The Official Canon SX60 Thread

In a phrase, this projector has something for nearly everyone except for those who are unyielding 1080p/16:9 purists. It is one heck of a unit that will please the vast majority of forward HT enthusiasts who are not 1080/16:9 brainwashed.

Now on to the preview...

I received my dealer demo SX60 Saturday. It may have been one of the first shipped here in the USA other than ones sent out to trade shows and factory salesman.

Opening the box you find a few cables and a nice carrying case. This is pretty much the same packaging as the SX50 but that is where the similarities end. Inside the foam padded carrying case lies the SX60. It is well packaged to take rough handling.

After taking it out of the case the first task I had was to make a new adapter plate for my ceiling bracket. It is not the same hole placement pattern of the SX50. I use a Sony ceiling bracket with a tripod type flange. This lets me machine an adapter plate for most projectors of reasonable weight. A few hours later it is up on the ceiling. Before I did that I decided to test table mount it to see how noisy it was and to give me an idea of how far back it needed to be. The SX50's fans were noisy enough even in low lamp mode that I placed it about twenty feet back from the screen which is about five feet behind my main viewing sofa. That worked to subdue the SX50's fan noise. However I had mounted my backup DLP projector in that location after selling my SX50 and waiting for the new unit. I have a second open mounting spot directly above the sofa. There was no way I could have placed the SX50 there - not because of the zoom angle but because of the fan noise.

That is all different now. The SX60 has two large slow turning fans. I placed the unit at the front location (about fifteen feet back from my 132" Studiotek 130 screen) and had viewing angle/zoom to spare in or out. But what about the noise level? I have to strain to hear the SX60 even though it is directly overhead. I think it is even more quiet than my Sony LCD CX75 which professes to use the same fan technology in the Qualia. The Sony has two smaller dual fans and is very quiet too. The SX60's fans are far larger. I can not hear much of a db gain even when switching on the normal versus quiet lamp mode.

HDMI/HDCP compatibility? - YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First test was the Toshiba (Walmart/black) HDD DVD player. No problemo!!! Am setting up an external HDMI switch to test other devices and will try Direct TV's HDMI port later. If it handled the HDD unit, I doubt if others will be a problem. I do not have a Denon DVD anything since I am also an Oppo owner. Have not used that but it should handle Oppo's straight DVI without a hitch.

AUTO SETUP? YEP!!! and it is pretty darn incredible. With the push of one button it auto focuses, auto keystones, auto signal types and (if switched on in the preferences) performs an AUTO SCREEN COLOR ADJUSTMENT. What is that? This is similar to a white balance correction in a digital camera. (Hmm, Canon, camera technology in a projector...cool!). I tested it on my Studiotek screen and it consistently came up with a minor shift in red and green values. But the cool thing about this feature is that it lets the unit shoot onto any color wall - including dark green as in green board "black" boards. In fact green is a fixed setting by itself but this an obviously a very powerful feature - especially for educational and business users but even us outdoor HT fans will find it useful for beaming onto you or your neighbor's house or fence for those backyard or front yard events. This is a big super plus score for Canon and a hint of what Canon can bring to the projector table.

IMAGE Quality?? LCOS!! LCOS!! LCOS!!....
Again literally no screen door effect a few inches back from screen. Pixel alignment? Seems far closer than the SX50 at edges of image even. Black tinted to purple? Cannot say. The SX50's alleged purple black never bothered me. Purple border - did not see one. Have not thoroughly looked for that. Light spill? I need for someone to tell me what to look for. I don't know precisely what bothered some folks who had it on the SX50. It never bothered me. Perhaps it is how I have the projector mounted?

IMAGE TYPES and CR RATIO!! Here is another area where the SX50 shines compared to the SX50. It has the sRGB which is where we SX50 users made our home which, with a minor tick in blue, it was near dead on 6500. But there was that 1000:1 CR issue. Well this unit has two "movie" viewing modes. One is called Movie mode designed to enjoy the atmosphere of a movie theater experience in a "dim" room. It is close to the sRGB setting and has ample brightness to deal with some ambient light in the room.

Here comes this groups crowd pleaser - the Home Cinema mode. This to is where Canon again has done it different. It is not an Auto Iris. An internal filter is dropped into the light path (you can hear it "click") and the image is dimmed down considerably. The CR is reputed to be 2000:1 on live images. In other words this is not on/off CR. Now at first I was not sure if I liked it being of the big and bright fan club but then I watched some movies with dark scenes. Well the blacks are way blacker than in the other modes and yes, the overall picture is lower in lumens too. It does require a dark room to be effective. In this mode the lamp by default drops into the quiet mode and the lamp life is alleged to be 4000 hours. If you want to cheat the system you can put the lamp in normal mode to get more lumens for a larger, brighter image but of course you will shorten the lamp life which is rated at 2500 hours or longer. Bulb costs are about $500.

