Projector Reviews

Measurements were made using Portrait Displays CalMAN software, together with a NIST-certified Minolta CS-200 reference colorimeter, Murideo/AVPro Edge 4K Fresco Six-G, and 8K Seven pattern and video file generators, supported by Bullet Train 48Gbps HDMI cables.

I took two sets of measurements with the PX1-Pro at default settings. The first set was directly from the screen, with the second collection using a Labsphere USRT-99 Spectralon Reflectance Target placed on a tripod directly in front of screen center. (Many manufacturers use Labsphere targets as a baseline parameter for a color-neutral, Lambertian reference with 99% reflectance at any measurable angle). What was unveiled didn't surprise me, as I have found this phenomenon to exist with all ambient light-rejecting (ALR) and light directing (UST) screens of any recipe. While they admirably steer away ambient light as intended, most also absorb a fair amount from the projector in the process. One example of this reduction in light delivered back to the viewer is found in comparisons of the PX1-Pro SDR Standard Picture mode. From the screen, with a 100% white full field, the reading was 33 ft-L, however as measured from the Labsphere target, it was 92.2 ft-L.

The Hisense 100L9G-CINE100 screen exhibited splendid color uniformity, with a positively ruler flat gamma response of 2.19 (with a 2.2 target). Additionally, this combination exhibited remarkable freedom from hot spotting, indicating to me the lens Hisense is using not only renders fine detail gradients faultlessly with hyper-precision as pointed out in the main text, but it also manages to disperse laser light in a tightly controlled fashion.

The projector's maximum full-on/full-off SDR contrast ratio was measured in Vivid mode, with all settings at factory default. Black tallied 0.033, using a 1IRE, 10% window to coax measurable illumination out of the PX1-Pro. At 0IRE, nothing leaked from the light engine, a big hat tip to the Hisense engineering team. Peak white clocked in at 33.410 ft-L, for an SDR contrast ratio of 1012:1. Full-on/full-off HDR contrast in HDR Theater mode, with all settings factory defaulted, produced a slight uptick to 1039:1.

Prior to calibration, the Hisense's grayscale showed blue to be dominant with an even-handed slight deficiency to red and green. Selecting Theater Day mode instead of the default Standard mode improved grayscale tracking considerably, while a calibration using the RGB Offset/Gain adjustments in the two-point White Balance menu yielded a maximum 1.520 Delta E at 100IRE, with an excellent 0.66 average. (Delta E is a figure of merit indicating how close the color comes to the standards, either D65 for the white point or the color coordinates for each of the primary and secondary colors that define the color gamut under test. Values below 3 are generally unnoticeable.)

The lasers pushed colors way out past their boundary points, and while some calibrators might be tempted to pull those in with CMS adjustments, that would only serve to collapse saturation points ranging from 20% to 80%, essentially "midrange" or flesh tones. Instead, I used main the color control in the menu to reduce overall saturation from the default of 50 to 43. The 20%, 40%, and 60% sweep points fell into place, with 80% points tugging a bit out toward the perimeter. While not ideal, per se, it's better to have more available colors than less. With CalMAN's Color Checker, across the 47 points, the Delta E was 1.6, with the majority falling under 1%, but heavily skewed by red, blue, cyan, and magenta escaping outside the "color triangle."

With respect to light output, with the contrast control at the default setting of 50 (or higher), the ISF White PLUGE pattern indicated clipping from 235d and above. The Dynamic Range pass confirmed the PX1-Pro was clipping all three color channels at exactly 100IRE. With contrast reduced to 30, boxes up to 251d were clearly visible. This accounts for the low (for a flat panel, but not necessarily a projector, especially a UST projector) calibrated contrast ratio of 562.1. With Full On/Full Off, the numbers look more impressive, but nobody wants to watch an image that is potentially missing a raft of information or has a stifled dynamic range. At 18.6 ft-L (or 64 nits) as measured from the screen, in a conducive viewing environment, the image lacked nothing from my review seat.

HDR10 peak light output was 24.037 ft-L in HDR Theater mode with the contrast control at the 50 default setting. Adjusting contrast higher, even to the maximum of 100 did not raise the measurement a 1/1000th of a percent.