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Optoma HD803 Home Theater Projector Review – General Performance – 6

Posted on February 20, 2008 By Art Feierman

Optoma HD803 Calibration

Let’s start with initial, out of the box, measurements for Cinema mode. Setting up with color temp on warm, looking for 6500K color temp, was a disappointment. With the projector lamp on bright, starting with 100 IRE (white):

Measurements for Cinema Mode
100IRE 6985K
80IRE 6334K
50IRE 6712K
30IRE 6212K

Not only is there a fairly large shift in temperature going from a high color temperature (on the cool side) measured with white, to a too warm temperatures at the lower gray level. In addition green was way off, and too strong.

To get a significantly improved color balance, here are the settings I came up with: Set Color Temperature to User

Set the Color Temp to User

The numbers in ( ) are the default numbers
Gain Red (100) 100

Green (100) 84

Blue (100) 79
Offset Red (128) 128

Green (128) 128

Blue (128) 127

This yielded a much improved grayscale color balance
100IRE 6443K
80IRE 6700K
50IRE 6824K
30IRE 6327K

The green was still a touch high on white but dead on by 30IRE.

The result is very good skin tones and overall color balance.

Default or Bright (Brite) mode, with Color Temp on Mid (default), the projector is definitely shifted a bit towards blue:

Default or Bright (Brite) mode, with Color Temp on Mid (default)
100IRE 8608K
80IRE 7465K
50IRE 7672K
30IRE 7434K

Green overall, in this mode is a little low, except down at 30 IRE where it was dead on. Overall, the picture balance lacked brilliant reds, but looked good on sports type events, and the Optoma, at the same time, is cranking out its maximum lumens.

Optoma HD803 Home Theater Projector Review – General Performance – 5
Optoma HD803 Home Theater Projector Review – General Performance – 7