Runco LS-7 – Performance

Runco LS-7 Measured Brightness

Runco claims 1708 calibrated lumens, so we’re close, but not super close. Remember that I measure with the lens at mid-point on the zoom, not full wide angle, which would likely at least 5% or so more lumens, as manufacturers would measure at full wide angle on the zoom. Also I took measurements with just over 100 hours on the lamp, so it’s already lost 2.5 to 4 percent of brightness, from normal lamp aging. The end result, is that at full wide angle with a fresh lamp, those two changes combined should add at least an extra 100 lumens, so approaching 1600 lumens.

In an attempt to create a “bright mode”, the brightest setup I came come up with, was with color temp set to 9300K (or the Native Lamp setting), with Contrast set to 103, and Adaptive contrast on, the LS-7 measured 1680 lumens. That’s not much of an increase, considering the 9300K color temp means everything’s going to be really thin on red. Still, it is almost an extra 20%, and might come in handy if you have a lot of lights on. Again it measured close to Runco’s claims but don’t quite get there, when you adjust for factors. Again, adjusting for the differences in how we measure, in brightest mode, if I did it Runco’s way, the projector would be outputting probably just north of 1800 lumens – within 10% of claims.

I’m certainly not moaning and growning. Few projectors beat their claims. Hey, a great picture, plus all that brightness behind it – I’m far from complaining, I’m jealous.

The Effect of low lamp (eco) mode on brightness

Low lamp power: 1217 lumens, which is approximately a 16% drop vs.
High lamp power: 1451 lumens

I’m slightly surprised that the drop measured even 16%, even though most projector’s low power modes are 20 to 25% less, and others dropping even more. Still the spec sheet indicates a 230 watt and 260 watt modes (a 12% drop from 260 to 230). Interesting!

Sharpness

I don’t know if this projector looks as sharp as it does, simply because it’s “the high priced spread”, and therefore naturally comes with superior optics, or if other things are in play, but this is as sharp as I’ve seen in a 720p projector. My JVC is resolving a bit more detail thanks to being 1080p, but the image on the screen doesn’t seem to be that different.

I’m primarily talking about watching movies. As expected, the difference becomes more noticeable when I switch to a good 1080i digital broadcast, or all digital 1080p content off of a blu-ray disc. With the digital content, the JVC does look crisper. On 720p broadcasts, though, there’s little difference. When I break out a saved footblall game in 1080i, I definitely notice that the LS-7 doesn’t seem as sharp as my RS20, and there are plenty of (mostly DLP projectors) out there that make my JVC seem a little soft to begin with.