Sharp XV-Z30000 Projector - Performance 3

Sharp XV-Z30000 Sharpness

Sharpness is excellent. We expect that from single chip DLP projectors, as they always have an advantage.  That advantage is that the other technologies converge three separate beams of light, and there's always a tiny bit of miscovergence. Single chip DLP's have one beam, not convergence issue.

I'm not sure this is the sharpest (no pun intended) optical glass around, I think the Mitubishi H7800D, for example, is a touch sharper, but the Z30000 is definitely very detailed, and at least a touch better than the 3LCD projectors in the price range (LCoS too).

Sharp XV-Z30000: Bottom Line Sharpness

Bottom line: There's nothing like a good single chip DLP projector for sharpness. Sharpness is a specific plus of the XV-Z30000 projector.

You'll especially appreciate the sharpness and detail more with digital content, than film, since film based content starts out a little soft.

For your consideration Lots of numbers, from Cramer, on CNBC.  Note, the broadcast is 1080i.  Pausing to shoot captures only one of the 2 interlaced frames, effectively lowering resolution.

Click Image to Enlarge

Light Leakage

Image Noise

No surprise, as this is a DLP projector. I do expect a touch more background image noise, than the other two technologies, as that seems to be pretty standard.  Perhaps this is due to the higher native contrast of DLP's compared to the other types.  I did not notice any unusual motion artifacts with slow pans.  Pretty clean I'd say. Keep in mind my attitude toward various image noise is this:  I spend most of my time watching content.

I spend relatively little time "watching the projector".  (Oh, I will on my favorite video clips for black levels and dark shadow detail, or a few fav scenes for skin tones).  Normal here, is that I put on a movie, settle in, watch 10 or 20 minutes, then maybe an hour on the next movie, with occasional distractions.  Mostly, though, when I'm viewing, I am not looking for flaws.  I'm instead watching content, essentially to see if any flaws are going to jump off the screen and clamor for my attention (or yours), such as bad handling of slow panning.  What I'm saying is, that this Sharp seems typically clean overall, devoid of anything that looks to be a real problem.

That said, some noise is added when using dynamic features, such as detail enhancement. There are always trade-offs.

Audible Noise

At full power, this DLP projector is, as expected, a bit noisy. However, it is actually pretty quiet compared to most DLP's and definitely compared to the full power mode of, say, the Epson 5010 and a couple of other very high brightness 3LCD projectors.  Those 3LCD projectors are all over the map. Some are extremely quiet...The Panasonic PT-AE7000, another, slightly less expensive competitor (3LCD), unlike the Epson, is quieter than the Sharp.

Kick the Sharp XV-Z30000 into eco-mode, and 'voila', the Sharp becomes almost silent.  Excellent.

From a claims standpoint, the Sharp XV-Z30000 claims only 22db, a beautiful spec.  I'd have to guess that this Sharp is between 30db and 32 at full power.  Sharp does not publish an audible noise spec for full power.

All considered, full power will likely be too noisy for those who are particularly bothered by audible noise, but that's a pretty small group of folks.  Hopefully you know who you are.