Mitsubishi HC7800D Projector – Performance

Posted on January 30, 2012 By Art Feierman

This section covers the HC7800‘s brightness (including many measurements on color temperature), sharpness, and image noise. Also covered on this page, are other physical attributes including light leakage and audible noise for the HC7800D projector

Mitsubishi HC7800D Brightness

I’ll start off by pointing out that the Mitsubishi HC7800D is very typical in terms of “best mode” brightness when compared to other projectors in its price range. On the other hand, it doesn’t do as well, when you need the brightest image, and still expect respectable color.

Let’s focus on the actuals, and how that might work for you.

Lumen Output and Color Temp for various Picture modes at 100 IRE:


Cinema	496 @ 7291
Video	496 @ 6928
3D	866 @ 7587
A/V Memory 1, 2 or 3	670 @ 6585

Those numbers are all “right out of the box”, without any adjustments.

Post Calibration: User "best" mode (placed in User AV Memory 1) = 668 lumens

That’s healthy, for a calibrated projector. It bests the competing Epson slightly, easily “dusts” the PT-AE7000 from Panasonic, the two best selling projectors in the price range. On the other hand, it comes up a bit short of some of the LCoS, and a couple of other DLP projectors. The JVC, Sony, and Optoma competition are all brighter, but none reaches 900 lumens calibrated.

HC7800D Brightest Mode:

HC7800D: Color Temp = High Brightness: 1299 lumens

Brightest USABLE Mode of the HC7800D: 816 lumens

Sorry folks – the High Bright mode of the HC7800 offers no real way to improve its color which is extremely green. I mean approaching the green caste in The Matrix (if you recall).

Watching the sails of the ship, the Dawn Treader in the 3rd Narnia movie, they looked mostly green-yellow. That’s not good, since they are supposed to be more of a soft magenta. Wow, I mean terrible color. If you need those 1299 lumens, ok, but you won’t be happy.

Effect of zoom on lumen output (A/V Memory mode):


Zoom out	678 lumens
Mid zoom	670 lumens
Zoom in	612 lumens

Impressive, the projector loses relatively few lumens going from wide angle (closest to the screen) to telephoto. Many of other 1.5:1 and 1.6:1 zoom lenses drop off more brightness. A projector with a 2:1 zoom can lose up to about 40% brightness.

All considered, the small drop means “good glass”. Nicely done.