Projector Reviews

As the first front projector to use Texas Instruments' new 1280x720 HD1 DMD chip, the SharpVision XV-Z9000U has created quite a buzz at industry trade-show previews and on Internet discussion groups. So when given the chance to spend a long weekend with a pre-production sample of the XV-Z9000U, I didn't pass it up.

I began with the best possible source material: 1080i and 720p HDTV movies and sports. Of course, the big advantage of TI's new 16:9-aspect-ratio DLP chip is that, in the home-theater environment, its full resolution is used. Earlier DLP projectors used only 75% of the available resolution when projecting on a 16:9 screen. Unless you use an anamorphic lens attachment, the extra pixels above and below the screen are wasted, and create a faint splash of stray light on your wall. Even the higher-resolution 4:3 DLP chip, at 1024x768, provides only 589,824 active pixels in the 16:9 area of the 4:3 chip. Compare that with the 921,600 active pixels in the 16:9 area of TI's new chip, and you can see why I was expecting a visibly sharper image than what I'd seen so far from DLP projectors.

As MF says, HDTV images in both 720p and 1080i looked glorious from the XV-Z9000U. Despite a relatively low light rating of 800 ANSI lumens, the Sharp threw a bright, vibrant, detailed image onto my 100-inch-diagonal Grayhawk screen. I expected to have a preference for 720p material, as this matches the new chip's resolution and is displayed by the Sharp without scaling. But 1080i was also impressive, with no distracting scaling or motion artifacts. Blacks were solid—not quite as deep as a CRT projector's, but better than any other DLP's that I've seen.

But my real interest was in seeing how DVD, scaled to 1280x720p from an HTPC, would look on the XV-Z9000U. I set the Sharp to Dot By Dot mode to bypass its internal scaler. When I configured my PC to 1280x720 and connected it to the '9000's VGA input, I was disappointed to discover what I consider to be a fairly serious problem.

The XV-Z9000U segregates inputs based on signal type. If you feed its VGA input 1080i from the HiPix HTPC DTV tuner card or a DTC-100 set-top-box (which many people may do, since that input's connector matches the VGA connector of the DTC and HD-PC tuner cards), it performs rescaling that can't be adjusted. But the real problem with this early sample was that the VGA input could accept only "standard" 4:3 computer resolutions like 800x600, 1024x768, or 1280x1024. The one resolution you'd expect to see available�x720p—was not one of the XV-Z9000U's pre-set computer resolutions.

This means that the Sharp's VGA input did not allow 1280x720p to pass through unscaled, to allow the HTPC (or any other scaler that sends out 1280x720) to be your external scaler. It directly pixel-mapped standard PC resolutions like 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024, but feed it 1280x720 and it scaled the signal, destroying the image quality.

Using the HDTV input, I was able to display unscaled 1280x720p by setting the HTPC's timing to 720p/60Hz. But the projector was still doing something to the signal—the image did not have that razor-sharp look you get when you have "pixel perfection" (see my December 2001 "PCinema"). Pixel perfection—the adjustment of the projector's internal clock to perfectly match your scaler's input signal and provide the sharpest possible image—was attainable on the PC input only at the standard PC resolutions mentioned.

If it sounds like I'm being a little harsh on the SharpVision XV-Z9000U's HTPC capabilities, it's only because I'm so enamored of it in every other way-it provided the best out-of-the-box digitally projected image that I've seen outside a $100,000 three-chip projector. But again, remember that I looked at a pre-production sample. MF's sample was a production model, but was not available for me to look at prior to deadline. According to Sharp, the issue has been addressed on any unit produced on or after December 1, 2001. As soon as I get my hands on a more recent unit, we will publish an updated report on the Sharp's HTPC capabilities.—Patrick J. Megenity