On to the fun part…firing it up! I turned on the unit
and took some initial measurements (see below). The menu has
lots of features now…even more than the previous 720p
single chips. There are 12 gamma settings available, ranging
from graphics to theater applications. The unit also has lots
of adjustments for color temp. In fact, you can bring up a
CIE window (see picture), which not only tells you the color
temperature in K, but other information such as x and y values
so that you can get it to D65. One thing to note, the unit
comes set at 8700k out of the box. I don’t know why
this is, but obviously for maximum performance it needs to
be adjusted. I went through and setup both the HDMI and component
inputs before testing. On the color temp, it is really nice
to be able to not only dial in 6500k, but also the proper
x and y coordinates (x=.313 and y=.329) to get true D65. You
can request my settings by emailing me at Jason@avscience.com.
What I found: the best looking single chip DLP I have found
to date. Now granted, this is the first 1080p DLP I have worked
with yet so it is possible that opinion will change. But,
as compared to any of the other single chippers (720p), this
takes the cake. You may be thinking “does the resolution
really help that much?” The answer is not really. See
the resolution benefit, coupled with all the other improvements,
is what makes this so good. Specifically I am talking about
the cleanliness of the image. Most DLP’s tend to have
a lot of inherent noise with them (dithering, motion artifacts,
etc…). This had such a clean and detailed image, I was
surprised it was a DLP. In fact, this is the first DLP I have
seen that really has a similar look to that of the rival technologies
(DILA, LCOS, SXRD). It was that smooth. There are several
factors that can account for this. First is the new color
wheel. The addition of the ND filter on the wheel helps out
in this aspect tremendously. Second, the 10bit processing
is a huge improvement over the previous generations. Now this
newer “look” may not be good for everyone. There
are reasons to buy both DLP and the LCOS based technologies…notably
they each have a different look to them. With the way this
unit performs, it takes away some of that real sharp, crispness
(ie. Plasma-like) that many like about the DLP’s. This
is not to say it isn’t detailed, it just is a smoother
(almost softer) look than what you may be used to with DLP.
The contrast on this unit was decent. In my “real world”
room (dark ceiling, burgundy walls with light trim, dark gray
carpet, etc…) I tested out about 2326:1 after calibration
(on/off). This is not as high as some single chip DLP’s,
but more than adequate for producing a good quality image.
It did also have excellent ANSI contrast, which generally
is a more important factor. Remember also it is first generation
1080, so we only have room to improve down the road. I found
that this did have better shadow detail than most the other
higher contrast DLP’s. Many DLP’s bury blacks,
but the HT3000 had plenty of detail and was able to resolve
the black detail so much better than most. I talked with the
head tech at Sim2 and in a perfect testing area, it can achieve
about 5000:1. Again, my numbers are what one might expect
with a similar room to what I have.
I got out my meter in order to check the brightness. 6 foot-candles
(equivalent to 6 foot-lamberts on a 1.0 gain screen). I thought
to myself, that can’t be right. So I rechecked all my
calibration settings again, and re-measured. 6 foot-candles
again. I was perplexed. I put another call into Sim2 Techsupport.
We came to the preliminary conclusion it was a defective lamp.
Fair enough. But after I went to bed at 2am, I thought to
myself, something else has to be going on because it did look
good. I went back into the service menu (by the way they made
it much easier to access now via remote) and poked around.
Ah ha. White level adjustment…0-60, set to 0. So I stuck
on my probe before adjusting to make sure I didn’t screw
up the D65 readings at 100IRE. 6.5, 8, 10.2, 15, peaked out
(blooming started). So, essentially what I am trying to say
is that out of the box the unit has low light output so you
need to have your installer adjust that in the service menu.
I reported this to Techsupport so that they can do more testing
and adjust that in the future before shipping. It may have
just been my unit, but I wanted to point that out as out of
the box it was not as bright as one would expect. After the
adjustment the brightness was about perfect for theater applications.
No, this is considered a really bright projector, so if you
have a high ambient light room and/or a really large screen,
this may not be the best choice of projector, and you may
want to consider a 3 chip 720p instead.
As I mentioned before, the color temp I was able to dial into
6500K, x=.313, y=.329. When I put my probe on to confirm that,
I found it was darn close (x=.3175 and y=.3322). I just had
to do some very slight tuning to optimize. The colors on the
unit were gorgeous. They were very accurate as Sim2 is known
for. They did not have the real jump-off-of-the-screen vibrancy
that their C3X line has, but never-the-less, great for a single
chip DLP. I should also point out that I did the testing on
my 103” Silverstar which definitely brought out the
punch in the image. Moving on. Flesh-tones were true and the
reds were more crimson, and not leaning towards the orange
like many DLP’s do. The greens were also a rich, deep
green, not the lime green that is common with DLP’s.
And as I also mentioned before, there are about 12 gamma modes.
They all range from about 1.6-2.2. I found that the EN5 setting
was best for film sources when the unit was setup properly.
At testing time, they didn’t have a user setting available
like on the C3X line, but I believe that is going to be a
firmware update (which can be done via USB port and a computer
download). The unit also comes standard with Noise Reduction.
It is a sliding adjustment scale so you can pause an image,
and fine tune to get the best performance. This is another
feature of the new Pixelworks processor. Some other user features
the unit has…custom aspect ratios. This is especially
nice for those who want to do a 2.35:1 constant height setup.
No need for an outboard processor which will save on cost.
There are 3 settings per input. It does have a pixel-to-pixel
setting as well to completely bypass the internal setting
when fed a 1920x1080 source. For remote programming, the unit
has discrete on/off, as well as discrete input access. It
also has motorized zoom and focus for those who may want to
do a “poor-mans” 2.35:1 setup. J The unit is relatively
quiet. There is an initial color wheel whine at startup, but
unlike some of the previous generation Sim2’s, that
disappears quickly. Fan noise is a low drone, I would say
slightly louder than the quietest units (overall negligible).
Ultraviolet
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