Sharp XG-P560W Special Features

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Art Feierman

Dual Lamp System

The Sharp XG-P560W utilizes two 280 watt lamps to provide not only increased brightness when used together, but also reliability for completing a presentation without interruption, should one of the lamps fail. Using only one lamp will reduce the lumen output by 50%, but that still gives you 2500 +/- lumens, enough for many full-time applications as well as short term use. The lamps are arranged side-by-side under a single cover for easy replacement. Like most dual lamp system projectors, the Sharp XG-P560W allows the user a choice of running one lamp or two. If set for two lamps, and one fails, it will continue to run on the other lamp.

3-Chip DLP

Due to cost considerations, most DLP projectors use a single DLP chip with a light source projecting through a spinning color wheel to achieve different colors during projection. While this approach works well in many applications, the color wheel typically does not provide the depth and accuracy of color found in projectors that use 3 separate chips, each projecting a primary color of red, green and blue (as found in most LCD and LCoS projectors). Use of a color wheel can also result in artifacts known as the “rainbow effect”. The viewer will often see “rainbows” when bright objects are displayed on a dark background or when the viewer’s eyes pan across an image. With some people, this effect can cause headaches and eye fatigue. It should be noted that many current DLP models have minimized this effect to a great degree, but use of a 3-chip design eliminates it.

As you will see in the discussion of the XG-P560W’s picture quality, its implementation of the 3-chip DLP design provides excellent color accuracy and depth.

The downside to any 3-chip design however is one of convergence, since the three chips have to perfectly aligned to overlay each other. Misconvergence will reduce image sharpness (no more than slightly) and can cause color fringing of individual pixels. Keep in mind that the large majority of projectors in use are three chip designs, whether the projectors use DLP, LCD or LCoS chips/panels.

Power Zoom, Focus and Lens Shift

While many projectors offer lens shift for ease of installation and almost all offer some range of zoom and focus, few provide power adjustment of these features directly from the remote. As the XG-P560W has this capability, it allows the user to stand right near the screen while setting up the projector. This makes it particularly simple to focus the projector to provide the sharpest possible image. Also, since the XG-P560W is designed for permanent installation, having power zoom and lens shift allows for more flexibility in mounting.

Interchangeable Lenses

For the ultimate customizability (yes, it is real word) of installation, one can choose the XG-P560W-N (the N stands for “No Lens”). Sharp offers a huge selection of seven lenses to choose from, depending on your installation requirements. The standard lens (used in this review) has a throw ratio that ranges from 1.8 to 2.25 (this means the projector can be placed at a distance from the screen that equals 1.8 to 2.25 times the screen width). The standard lens can project an image as small as 60” diagonal (at 7.9’ away) or as large as 280” diagonal (at 45’ away). There are four other zoom lens: a wide zoom lens with a throw ratio of 1.5 to 1.8 and three telephoto zoom lens with throw ratios of 2.25 to 3.0, 3.0 to 4.5 and 4.5 to 7.0. By choosing the appropriate lens, the projector can display a 100” diagonal image at distances ranging from as little as 10’-9” or as far as 50’-1”.

There are also two wide lens (fixed at throw ratios of 0.8 and 1.2) available that are typically used for rear projection applications.