*Unofficial* Mitsubishi HC3800 Thread - Page 22

Unfortunately between the focus issue and the shutting off it seems like you just got a bum unit. I'd call Provantage and arrange for a replacement.

Also as a word of caution to anyone not buying from a forum sponsor. This does not count for places like Provantage that most of us know is good place to buy even if they are not a sponsor.

Many of the scam places out there are now starting to show up on google with low prices for the HC3800. Places like supremecamera.com and deltacamera.com for instance. I always encourage people to buy from a forum sponsor unless they will not price match or at least buy from an authorized dealer, but if you're not going to buy from a forum sponsor please use www.resellerratings.com and put in the name of any place you have not delt with before. You'll get customer reviews and a rating on the seller. No offense to anyone out of NY, but a lot of the scam places are a single company or two out of NY that go by several names.

It can often be temping to jump at the lowest price, but do yourself a favor and either buy from a sponsor or at the least check the place out first.

Thanks everybody for the kind words. I'll try the PJ again in a while when my 4 year old is in bed...

So far it looks like I got a lemon, and I'll probably return it if I can't resolve the shutdown problem. Unfortunately, Provantage may not have it in stock again for a few weeks (trying to find out tomorrow), so I may have to go for a refund and order from a forum sponsor (if they price match), or wait.

Btw, I ordered from Provantage because back in September they were the only store offering it. They have a 30 day return period (no 5 hour limit on bulb time), their reseller rating looks excellent, and the price is good.

The only real concern I have right now is the lens sharpness issue. cine4home mentioned the exact same thing in their preview of the HC3800 (at the end of section 3). They say they even contacted Mitsubishi regarding this problem, and their response was that the sample units they sent out for the reviews do not have the same manufacturing tolerances as the final units. Maybe I got an engineering sample?

gorkon, hang in there every batch has a few bad ones. Like you said they probably don't have anymore in stock right now, but your initial impressions have bene very helpful. Thank you.

Thanks for sharing your impressions. Being a HC1500 owner I'm very interested in your comparision of the HC3800 and the HD10000u. How many hours did you have on the HD1000 lamp?

Thanks

I had 500 hours on the lamp so it wasn't quite new but not at end of life either. The best way I can describe the picture is take whats good about the HD1000 picture - brightness, color balance, black level and make them better. My room is small so I could see some SDE on the old projector but none on this one (1080 vs 720 obviously) but even with BC off and the lamp on low mode the picture was in a different league. I'm very very happy with it.

I can't really comment on the quietness of the projector. It SEEMS really quiet to me, but I've had that damned color wheel whine so long I can't tell what quiet is right now. *Edit, after further listening, not that quiet, but not too bad.

If you have any more questions, I'll try my best to answer them.

Nothing against Provantage, but they are NOT an authorized Mits. dealer.

2 things.

1. Is the warranty void if you dont buy from a authorized dealer?

2. Where is a list of dealers? I cant find squat on the mits page. They just list like 6 custom installers and thats it.

On the 3800 product page...look to the upper right...where to buy Buy Now will bring up etailers...all you are very, very familiar with. Did I mention very familiar?

Thanks for your reply. I love the HC1500 and if your 1000 only had 500 hours on it then it was still really bright. When you say that the HC3800 new is brighter than the HD1000u with 500 hrs it, it sounds like the HC3800 is at least as bright as a new HD1000u. Maybe a little more or less, but not enough to matter. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't significantly dimmer than the projector I already have and it sounds like it's as bright if not brighter if both were new.


I love the picture on the HC1500 and if the HC3800 really does improve these then I'm sold.


1)What is your impression of the sharpness on the HC3800?

2) Did you notice any focus issues like gorkon did on his? Is it focued at the outside of the picture when you focus the middle?

Thanks

I am planning to buy one Home Theater Projector soon. I have a tie between Viewsonic pro8100 or Mitsubishi HC3800.

I have a ceiling of about 7-1/2', length 19' and width varies. In the center of the room I have a horizontal beam at about 6" below the ceiling). I am planning to project the picture of about 100"-120" on my regular white wall (Is this a good idea if I buy pro8100?). Also the whole basement is pretty much white with small windows, which I can cover to make the room dark.

I know if I paint the walls and ceiling with dark color and buy a screen it would make a difference or a big difference. Currently, my budget only allows me what I mentioned above and I want to go with 1080p resolution.

Here is my comparison of both the projectors.

