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

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.