Mitsubishi HC8000D Projector - Image Quality

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Art Feierman

Mitsubishi HC8000D Out of the Box Picture Quality

My first reaction was that right out of the box, skin tones were a bit too red, especially on not brightly lit scenes. Mike, when calibrating it, also immediately commented on it, describing faces as looking a little sunburned. Fortunately, easy to fix!

For brightest usable mode, Game or 3D, look pretty good, if a touch cool, yet that sunburn seems to remain in faces, but to a lesser extent.

Before I go on, the usual warning about the photos in this review:

A lot goes on in delivering these images to your eyeballs: There's the projected image, and any shifts due to the camera, (a Canon 60D professional dSLR), a Mac laptop for cropping and resizing, etc, using Adobe Bridge and Photoshop, then saved "for web" (super compressed), and displayed with your graphics card, monitor, and browser all, further coloring the HC8000D photos. In other words, they are useful, only to a point, as colors are not going to be all that accurate. Rest assured, the Mitsubishi HC8000D will look better in your darkened theater, than these images on your computer monitor.

Back to the Mitsubishi HC8000D review:

The projector is pleasing enough in most settings, and for most content, but again, calibrating this projector makes a difference. Don't believe me? If you purchase a HC8000D, try our settings.

Click Image to Enlarge

Mitsubishi HC8000D Projector - Flesh Tones

Hard to beat the Mitsubishi HC8000D in terms of reproducing skin tones post calibration. Impressive! We start with our usual images of Arwen and Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. Arwen's face picks up the greenish caste from the woods she's riding through, and Gandalf - his skin tones look pretty natural.

Take your pick of the images below. Skin tones are consistently excellent looking, allowing for the setting (and director's intent).

Bottom Line on skin tones: I mean they are really excellent, but in saying that, although they aren't as perfect as the best, they are a highlight feature of the HC8000D, as you will see in the dozens of photos in this review.

Here's our usual three Bond sequence - showing you how skin tones vary depending on the lighting. They can look very different, but still all be "right".

More images we like for considering skin tones. Note, the sports and HDTV images, like the one below, have Brilliant Color on, when photographed. That provided more brightness, but a slightly cooler - less red, image.

That concludes our batch of assorted skin tones images.