECEMBER 20, 2007
Sanyo PLC-XL50 Short-Throw Projector
Ski through a revolving door? Impossible. Strike a match on a bar of soap? Can’t be done. Project an 80-inch wide image from a distance of 3 inches? Piece of cake…
Figure 1. You wanted a short projection throw; you got it.
Sanyo’s PLC-XL50 created lots of buzz at InfoComm 2007, and rightly so. It was ceiling-mounted flush to a wall of the Sanyo booth, yet was projecting a keystone-free 80-inch image with no difficulty. In fact, some visitors to the booth didn’t spot the projector until it was pointed out to them.
This “stealth” projector is likely to prove popular with a wide variety of markets, particularly in rooms that are pinched for space. It’s a 3LCD design with a brightness rating of 2000 lumens and XGA (1024x768) native resolution. None of those specifications are particularly impressive by themselves.
What changes the equation is the design, which is made up of two boxes — one long and rectangular, and one smaller housing that juts out at a right angle. It’s like no projector you’ve ever seen, and it certainly caused me fits when I tried to do my usual performance measurements.
Figure 2. Sanyo’s PLC-XL50 sure is an odd-looking beast, isn’t it?
OUT OF THE BOX
The location of key components on this projector is counterintuitive. There’s no lens mount or opening at either end. Rather, it’s a 2” x 5” glass port that resembles a mailbox slot, positioned towards the back of the main housing. Just ahead of that is a side-mounted lever that controls focus, and beyond the level is the input jack panel.
The secondary chassis has six buttons for projector operation, plus a navigation disc. Operation and temperature indicators are on the main housing, next to the secondary chassis. That’s all you’ll see!
The input connector panel has a basic complement of inputs including composite and S-video, component video jacks, and a pair of 15-pin VGA connectors for PC signals. One of those connectors doubles as a monitor loop-through. There’s also a 2-watt audio amplifier on board, with two stereo RCA jacks and 1 mini (1/8”) phone jack to drive it.
Figure 3. Here’s the connector board — analog all the way.
Unfortunately, there’s no DVI-D input jack, which is a glaring omission in this day and age of DVI- and HDMI-equipped playback devices and video cards. The remaining connector is a DIN-style jack for projector servicing.
There’s also an anti-theft alarm on this projector. There are four buttons on the connector panel that are used to set a PIN. If the projector’s AC power cord is removed and the correct PIN is not entered, an alarm will sound (it’s powered by an internal rechargeable battery).
REMOTE AND MENUS
The supplied remote is very different from older models. It’s only 5.75 inches long and has 19 buttons, all of which are too small for my liking. The buttons toggle between two computer inputs or three video inputs and give you direct access to the digital keystone adjustment, a digital image zoom adjustment, ceiling/floor orientation, and lamp high/low operation.
Figure 4. The remote is simple, but the buttons need to be bigger.
The menu is classic Sanyo, with the “big 5” image adjustments, three different color temperature settings, a User color temperature mode (RGB drive), and four different aspect ratio/pixel map choices — Normal, Full, Widescreen, and True (1:1 pixel mapping). There’s also the famous Sanyo Autosync control, which is one of the better pixel clock detection systems you’ll find in a projector today.
Sanyo also provides numerous image presets with the PLC-XL50. The first three are Dynamic, Standard, and Real, and I doubt you’ll see much of a difference between them other than changes in color temperature and slight changes in brightness. There are also four User image adjustment memory slots.
The remaining Image settings are clearly aimed at the education and corporate markets. The first setting, Blackboard, is actually intended to be used with greenboards. This selection drops the projector’s color temperature into the mid-5000K range to compensate for the greenish cast.
The next setting — Colorboard — gives you four different board tint options (or even wall paint color options), including a warm beige, blue-gray, dark amber, and light (puke) green. Once again, the PLC-XL50’s color temperature warms up or cools down to compensate for the color shift these different surfaces will create.
Figure 5. A close-up view of the PLC-XL50’s lens and mirror aperture.
