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Sharp XV-Z17000 Projector - Image Quality-6

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Art Feierman

Sharp XV-Z17000 Projector: Performance, HDTV and Sports

A healthy amount of lumens (for 2D), a sharp image, and particularly good color in a brightest mode (not to mention an almost as bright "best" mode), would make you think the Sharp XV-Z17000 would be pretty good at showing sports and HDTV.

I thought so too, and it turns out we're all correct. Oh, one can always use even more lumens, and certainly just under 1200 lumens isn't exactly blinding, just slightly brighter than average, but it is sufficient to do a really nice job on the 100 inch diagonal high contrast gray screen I'm currently using, with some ambient light, and I could tackle a screen a size or two larger, and still handle some controlled ambient light.

3D content, though comes through far less bright. Fortunately, the Sharp has a good amount of lumens, so even in 3D the picture is decent, though hardly bright on a standard gain screen. You are back to viewing in man cave conditions - in terms of room lighting, instead of being able to tolerate a modest amount of ambient light, enough to make watching a football game, more of a social experience.

Above right: Sharp filling 100" Elite HC gray screen surface. Below, the same image properly exposed:

Other 3D content, such as the Universe on Blu-ray, from the HDTV series, proved absolutely stunning in 3D, and on that, I didn't miss the lumens that much since the content is so high contrast. I've recorded a number of 3D studio music sessions, and they too looked really good, though they are generally darker stage settings (but lots of lights). Blacks in most of the 3D images don't look relatively as dark as with the 2D viewing, but found them to be still reasonable.

While I wish for more lumens from this Sharp XV-Z17000 for the 3D viewing, it has been adequate on the 100" screen I'm using, and actually looks brighter still on the testing room screen, a Carada Brilliant White surface. As I have pointed out elsewhere, a higher gain screen may be a good way to offset the lumen shortage caused by 3D techniques. Note, this is a 3D single chip DLP projector. It's not going to be significantly affected (at all?) in brightness by the different levels of polarization "retention" of different screens. With LCoS projectors using active shutter classes, different screens with different polarization retention, will appear different in brightness when viewing 3D content. This is due to single chip DLP's not utilizing polarization as part of their engine design. LCoS projectors do use polarization, so different screens with the same gain can provide different 3D brightness.

Sharp XV-Z17000 Projector: Bottom Line on HDTV Sports

Good brightness, and a nice sharp image make this Sharp XV-Z17000 home theater projector reaonably bright for 2D sports viewing.

For 3D viewing, however, brightness drops way down, so the end result is you watch sports like you would movies - in a fully darkened room, (or on a very small screen).

There are enough lumens to handle larger screens, if you don't mind keeping the room lights extremely low or off. Brightness isn't much below the Epson UB, which I often used to watch sports on my old 128" Stewart Firehawk G3 screen.

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