The 1080p Home Theater Projector -Special Features

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Art Feierman

"Ultra-high-contrast" projectors

First, that's a term of mine, nothing official. It represents the projectors that have contrast and black level performance that is at least a step up from the rest.

It gets old using this expression, but, for years, better black levels have been the "holy grail" for home theater projectors. Truth is, all of these 1080p projectors have at least good black level performance. In fact, so good, that only a few projectors just three years ago, could match the least of these. However, there have been two notable technology shifts. 3LCD projectors have improved in native contrast with new polarization techniques and other improvements, and one LCoS manufacturer has simply managed to redesign their LCoS panels allowing contrast and black levels that are magnitudes better than previous LCoS projectors. That would be JVC. Epson was first of the ultra-high-contast projectors when their 1080 UB launched over a year ago. Today, all four of the major 3LCD manufacturers in home theater space are using that technology on their top of the line units

Of note, only JVC accomplishes great black level performance without resorting to using dynamic irises (a topic for another time), and yet they are the best.

The point of this non-feature, but rather, level of performance discussion, is that once you get up to these projectors, blacks are starting to get very black. What that means is that when choosing between these projectors, you may still focus on getting the best black level performance, but the incremental improvement is now less important to many, than other abilities, such as lots of brightness, especially good skin tones, easy placement, better warranty and support.

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Description of ultra-high-contrast
Epson	6500UB and 7500UB
JVC	DLA-RS10 and DLA-RS20
Mitsubishi	HC7000
Panasonic	PT-AE3000
Sanyo	PLV-Z3000
Sony	VPL-WV70 (based on our review last year of the VW60 it replaces)

In addition, these projectors came close:
BenQ W20000
Planar 8150
Sony VPL-HW10

Of these three, the first two are DLP, the Sony an LCoS. All three, by the way, have a dynamic iris. In fact only the JVCs do not.

Lens Shift

Lens shift is all about a projector's placement flexibility. Projectors with adjustable lens shift definitely provide more placement options. Since virtually everyone wants their projector setup, up high, rather than just putting it on a table, lens shift is needed to allow you to place a projector on a shelf (in the rear of your room), instead of restricting it to ceiling mounting. This is a huge plus for many owners. First, it puts the projector behind where most people sit (rather than overhead or just in from of the viewer), which helps in making the projector's fan noise less noticeable. The other advantage for most installations, is that running cabling is usually simpler, and less expensive than ceiling mounting. This is true for several reasons. In most homes, people are likely to have power readily accessible on most walls, on the other hand, most likely people will find that they don't have a power source in the ceiling. Running power to the ceiling to power the projector tends to be an additional, potentially significant expense. Further, if one has high ceilings getting cabling, as well as power, up there, becomes a lot more complicated than to a back wall.

Another disadvantage of not having adjustable lens shift, is that without it, the projector must be mounted at exactly the right height, instead of over a wide range. As it turns out, those projectors without adjustable lens shift, are designed to be mounted above the screen top. That offset is typically about 18 inches above the top of the screen surface for a 100" screen, and more or less, depending on the screen size. In more than a few cases, people with normal or low ceiling heights (8 foot or less) find they can't use a projector with that much offset. For those going with really large screens, say over 120 inch diagonal, you may need a ceiling height of 9 feet, or more. I receive more than a few emails from folks telling me they really had their heart set on this projector or that (without lens shift), but that they couldn't mount it high enough due to ceiling height.

All projectors with lens shift have vertical lens shift, while not all have horizontal lens shift. Vertical is the important one for most. Horizontal comes into play if you can't mount the projector with the lens centered relative to the center of the screen horizontally. Thus, horizontal lens shift can be important if there is a reason the projector must be mounted slightly to either side.

Adjustable vertical lens shift means you can mount the projector over a wide range of height relative to the top of the screen. Most typically, a projector with lens shift can be placed anywhere from a couple of feet above the top of the screen, all the way down to below the bottom (talk about flexible). A few projectors have less shift range, although all, to my knowledge, can at least be mounted as high as the top of the screen. I won't get into horizontal lens shift here (it's dealt with in the various reviews), but below is a short breakout of all the projectors as to whether they do, or do not have adjustable lens shift.

All of the projectors covered here, that lack lens shift, are DLP projectors (about half of them). All the 3LCD and LCoS projectors do have lens shift.

Projectors with no adjustable lens shift:

All InFocus projectors
All Optoma projectors, except for the HD8200

All other projectors have lens shift. Of those that do, I believe all have enough shift to be mounted above the top of the screen, except for the two BenQ projectors, which can only go as high as the top of the screen surface.