I have not had a chance to do a DVD based calibration. But the image in Movie or sRGB mode is as startling as the one from the SX50. It is great for sports and watching network TV in SD or HD mode. The SX60 is 4:3 but it 16:9 720P "subset image is spectacular and will now please those that have to view movies in near absolute dark and who have to have the blacker blacks. The SX60 gives that. How does it stack up to a DLP or SXRD? I can say subjectively that the non-image area of the screen is as "black" as my DLP 2000:1 rated unit. In other words, the blacks are pretty darn black.

I should mention that unlike the SX50, it has remote focus and zoom which does make it easier to stand at the screen for that perfect adjustment however the Auto Setup mode had the focus nearly dead on perfect. When manually adjusting focus it throws a cool grid pattern in standard and reverse black and white making it very easy to get it perfect.

With this units SDE effect free image of lush rich deep LCOS/SXRD/DILA class color, with its ability to adjust its color balance to any "screen" material, with its ability to give a big bright image for the some lights on crowd and then do the dark, higher CR image types for the absolute dark cave dwellers among us, Canon has indeed in its second effort given the projector community something to please nearly everyone from HT enthusiast, to educator and on to the business community. At its $4999 MAP price it has a versatility not found in any other projector at any price with a picture quality that can match units costing twice its price and well more. But it isn't 1080p? So what. All broadcast TV now is 720P. Frequently debated here has been the issue of can you tell the difference between the two on the screen? I've seen the Ruby and it might be a tad sharper but if you can sit on top of the SX60's image from inches away and still it looks like film with no screen door, then the advantage of 1080p putting more info on the screen with smaller pixels is not really noticeable and even less so if the extra info is upscaled from 480 or 720 sources. It will be a long time before 1080p is the prime source even from Blue Ray. How long will it take for a serious number of titles to be out there in 1080p Blue Ray. So why should you pay the extravagant price of a 1080P projector now when there will only be a minimal difference if any to see on the screen?

The SX60 may have flaws that I have yet to find. But for its price, just likes it SX50 predecessor, it is a whole lot of projector for not too many bucks and it has addressed all of the SX50's issues. It is quiet, has HDMI/HDCP, dust blob free and with it various modes it has upped the CR of LCOS without a fussy auto iris to mess with and tweak all day long. It has a long life, "cheap" (by comparison to SXRD and DILA) bulb and has lumens to spare for the lights on party or sporting event showing.

The SX60 has a number of unique color correction controls. They surpass even those on the SX50 by far.

Send your questions and I will attempt to answer them if I have the time or expertise. I do not have any measuring equipment or a PC either since I am a Mac guy.

Icon Master

I'll try to answer the SX60 questions brought up so far however some I cannot answer since I do not have the information or abilty to measure or provide various input frequencies to see the results.

For one the unit will not handle 1080p input - only 1080i. I cannot answer the question of how it down and up converts. What I have seen however is that from my HiDef Direct TV receiver the output looks a tad sharper in 1080i than 720p. In fact the HDNET test pattern has a line that says if you can read this you have a 1080 capable display and I can read it in 1080i mode and that tiny bottom resolution testing line is fuzzy in 720p mode. I'll let the experts here figure out what that means. Does this mean it has a "darn good internal scaler?"

I know I seem confused over CR and perhaps I am because I do not know how to categorize what Canon said in the sales training material I received and this info is not on the Canon web site. I did see where the German site say 1500:1 but the American literature and even the manual say 2000:1 in Cinema mode. In the dealer sales brochure it also clearly states "that unlike the methods used by other manufacturers to measure CR we do it by measuring it simultaneously on screen at the same time." You guys will tell me what this means. Does any other manufacturer measure CR in this way and what would you call it?

I can say with certainty that the area outside the lit up wide screen image yet in the 4:3 projected field is as dark as that of my 2000:1 DLP. Again I'm talking about Cinema mode only.

I'm not up on the 2.35:1 approach. The SX60 has an auto mode that does well to fit the image with no edge clipping loss across the width of the image. Depending on what is being fed in HiDef mode I have seen the height of the image vary considerably. I'm not sure I get why you would want to squeeze an image down and distort it so it fits a certain ratio. I guess I am confuse on this too. But on the other had since this is a 4:3 unit and it is capable of dealing with images from 4:3 on down to 2.35:1 and all those in between why in the heck do you want to mess around and either loose image or distort it? At the movie theaters of today different flicks have the different height to width ratios and the better theaters mask the edges to fit. You'll see the curtain move as they switch from the previews to the feature film. In general I don't recall seeing a distorted image - just custom masking to suit each particular flick. Thus having a 4:3 unit is an advantage over 16:9 since you will see all there is to see without distortion.

