Projector Reviews

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: 18,362:1

All measurements were taken in Normal lamp mode, Lens Aperture (iris) at –12, Brightness at –6 and Contrast at –12. This produced above-white clipping at the digital value 240.

As a real-world number with the projector set up for optimum picture quality, the contrast measurement above is outstanding and backs up what I saw on the screen. The Before Calibration color-tracking plot here is using THX Cinema mode. For an out-of-box display, this is actually quite good. But as you can see, we improved upon this a great deal with calibration. Measuring color tracking, Delta E deviations under 4 are considered invisible to the human eye. The THX Before Calibration color tracking was only below 4 Delta E at two of the nine measured points in the brightness range (the bulk were over 6 Delta E). After Calibration, there was no deviation greater than 1.5 Delta E across the entire range, which is superlative color tracking. I should note that a projector manufacturer has its hands full with factory calibrating projectors. Even if you could take the time to calibrate at the factory, a brand-new bulb will not behave at the factory anything like it will once it’s got tens of hours on it, let alone hundreds.

After much gnashing of teeth, I decided to show the User 1 color gamut I preferred at the time of writing since that’s what I watched the most. It’s not as close to the HD color-point standards as the THX mode color gamut, which is shown in the “Color Me Accurate?” sidebar. Still, the color luminance values were closer to standard after I tweaked the CMS, and I preferred the color gamut you see here with its luminance values to the gamuts with better color point measurements. And yes, this is complicated stuff. See the sidebar for more details.

Resolution with luma and chroma bursts was strong to the limits of the 1080p signals I put into the projector over HDMI. All the detail in these signals will be resolved here with no tricks required. The DLA-HD750 is refreshingly free of enhancements that hose up the image. It has no overscan/pixel-cropping issues whatsoever. Overall, this is terrific measured performance that is highly customizable due to the adjustable iris and color-management system.—SCB