Sharp XV-Z17000 Projector - Performance

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Art Feierman

In this section we consider the brightness, sharpness, and image noise of the Sharp XV-Z17000 home theater projector. Also considered are the physical attributes of light leakage and audible noise.

Sharp XV-Z17000 Brightness

The numbers below were recorded by Mike before and after calibration. They were taken with the original pre-production Z17000 projector. We often mention that we normally anticipate that full production projectors will be a bit brighter than pre-production ones. However, since this projector is essentially an updated 3D version of the existing Z15000, that's probably not the case.

Pre-Calibration Measurements

Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE:
Standard	921 @ 7796
Natural	921 @ 7832
Dynamic	1195 @ 7770
Movie 1	670 @ 6623, 1063 with iris on High Brite and Bright Boost turned on. 347 lumens in Eco mode, High Bright Boost Off.
Movie 2	670 @ 6625
Game	1195 @ 7819

Effect of different settings on lumen output

The XV-Z17000 has two iris modes, manual, and dynamic. Both may operate at the same time. Iris 1 is the manual which has two settings: High Brightness, and High Contrast. The other iris, the dynamic one also has two modes: Off and On.

Iris on High Brightness = 24% increase in output over iris on High Contrast

Bright Boost turned off = 22% drop in output from either Eco, or Eco off modes

Eco On is about 26% brighter than Eco off.

Note that the Sharp has four brightness modes. Starting with the least bright, there's Eco mode. Next comes Eco mode with Bright Boost On, then Eco Off with Bright Boost Off, and finally, the Brightest mode: Eco Off, Bright Boost On.

That also translates to a very bright projector, even in Movie Mode, and even with the iris on high contrast, this projector produces well over 600 lumens.

The Z17000, as you can see above, approaches 1100 lumens in Movie Mode, if you pull out all the stops. You'll only pick up a bit less than 15% more lumens with Dynamic mode.

Effect of zoom on lumen output (Dynamic mode):
Zoom out	1237
Mid zoom	1195
Zoom in	1153

With only a 1.15:1 zoom ratio, I was surprised that there was even 84 lumens difference, which works out to about 7%

The Calibration page will provide the settings we used. That includes basic settings as well as gain and offset. We will revise, with numbers from a production projector if there are color table changes, between this unit and full production ones. I don't expect that to be the case, though.