Menus
Overall, the menu system is easy to use. Pressing menu brings up a horizontal strip of four menu items. Arrow keys allow you to choose one, and the enter key takes you to the first menu item. The strength of the menu system is that you don't have lots of menu levels to navigate. Almost all controls are on those four menus. Items that have multiple choices allow you to scroll through them with left and right arrow keys.
I personally would favor highlighting and getting a pull down menu, so that you can see all the options, but this is a perfectly acceptable, and fast menu system. The main menu shown above does not go away over time, just stays on the screen. I'd be happier if the projector had the option for the menu to go away after a short while without using it.
Shown are the main menu, and images of the image menu and two of its sub-menus, Gamma and Color Temp, and lastly, the installation menu.
Interestingly, there are a few changes from the similar HC3000 menu. The Color Temperature Menu now has Warm, Medium, and Cool (plus user modes), whereas the HC3000 listed specific temperatures, like 6500K. Since the measurements we found on the HC3000 came up with different temperatures than the settings, Mitsubishi is safer with the Warm.....
Mitsubishi HD1000U Menus Slideshow
User Memory Settings
The HD1000U offers three saveable settings. Each can be accessed from either the menu system, or directly off of the remote control. You must select one of them to get into the advanced menu controls to separately control RGB brightness and contrast.
HD1000U Remote Control
The Mitsubishi HD1000U's remote control is a small black affair, with backlit buttons
There is no separate backlight button, but all buttons are backlit, and hitting any of them will light up the remote.
Unfortunately the backlighting is dim. I find it difficult to read the buttons in a dark room. It's not the size of the text on the buttons, but the dimness that bothers me.
The range on the remote appears to be acceptable. I had no problem standing behind the projector, while filling a 106" diagonal screen, and intentionally bouncing the infra-red signal off of the screen to the projector's front IR receiver.
As to the layout, it's pretty easy to navigate, with Power buttons on the top, followed by the source buttons.
Next comes the four arrow keys for navigation, with the Enter button in the middle, and directly below, on the left is the Menu button itself, and across from it, the Aspect ratio button, to toggle between 4:3, 16:9, etc.
Directly below that are your 3 user memory recall buttons.
