Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very nice, but missing some aspect features., September 20, 2007
The 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.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 Star rating for the Champion, November 6, 2007
I 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 away to move the heat away from the front lens. This worked so I know I have poor ventilation in this portion of my house, this does not mean the projector over heats or that it is hot, it is not; just that the exhausted air exits the projector at low pressure so it tends to linger. Good circulation in the room will alleviate this minor issue. No one else noticed this effect, but I am very critical on image quality and I tend to pick apart equipment and there flaws. This is not a flaw just an observation that I feel necessary to mention.
I think this projector is a great investment as the replacement bulbs are only 350 bucks.
With such a low price and high performance results this is the projector to buy for under a grand. I hope this review is helpful for you to consider this product. I am extremely happy with this unit and ultimately that is what it was designed to do, Enjoy...
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unbiased comparison to SONY LCD projector, May 20, 2008
I originally purchased the Mitsubishi HC1500 DLP projector, but had some problems with it. Ordered this one from amazon and put them side by side. This isn't a review so much as a comparison between 3 Chip LCD and SINGLE CHIP DLP (which tend to be in the same price range). I actually liked the HC1500 a lot, but ended up keeping this SONY VLPAW10 for a number of reasons. It's not perfect, and in some areas underperforms the DLP. Here's the comparison.
Single chip DLP projectors create images by having a "chip" filled with thousands of tiny mirrors (1 per pixel on the screen) that can tilt up and down. When they tilt, they send light to the screen, when they don't tilt, the light stays in the projector. This ends up creating wonderfully bright and brilliant images. The only problem with this setup is that there's no color (just the white light is being directed) so the color needs to be introduced by spinning a color wheel in front of the chip. (in this case it's a 7 segment red-green-blue-white-red-green-blue wheel. The problem is that the colors are therefore being created via an optical illusion, which for some people creates a "rainbow" effect where they see color rainbows in the white areas of the image. It's very pronounced when there are credit rolls at the end of movies, or any other times there are high contrast black/white (or light/dark) areas. In a certain percentage of cases, the rainbow effect causes headaches and eyestrain It did so for me. (google "DLP rainbow effect" if you don't believe me. There are such things as 3 chip DLP projectors that don't need the color wheels and don't create this effect, but they aren't even close to being in the sub $1000 price range (they start at SEVERAL thousand dollars)
Three chip LCD screens actually have 3 panels (red green and blue) so they don't need the spinning color wheel, they just project the light through the panels, and the colors line up on the screen if calibrated properly. They are not as bright and brilliant as the DLP images because the light is going through the panels, and not being reflected by mirrors which create more direct light. The LCD projectors also need more space between the pixels than DLP, and this ends up giving you a more visible "screen door"effect where you can actually see the faint black lines of the pixel grid if you sit close enough to the screen (as if you were looking through a door or window with an insect screen on it, hence the term "screen door".
So that's the background, here are the results of my side by side tests (accompanied by the media manager for a major lecture hall at an Ivy League university) who is a specialist in these kinds of things (I myself teach video production, so have some expertise here as well).
The Mitsubishi HC-1500 (1 chip DLP)
Advantages
+ about half the physical size of the SONY.
+ Image is brighter
+ colors are more saturated
+ no need for air filter
+ less screen door effect
Disadvantages
- potential for rainbow effect
- noisy (the spinning wheel makes a high pitched whine which is louder and more annoying than the fan)
- If you have a small room, you may not be able to fill a large projector screen with an image because this projector cannot throw a large image from as short a distance as the sony
The SONY VLPAW-10 (3 chip LCD)
Advantages
+ no rainbow effect
+ quieter
+ can throw larger image from shorter distance
Disadvantages
- Much larger than the mitsubishi
- Bulb not as bright, need darker room
- colors are less saturated
- has an air filter than needs to be changed periodically
- more screen door effect
- HDMI input on the rear has a bezel around it that will make it impossible for some of the cables with thicker ends to fit in. I had to change cables to get this to work
CONCLUSION
I went with the SONY. It's not perfect, but for my needs it beats the Mitsubishi. I know there are a lot of die hard fans of the HC1500 and I'm sorry - but this is a fair assessment of my needs.
Some ways to mitigate the SONY's disadvantages:
Neither tv will perform great in a bright room, so both of these are really best suited for rooms where you can control the light.
In terms of the saturation, if you're watching DVD movies, then I think you'll prefer the LCD since it creates more natural colors. The DLP is better for watching HDTV shows where the colors really pop (like CSI Miami). I use it mostly to watch movies, so don't mind the less saturated and brilliant colors.
In terms of the "screen door" effect, I find this is minimized by defocusing the image just a hair. Yes the image is more soft, but this looks more like a projected image in a movie theater, and this is the effect I'm going for when watching movies on my projector, so it works great. It does not work as well to watch sports or news or other material that has lots of CG text up on the screen.
One last note, if you decide to buy it, the price of the sony does fluctuate on Amazon wildly ($799 yesterday, $999 today !!!). But I see it go up and down on an almost weekly basis. So time your purchase carefully!
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