Projector Reviews

Calibration

The Dwin HD-700 sailed through the test patterns on the Video Essentials DVD with little difficulty. Geometry was excellent, and video noise was low on both black-and-white and color images. The overscan pattern looked a little softer than with the Vidikron Vision Three, which was not surprising, but the DVD resolution approached 500 lines. On the frequency-sweep test, with the Dwin TranScanner's Sharpness set to +1 (my preferred setting with conventional program material), there was a slight visible emphasis at about 5MHz. On the Avia Guide to Home Theater test DVD, resolution easily passed 500 lines. Black-level was tightly controlled, and the Dwin had no difficulty with the Avia's overscan bounce test, which tests the ability of a display's power supply to keep the picture size stable with wide changes in average picture level.

The Dwin calibrated well. The post-calibration results are shown at right—the output of the projector independent of the effect of the screen. While I was able to remove a bit of the low- and midrange elevation with further adjustments, these left the image with a slight green shift. Ultimately, I used the setup shown here for most of my critical viewing.—TJN