PERFORMANCE
The optical system used in the PLC-XL50 has an almost impossible task to accomplish: Illuminate a large, bright image with reasonable uniformity and contrast, consistent focus, and minimal color shift, all from a distance of about one foot. Not asking for too much, eh?
Well, this projector pulls it off, although you must position it very carefully to avoid image keystoning while maintaining consistent focus, a job that isn’t as easy as it sounds. According to Sanyo’s specifications, the projection lens and aspheric mirror assembly work within an ideal projection distance of 1.57” to 3.2” (measured from the front of the projector housing, not the mirror).
Yep, you read that right — as little as one-point-five-seven-inches! Within that range, you should see a variance in projected image diagonal measurements from 60 inches to 80 inches.
There’s also a vertical image offset that placed the bottom of the projected image six inches above the top of the projector in my tests, and that was with the PLC-XL50’s housing flush against the screen. That means you’ll need a low cart for mobile/tabletop projection and a fairly tall screen. For ceiling (inverted) projection, the offset is sufficient to allow flush mounting of the projector where wall and ceiling meet.
This extreme short throw also caused me concern for any measurements I would take as my light meter (Minolta CL-200) uses a half-hemisphere translucent dome over the sensors. With conventional projection, light rays are evenly diffused as they pass through this dome. But with the XL50, only half the dome was illuminated for each measurement.
Nevertheless, I calibrated the image for best grayscale quality and measured brightness at 2129 ANSI lumens, just above Sanyo’s factory specification. ANSI (average) contrast was a bit low for a 3LCD engine at 190:1, while peak contrast clocked in at 261:1. You can see that black levels are higher on this projector than conventional 3LCD designs. (Selecting Lamp Low mode drops brightness about 20%.)
Amazingly, brightness uniformity was outstanding, measuring 78% to the average corner and 70% to the worst corner. Maximum color temperature shift across the image was very low at 397 degrees. So the color of white (or gray) across a full screen is very consistent.
Focus consistency was not as good as I’d like, but in defense of the PLC-XL50, I used two hanging (pull-down) screens in this review — not a rigid screen surface. Projecting on the wall behind my screen showed edge-to-edge focus was very good, once the projector was leveled (very important) and placed at a true 90-degree angle to the wall in both horizontal and vertical planes (also very important).
The supplied lens is a varifocal type, so the range of focus adjustment is limited. You’ve got to be within the recommended projection distance to achieve crisp focus. If the image overshoots the screen, you’ll need to adjust the digital zoom to shrink it in size. That’s not a great idea in general, as you’re no longer mapping the input signal to the available pixels.
Keystone correction is limited to a digital keystone adjustment. Obviously, there can’t be any type of lens offset control because of the combination lens/mirror assembly. There are leveling legs at the front of the projector to correct for some tilt. If you plan to install the PLC-XL50, make absolutely sure the screen surface and lens are in the same optical plane and level to each other.
Image quality was very good with a mix of standard-definition video and HDTV, plus desktop spreadsheet and Powerpoint graphics. This is a 4:3 projector, so any video content that is in a native widescreen format (480p, 720p, 1080i) will appear letterboxed. You can tune up the white balance to D6500 or D5400 for viewing video and movies, if you so wish.
One note about pixel scaling: The PLC-XL50 will accept PC signals up to 1600x1200 resolution (UXGA) and does an excellent job scaling all of them. In fact, I’m typing this review with both my desktop LCD monitor and the PLC-XL50 set to 1600x1200, and I have no trouble reading the text on the projection screen 10 feet away from my desk.
CONCLUSIONS
The PLC-XL50 doesn’t just fill a niche, it creates its own because it is so compact in size and will work in any presentation room, no matter how small. Even a closet will do (although that would result in a few raised eyebrows!). It does require some precise positioning to ensure even focus across the image with minimal trapezoidal distortion, and the projection throw distance is extremely limited.
But there’s nothing else on the market that competes with this product. It’s bright, it has a “sweet spot” native resolution that’s perfect for the education and corporate markets, and it accommodates just about every input signal you’d need, except for the aforementioned DVI/HDMI types.
