Planar PD8150 1080p Home Projector Review: Image Quality-10

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Art Feierman

Planar PD8150: Bottom Line Sharpness

The PD8150 is excellent, the image is extremely sharp and crisp. A sharp, crisp image is a real strength of this Planar projector.

Planar PD8150 Projector: Performance, HDTV and Sports

Coming in a few days, including images.

My only real reservation, in terms of HDTV viewing relates to the Planar's brightness, since for normal TV viewing, and especially sports, few want to watch in the proverbial "cave" - full darkness.

Despite the fact that the PD8150 is below average in brightness in its "brightest" mode, you can get a very respectable image under ambient light conditions by engaging both Brilliant Color and Adaptive Contrast. You will find a great deal more information about those modes, in the Projector Brightness area on the General Performance page.

Planar PD8150 Projector: Overall Image Quality

❮ ❯

Sweet! The Planar handles all types of scenes extremely well. Bright scenes are vibrant, dark scenes are rich. Colors are well balanced, and movies do look film-like. I spent at least 25 hours just viewing content using the PD8150.

Whether sci-fi, like IronMan or Blade Runner, Space Cowboys and The Fifth Element, or "normal" films without all the special effects, the PD8150 never disappointed. I do see it most similar to the InFocus IN83 and the JVC RS1x, although the RS1 should still have the black level advantage, but also has the softest image.

Here is a varied selection of images, both from film and digital, all from Blu-ray disc. I do believe they support my point that the PD8150 really performs beautifully.

Overall Picture Quality: Bottom Line

The PD8150 is a top performing projector when it comes to what it puts up on your screen. Natural looking is a great way to describe it. It is one of the very few projectors with excellent skin tones, superior black levels and a sharp image.