Mitsubishi HC6000 Home Theater Projector Review - General Performance

Posted on September 26, 2007 by Art Feierman

Check out how the Mitsubishi HC6000 fared in our comparison report.

Mitsubishi HC6000 Menus

This Mitsubishi HC6000 projector uses the same basic menu system as the older HC5000 and their entry level 1080p home theater projector, the HC4900.

Perhaps the biggest change to the menus, is the increase in size, making them easier to read. Due to "technical problems" the menu images shot of the HC6000, were lost. (It's too embarassing to explain.) As a result, these are the photos of the HC5000 projector.

The main menu has five options - Image, Installation, Feature, Signal, and Info.

The Image menu contains the key controls to adjust the image quality. Gamma mode lets you select between choices such as Cinema, Sports, Video, and Auto. You can also adjust the gamma manually for low medium and bright areas. Color Temp offers several different color temperatures - warm, medium, and cool. (In some other Mitsubishi home theater projectors, they actually listed temperatures, like 6500K, 7500K, etc., although our testing found that they weren't particularly accurate - thus, "Warm" is a safer label than 6500K.) Shown below the Image menu, is the Color Temp User menu, with separate controls for R, G, and B, for both Contrast and Brightness.

There are two User settings for Gamma, one for Color Temp, and those user settings, along with other settings like Brightness and Contrast can be saved in the AV Memory. There are three AV Memory save options as well.

Of course there is the usual Color saturation, Tint, and Sharpness, along with Brightness and Contrast adjustments on the Image Menu.

The Advanced menu gives you control of a number of items, but most notably, the Iris, with three different Auto Iris solutions, and Open (Iris wide open).
I played with the gamma controls (shown right) just a little, trying to see if I could bring a little more shadow detail out by lifting the Low values (and the medium just a notch). I had some success but, again did not play with it extensively.

Moving on, next comes the Installation menu.

Of particular note is the first item, which is lamp power - Standard or Low.

Mitsubishi HC6000 Menus slideshow

After that, there are Auto Power On and Off functions, allowing the projector to turn off automatically when not in use, ranging from 5 to 60 minutes. Also present are the usual settings for front or rear, ceiling or table positioning, and control of the 12 volt trigger for motorized screen control.

You can also Lock the Lens Shift setting.

The next major menu is the Feature menu, shown below.

That leaves two: The Signal menu which controls horizontal and vertical positioning, and Overscan control should a lower resolution image leave noise at the top or bottom of the screen.

Lastly is the Information menu, not shown, but identifies the resolution of the current source signal, and also has the lamp timer to show you how many hours are on the lamp.

Enough of the menus, already!

HC6000 User Memory Settings

The HC6000 projector offers several layers of user menus. There are user settings for both gamma and color temp. In addition there are three full user saved settings, which capture everything.