Mitsubishi HC9000D Home Cinema Projector - Review Summary-2

The Very Bottom Line on the HC9000D projector:

❮ ❯

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

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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!