Projector Reviews

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio—2914:1; ANSI Contrast Ratio—441:1

Measured Resolution with the Leader LT-446:
480: 480 (per picture height)
720p/1080i: Out to the limits of the 1280 by 720 chip

DC Restoration (poor, average, good, excellent): Excellent

Color Decoder (poor, average, good, excellent): Average

Measured Color Points:
Red Color Point: x=0.630, y=0.342
Green Color Point: x= 0.330, y= 0.633
Blue Color Point: x= 0.144, y= 0.100

The left chart shows the HD70's gray scale relative to its color temperature at various levels of intensity, or brightness (20 IRE is dark gray; 100 IRE is bright white). The gray scale as set by the factory, in the 1 color-temperature mode and the Film gamma mode, measures a little warm with dark images and a little cool with brighter images. After making adjustments using the Photo Research PR-650, the gray scale measures closer D6500, the accurate color temperature, across the entire range.

The right chart shows the gray scale (or color temperature) relative to the color points of the display's red, green, and blue color-filter-wheel segments. These are off those specified by SMPTE. Red is somewhat undersaturated and somewhat reddish orange. Blue is rather greenish blue. Green is somewhat oversaturated and rather yellowish green.

After calibration, and using a full-field 100-IRE white (23.31 foot-lamberts) and a full-field 0-IRE black (0.008 ft-L), the contrast ratio was 2914:1. Using a 16-box checkerboard pattern (ANSI contrast), the contrast ratio was 441:1. The best contrast ratio was achieved with ImageAI on and BrilliantColor set to 9. Bright Mode requires ImageAI to be off, and increases black level to 0.010 ft-L while overall light output stays basically the same at 23.35 ft-L for a contrast ratio of 2335:1 (on an 87-inch-wide, 1.0-gain Da-Lite Da-Mat screen). —GM