I like quietness of pro8100 plus power zoom and focus, etc. The argument I have for HC3800 is
(1) it is DLP and so it will have better black levels (I read Art's review about pro8100 already vs. opinion from a friend in the business), still skeptical.
(2) Newer technology, newer manufactured product
(3) More wattage so more lumens and so brighter in my condition of usage

I posted this on pro8100 thread also for pro8100 owners' opinions. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=2349)

My biggest concern with HC3100 is very-noisy and placement flexibility. With my ceiling height if I use 110" dia. screen (http://global.mitsubishielectric.com....html?p=hc3800) the screen would go below floor!!!

Can I mount the pJ in tilted position to move the screen higher or will it hurt the pj? or warranty?

TIA.

saumil, seem post and pics above http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post17505503 I use an HC1500 with a 35% offset (HC3800 has a 33% offset) with a 7' 4" ceiling and tilt a bit and it works great.

What is the difference between offset and tilt? Also, where does it say that HC3800 has 33% offset? Thanks.

Look again at the projector calculator. If you set height of the image as 100", then you might read offset value. It is 33,6" with 100" height, so percentage is 33,6...

I got the offset. Thanks. With screen size 110" the screen goes 4" below floor. With 100" dia. screen will be 3" above the floor.

My question again is the tilting. What if I tilt the pj 5 degree, will the picture be skewed? I think yes. Is there anyway to correct that skew?

Also how much tilt the pj can take for proper functioning and proper warranty?

Sharpness was really good. it throws a really crisp image. After reading Gorkon's post, I went back and looked at my image to check. I didn't see any focusing issues - seemed to be uniformly focused. I'll be checking more this weekend.

@saumil

Look at the pictures posted by Legairre, with 108" screen and little tilt (with slightly more offset in HC-1500). It seems works fine. I think, if you use fixed frame screen, you might also tilt it little bit, so the image would be less distorted. I don't experienced tilting of PJ; infact I was once, during instalation of my PJ, but I don't measure degres of tilt with skewed image...

I am also very curious about the brightness of the HC3800.
I have a rear projection setup using a Sony VPH1272 and the brightness is barely tolerable (about 600 lumens?). I have a HD1000u that claims 1500 lumens that I was going to use as a replacement.
The HC3800 only claims 1300 lumens but posts here indicate it is brighter than a HD1000u? If that is true, I may give it a try.

Hmmm. I'm check the calculator and have different result, 8" upon floor.

That horizontal beam is parallel or perpendicular to the screen? If first one, this may mean the opportunity to raise the projector, even to ceiling. Beam might be in "offset area" and not obscure the image.

I have no idea how many degrees I'm tilting, but yes if you go too far the picture will start to get that trapezoid look. If you look at the pics of the projector, screen and images you'll see the tilt of th eprojector and also see that with a 7' 4" ceiling the image is about 20" of the floor, and the images are uniform and not bowed.

I'd really appreciate it if those of you that have the 3800 could do an input lag test for us gamers. Either using the Rock Band 2 lag test if you have it, or using the method described in the lag test thread in the $3000 and over forums, preferably testing it against a CRT monitor if you have one.

Link to lag thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1068844

Thanks.

The beam runs parallel to the screen and 100" far. If I place the pj before the beam, I only can get a screen dia 72", so I need to go behind the beam.

I can keep the center of the lens to be 72". I measured from a scaled drawing, the center would be 3-1/2" from top of the unit in case of reverse ceiling mounting. My current calculations are based on 72" as top of the pj.

I don't exactly know the bottom of the beam so today I will go home and check again. My understanding was it is about 6' from the floor.

wiatrak;

I downloaded the Mitsubishi Image Calculator but it does NOT have the HC3800 listed in the dropdown.

Where did you you get your Mitsubishi calculator?

It was posted few times in the thread, f.e in post #642, it is online calculator.

Got it! Thanks.

Ok, here are some updates on what I found out so far.

General impression:

Really, really nice machine, especially for the price!
Quieter, brighter and MUCH better black levels than Optoma DV10 and HD20 (the only other HT projectors I have used). Image looks spectacular, similar to HD20 but brighter and better blacks. I really like this projector, if only I had a unit that is working!


Random shutdowns:

I just removed and reseated the lamp, but after ~45 min it shut down again. Looks like I'll have to send it back Provantage say they're out of stock at least until Dec 15th. If I return within 30 days, they will pay for return shipping and give a full refund with no restocking fee.

