PRODUCT REVIEW
Mitsubishi HC5000 LCD Home Theater Projector
Mits’ price-busting 1080p LCD projector looked good at Cedia Expo and even better in my studio. It’s an outstanding value, too.
The “buzz” around 1080p just gets crazier with each passing month. Despite the missteps of the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, there is considerable interest in what some call “full” HD (never mind that 1280x720 is also considered full HDTV), primarily in displays such as flat-panel LCD HDTVs and microdisplay rear-projection sets.
In the front projection world, 1080p has until now come with a steep price tag. Early high-end LCOS projection systems from JVC and Sony hovered around $30,000, as did Fujitsu’s HTPS LCD box. Single-chip 1080p DLP models are only now coming to market, and those will set you back at least $9,000.
Figure 1. Mitsubishi’s HC5000 has a nicely styled cabinet
Now, out of the blue comes Mitsubishi with a brand-new 1080p design that retails for well under $5,000. It uses three of Seiko Epson’s latest D6 .74” 1920x1080 HTPS LCD panels and incorporates Silicon Optix processing as well. The HC5000 turned a lot of heads at Cedia Expo 2006, not to mention tossing the pricing structure for 1080p front projectors on its head.
To be sure, I saw other outstanding demos of 1080p projection at Cedia, with wide, linear grayscales and beautiful color rendering. There were a few of these products priced from $5K to $10K, so I figured that range to be the benchmark for top-notch 1080p imaging.
But price isn’t everything — performance is, particularly with a 1080p display. How did the HC5000 stack up? Read on, to find out.
OUT OF THE BOX
The HC5000’s design is certainly aerodynamic and nothing like its 720p siblings. In fact, the housing, which has a black finish with dark blue trim around the lens, reminds me more of a SIM2 or Optoma product. It won’t be very noticeable in a ceiling installation, that’s for sure.
The lens assembly is completely enclosed – nothing sticks out beyond the edge of the housing. The supplied lens has a 1.6:1 zoom ratio, which is slightly longer than that commonly found on older CRT video projectors. All lens functions are motorized including focus, zoom, and horizontal/vertical offset adjustments.
The HC5000 also makes extensive use of an automatic lens iris system. This iris works in conjunction with the average luminance level and stops down or opens up from scene to scene. The result effectively gives you lower black levels, which is something that traditional LCD imaging technology has trouble achieving on its own.
The connector complement should handle pretty much anything you’ve got to hook up. There’s one of everything, including composite, S-video, and component YPbPr input jacks, a 15-pin VGA jack for RGB signal connections, a DVI-D connector, and an HDMI jack. In addition to an RS232C port for remote control, you’ll also find a 12V screen trigger (1/8” mini phone jack).
Some folks might ask — why not more HDMI inputs? In my case, I’ve been using external video switcher/scalers for several years, so a single DVI or HDMI port is all I need. With the HC5000’s connector complement, you can hook up a DVD player or two, plus a set-top box and a computer. (The DVI-HDCP jack can show video from an HDMI cable with the appropriate adapter.)
REMOTE AND MENUS
The supplied remote control, like many Mitsubishi remotes, has a nice layout with not too many buttons. They’re all backlit and large enough to operate with normal fingers. With this remote, you have direct access to any of the six inputs, as well as three user-defined picture memory/iris/gamma presets.
You can also access the auto iris function directly, as well as six different aspect ratios. Those are AUTO (changes aspect ratio by pixel count and sync signal), 4:3, 16:9, ZOOM1 (for CinemaScope content), ZOOM2 (another variation), and STRETCH (expands 4:3 images to fill the screen with a non-linear stretch).
There are five color temperature modes. A HIGH BRIGHTNESS setting just pours out the lumens with no regard for correct white balance, while HIGH (D9300), MEDIUM (D6500), and LOW (D5800) are fixed selections. In USER mode, you can set red, green, and blue contrast and brightness individually for each color channel to get closer to the desired color temperature.
Further tweaks to grayscale images are possible with the GAMMA setting. As usual, there are a few gamma presets (VIDEO, SPORTS, AUTO, CINEMA), but you can also go in and fiddle with two USER gamma presets. That’s handy for more precise grayscale set-up and white balancing.
