Mitsubishi HC9000D Home Cinema Projector - Review Summary-2

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Art Feierman

The Very Bottom Line on the HC9000D projector:

If the budget fits and you are into 3D, the Mitsubishi HC9000D will make an excellent overall choice. I believe in two to three more years, today's 3D projector owners will be wanting the improvements yet to come and will be ready to upgrade. If that sounds reasonable to you, start looking for an installing dealer.

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This one is easy to live with. So, if you aren't an enthusiast, but just want an easy to own, easy to run, great picture, minimum fuss projector, (with some 3D too), this baby's probably right for you.

Mitsubishi HC9000D Projector: Pros, Cons, and Typical Capabilities

Click to enlarge. SO close

Click Image to Enlarge

Mitsubishi HC9000D Projector: Pros

Excellent color, and overall picture quality, post calibration
Extremely good black levels, though not the best
Excellent CFI for smooth motion on movies!
Above average brightness in "best" movie mode
Excellent dark shadow detail
3D can be played as 2D
Dynamic iris action is smooth generally invisible- a real plus
Zoom, Focus, Lens shift, are all motorized
Wide variety of color presets, gamma and other features
Very good menu layout
Reasonably good documentation
Excellent placement flexibility
Very good 3D image quality, within the limits of overall brightness
Reasonably quiet projector
One of the best value propositions of the 1080p 3D capable projectors so far

Mitsubishi HC9000D Projector: Cons

While Dynamic iris virtually invisible, it's also slow, can take a while to fully adjust down to a very dark scene
Remote control look and feel, dim backlighting
Not bright enough in 3D to thrill most viewers on a 100" screen, unless that's a very high gain 100" that probably wouldn't be first choice for 2D viewing
Although fairly quiet, others are quieter still
Needs additional savable custom color temp setting (gain and bias). Only one setting possible now (preventing us from doing a more forgiving, brighter, "bright" mode), where we improve on the brightest mode without sacrificing as as much brightness as a best mode ends up with
Lamp life of 2000 hours at full power while that's the old "typical" many projectors today are providing more hours
CMS has some issues (not uncommon), making full calibration tougher than it should be

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The HC9000D is definitely a top contender if you are looking for a great 2D projector that doubles as first generation, quality 1080p projector with 3D abilities.

While we haven't seen all the contenders in this class of 2D/3D projectors the low-mid priced point for the HC9000D projector, combined with very good color, ultra-high contrast blacks, and an exceptional smooth motion CFI that I believe is the least noticeable I've seen on movies, probably make the HC9000D the best value in the group, that starts with the Sharp ZV-Z17000 selling for under $4000 to the $12,000 JVC DLA-RS60 / X9.

A top performer by almost every measure, this is the best solution we've seen so far for 2D and 3D both, without spending far more for little additional benefit.

Impressive!