PLV-Z3000 Creative Frame Interpolation

Posted on December 7, 2008 by Art Feierman

PLV-Z3000 Creative Frame Interpolation

The newest "in" feature is Creative frame interpolation. So far only a handful of projectors have it. In addition to the Sanyo PLV-Z3000, the Panasonic PT-AE3000, and the two Epson projectors - the Home Cinema 6500 UB and Pro Cinema 7500 UB offer this ability (at least among the under $10,000 projectors).

Creative frame interpolation starts (for movies) with the original 24 frame per second speed that the film was shot at, and increases the number of frames to 96 (4x) or 120 (5x) fps. When working with 1080p 30 or 60 fps content (1080p, 1080i), it typically increases the frame rate to 120 fps.

The idea is to eliminate forms of motion blur caused by the original content being created at too slow a speed (24fps or 30fps). Simply repeating frames (like the Mitsubishi HC7000 (24 to 48fps), doesn't really accomplish much. What Sanyo and the other three do, however, is go a step further. The Sanyo looks at the original frame one, and then frame two. Image processing identifies "objects that are moving, and creates 3 new frames - we'll call them 1a, 1b, and 1c, to be inserted in between frame one and two. In each of the new frames the moving objects are recreated in positions between frame one and two.

Consider a plane flying from the left side of the screen to the right. Let's assume in frame 1, it's at the left border, and in frame two, it's at the 1/4 point by frame two. The Sanyo's creation of frame 1a, will have that plane placed 1/3 of the way between frame 1 and 2, the next frame, half way in between, and frame 1c, 2/3 of the way, then finally frame two appears.

Now there's more data, with computed data points, emulating what the movie might have looked like if shot at 96 frames per second to begin with.

It's a feature which I find to have little effect in movie viewing, unless you are sitting there looking for it. I actually find it to be of greater use for fast moving sports. This is due to the idea, that with film, the director knows the limitation of 24 fps, and adapts - in terms of the speed of pans, and how the camera tracks moving objects. With sports, its simply, the more speed, the better.

Full HDMI 1.3b support

The Sanyo is "up to date" with support for Deep Color (coming) with its larger color palette, x.v. color with its wider color gamut, and CEC (Consumer Electronics Control (protocol).

Dynamic Image controls

Like many projectors, there are a number of image enhancement features. While it can be argued that many such features may add something to the image, ultimately, these controls are modifying the original image, and therefore, the final result may no longer be what the director intended.

Most of today's projectors have a number of such controls. In the case of the Sanyo PLV-Z3000, that includes Dynamic Gamma, a dynamic iris, lamp dimming, and several others. It's impossible for a reviewer to observe all the combinations, as they all interact.

We discuss some of the effects of many of these features in the Performance section, under Brightness. You will see that lamp dimming, dynamic vs. fixed iris, and iris manual settings all have significant impact on brightness (as well as the final image).