Home Theater Projector Comparison Report - Best in Class Awards for 2011
08/19/2011 -Art Feierman
 |
1080p Home Theater Projectors Our Award Winners:
Entry Level Projectors: Under $2000 (street price)
Medium priced projectors: $2000 - $3500 (street price)
Higher End Projectors: $3500 - $10,000 (street price)
Outstanding Product of the Year
Class: Premium Priced 1080p Home Theater Projectors: $3500 - $10,000
3D is a factor in our awards, but since I did not feel any of these projectors offered enough 3D brightness to be a long term 3D solution, 3D is not critical. At this point, I would most likely say, buy the best of these purely as a 2D projector and save a couple thousand dollars for one of the next gen low cost 3D projectors coming in starting at $1500. Why not. Of course there are other solutions, such as my own. I've got two screens. One's a high gain for 3D, the other a Studiotek 130, a classic white surface.
I want to say that picking the winners in this class has been a real headache. I must have changed my mind 3 times. That is to say, Each of these winners is really equally worthy, they are just different enough to be best for different folks.
Best In Class Award: Mitsubishi HC9000D
It really was between the this Mitsubishi HC9000D and the Sony, for the top honor in this class. More on that later.
The HC9000D is pretty elegant. I don't care much about physical appearance, but have to admit the HC9000D looks good, with nice sculpted lines.
I'm really impressed. The HC9000D has the same LCoS panels as the Sony VPL-VW90ES, in a much less expensive package. It also measures just slightly brighter.
I was equally impressed with the black levels. No, they weren't up to the JVC DLA-RS60, which at $11,995 is twice the price of the HC9000D which has a MAP of $5995. But the HC9000D has some first class blacks performance too.
Overall, color looked good, but skin tones never were quite as good as the Sony or the JVC. Mike explains it as a large color gamut. Bottom line, the individual colors themselves are a bit oversaturated. That can give perfectionists adjusting color saturation down to help. Ultimately, we're quibbling here. I thorougly enjoyed the HC9000D's picture.
And it had some special things going for it as well.
Black levels were some of the best, although the iris action is very slow in dropping down to very dark scenes. Overall, only the JVC was really better, in this regard.
Mitsubishi's implementation of CFI turns out to be one of those special things. It is so slight in low mode that I've guessed wrong a couple of times. I could actually engage it on low get a touch of motion smoothing, noticeable on some pans, and not have the movie turn into a soap opera. I don't think I've seen a better CFI. I watched more movies with it on, than on any other projector, that's for sure. The expensive Runco LS10D may be the equal, but, if your only competition for a comparable CFI is in a projector over four times the price, you are doing pretty good!
What lifted the HC9000D into the Winner's circle, over the Sony, ultimately comes down to the price. At the same price, you could easily pick either one over the other, for reasons like CFI and best skin tones. But with the HC9000D intended to sell for up to $4000 less... Winner!
Best In Class Award, Runner-Up: Sony VPL-VW90ES
The Sony VPL-VW90ES, once calibrated, produces a truly excellent picture. Skin tones are excellent, and black levels are extremely good. The Sony is priced at the top of our range, and I'd say, also one of the two most flawless looking pictures overall in the $3500 to $10,000 range in this year's class.
The Sony is loaded in features, it's got full power lens controls, dynamic iris, CFI, and it offers 3D as well.
In terms of brightness, the Sony is very impressively bright in "best" mode, approximately 750 lumens after calibration. That's excellent and it allows this Sony to tackle some really large screens - in 2D.
The Sony, like the others, is still lacking in power, though, for 3D on a typical screen. After all, the equivalent of less than 25% of the light gets to your eyes. The Sony does get up to 1000 lumens at maximum, but that's still a touch thin for 3D.
The Sony VPL-VW90ES iris is smooth in dynamic mode, or it can be used manually, which is discussed in the review.
Like the Mitsubishi and the Runco LS-5, the Sony offers a great picture to view. The Sony has one other competitor, but it's more expensive, outside this class. That's the JVC RS60, which will best the Sony on blacks, and perhaps a touch on sharpness, but the Sony definitely has a lot more lumens behind it. If the Sony can use a significant boost in lumens for 3D, then the JVC needs at least a doubling.
In past years I prefered the JVC over the equivalent Sony, in part for the blacks, but in a large part for the extra lumens. Interesting that now the Sony is the brighter.
