3D Projector Reviews

Peak-white level: 16.1fL

Black Level: 0.021fL

In 2D mode, the Reference display mode was closest to accurate, with color temperature set to Warm, all PureEngine features turned off, color space set to RGB (0-255), and gamma set to Standard, all by default. The errors in grayscale at different brightness levels, technically called delta E, ranged from 1.6 to 6.3; anything under 4 is not discernable to the human eye. Gamma measured 2.0, which is pretty low, resulting in a somewhat washed-out image. The primary and secondary colors were somewhat off, with red, yellow, and green all oversaturated, all colors under-illuminated, and cyan off toward blue. Interestingly, the RGB Gain and Bias controls were not all at 0 by default. After calibration, Delta E ranged from 0.2 to 2.0, which is excellent. There are no color management controls other than PureColor, which can be turned off or set to 1 through 5; a setting of 1 yielded the lowest errors overall, although most of the pre-cal errors were still evident. When I played with the gamma controls, I obtained an average gamma of 2.3, which improved the washed-out look.

I set the contrast control so the peak-white level measured 16.1 foot-lamberts, which yielded a black level of 0.021 ft-L and a full-on/full-off contrast ratio of 767:1, neither of which are good results.

In 3D mode, the pre-cal measurements were horrible—the grayscale was severely deficient in red and blue, and gamma measured 1.4. Unfortunately, I was unable to properly calibrate the grayscale in 3D mode because blue and red behaved in a very non-linear manner across the brightness range. I did the best I could to optimize the midrange at the expense of the high and low end, but this was not entirely successful. Pre-cal Delta E ranged from 7 to 29, while post-calibration, it ranged from 1 to 11. I was able to improve the average gamma to 2.3.

In Bright lamp mode and at the maximum contrast setting without clipping, I measured a peak-white level of only 3.8 ft-L and a black level of 0.004 ft-L with the glasses placed over the light meter, resulting in a full-on/full-off contrast ratio of 950:1, somewhat better than the 2D contrast ratio, but still not great. —SW