Vivitek H5080 Projector Calibration and Settings

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Art Feierman

We calibrate each home theater that is reviewed. We perform contrast, brightness, saturation and other image adjustments, as well as a grayscale balance. A complete professional calibration can go even further, but the settings we provide, generally offer anywhere from a slight to dramatic improvement, compared to the out of the box settings.

Vivitek H5080 Color Temperature

Color Temp over IRE Range: User 1 Before Calibration
30 IRE	6736
50 IRE	7034
80 IRE	7185
100 IRE	7940

These are the measurements, taken "right out of the box." Mike chose Movie as our starting point for a "best" mode. To start, the H5080 looked pretty good. Sure, a lot of folks won't mind, you know, the same people who have never adjusted or changed a setting on their TVs in years. For those wanting to get the most out of a great investment, you can improve performance with a calibration. If you can't swing that, try our settings. Due to lamp variations, they won't be right on, but probably will be superior to the defauts

Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE (mid zoom)
Movie	1222 @ 7134
Bright	1391 @ 8910
Normal	1226 @ 7118
User 1	1166 @ 7940
User 2	1322 @ 9716
User 3	1169 @ 7949

For those interested, here are the color temperature measurements (and lumens) for white (100 IRE), for each of the preset modes:

As you can see, the Cinema modes, Reference and User all have starting color temperatures near the 6500K ideal.

The other three modes, are cooler, with Bright and Graphics "way cool" around 9000K. (If green is in balance even 9K can be watchable, but reds are way down, and therefore still not good color).

Mike also came up with another way of looking at the data. Here he measured the Bright mode, but for each of the different available color temps including what they call D93 (9300K). You can see that the native lamp temp is very cool, and as you lower the color temp, to achieve colors in the proper 6500K range, lumens drop off.

Vivitek H5080 Basic Settings

Settings for measurements (default values are in parenthesis)
	Movie	Bright	Normal	User 1	User 2	User 3
Contrast	(0)	(0)	(0)	(8) -1	(0)	(4) -2
Brightness	(48)	(50)	(48)	(48) 52	(50) 54	(50) 54
Color Sat	(0)	(0)	(0)	(8) -11	(0)	(-8)
Tint	(0)	(0)	(0)	(0)	(0)	(0)
Color Temp	(Normal)	(Lamp Native)	(Normal)	(Normal)	(Lamp Native)	(Normal)
Iris	(6)	(9)	(6)	(7)	(9)	(7)
Gamma	(7)

In addition to calibrating Red Green and Blue for a correct grayscale balance (6500K), there are a number of other settings that come into play. Typically Contrast and Brightness (white balance and black balance), need to be done first. Color saturation and gamma also need adjustment.

Lamp mode set on Bright for all

All other settings at default (untouched)

To get the very most out of the H5080, a calibration is necessary. It will definitely improve color accuracy and therefore overall picture, although not by a huge amount. Primarily it will bring up the blues slightly.

Dynamic mode improves dramatically, and is much more watchable with Mike's settings.

Vivitek H5080 Post Calibration Grayscale

Color Temp over IRE Range (User 1, Post calibration)
20 IRE	6621
30 IRE	6498
40 IRE	6546
50 IRE	6515
60 IRE	6505
70 IRE	6527
80 IRE	6469
90 IRE	6507
100 IRE	6491
Average gamma= 2.31

When done with the calibration, the H5080 achieves color accuracy about as good as any other projector recently reviewed, including the JVC DLA-RS25

Color Temp over IRE Range (Post calibration):

That's about as close to dead on D65 as most projectors will get, with a range of only about 150 degrees.

The projector's image supports the numbers. Skin tones, and for that matter, everything looks really great when it comes to believable colors.

Gamma settings:

A sliding scale of gamma choices is provided. Mike measured setting 7 at 2.31. I slightly preferred using 6, which is (by eyeball), probably more like 2.1. Theoretically, 2.2 is ideal. I found the 7 setting - 2.31 gamma to be a touch dark for my taste.