Mitsubishi HC7900DW Projector - Image Quality 4

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Art Feierman

Mitsubishi HC7900DW Projector: Performance, HDTV and Sports, including 3D

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I did my sports viewing using AV Memory 2. Basically my AV2 started out the same as Mike's calibrated AV1 our "best mode." I turned on CFI, and more significantly, Brilliant Color as well. With BC on, the result is a slightly cooler image - a touch thin on reds, but that's not likely to be anyone's issue while watching sports.

Brilliant Color pumps up the image - lots of pop, but also slightly over the top. You start running out of shades, such as you can detect in a closeup of a face. Of course, even with a perfect projector, you'd still have some of that coming from the satellite or cable signal (from their heavy image compression), even before it hits the projector. Not anything the average LCDTV viewer isn't used to, but we projector folks mostly are a bit more finicky. Thus, Brilliant Color is fine for sports, for sitcoms, anytime you really don't "need" your absolute best picture. I found it to be a good compromise - extra brightness in exchange for a modest degradation of the picture quality.

Mitsubishi HC7900DW Projector: Bottom Line on HDTV Sports, and also 3D HDTV content

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Only one complaint in 2D. I could have used more lumens. I've been spoiled. For sports I run about a 98 inch diagonal image. In my dedicated theater with all dark surfaces, and full lighting control, it's just dandy, but, should I turn my lights on and let in a little daylight, the HC7900DW runs out of lumens very quickly. In situations where I've got enough light for a sports gathering of friends, the Mitsubishi starts running out, when a Panasonic or Epson would still have plenty more brightness to compensate.

3D sports (off of DVR), was never quite bright enough for me filling that 98 inch diagonal. With the glasses on, there's almost nothing in reserve for handling any ambient light.

As long as you don't have too big a screen, and too much uncontrollable ambient light, the HC7900 is a very good projector for sports and other HDTV. At the 100" screen size it does just fine. Even though this projector can go up to about a 125" diagonal in 2D in a proper room, (thanks to its roughly 700 calibrated lumens), it really doesn't have the muscle to do that in 3D, or to handle a lot of ambient light for sports.

My Sunday fix of football was perfectly enjoyable with this Mitsubishi projector.

On the next page we consider brightness, sharpness and more.