Mitsubishi HD4000 Widescreen Projector Review - Image Quality
The Mitsubishi HD4000 Widescreen DLP Projector is interesting. It is suitable as a business projector, and will work for many, as bright home theater projector.
Projector Brightness
The HD4000 claims 2000 lumens, in brightest mode. As few projectors, when tested, come close, at all, to meeting their lumens claims, it was no surprise that the HD4000 came up short.
In it's brightest mode, the HD4000 produced 1341 lumens, off about 30% from claim (most projectors seem to come in between 20 and 30% below), a little dissapointing. The setting that gets you this, is either Auto, or Sports, with the color temp setting set to High Brightness and the lamp in full power mode.
Switching to Video/High Brightness, or Cinema/High Brightness, output remained impressive, dropping only to 1228 lumens. Despite leaving the Color Temp setting to High brightness, instead of 6500K which is the optimum temperature for movies, the color temperature reading was excellent, with the Cinema combo at an almost perfect 6538K, the video/high brightness, was also very good with a color temperature of 6751K.
Dropping out of High Brightness mode makes a rather significant difference, for example, in the Cinema mode, lumens drop from 1228 to 878 lumens.
The bottom line on brightness, is that for presentation purposes, the almost 1400 lumens might be a little below typical for a 2000 lumen projector. Keep in mind that a 10-15% drop in lumens is barely detectable. What is more important, is what the HD4000 is capable of as a business projector. So, in full power mode, it should have no trouble with fully lit conference rooms (full florescents) on 5 and 6 foot screens and a bit larger. It should be able to handle audiences of up to 150, on screens of 10-15 feet diagonal with low to moderate lighting, as is typical in a hotel ballroom presentation. Few people today need more than the typical 2000 lumen projector, in fact 2000 lumens for years (until perhaps 3 years ago) was the standard for typical rental and staging projectors - big 15 - 40 pound beasts that people would rent at business hotels for large meetings, and luncheons. Of course the more power the merrier, but the HD4000 has more than ample brightness for vast majority of presenters.
Because this projector is a widescreen, it should also become popular in other venues, including church sanctuaries, where widescreen has a big advantage, especially in presenting announcements, but definitely hymnals for the congregation to follow along with. The HD4000 should do well in smaller church santuaries and multi-purpose rooms as well as in schools, and their multi-purpose rooms.
Color Accuracy
I've already touched on the color balance (grayscale color temperatures), above, but I need to address a specific issue that affects most DLP projectors. For many years, DLP projectors have not been doing a good job of reproducing bright reds and yellows, especially in presentations.
Quicktip: True, this is not a problem with a good DLP home theater projector, but that's because they are often similar to much brighter rated business projectors, but knock down their brightness in best modes for home theater, to anywhere from 300 to 500 lumens. By decreasing the brightness, they can make sure of better reds and yellows.
What was most impressive with the HD4000, is how well it handled those bright reds and yellows, even in its very brightest mode. As one of the four DLP projectors reviewed as part of my six projector review, the Mitsubishi definitely had the best reds and yellows (reds very good, yellows pretty good).
The Mitsubishi projector still couldn't match the reds or yellows of the two LCD projectors, the Panasonic LB60NTU, or even the entry level Epson S4, but comes pretty close. I seriously doubt any business presenter would have any problem with the color accuracy. (The possible exceptions - photography, and also graphic design, and related, where dead on color is sometimes required.
You can see here two images - our Pie Chart , and a four color bar that is part of my text analysis spreadsheet.
I should note, that the primary difference between the Cinema mode and Video mode, is the gamma of the image, rather than the very slight shift in color accuracy.
I will discuss color further, in my comments about using the HD4000 in the home.