For reference, here is the exact sequence of a random shutdown:

	duration	Power LED	Status LED	Lamp	Fan	Meaning according to manual
1.	2~60 min	steady green	steady green	on	on	normal movie watching
2.	~15 s	blinking red/green	off	off	off	lamp cover isn't closed
3.	~ 5 s	steady red	off	off	off	standby
4.	~90 s	steady red	blinking green	off	on	The protection circuit is working or the lamp is in an abnormal condition
5.		steady red	off	off	off	standby

Uneven focus, color aberration:

To focus, I first used the green grid from the Mitsubishi setup menu. (Why didn't they provide a white grid like the HD20? Because people would notice the color aberration?) Then I tried the geometry and sharpness patterns on the Spears&Munsil disc. Whatever I did, either the upper left corner or the rest of the image were blurred, depending on where I focused. The placement of the menu (upper left vs. lower right corner) is also a good test for focus. I finally compromised and had the entire image slightly blurry.

No matter if completely in focus or not, thin white lines (regardless of orientation) showed a somewhat pronounced color aberration, i.e., blue or red fringes along edges.

To put this in perspective: The blur and color fringes are clearly visible in calibration grid patterns, computer text, and the projector's menu, but not during normal movie watching, where everything looks nice and sharp. Still, the HD20 I tried in September had a more uniform focus over the entire image and much less color aberration.


Offset, placement, tilt, keystone:
When I returned the HD20 and ordered the HC3800 back in September, my biggest concern was the HC3800's huge image offset of ~35% of image height. I have a 135" 1.1 gain 16:9 Elite screen and want to ceiling mount on an 8' ceiling. According to the Mitsubishi calculator, large portions of the image would be way beneath the floor, so I knew I would have to tilt the projector upwards and probably use keystone. I still wanted to give it a try because I wanted the better blacks and brighter image.

I am glad to report that tilting the projector up enough to fill the entire screen results in only minor keystone distortion of the image!!!
In fact the distortion is small enough that I will not be using any keystone correction. Setting keystone correction to -1 gets the image completely straight, but you lose 1:1 pixel mapping. (However you would only notice this with computer text, not with movies.)

BTW, I checked the focus/color aberration issue before and after tilting the projector - same result.

One more thing: According to the manual, p. EN-5: "Slanting the the projector more than +/- 10 degrees (right and left) or +/- 15 degrees (front and rear) may cause trouble or explosion of the lamp."


Provantage and Mitsubishi warranty:
Someone mentioned that Provantage is not an authorized Mitsubishi dealer. I have no idea whether that is correct or not, but it definitely does NOT affect their warranty. The U.S. warranty is posted on the official Mitsubishi HC3800 product page, and it doesn't mention any restrictions of dealers other than that they must be in the United States.


Minor things / observations:
I'm not a big fan of the black glossy finish. It attracts dust and fingerprints like crazy and probably scratches easily when trying to remove them.

It's almost impossible to attach/remove the lens cover without affecting both focus and zoom. That means correcting zoom and focus each time you turn it on.

Thank you very much for your comments.

1) Since the calculator says the image would be below the floor how high is it off the floor with the tilt and your 8' ceiling?
2) By keystone distortion I assume you mean the trapazoid effect not an actual distortion inthe picture quality?


Sounds like the the fatty PS3's glossy cabinet that is prone to fingerprints and scratching. As for the lens cover, the HD1000u, HC1500 and HC1600 cover also went on so tight it would mess up the focus. I think Mitsu's goal is for the cover to be used for transporting the units not stationary protection from dust.

Are you sure the projector is completely squared with your screen? When only 1 corner is out of focus, that could be a possibility (not to insult your set up capability).

@gorkon: I am definitely concerned to hear about the chromatic aberration... though this may also be due to the tilt. Here is hoping that you get a quick turn around on your replacement!

I am still waiting for my HC3800... hoping to get it tomorrow or Friday. For those who are upgrading from an HD1000U, I'll let you know my thoughts asap. The 1000U has been very dependable for the last three years. I am hoping for the same from the HC3800!

Maybe yes, and especially due to LCD's missaligment, green grid was provide with LCD models, I think. HC-1500 has a white grid, BTW I'm noticed (on HC-1500) color aberration from 2...3 feet from 82" screen, not from my viewing distance (aprox. 7'10").