Projector Reviews

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio—2174:1; ANSI Contrast Ratio—232:1

Measured Resolution with the Leader LT-446:
480: 480 (per picture height)
720p/1080i: Out to the limits of the 1,280-by-720 LCD panels

DC Restoration (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Color Decoder (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Measured Color Points:
Red Color Point: x=0.650, y=0.343
Green Color Point: x= 0.298, y= 0.656
Blue Color Point: x= 0.149, y= 0.043

The left chart shows the PT-AE900U's gray scale relative to its color temperature at various levels of intensity, or brightness (20 IRE is dark gray; 100 IRE is bright white). The gray scale as set by the factory, in the 0 color-temperature mode and the Cinema1 picture mode, measures slightly cool with dark images and fairly close to accurate with brighter images. After making adjustments using the Photo Research PR-650, the gray scale measures within 183 Kelvin of D6500, the accurate color temperature, across the entire range. The lowest window was too dark to measure, but was visibly reddish-purple.

The right chart shows the gray scale (or color temperature) relative to the color points of the display's red, green, and blue liquid crystal panels. These are off to those specified by SMPTE. Red is slightly oversaturated and slightly reddish-orange. Blue is slightly bluish-purple. Green is fairly oversaturated.

After calibration, and using a full-field 100-IRE white (17.39 foot-lamberts) and a full-field 0-IRE black (0.008 ft-L), the contrast ratio was 2174:1. Using a 16-box checkerboard pattern (ANSI contrast), the contrast ratio was 232:1. The best contrast ratio was achieved with the Dynamic Iris on and the lamp set to high. This was also the brightest and the mode with the best black level (on an 87-inch-wide, 1.0-gain Da-Lite Da-Mat screen).—GM