Mitsubishi HC1500 DLP Home Theater Projector Review - General Performance-3

Posted on August 4, 2007 by Art Feierman

As a classic 720p DLP projector, screen door effect is not an issue unless you sit extremely close. Comfortable seating where pixels are only barely detectable in bright areas like credits at the end of movies, or perhaps stationary whiteish areas like clouds, would be less than 10 feet back with a 100" diagonal screen. I'm currently watching it filling my full 128" diagonal screen, with my eyeballs less than 12 feet back, and I have to really look to even detect pixels.

The image to the right shows the full screen. Click on it for a larger image of at a very small portion of the lower center of the guide.

For comparison purposes, you will find a similar enlargement in the Panasonic PT-AX100U review. See also the DTS logo in the section above, for a look at the HC1500's pixel structure.

Click Image to Enlarge

Mitsubishi HC1500 Projector Brightness

Wow time. Mitsubishi claims 1600 lumens - a hundred more than the HD1000U, and significantly brighter than the 1000 lumens of their HC3000. When we tested the HD1000U, it came up short of claims - just 1115 lumens in brightest modes, but the HC1500 turns out to be much brighter. Perhaps the HD1000U review unit I received was below average and this HC1500, above average in performance, but bottom line, the HC1500 measured about 600 lumens more than its predecessor. I double checked my measurements, just to be sure.

Although not the brightest mode, lets start with the Cinema mode, the best for movie watching.

Using Cinema's default settings - Color at 2, Brilliant Color at 3, etc., the HC1500 cranked out a most impressive 1218 lumens with the lamp on full power. Dropping into low power (eco-mode as many call it), lumens decreased to 964, a drop of almost 21%. That 21% difference should be consistant regardless of which Picture mode you are using. Even in low power, that makes the HC1500 very bright. My own JVC is one of the brightest 1080p projectors and only puts out about 800 lumens in full lamp mode, and many home theater projectors, in their best modes, only do 250-500 lumens.

The Video mode, was almost identical in brightness, with 1230 lumens with lamp on high.

Sports mode starts out at 1263 lumens, but by cranking up Brilliant Color, to 10, the lumens jump to a dazzling 1824 lumens, making this projector a serious contender with the Epson Cinema 400 and Panasonic PT-AX100U, for those needing lots of lumens. With Brilliant Color set to 10 you no longer have the most natural image, but that is true of the brightest mode of just about every home theater projector.