Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU 1080p Projector Review: Image Quality

Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU
Image Quality
General Performance
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons

Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU: Image Quality Sections

Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU Projectors: Color Accuracy
PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU Resolution and Compression Technology
PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU Sharpness
PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU: Bottom Line Image Quality

Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU Portable Projectors: Color Accuracy

Like most 3LCD projectors the Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU offer very good color accuracy. Yellows and reds (most difficult, however, for DLP projectors at full power), look just fine. The good color you see in the color bars carries through when presenting all kinds of graphics, colored text, photos and videos.

As with almost all projectors, there are multiple preset color modes on these Panasonic projectors. Some are more color accurate than others, but in the case of the PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU, all are at least pretty good. Immediately below are the same image shot with three different color modes:

The first is dynamic mode, followed by natural, and standard modes. In the General Performance page, I will report the difference in brightness. All three images were shot with the same exposure, so as you can see, there isn't a large difference in brightness, but, if you look close, you can see that there are definite differences, when you compare the same object (such as the Picture Mode box), in each photo. (All three images are intentially slightly underexposed to make comparison easier.)

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Better still, with the images below, you can compare skin tones from photographs.

From left to right: Dynamic, Natural, Standard:

Bottom line: The Panasonic provides very good color for both standard presentation type materials, or even photos and videos. With multiple modes you can choose the mode that best meets your color needs relative to brightness.

Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU Projectors: Resolution and Compression Technology

As would be expected, these Panasonic projectors do an excellent job when fed source material with the same resoluton as their native XGA resolution (1024x768).

In addition, the Panasonic successfully locked onto, and did a good job of, displaying higher resolution sources, up to UXGA (1600x1200). Of course, smaller type sizes such as 8 point type degrade noticeably, due to compression technology, to make all the data fit. Consider though, if you are working with UXGA, 8 point type is tiny - small enough that people watching, even in the front of the room, would find type that small, too small to read, even if perfect.

Click on the image immediately below, for a much larger version.

In the image above, the source was set for SXGA+ (1400x1050), basically one resolution higher than standard XGA. As you can see in the larger version, only minor image degradation is visible on smaller type. The Panasonic projector does really well, when compressing higher resolution source information. I would say a bit better than most competing projectors.

Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU Projectors: Sharpness

Again, you can look at the enlarged version of the image above. Sharpness is very good. There is no noticeable drop in sharpness in the corners, and overall, the image is very crisp looking. Once again, these Panasonic projectors performed extremely well.

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Overall Picture Quality: Bottom Line

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU are exceptional when it comes to image quality, but I can say that overall, they are very good. At least as good as the typical 3LCD projector, and actually a little better than most of them. Thanks to good color, these portable projectors are significantly better, overall, than the vast majority of DLP portable projectors I have looked at. True, some of those DLP's can (at best), match the color handling of these Panasonic projectors, but to do so, in almost every case, you have to select a color mode with barely (or less) than half the brightness of those projectors in their brightest modes. With the Panasonic projectors, you can have very good to excellent color, even in the brightest modes.

Panasonic PT-LB75U and PT-LB75NTU
Image Quality
General Performance
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons