Thanks for an interesting read but I can't help you out one bit.
Chuck Norcutt
Michael Collins wrote:
> The camera club I belong to (the Toronto Camera Club) has drifted into the
> digital world over the last few years, and has been making do with a digital
> projector bought over three years ago, a M*tsubishi XD300U, which uses DLP
> technology.
>
> We decided earlier this year that we really needed a second projector as
> backup in case of failure - same as we have a surplus of Ektagraphic
> projectors in the projection booth - and though we'd be able to capitalise
> on both improvements in technology and a dramatic drop in prices.
>
> We decided to approach one distributor and one high-end photo retailer (from
> whom we'd bought the original projector) to evaluate the current state of
> the art. Well, we had a few surprises, and have yet to decide to spend our
> budget (C$3500-4000) on anything. I thought I'd relate this OT tale here in
> case anyone can point us to flaws in our knowledge or methodology, or concur
> with our experience.
>
> I should mention that we project onto a screen which is the painted end wall
> of our auditorium, which itself is the rear 3/4 of a two-storey space
> converted from two adjacent store properties. The screen is a good 15'/5m
> high and perhaps 25'/8m wide, and is about 40'/13m from the second-floor
> projection booth. We project slides from the booth, but no affordable
> digital projector has a 40' throw, so that projector is up near the front of
> the auditorium (and nearly at the limit of its keystone control); this also
> limits the digital image size to less than the full height of the screen.
>
> H*tachi LCD projectors (the 440 series - the 340 series were not bright
> enough and the 1200 series too expensive) were the first stop. We viewed
> them in the distributor's display theatre, on a large screen, and quickly
> ruled them out due to insufficient shadow and highlight detail.
>
> Next stop: the photo retailer with the latest low-end M*tsubishi DLP
> (XD450U) and the C*non LCOS (SX60). We tried evaluating them in the
> showroom, but there was too much extraneous light and really not enough time
> [salespeople seem to get antsy when it becomes clear they're nowhere near a
> sale, too], so we rented the two for the Labo(u)r Day weekend to do an A-B-C
> comparison with our existing M*tsubishi.
>
> The setup was three PC laptops, each driving one of the projectors, with the
> three images projected side-by-side. We calibrated each PC/projector using
> the Spy*der2PRO at the start of the session. Each PC had the same set of
> test images, drawn from various sources, plus a selection of actual Club
> competition images from the previous year.
>
> Calibration brought the first surprise. We assumed naively that when the
> calibration exercise was complete, we'd have three virtually identical
> images on the screen and would be ready to go. Not so. Subjectively, we
> though that the "before" image was better than the "after" image for all
> three projectors, but especially on the two M*tsubishi ones. Worse, the
> colours on those two seemed drab and the grey seemed to have a slight green
> cast, whereas the C*non colours were very bright but - especially the blue -
> quite saturated. We were a little suspicious that the instructions for the
> Spy*der said it was OK that it was staring at its shadow on the screen [you
> put it only a yard/metre or so away, on a stand so that it's looking at the
> centre of the image], so we recalibrated with less shadow but saw no
> difference. We then re-recalibrated in the approved manner, and saw no
> difference in the results. So three left-brain, analytical types were very
> puzzled, but decided to move on with the comparisons.
>
> Of the three of us, it turned out that one was most concerned about detail
> (shadow and especially highlight), one about overall sharpness, and one
> about colour fidelity. To make a long story short, the new M*tsubishi has
> excellent shadow detail, but insufficient highlight detail; good sharpness;
> and good colour (tho' we had a minor concern about the slight green cast,
> but left that to a better future understanding of calibration). The C*non
> has good detail at both ends, though not as much shadow detail as the
> M*itsubishi, and good colour but significantly saturated in the reds and
> greens *and* extremely saturated blue to the point of rendering many skies
> unnatural. The old M*tsubishi had much less detail at both ends, and
> virtually the same colour characteristics as its newer sibling.
>
> Many hours into the session - we spent about 12 hours altogether, I think -
> we noticed an odd thing about the image from the new M*tsubishi. On a
> relatively dark image, and more clearly visible when muted, were circular
> "hot spots" of light, some overlapping in one quadrant and a couple
> separately in other quadrants. Staring at the lens from in front of the
> projector and moving your head about, you could clearly see these bright
> spots where there should have been even illumination. More dramatically,
> when I placed a white card about 6" in front of the lens, these showed up as
> bright white spots.
>
> When tracking down these spots, we also noticed that there is significant
> light spill in the immediate area outside the projected area [not present in
> the 300]. It's hard to believe that these are just manufacturing defects. We
> haven't yet received an explanation, but this pair of problems was enough to
> kick the M*tsubishi entirely out of the running. The problems might not be
> seen with a PowerPoint presentation in a boardroom, but were unacceptable
> for high-end image display for a camera club.
>
> Back to the C*non. We liked everything about it except the oversaturated
> blue, so we tried to correct that. We ran every adjustment, advanced or
> otherwise, from stop to stop and in many combinations to see if we could
> find the magic to fix it, and had no luck.
>
> So we're stuck. We did a lot of Web searches, and found very little about
> calibrating to a camera club's exacting requirements. We did find
> suggestions that the Spy*der2PRO didn't produce good or consistent results,
> but no obvious answers. In summary, for our budget:
> 1. LCD projectors doesn't have the required shadow and highlight detail
> 2. The M*tsubishi has light artifacts and light spill that were unacceptable
> 3. The C*non has blue that is unacceptably saturated
> 4. "Calibrated" PC/projector pairs were visibly quite different one to
> another and subjectively had either a colour cast or oversaturation
>
> We're trying to get some help from the photo retailer and from the vendors,
> but have nothing back yet. At this rate I suspect we'll try to find a used
> XD300U or XD350U to match what we have, and look again in a year or two. Or
> perhaps bite the bullet, double the budget, and go through the exercise
> again with higher-end projectors. Any comments or suggestions you might have
> are welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Michael
>
>
>
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