Projector Reviews

Summary
• The Sanyo offers good resolution in HDMI, but poor component resolution at 1080i and 720p, suggesting that HDMI is the input to use for the best quality performance.

• The set's color performance was good out of the box in the Default color temperature setting (Pure Cinema), but improved after calibration. The color space showed oversaturation in both red and green, but while this is undesirable it is common to many digital displays and does not greatly affect the subjective color quality.

• The peak contrast was in the Normal iris setting, and the light output in the settings that produced the best image was average for this class of projector.

Details
Settings and Comments
Keep in mind that unit-to-unit sample variations, the viewing environment, and the source might render the settings I used for the testing, shown below, less than optimum on some samples. We strongly recommend that you confirm the results on your sample by using one of the many display setup DVDs that are available. This will help you to set up the user video controls correctly, and get as close as possible to an optimum picture short of a full calibration. The latter is best left to a competent and properly equipped technician, including those trained and certified by the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF).

The settings shown may differ somewhat from those used by David Vaughn in his evaluation, as he did not have access to our Photo Research PR-650 spectroradiometer or Minolta LS-100 light meter.

I began in the Pure Cinema Image Mode with the following settings:

Brightness: -8
Contrast: +8
Sharpness: 0
Lamp control: A1
Gamma: -1
Iris: Normal
Iris range: -30
Auto black, Contrast Enhance, and Dynamic Gamma: Off
Color temp: Default
Color list: Native

Post calibration, the Color Temperature settings were Red: +3, Green: -2, and Blue: 0.

Further post calibration tests showed that a +8 setting of the Contrast control did not produce the best response of the projector above 100IRE. Backing this off to +4 improved the above 100IRE clipping performance in both white and green.

Video Processing
Upconversion from 480i to 1080p, based on the test patterns from the HQV Benchmark test disc, was generally good to excellent on the jaggies tests and waving flag. It grabbed 3/2 pulldown quickly in the Film mode, and performed well on both the 3:2 and 2:2 cadence tests. Oddly, it did as well on the latter in Film mode as in any of the other progressive options.

A moving video scroll over a film background was excellent, with one significant exception. The leading edge of the scroll lettering was clearly red, suggesting that the blue and green color channels were lagging. I also noticed this on the rotating bar in the first jaggies test, where it was more pronounced in the outer third of the bar than the inner two-thirds—indicating that the problem was speed dependent. Sanyo needs to look into this, as I have not seen this type of artifact on any other projector. On my limited viewing of normal program material on this projector, however, I did not see it.

The projector's 1080i-to-1080p upconversion was excellent on both film and video, including proper recognition of 3/2 pulldown (in Film mode) and excellent performance on the jaggies tests.

Resolution
The HDMI luma (B&W) response at the maximum 37.1MHz (luma) burst frequency of my AccuPel test pattern generator ranged from very good to excellent in both 1080i and 720p. Some roll off was visible in the luma response at this frequency, and the burst was slightly tinted, but the line structure was clean and well defined. The chroma response was a different story, as the highest chroma burst at 1080i and 720p showed no response at all. The responses were good at the less challenging limits for both 480i and 480p.

In component, the 1080i and 720p results at the maximum burst frequencies were noticeably worse than in HDMI, with significant rolloff and some bizarre color tints and banding in both at the highest burst frequency. This problem was also visible in 1080i even at the second to the highest burst (18.5MHz for luma). The standard definition 480i/480p results, however, were still good. Use this projector through its in HDMI inputs, if possible.

The 1080p luma and chroma multiburst patterns on the Spears and Munsil test disc showed very good to excellent performance out to the maximum burst frequency in HDMI, though also with a slight tint on the luma patterns.

Color
In the Before settings (see above), the Sanyo's pre-calibration color temperature was respectable, though a little on the high side at low brightness levels (Fig.1). Calibration brought this closer (Fig.2), but the post-calibration advantage becomes clearer when you compare the results of the before and after color tracking (Figs. 3 and 4). Ideally, red, green, and blue should all overlap in a single horizontal line at the center of this chart.

Fig.1

Fig.2

Fig.3

Fig.4

The primary color points (Fig.5) show the oversaturation in red and, in particular, green that is common to many modern video displays. The projector's subjective color, post calibration, was generally very good, but flesh tones were a little too ruddy and suntanned. Adjustments to the Color Management system combined with tweaking the Color and Tint controls helped correct for this, but did not completely eliminate the problem.

Fig.5

Contrast and Overscan
In the Normal iris setting, Iris range at -30, I measured a peak contrast ratio of 3138:1 (12.55 foot-Lamberts peak full-field white, 0.004fL video black. Interesingly, however, changing the Iris range to zero did not affect the black level reading at all but increased the peak full-field white output to 14.1 for a peak contrast reading of 3503:1

Overscan in both HDMI was zero across the board, and only increased to 1.5% in component 480i/p at the left and right sides of the image.—Thomas J. Norton