Mitsubishi HC5500 Home Theater Projector Review: General Performance-4

Posted on August 9, 2008 by Art Feierman

Mitsubishi HC5500 Projector: Measurements and Calibration

First here are the measurements "out of the box" for best mode, with lamp at full power. Those settings are Color Temp set to medium (that measured best), Gamma set to Auto


White (100 IRE)	6594K
Light gray (80 IRE)	6969K
Medium gray (50 IRE)	6849K
Low gray (30 IRE)	6731K

calibration, settings


Brightness	3
Contrast	3
Color Temp	Medium
Gamma	Cinema
Lamp mode	Standard (high)

movie watching


White (100 IRE)	6596K
Light gray (80 IRE)	6556K
Medium gray (50 IRE)	6488K
Low gray (30 IRE)	6433K

Now that is a nice, tight, almost dead on, set of numbers, with a very slight shift from cool (bluish) to warm (reddish), as one measures from white to dark gray.

Of note, down in the noise levels of our equipment - below 30 IRE where accuracy is iffy, the HC5500 shows a shift to stronger reds and blues and a drop in green. This is only going to be visible in very dark areas, mostly in dark scenes, and, in fairness, we see significant shifts in these dark gray/black areas on most projectors.

One nice thing about calibrating the HC5500 (and other Mitsubishi projectors), when adjusting the color temp, you can choose any of the built in settings as a starting point (ie. Medium, High Brightness, Warm...). For our purposes, we found in pre-calibration, that Medium was the closest, so when creating Color Temp User 1, we told the menus to use Medium as the starting point.

Contrast


Red	0
Green	0
blue	8

Brightness


red	6
green	0
blue	6

In setting the Gamma into its User 1, we set controls for ALL (so that R,G, and B, all have the same settings):


High	-3
Medium	-4
Low	-4

And of course, for movie watching, you'll definitely want the dynamic iris turned on! The iris is very fast, and rarely detectable even if looking for its action. Remembering back to the HC4900 which lacked a dynamic iris, and had very mediocre black level performance, the addition of the dynamic iris is the primary improvement in this projector, so take advantage of it!