A mix of additional images to show off the Mitsubishi HC4000:
From the DVE-HD test disc:
And here are a few assorted, additional images, some of which can be found on other recent reviews:
Mitsubishi HC4000 Projector: Performance, HDTV and Sports
The Mitsubishi HC4000, at its brightest - a combination of Sports gamma, and High Brightness color temp, measured 1151 lumens on this pre-production projector. That said, color accuracy is compromised for lumen output. For a better compromise, with some very respectable color, use the Video, Auto, or Cinema gamma, and Color Temp on Medium to still get over 950 lumens. Still, for a brightest mode, the color is respectable, better than many others in their brightest mode. Average brightness for 1080p projectors falls right about there - around 1000 lumens, so, for sports viewing, and dealing with ambient light, the HC4000 projector is just on the high side of average brightness.
Actually, for that matter, just about every combination of this projector except when selecting Cool or Warm color temperatures, yields upward of 900 lumens (with Brilliant Color on), and we can't think of a normal use for the Cool (way too cool) or Warm (way too warm) settings.
In other words, you get average to slightly brighter than average output for your sports and general HDTV, TV viewing with some ambient light present. Very nice in a low cost projector. That said, a couple of the even lower cost DLP projectors are brighter, notably the Vivitek H1080FD, and the lower cost BenQ W1000 - the BenQ for example measured just over 2100 lumens at brightest, and it too does pretty decent color in its brightest mode. One reason the BenQ and Vivitek can be a good chunk brighter is that they use slower color wheels, which means if you are at all rainbow sensitive, you will see rainbows, on the appropriate scenes (typically dark scenes with fast moving white moving across the dark, or the other way around). In other words, if sports and hi-def TV content are your thing, and you don't care about black levels etc., and you aren't rainbow sensitive. I should note, that I occasionally notice rainbows on the HC4000 projector - it's not as good as some more expensive projectors with the fastest color wheels, but the HC4000 is probably as good, in terms of minimizing rainbows, as any projector under $5000, just two years ago... Of course if you are really rainbow sensitive, you might look buying a 3LCD or LCoS projector.
A few HDTV and Sports images coming (they have been taken, but I'm already on the road to CEDIA. I will try to get them up, quickly.
