InFocus SP8602 Projector Calibration and Settings
The InFocus SP8602 home theater projector lacks the full CMS - color management system - found on the more expensive JVC's. This means that you can only calibrate it "so far". That happens to be plenty far, however, as we obtained a rather great looking image with fine skin tones, with a standard grayscale calibration.
3/28/2010 - Art Feierman
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The Video mode is the best mode starting point. Since only User and the two ISF (Day and Night) presets offer access to all the adjustments, we ended up putting our best mode in User.
InFocus SP8602 Color Temperature
As you can see from our color temperature sampling below, the InFocus projector starts out just a little cool, with a touch more blue and a touch too little red. Still, it's pretty close to where it should be.
These are the measurements, taken "right out of the box."
Color Temp over IRE range:
Video Mode:
30 IRE - 6877K
50 IRE - 6887K
80 IRE - 6899K
100 IRE – 6872K
For your convenience, these were the starting lumens and color temp of white (100 IRE) for each of the different modes. .
Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE:
Presentation – 1038 @ 7176
Video – 864 @ 6872
Bright – 1119 @ 7189
Whiteboard – 1068 @ 6852
Blackboard – 1115 @ 7188
Beige Wall – 902 @ 10271
InFocus SP8602 Post Calibration Grayscale
Here's a look at the results of Mike's calibration (saved to User):
Color Temp over IRE Range (Post calibration, User mode):
20 IRE 6516
30 IRE 6719
40 IRE 6613
50 IRE 6611
60 IRE 6631
70 IRE 6638
80 IRE 6581
90 IRE 6633
100 IRE 6478
That's really good looking numbers. Not the tightest grouping around 6500K as possible, but what's special, I think is that the InFocus stays right in balance in the darkest areas around 20 IRE and below, and equally on the money for white.
InFocus SP8602 Basic Settings
In addition to calibrating Red Green and Blue for a correct grayscale balance (6500K), there are a number of other settings that come into play. Typically Contrast and Brightness (white balance and black balance), need to be done first. Color saturation and gamma also need adjustment.
Our final settings (the default settings for Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Tint are all 0, in all modes). Mike made adjustments to these, and the Color Temp settings for each of the seven modes:
MODE |
Contrast(50) |
Brightness(50) |
Brilliant Color |
Color Temp |
Gamma |
Presentation |
50 |
51 |
(Bright) |
(Warm) |
(Video) |
Video |
50 |
50 |
(Normal) Bright |
(Warmest) |
(Film) |
Bright |
49 |
50 |
(Bright) |
(Bright) |
(CRT) |
Whiteboard |
50 |
50 |
(Bright) |
(Warmest) |
(Bright) |
Blackboard |
49 |
50 |
(Bright) |
(Bright) |
(CRT) |
Beige Wall |
49 |
52 |
(Bright) |
(Cool) |
(Video) |
NOTE: ISF Day and Night have the same default settings as Bright mode.
Iris on 100% for all.
Lamp on high setting for all.
Lens shift on full vertical offset
Zoom set at mid-point for all measurements
To get the very most out of the SP8602, a calibration is necessary. You can try our settings, but, we feel projectors in this price range should be individually calibrated.
InFocus Gamma settings:
Mike says Video has the highest gamma of the gamma modes (Film, CRT, Video...) It measured only 2.08 a little brighter in the mid brightness areas than the idea 2.2 The CRT setting is also interesting, but Mike didn't give me measurements of the other gammas.
I definitely would have liked to see more gamma choices. Better still the ability to customize gammas like the JVCs, Epsons and some others offer.
InFocus SP8602 RGB Settings
These are the adjustments we made to Red, Green and Blue for the grayscale balance.
Calibration:
User mode: Video gamma setting, Contrast at 49, Brightness at 51, Warmest color temp, Brilliant Color on Bright
Quick Cal of Bright mode: Uses all values from page 1
Defaults for Gain and Offset are 50.
User mode Quick Cal of Bright mode
Gain R = 51 R = 52
G = 50 G = 50
B = 49 B = 47
Offset R = 51 R = 50
G = 50 G = 50
B = 51 B = 50
Lumens at 100 IRE: 1059 1110
If you wish, you've got everything you need to copy our calibration efforts on your shiny new InFocus SP8602 projector.
Note that there is very little brightness difference between the two modes. Considering that our "Bright" mode is what we want when we need every last lumen, then try increasing the Contrast to 55-58. You will get some extra lumens. It will crush near whites a touch at that range, but not bad at all.
Keep in mind, there will be slight variations due to the lamp (and lamp color balance will change over time). We calibrated with the lamp with just a few hours on it, instead of waiting a couple hundred hours, which is generally considered more ideal. There will be a continuing very slight shift in color over the life of the lamp.
Bottom line: With either of these settings, this SP8602 projector puts a really impressive image up on the screen.