*Unofficial* Mitsubishi HC3800 Thread - Page 6

I run a much smaller screen (small room), so I of course wish there was a manual iris. Oh well.

I measured just over 1700:1 on/off on my Mits hc1100 when I got it 18months ago, so I agree the Hd20 is not good in that area, although I only got 380:1 ansi on the Mits. I think the Hd20 would be an excellent first projector but maybe not a great choice if your upgrading unless you really need 1080 in your setup, the hc3800 does look like a worthy budget upgrade though.

The way I read it, the HC3800 allows for a fixed anamorphic lens placement by providing both vertical stretch for 2.35, and horizontal compression for 1.78. This is exactly what my W5000 does, and I can swap between the two formats with the push of a button leaving the lens in place full time. You get full 1920x1280 (from the imaging chip, not the incoming source, which would be 1920x800) resolution on 2.35 material and 1440x1280 on 1.78.

That's how I understood it too.

I think he understands that. He was replying to my post saying it would be more useful to have an anamorphic mode that shrinks 1.78 content to 800 vertical lines so a $600-$3000 lens isn't required to do CIH.

Thanks, now I understand what he was after.

Apart form any artifacts that the anamorphic lens may add, I just wouldn't be able to live with running 1.78 & 1.85 material at a rez of 1440. Such a waste.

This is why I opted to go for masking instead, which you'll see if you click on my signature.

This new generation of DLPs with 1.5-zoom lens and (in some cases) better lens-shift are most welcome. In a setup like mine, one can zoom & rack the picture so that 1.78 and 2.35 are practically the same height.

I think, in that case there is no need of lens shift, image shift function (already impemented in older models of Mitz DLP's) is sufficient (with 1,5x zoom)... I just watch Die Hard 4.0, use max zoom on my HC-1500 and some Vertical Position. It is not true CIH (too low zoom), but I'm very impressed by watching movie in that way...

Does the HC3800 have image shift?

That is the question, I don't know, but truly doubt, that this function is removed in new PJ...

I wonder if its worth spending 50% more and getting into the Sharp Z15000 over the HC3800?

Without really seeing one it's hard to tell whether 50% more is worth it. From Art's comments it sounds like we may have reached the point of diminishinbg returns between the Z15000 and the HC3800. One was brighter and the other had better blacks. Other than that they seemed pretty much the same from his comments

Using TigerDirect and Bing the two are not that far apart...

This is off the top of my head so feel free to correct me but the Sharp bulbs were expensive I believe. That's what really made me turn away from it.

Also the Z15000 has an eco-mode lamp life of 3000 vs the HC3800's 50000 in eco-mode. No idea what an HC3800 lamp will go for though.

The Sharp had better blacks with DI on. Throughout that whole review I don't recall Art ever testing the Sharp w/o the dynamic iris on. Normally Art is good about this, I dunno why he skipped that this time.

If one doesn't mind the pumping of DI, then maybe the Sharp will be preferable.
At this point, the native contrast performance of the Sharp seems to be an unknown. For all we know, the HC3800 could outperform the Z15000 in blacks when the Sharp's DI is off.

Great point. And also, he mentions it is "significantly brighter", this is great after the bulb dims a bit, you could go for a much larger screen, which in-turn will bring the blacks back down. Personally, I'm not a big fan of DI for movies, I have this feature on my Sony SXRD TV (its supposed to be one of the best DIs) and I only use it for sports.

According to Projector Central, the Sharp also has an adjustable manual iris which I have found to be quite effective on my Sharpvision Z3000. I saw the Sharp z15000 at CES and it's a very nice unit (and available now for only $200-300 more for those who can't wait). I've found iris's to be an effective tool for contrast if implemented right and the Mitsubishi lacks an iris. I await a final review of the HC3800...

I bet the HC3800 streets closer to the $1000 price point, much like what happened with the HD1000 back when the HD70 was getting so much attention a few years ago.

The Optoma HD70 came out at $999 and the Mitsubishi HD1000 listed for $1500. The HD1000 was streeting for $1399 with a spare lamp, but Mitsubishi quickly dropped the lamp offer and moved the projector price down to $999 to compete.

The $1000 price point is going to be critical for "Best Buy" type consumers which is who this product is targeted at, imo.

They didn't measure the contrast on the Sharp w/o DI on (or any contrast measurements at all), too bad.

I'm all down for a manual iris. Hopefully there will be a comparison between the Z15000 w/o DI and the HC3800.

Then again, $600 lamps (for the Sharp) are a bit scary

OUCH! Almost reminds me of when early LCoS lamps cost $1000!

Just a quick note on the lamps for the XV-Z15000. They're not actually $600 at most retailers that carry them, that's just the MSRP. More like $400. Not much better but more in line with similar DLP models.

One thing I'm curious about is what DarkChip is being used. Mitsubishi used DC4 in their latest RPTVs, so I wonder if this has that, or maybe even a DC3 which would still be amazing at this price.

Anyone got any info on this?

According to projector central it uses TI's latest chip the DDP3021 with DMD. http://www.projectorcentral.com/news_story_1356.html

Thanks for the link. This is the same chip used in the Marantz VP-15S1, which uses DarkChip 3. But the DarkChip 2 projector Samsung 800B uses it too. I think this is the DMD controller number and not the DarkChip itself. Time will tell I guess.

Yeah, there is no way. Those are larger DLP chips in the Marantz and Samsung.

Where are you finding Bing cashback via TigerDirect on the XV-Z15000? Just did a Bing search and don't see TigerDirect anywhere in the list of stores.

EDIT: NM, just found it. Eliminate the hyphen, "XVZ15000."

Projector Central has a preliminary look on this as well.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/mits...tor_review.htm

This pretty much covers the exact same points as Art's first look.

Yes, was already covered earlier in this thread...

Just FYI, the Tigerdirect Bing cashback has gone down from 15% to 10% for all projectors...