Vivitek H5080 - Performance
7/7/2010 - Art Feierman
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Vivitek H5080 Brightness
The Vivitek H5080 is one of the brighter 1080p home theater projectors out there. Immediately below are the measured lumens of each of the preset modes, (and also the color temperature they produced at 100 IRE) (white)
Vivitek H5080 Projector - Uncalibrated:
Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE (mid zoom):
Movie= 1222 @ 7134
Bright= 1391 @ 8910
Normal= 1226 @ 7118
User 1= 1166 @ 7940
User 2= 1322 @ 9716
User 3= 1169 @ 7949
After doing our calibration of "best mode" we measured User 1218 lumens.That's about as bright a "best mode" we've seen, other than the recent Runco 3 chip DLP projector, recently reviewed.
In "brightest mode", (Bright) post calibration, there was only a modest improvement. The Vivitek measured 1307 lumens. That's a loss of about 80 lumens from the default, but the color improves significantly, though still not as good as "best mode".
The Effect of zoom lens positioning on brightness:
The lens positioning has virtually no effect. From wide angle to telephoto, the drop was only 1% of brightness, and within the margin of error!
Zoom out: 1383
Mid-zoom: 1391
Zoom in: 1378
The Effect of low lamp (eco) mode on brightness:
Low lamp power for Bright mode: 1090 lumens
High lamp power for Bright mode: 1391 lumens
That works out to a drop of almost 22%, which is pretty typical.
Brightest Mode:
There are times when you need (or want) every last lumen. For this purpose, we look at the brightest modes offered, and do a "quick - calibration" That calibration isn't designed for best color. Brightest modes are often very poor in color. Our goal in "calibrating" that mode, it so make the color respectable, not exceptional, while compromising brightness as little as possible. With most projectors, you could start with a very bright mode, calibrate it for the absolute best color, etc, but when you get it, and measure, it's now no longer brighter than "best mode", in which case, why bother.
So, we want bright and good color. Whether that's for watching sports with some lights on or some daylight coming in, or just a good amount of brightness while watching your favorite sitcom, some high quality HDTV content, news, or your favorite vampire show, doesn't really matter.
The Vivitek H5080 does extremely well. With our "quick-cal" the H5080 measured in at 1307 lumens, as previously noted. So, your choices when you need bright, is go with the default, which is very cool - blue, in color temp, go the middle route with improved grayscale balance, for a small drop in lumens, or not even bother worrying about it. That would be to just go with "best mode" which isn't that much less bright than the other two choices.
The Vivitek H5080, definitely has the lumens to fill larger screens. While you don't get a big extra boost in lumens, when switching to "brightest mode", it still is a lot brighter than most.
Sharpness
The Vivitek H5080 is a classic, single chip DLP projector, and as expected, produces a very sharp image. In reality, even the 0 setting (lowest) for sharpness, is probably a little too high, as there is a touch of oversharpening appearing. Still, it's relatively slight.
For your consideration, our usual close up images
Top left: Vivitek H5080, Top Left Center - HD8600, Top Right Center - JVC RS-25, Top right - Mitsubishi HC7000
2nd row left: Epson Home Cinema 6500UB, left center: Panasonic PT-AE3000, right center: Optoma HD8000, right: InFocus IN83
Note, starting with this review, now that my DTS test disc died, for this sharpness demo, we will be using a closeup of the PS3 system screen, showing the Video icon
Below: Close up of a computer monitor, from Space Cowboys (Blu-ray), left to right: Vivitek H5080, DLA-RS25, Epson Home Cinema 8500UB, and BenQ W20000. The H5080 holds its own against most, but not a few of the sharpest DLP projectors.
Vivitek H5080: Bottom Line Sharpness
Very sharp! DLP's tend to be. The H5080's image is about as crisp looking as they come. As always, of course, you can't get perfect sharpness from center to edge, but the H5080 has minimal sharpness roll off, nothing noticeable during normal viewing. This projector is enough sharper than most LCD and LCoS projectors to make owners of such projectors at least a little jealous (and that includes me, with my LCoS JVC RS20).
Light Leakage
No issues to report. Very little light detectable anywhere but out the back vent, and even that is minimal. There's even less out the side intakes.
Vivitek H5080 Image Noise
For reasons I've never understood, it seems like DLP projectors have slightly more visible image noise, than other designs. That said, like the Optoma, the Vivitek H5080 seems as good as any of the DLP's. I'm not sure if they are using the same circuitry, but there was nothing of overt interest to report with either. There's still more noise, say than my JVC, but I have no problem with the image noise levels I see, and that's without using the Noise reduction control.
Vivitek H5080 Audible Noise
Vivitek says 28db audible noise in low power, and 33db in high. Like the Optoma, it's not a quiet projector. Really quiet ones are in the low 20 db range at full power. Overall, the Vivitek is a bit noisy, as is the tendency of most DLP projectors.