It's hard not to thoroughly enjoy watching the Sony. There really isn't anything to complain about. This projector generally seems to lack any real flaw, other than one strange anomaly, which was a bit of jumpiness when there's a horiztontal pan at one particular scene. I only saw it happen on the movie Red, but two other projectors behaved much better. Since I didn't spot it with other panning, I wrote that off as minor.
The Sony VPL-VW90ES is a first class projector. It's very well balanced overall, and has great picture quality. Great for enthusiasts, good for purists. As for the "average consumer" with the bucks, the VW90ES should do everything they might demand.
As hinted at earlier, most likely the 90ES would have received the top award, if it wasn't so much more expensive than the Mitsubishi.
Best In Class - Runner-up: Runco LS-5
This is the surprise award of the year. The LS-5 the result of what happens to the old Planar PD8150, after, I presume, Runco engineers got their hands on the design. Planar, a relatively new company in the industry, launched their own line maybe 4 years ago, but of note, purchased Runco a couple of years ago.
We always liked the Planar PD8150, so we expected an updated version with the Runco name on it to be a very serious product. It is. Still, going into the report, and the challenges of selecting projectors in this class, this year, even I'm surprised it receives this award. Not because it doesn't deserve it, for what it is, and what it does, but mostly because it is based on a projector that's already a few years old.
That said, the LS5 is a single chip DLP projector with excellent optics it would seem, as the image is very sharp. As is typical of most DLP's, you get plenty of "best mode" brightness - above average with about 650 lumens, but "brightest mode", is still below our 1000 lumen average, at 792 lumens. That puts it about in the middle of the pack for both specs, in this price range, with several being 20-25% brighter, and others less bright.
Black level performance is dependent on a smooth dynamic iris, which produces excellent blacks, with almost always, unnoticeable action.
Colors are everything that gave DLP projectors their rep for picture quality. They are rich, well saturated without being over the top. Dark scenes are especially stunning. Skin tones are beautiful. I'm not sure any projector I've seen this year can do better on skin tones. The projector, mostly, just isn't there. That is, like any good projector should be, it does its job, without being noticeable. It's not overly noisy, the image processing is clean, the iris smooth.
Fire up the Runco LS-5, settle back and enjoy the movie, the sports, the American Idol, Ice-Truckers, CSI:SVU, or whatever your poison. The Runco just puts it up there for you to enjoy.
There's a trade-off, though, with local authorized dealer only projectors in that they do sell for more than the online competition. To get the Runco into the sweet spot of the premium market (under $10K), though, it isn't as feature laden as some of the competition.
Most notably the LS-5 lacks CFI - smooth motion, which I do like for sports. Still, my own older JVC RS20 lacks CFI, and I get by, just fine without the feature. It also doesn't offer 3D, even as its competition that does have 3D, is underpowered when doing 3D.
If the dollars make sense, and you are looking for a great home theater projector, in a great home theater, and are looking for a dealer to make all that happen for you, then the Runco LS-5 certainly is the type of projector (with support) to slide into your finished home theater.
Finally. Why the award? The Runco LS-5 simply didn't impress me, when I was watching it. It really wasn't until I had been watching content on it for probably 40 hours, that I realized...
...that I wasn't watching it, watching the LS-5. What finally dawned on me, is I kept forgetting I was reviewing a projector. It was just too easy to slip into, and be immersed by the movies and content I was watching, with the Runco, mostly being invisible, that is, nothing jumping out like: "noticeable iris action" "sunburned skin tones" "soft in the corners" "noisy", "yellowish caste fo skin tones in shadow", or other things that "wake me up" and remind me that I'm reviewing a projector.
And that folks is what a projector should be: Invisible. As one coming from being a a hard core audiophile, it's the same philosophy, find the system that doesn't add, subtract, change, or ... find the system that just isn't there - that doesn't "color" the results. The same is as true for video as it is for audio. This Runco goes a long way to accomplishing that and does so for not much more than half the price of the JVC RS60 (not considered in this price range), another projector that's also very good at not being there.
That concludes the awards for the $3500-$10,000 price class.
That leaves one more award, however this is an award picked most years, that spans all the projectors and related products we review.
Click for Projector Reviews' Outstanding Product of the Year!
The Runco LS-10d 3 chip DLP projector with outboard processor