Hello everyone! Sorry for my ignorance here, as HDTV is new to me, but hopefully I can present my situation here in a manner that won't sound terribly stupid.

As I am just getting into projection HD, this is my current budget set up:

- Mitsubishi HC1600 720p on Elite (el cheapo) 84" screen @ 11.5'
- Sources: DirecTV HD DVR & Sony PS3
- A/V RX: Onkyo TX-SR506

Both sources are run with (decent quality) HDMI cable for video and Toslinks for audio.

I have run calibration through DVE Blu-Ray, and everything looks great through the test patterns..............although I can't get the colors perfect even at max setting on the 1600.

Now, I am enough of a realist to understand that my setup is an "economy" setup, and I am not expecting $20K results from a system costing 10% of that, but that doesn't stop me from trying to make the most out of what I have..............and I hope I can get more than what I have now.

My problem lies in "grainy" video at certain times. This seems to really only occur when, ironically, the video being shown is relatively "simple." High pace, complex scenes seem to show fine (and blow me away), but the simple scenes seem to bring out the flaws in my system. The problem is big, open scenes, usually white-to-gray (think clouds and fog), and the image just turns to junk. I can't think of another term to describe it other than grainy. And I know my screen has plenty of problems, but this graininess isn't being caused by the limitations of the screen, this is in the image source.

Before I go ranting on too much longer, anyone have any tips to try? Or is this just a common issue of such a low cost system?

Any advice would be much appreciate!

Thanks

Robb

You mentioned 11.5', was that the projector's distance from the screen or the sitting position? With an 84" screen you should be at least 9.5' away from the screen. That grainy texture could be from sitting too close.

Your setup, while relatively inexpensive when compared to people with IN83s, is still pretty damn good! You should always be getting a good picture.

Have you read through the HC1600 forums? I didn't think that the HC1600 was noted for having image noise problems.

Not the best advice, I know, but I hope that helps a little!

1. You definitely can't get the colors perfect by maxxing out the settings. You have to back off the Brilliant Color and things like that in order to get accurate color. I'd set bc to zero and then calibrate. Then push bc back up for pop.

2. Some movies are made to have a grain to them. That said, I take it that you are running everything through your receiver. Try directly to the PJ and see if the results are different. If so, the receiver is not confgiured correctly or has an issue.

Some calibration tips from projectorreviews.com:

http://www.projectorreviews.com/mitsubishi/hc1600/performance.php#calibration

Enjoy!

I have the HC1600 on an Elite 100" screen running through an Onkyo receiver and everything looks great. My settings are:

For Movies
LAMP MODE: LOW
GAMMA MODE: CINEMA
CONTRAST: 0
BRIGHTNESS: 3
COLOR TEMP: WARM
COLOR: 0
SHARPNESS: -5
BrilliantColor: 0

For Video Games (PS3 HDMI):
LAMP MODE: LOW
GAMMA MODE: AUTO
CONTRAST: 30
BRIGHTNESS: -1 (?)
COLOR TEMP: Medium
COLOR: NA
SHARPNESS: -5
BrilliantColor: 10

Also you might want to check that your direct tv is setup to output at 720p only. I believe the less processing of video the better. No point having the box convert a 720p signal to 1080i, then have your projector convert it back to 720p.