The Short Form

$3,995 / MITSUBISHI-PRESENTATIONS.COM / 888-307-0349

Snapshot

A reasonably priced 1080p front projector that doesn't skimp on picture quality or installation features.

Plus

• Crisp 1080p picture with natural color • Strong blacks and shadow detail • Excellent standard-def picture upconversion • Flexible setup and adjustment options

Minus

• Reds sometimes look overly vivid • Price $3,995

Key Features

• 1080p resolution • 1.6x zoom lens • Motorized zoom, focus, and horizontal/vertical lens shift • Accepts 24p input and frame-doubles to 48p • 160-watt UHP lamp with 5,000-hour life (in Low mode) • Inputs: 2 HDMI 1.3; component-, composite-, and S-video; VGA; RS-232C • 131/4 x 5 x 14 in; 121/2 lb MITSUBISHI-PRESENTATIONS.COM :: 888-307-0349

Mitsubishi has long been known as the Big-Screen Company, mostly due to the strength of its extensive lineup of rear-projection TVs. But with Mitsubishi (like every other TV manufacturer) now shifting its focus to flat-panel TVs, the Big-Screen torch appears to have been passed to its front-projector division. The last Mitsubishi front projector I tested, the HD4900, offered strong 1080p-rez performance at an affordable three-grand price tag. And since then, there has also been a steady buzz surrounding a step-up model, the HC6000. But just how big a step up is it?

A key attraction of the HC6000 is its well-regarded Silicon Optix Reon video processor. Beyond that, the projector's Automatic Iris function benefits from a new algorithm that optimizes picture contrast on a scene-by-scene basis. Most other LCD and LCoS front projectors offer this feature, but the adjustments happen so rapidly on the HC6000 that they're virtually transparent. Also, it's one of the quietest projectors I've ever tested. With the Low lamp mode selected, you'll barely know this thing is turned on.

Adding to the HC6000's stealthy appeal is its compact black case. The control buttons are on the top surface, and the back-panel connections include two HDMI 1.3 jacks, a component-video input, and a VGA port for plugging in a computer. Custom-install-friendly features include an RS-232 input and a 12-volt output.

The projector's remote control has been designed for maximum utility in dark rooms. It has a fully backlit keypad, and the control buttons covering its surface let you quickly switch sources and make picture adjustments without having to root through onscreen menus.

To switch aspect ratios, you repeatedly press the remote's Aspect button to toggle through the display modes. For standard-def programs, you can select 4:3, 16:9, Zoom 1 or 2, or Stretch. For high-def 720p and 1080i/p signals, choices are limited to 16:9 and a 2.35:1 mode that's meant for use with same-aspect-ratio projection screens.

SETUP

To test the HC6000, I positioned it about 13 feet from an 80-inch-wide (92-inch-diagonal) Stewart Filmscreen GrayHawk RS screen in my medium-gray home theater. Setup is simplified by the motorized zoom, focus, and horizontal/vertical lens-shift features, which let you fully tweak image alignment using just the remote.

After plugging my system into the HC6000 via HDMI, I called up the Image setup menu and selected the Enhanced Input Level option. This setting lets the projector display below-black (0 IRE) and above-white signals. In the projector's Signal menu, I configured both HDMI inputs for 0% picture overscan. The HC6000 will also accept a 24p input from a Blu-ray Disc player, automatically frame-doubling the signal to a 48p display.

The HC6000 doesn't offer any general picture presets, but it does provide Cinema, Sports, Video, and Auto gamma presets. After you've optimized the picture settings, you can store your adjustments in the AV Memory Save submenu. Three separate memories are available for each of the projector's inputs, and you can call them up easily by pressing the associated AV Memory button on the remote.

Like any sophisticated front projector, the HC6000 is stocked with plentiful settings to tweak its picture. Of its three color-temperature presets, the Mid (medium) mode delivered the most accurate color. Auto Iris functions typically create deeper-looking blacks on front projectors, but they can also rob the picture of punch by reducing the brightness of white highlights. With the HC6000, however, images looked more satisfying and punchy with Auto Iris on. And true to Mitsubishi's claims, its action was transparent and completely silent at all settings.

An HD DVD (remember those?) of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford provided me with an excellent opportunity to watch the Mitsubishi strut its stuff. Viewing a wintry scene where Jesse (Brad Pitt) and Dick Liddil (Paul Schneider) descend on a farmhouse in search of a fellow outlaw, a range of subtle highlights could be seen in the play of sunlight on snow. Combined with finely rendered details like rough fences encircling the barnyard, weathered planks lining the barn's exterior, and bare tree branches in the background, this all added up to a clean, realistic picture, with the HC6000 delivering almost window-like clarity.

