Mitsubishi XD221U Color & Picture Quality

Posted on February 19, 2010 By Art Feierman

Mitsubishi XD221U Color & Picture Quality

The ability for the XD221U to handle various resolutions turned out to be very satisfactory. A good projector will be able to handle higher resolutions as well. The next picture shows how different size text looks under compression. The resolution in the photograph is 1280×1024. It may not be easy to see with a photograph, but the text is very readable at 10pt and 12pt type. Anything smaller was difficult to read and would cause serious eye fatigue. I can honestly say I was surprised how good the compression technology is on this model. Larger text was almost completely unaffected by the increase in resolution.

DLP projectors commonly have trouble reproducing certain colors like yellow, red and sometimes green. Although this projector was no exception, I can say there were some significant differences with model. Mitsubishi has really improved the out-of-the-box color. Normailly it would take some adjustment to get more accurate color, but very satisfactory yellows and reds were achieved without make adjustments. I did find that in different color enhancement modes I was able to improve the often mustard color a yellow would produce and achieve a more accurate red.

Overall, the the Mitsubishi XD-221U projector produces color that is surprisingly much improved compared to the large majority of DLP projectors. It’s a positive thing to see a nice DLP projector with color approaching that of most LCD projectors.

If your planning to play video from a DVD player or laptop you will find any color issues discussed earlier to be less of a problem, if it all. The XD221U’s 2000:1 contrast ratio and high brightness produced a very eye pleasing image. I put the XD221U to the serious test and fed it a 1080i signal. It handled it quite well. Dark scenes surprisingly looked very good and a fair amount of detail was still present in the image. Although I would not consider this a substitute for a true home theater, I would definitely consider it a good choice for sports bars or clubs.