On the tearing issue, I never saw it on the SX50. I think that only happened using a PC to feed the unit at certain frequencies and in my case I am using with component or DVI and now HDCP to link to the SX60. I do have to make a correction. THe unit has a DVI type port that handles HDCP via a HDMI to DVI adapter cable. You guys are darn sharp and I was loose in my terminology there.

Along those lines I just tested the Oppo's DVI output ant is looked great and I also fed it HDMI/HDCP->DVI from my Dish Net receiver and it handled that output as well. My Direct TV's HDMI port may be broken since it did not work with either projecotr or perhaps I have missed a setup setting there but it will not sync up with either of my projectors unless it is a too long of a cable issue. The other units I have have all worked fine using their HDMI or DVI outputs to both of my projectors. If anyone knows if cable length is an issue with the Direct TV HiDef Tivo unit let me know. For now it word fine via component.

There are several approaches to adjusting color values not. Beside the six point old way which had RGB and the CMY, there is another screen and there is also the RGB screen to which is where the auto setup tweaks color balance values for your particular screen (or wall or chalkboard).

When I ceiling mounted the unit I did invert it. The screw holes for the factory available ceiling mount kit are on the bottom of the projector. Canon's ceiling kit sells for about $900. I used my $175 Sony ceiling kit and made an adapter "plate" with about $10 worht of material and about three hours of my time. I saved enough money there to buy myself a spare bulb.

The big difference between the SX60 and the SX6 besides 2500 lumens to 3500 lumens is the Cinema mode. It drops an internal filter into the light path to get the reported 2000:1 CR. The other LCOS Canon units do not have this. Cannot say if there is s firmware difference .

Ken - you need to come to New Orleans with your measuring tools. Even with our widespread devistation the food and music here s still great here. I live out in the quiet 'burbs in an area that was not badly damaged by Katrina. Everyone on this web site including the folks outside the USA should come visit New Orleans, not to see the SX60, but to see what a powerful hurricane can do. The damage is so widespread it is almost unconceivable. I have only seen a fraction of it myself and it still has me shaking my head when I drive through vast areas of New Orleans that remain uninhabitable. Hopefully in your lifetimes this never happens again here or anywhere but t is something that has to be seen first hand to comprehend.

Icon Master

Dan - I don't recall seeing a blue Halo but thinking back I don't know if the later model SX50 w/o dust blobs had it as well. Tell me what I should do to make it show up and I will run a test for you. Also what was the issue with light leakage and under what conditions did it show up?

This unit has an entirely different lamp than the SX50. It is actually a lower wattage bulb but appears to be just a "bright" in the sRGB, Movie, Standard and Presentation mode. Perhaps that is why it is called an advanced AISYS design since it is more efficient.

If you have an SX50 and don't need HDCP (unfortunately the handwriting is on the wall that at some point in time you will need it or a fake-out black box), and you don't feel the need for the Cinema 2000:1 CR mode, and the fan noise level of the SX50 is not bothering you nor does yours have any dust blobs then stay with the SX50.

I'm on the fence about the CR mode myself but here's a "blind" test I ran. I had the unit in Cinema mode and started playing "Munich" DVD for my wife. (Remember my wife is a gifted professional graphic artist who has a great eye for color, etc and who was NOT impressed by the Ruby in a showroom demo of suspect calibration). Anyway, the room was totally dark although not hermetically sealed. Tinkering with the settings, I flipped the unit into Movie mode (Darin will love this) and my wife's reaction was "Put it back, its too bright." Indeed the blacks in the image were more gray and the light areas were more faded too. Granted that I have not calibrated the unit using one of the DVD's. I'll try to do that this weekend and see if I can pull another sneak attack test on the wife afterwards.

The really cool thing about the SX60 is that it does give you the choice of how you want to use the unit. With the standard below 1000 lumen (and usually way more expensive) projectors, it always has to be lights out. With the SX60 we now have a unit that gives you a great picture both ways - with some lights on or all totally off. And let us not diminish the potential value of the Auto Screen color balance feature - especially for those who give those outdoor parties or who take the RV out for road trips. You don't have to have a white house or RV anymore to use either as your outdoor screen, however it will have to be all one color.

Icon Master