The usual horizontal and vertical image position tweaks are included, as is an AUTO POSITION button that is smart enough to center most images all around pretty quickly. 10% overscan is also provided. For 3:2 signal detection, there is a CINEMA MODE setting that can be turned on or off. Power consumption is possible by selecting the economy lamp mode. Typically, this cuts brightness by about 20%, but greatly extends lamp life.
The motorized lens functions have some degree of hysterisis. They start out slowly as you hold the appropriate button down, and then speed up. This can cause you to overshoot a focus or zoom point, so you’ll need to get used to jumping in little increments. The motor itself is very quiet – it’s hard to hear when any lens adjustment is under way. Mits also includes a green crosshatch test pattern that is extremely useful for fine focusing, considering 2 million pixels are up on the screen!
The supplied cooling fan is so quiet I thought it was malfunctioning – there was more noise coming from the cooling fan in my nearby Pentium IV computer. The fan’s speed drops in low-power lamp modes, so you’ll have an even harder time hearing it. Trust me, it’s working.
ON THE TEST BENCH
Engineering all these features into a projector is all fine and dandy, but many models trip up on imaging quality. To that end, I fed the projector 1080i and 720p signals from my AccuPel HDG2000 test pattern generator and live 720p and 1080i HD video from an LG LST-3410 ATSC/NTSC set-top receiver, along with 1080i content from Discovery HD and INHD from a Motorola DCT6000 cable set-top receiver. Those signals were connected using both analog YPbPr and digital DVI-D interfaces.
I also have a Silicon Optix Whitehorse scaler in my system, one that has full 1080p Realta processing. It came in handy for comparing the projector’s de-interlacing and scaling of lower-resolution video. Since the HC5000 also uses SO processing, I had pretty high expectations for it, particularly with the Realta HQV test DVD.
As usual, I started by calibrating the projector for best grayscale image, and then proceeded to RGB contrast and brightness adjustments. I used CINEMA gamma for my tweaks. On most displays, this results in a gamma curve with a slope of 2.2 to 2.8 and it’s where I leave my projectors set for viewing everything — even prime time TV.
Figure 2. Before (top) and after (bottom) grayscale tracks for the HC5000
The results were very pleasing to the eye. Figure 2 shows the grayscale tracks from the factory calibrated D6500 mode along with my calibration. Both curves are similar — the HC5000 starts out at the high end of the grayscale (discounting the first step at 20 IRE), then zigzags within a 60-degree range until the IRE 75 step when it takes a steady drop downward.
The total swing on my calibration curve is about 252 degrees from 30 IRE to 100 IRE, which is excellent performance for an LCD projector. That’s comparable to the typical single-chip DLP projector and half as good as JVC’s $14,000 DLA-HD10K 1080p offering. (The best tweak would place the high end of the HC5000’s curve at about 6600K and the low end at 6348K.)
While we’re focusing on color, take a look at Figure 3, which is the measured color gamut of the HC5000. It gets doggone close to the REC.709 coordinates for red, blue, and yellow; is just a tad off with cyan and magenta, and comes up a little short of the green coordinates. That sort of performance is very good for a fixed-pixel projector, particularly one using three-panel LCD imaging technology.
Figure 3. This chart shows the HC5000’s color gamut,
which is very close to the REC.709 HDTV gamut
Figure 4 shows the resulting gamma curve after all of my tweaks in CINEMA mode. Note the nice gentle upward curve as the projector comes out of black. Incidentally, all measurements were done with the automatic iris disabled and the lens fully open. This curve resembles that of some older CRT projectors I’ve tested.
How about contrast and brightness? In CINEMA mode with the iris open, I measured 340 ANSI lumens. Contrast clocked in at 276:1 ANSI and 486: 1 peak, using the 16-box checkerboard pattern. Highest contrast readings using a small white window pattern with an adjacent black area were 1875:1, 1050:1, and 1880: 1 using AUTO IRIS 1, 2, AND 3 settings, respectively. Brightness uniformity across the 16:9 image averaged 73%.
With my grayscale settings, brightness reached as high as 400 ANSI lumens in SPORTS mode. That’s not a significant step up from CINEMA mode, but you will see a change in gamma and highlights start to wash out. The 340 lumens CINEMA reading is more than enough to produce a bright, contrasty image off my 82-inch Stewart matte screen with a projection throw of 14 feet.
