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Mitsubishi HC9000D Projector - Performance

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Art Feierman

In this section, we consider the brightness, sharpness, and image noise of the Mitsubishi HC9000D home theater projector. We'll discuss brightness in conjunction with 3D usage, as well. Also considered here, are the physical attributes of light leakage and audible noise.

Mitsubishi HC9000D Brightness

Lumen Output and Color Temp for various Picture modes at 100 IRE:
Dynamic 865 @ 7866
Cinema 687 @ 6452
Video 750 @ 7429
3D 813 @ 9263
User 1, 2 or 3 700 @ 6607

Mitsubishi claims the HC9000D projector is a 1000 lumen projector. As it turns out, they are right. Mike's highest measurement was 1005 lumens. Here's the whole story:

First are the lumen measurements for each of the preset and user modes. Also included was the measured color temp for white, for each one.

The Mitsubishi HC9000D projector brightness numbers below were recorded by Mike before and after calibration.

Effect of zoom on lumen output (Dynamic mode):
Zoom out 940
Mid zoom 865
Zoom in 735

Cinema wss the best looking image before Mike calibrated. These measureents were all taken with the zoom set to mid-point.

Measuring Dynamic mode at full wide angle and telephoto shows us almost a 9% increase in brightness with the projector at its closest position (wide angle, zoom out).

Switching from mid-point to furthest (telephoto, zoom in), causes a 15% drop. Those shelf mounting will normally be at or near the telephoto end of the range, unless you have an awfully big screen relative to room size.

Low Lamp Eco-Mode Brightness

The HC9000D measured a 24% drop in brightness when switching to the lower lamp mode.

Below: sample color temperature snapshot, pre-calibration - actually rather good.

Color Temp over IRE Range, Best Mode (Cinema):
30 IRE 6686
50 IRE 6757
80 IRE 6591
100 IRE 6452

"Best mode" calibration of the HC9000D yielded an impressive 701 lumens beating the Sony and JVC projectors.

As Mike mentions below, you can only save one custom grayscale color temp. That prevented him from tweaking Dynamic, exchanging minimal brightness loss for improved picture quality.

For a brightest mode: Use Dynamic, but change the color temp to High Brightness. That doesn't seem to cost much in lumens, but definitely looks better. Of course "best" mode, isn't that much less bright.

3D mode has a completely different color gamma setup. Mike measured the 815 lumens using the default setting for their brightness/shutter glasses setting. I would expect using the highest setting will increase brightness to about the same as Dynamic.

Here's how the final color temp looked in "best" (now in User 2):Color Temp over IRE Range (Post calibration):
20 IRE 6687
30 IRE 6532
40 IRE 6564
50 IRE 6672
60 IRE 6690
70 IRE 6552
80 IRE 6493
90 IRE 6412
100 IRE 6368
 Average gamma= 2.16

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