The Mitsubishi's color was consistently vibrant on the reference discs I checked out. Reds were a bit too vibrant on a few scenes but the greens looked balanced, if just a tad yellowish. Even on a period film like Jesse James where the color palette barely extends beyond gray, brown, orange, and green, the HC6000 managed to flesh out an impressively wide range of subtle hues. And it also delivered natural-looking skin tones. For example, in the strangely choreographed scene where Jesse's cousin Wood Hite (Jeremy Renner) is killed, distinct tonal differences could be seen between Hite's flushed, enraged face and the pale, fearful countenance of Robert Ford (Casey Affleck).

Checking out the Blu-ray Disc of Pan's Labyrinth, I was impressed by the dark blacks that the HC6000 delivered. In a scene where the young girl Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) enters her mother's room shortly after their arrival at the villa, shadows in the corners of the room were satisfyingly deep, while details like carved patterns in the medieval-looking bed as well as creases and folds in the bunched-up blankets came across clearly. But this kind of performance was only possible with the Auto Iris function switched on.

The HC6000 also did a great job upconverting regular DVDs — no surprise with the Reon chip onboard. And its noise-reduction settings (for eliminating random, mosquito, and block noise) proved very effective in smoothing out lousy-looking programs delivered by my digital cable service.

BOTTOM LINE

The HC6000's standout Auto Iris mode delivers consistently punchy-looking, filmlike pictures without the compromises usually associated with that feature. And it's also dead quiet — a big plus if you use it in a small- to medium-size room. Beyond that, the projector looked great with every source I threw at it, from high-def discs to regular DVDs and cable TV. The HC6000 isn't just a step up from Mitsubishi's own HC4900 model; it represents a substantial leap over much of the low-cost LCD front-projector competition. S&V

TEST BENCH

Before Calibration

After CalibrationBrightness (100-IRE window) 14.7 ftL / 14.3 ftL

Color temperature (Medium before/User mode after calibration):

20 IRE: 6,609 / 6,559 K
30 IRE: 6,587 / 6,514 K
40 IRE: 6,429 / 6,623 K
50 IRE: 6,500 / 6,455 K
60 IRE: 6,320 / 6,483 K
70 IRE: 6,422 / 6,569 K
80 IRE: 6,365 / 6,521 K
90 IRE: 6,365 / 6,560 K
100 IRE: 6,367 / 6,540 K

Brightness (100-IRE window): 14.7 / 14.3 ftL

Primary Color Point Accuracy vs. SMPTE HD Standard

Color	Target X	Measured X	Target Y	Measured Y
Red	0.64	0.72	0.33	0.31
Green	0.30	0.32	0.60	0.66
Blue	0.15	0.12	0.06	0.02

The HC6000 delivered fairly accurate out-of-box color reproduction with the Mid (medium) color-temperature mode selected, although its green level was down slightly across the entire grayscale range. Tracking measured ±180 K of the 6,500-K standard from 20 to 100 IRE. Adjustments made to the red, green, and blue brightness and contrast controls in the User Color Temperature submenu helped to improve gray- scale tracking, which afterward measured an impressive ±123 K from 20 to 100 IRE. Color-decoder tests revealed only a mild -5% green error for both the HDMI and component-video inputs. Compared with the SMPTE HD specification for digital TV colors, measurements showed mild oversaturation for all colors, although oversaturation of the red point was more pronounced.

The Mitsubishi's measured 14.3-ftL postcalibration brightness was slightly below average compared with that of other projectors I've tested recently, although picture brightness was never a real issue. With the Low lamp mode and Auto Iris 5 mode selected, the projector's best-case on/off contrast-ratio measurement was 1,257:1 in my medium-gray home theater. Once again, this measurement was below the average of other projectors I've tested, but my subjective opinion was that the Mitsubishi delivered consistently satisfying picture contrast when its Auto Iris mode was active — more so than several other projectors I've tested that measured better on this spec.

Overscan measured 0% for 1080i/p-format high-definition signals with the projector's variable Overscan adjustment at its 100% setting. A 1080p multiburst test pattern viewed via the projector's HDMI connection was displayed at full resolution. However, 1080i and 720p signals viewed via the same input showed interference on the highest bursts with both patterns — a situation that didn't hold true for the component-video connection. Picture uniformity overall was very good. I did see a slight amount of pink tinting on higher-IRE full-field test patterns, but it wasn't in evidence when I watched movies.

Not surprising for a projector containing a Silicon Optix HQV processor, the HC6000 aced all the tests contained on that company's high-def and DVD test discs. Its performance here basically guarantees that 1080i-format HDTV programs displayed on the projector will look solid. Upconversion of DVDs and standard-definition TV programs was very good, and the projector's video noise reduction processing proved very effective at removing grain and noise from pictures without eliminating detail.

— A.G.