Figure 4. The HC5000 has a visually pleasing gamma curve in CINEMA mode
VIDEO IMAGE QUALITY
This is where the rubber meets the road, and the HC5000’s tires were squealing as it easily zipped through all of the Realta HQV performance tests with flying colors. The projector handled 480i de-interlacing and motion errors without a hitch, acing the rotating bar, waving flag, and race car sequences.
It also detected the most common video/video and video/film cadences, showed minimal noise (there are three analog/digital noise reduction options in the menu), and handled the title crawl over filmed footage without any hiccups or cross-hatching. The source DVD player was a Panasonic RP56, which has an outstanding Faroudja 2100 processor. But even that processor came up a little short against the Silicon Optix chipset.
The quality and sharpness of scaled video varied all over the place. SD cable and analog video had some noticeable pixelization, but most of that was in the original signal. In comparison, analog and digital video from DVDs was very clean, with only small background details falling back into macroblocks because of the low limiting source resolution. If you sit a reasonable distance from the projector, you’ll be amazed at how crisp DVDs appear.
I saved the best for last, watching ESPN HD’s SportsCenter (720p), the Mets-Cardinals NLCS Game 5 on Fox (720p), NBC’s Law and Order (1080i), a Discovery HD program on sharks (1080i), Comcast SportsNet HD (1080i), The Aviator on Showtime HD (1080i), and my Fox and ABC local news (both in 720p HDTV). Each program was fed from my two set-top boxes in its native format to the HC5000.
In all cases, image quality was simply amazing. The announcers on SportsCenter and SportsNet looked so realistic it was as if they were on the other side of a large window. The colors and shadow detail in The Aviator — specifically, the scene where Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) pilots his Hercules/Spruce Goose plane over Long Beach Harbor — had a very filmic look to them. (I used AUTO IRIS 1 for this clip)
The HC5000’s strong color performance was evident during the Mets-Cardinals game, where saturated crimson reds, bright oranges, and deep blues were the uniform colors of the day. You could even see a difference in color shading from one Fox HD camera to another (apparently they had different white balances in different parts of the ballpark).
The Discovery shark footage also featured lots of deep blues from underwater shoots, plus subtle shades of pastel colors. All came through just fine. For Law and Order: SVU, I sat about six feet from the screen to see how much of the LCD pixel structure I’d notice (answer: basically, none).
SVU has lots of high-key lighting with deep shadows, and some of that shadow detail did get lost. But I was surprised at how much more shadow detail I did see. I was also surprised to see some focus-pulling errors that would never be spotted on a standard-definition TV set.
CONCLUSION
Mitsubishi’s HC5000 is an outstanding performer, and the fact that it costs only $4,500 is a welcome surprise (and kinda hard to believe!). Obviously, the engineers at Mitsubishi worked very hard to address the image quality parameters that really matter — grayscale performance and color accuracy. The Silicon Optix video processing is just the icing on the cake.
Yes, the grayscale tracking could be improved. And perhaps there could be more shadow detail. But it’s hard to argue with the suggested retail price, which means you should be able to pick up this projector for well under $4,000 with some aggressive shopping.
Four closing thoughts: The first pertains to the on-going 720p vs. 1080p arguments. I observed little difference between fine picture details with live 720p HDTV (ESPN’s SportsCenter, again) and live 1080i HDTV (Comcast’s SportsNet), particularly in medium shots and close-ups.
In this case, the 720p programs were being scaled up to 1920x1080 resolution! I ran this test sitting just six feet from the screen. (The HC5000 has so much resolution that I could actually see the differences between studio and compact field cameras during the ABC 720p HD news broadcast!)
Second, it is possible to spot the HC5000’s AUTO IRIS at work. With setting #2, I noticed quick, subtle changes in overall image brightness during SVU as the camera cut back and forth between one actor standing in the shadows and another sitting by a bright window. You’ll have to experiment with the three settings to see which one provides the desired contrast boost without calling too much attention to itself.
Third, don’t expect miracles when viewing scaled-up standard definition analog and digital video on this projector. The quality of that stuff is so all over the place that even the best broadcast-quality processors can’t fix it completely. (You know what they say — garbage in, garbage out…)
Finally, it’s significant that Mitsubishi chose to use HTPS LCD technology to build this projector. LCD projectors often get short shrift in the home theater market because of a perception that they can’t measure up to DLP picture quality. The HC5000 shoots so many holes in that argument that I wonder what other home theater projector manufacturers will do now, particularly those that just announced new, comparably priced 720p DLP models at Cedia Expo?
