Mitsubishi Hc7000 Owners Thread

[Guest]

Hi All,

As some of you have noted I made the leap and bought a 1080p Projector. Thanks so much for all your encouragement, especially those that told me to throw fiscal responsibility to the wind and buy a 1080p now in favour of waiting until after Christmas. I am not sure the MOF was that impressed with the advice though, especially the suggestion about me buying one and giving it to her as a Christmas present LOL!

Anyhow, I didn't just buy any old 1080p, thanks to a heads up from another DTV member about Merlin Audio Designs members special I ended up putting the cash down on one of the first Mitsubishi HC7000's to be domestically delivered! Thanks also needs to go Ken at Merlin for helping through the decision (he also did me a great deal on a Screen Technics Pulldown) and all of you who provided such positive references to Ken and Merlin Audio - it made making the decision a LOT easier and less nerve racking.

After placing the order on a Monday morning, Ken arranged delivery of the HC7000 and it arrived after only 2 days! .... the screen took longer and arrived on the Thursday (3 days)! I really can't fault the efficiency of Kens service!

It's taken me another couple of weeks to get it all installed though and after giving up on finding a tradesperson to install the requisite beams in the roof I ended up doing it myself over the last two weekends.

First impressions out of the box running on a coffee table about 80 cms off horizontal center (bad eh!) were pretty good ... great picture with no evidence of fly screening, motion blur or other issues. Especially given the less that ideal setup I have been absolutely impressed! The HC has seen nearly two weeks of service under such conditions and has acquitted itself admirably in a room that would have at least 6-10% ambient light during the day. The memory settings are great for storing ideal settings for different lighting conditions. In the pitch dark of night though the HC700 really excels! Beautiful blacks, grays and colors .... I have fiddled a number of times with Digital Video Essentials (DVD - NTSC version) and every time it keeps coming back to within +/-1 of the box settings (night viewing) which would seem to indicate that the factory calibration is pretty pretty much spot on.

This weekend saw the mounting of it from the ceiling, dead center horizontally and about 5cms above the top of the vertical and 295cms throw from a 92" screen. The picture improvement as a result has been more than noticeable and given me cause for even more joy to watch the end result ... A mate of mine has a JVC HD1 and whilst i am sure a side by side would show up some differences, as the HC7000 stands in my lounge room it's just as good! Really! I have to stand within 1m to spot anything other than a perfectly rendered picture! Now I know some of you will be reading this and thinking this is just me being overly excited about my new toy, but keep in mind that I have held off posting for the last two weeks until I knew I wasn't imagining the end result. I may still be over-stating the performance of this machine, but that is one of the reasons why I started this thread, because I am really interested in hearing others impressions and experiences with this machine. Quite honestly this projector is as good as the new Epson but heaps quieter and has a picture quality that rivals the JVC! This all bodes very well for what models are yet to come.

Anyway .... I leave the rant here and finish off (for the moment) with the good and (not so) good points I have found to date:

Good:

Quiet! I mean dead silent for normal use

Excellent blacks and colours in a light controlled room

Pleasing picture performance (with tweaking) in an ambient light room

DVD upscaling excellent! Definitely good enough to not bother buying any replacement BD copies

AVI/MP4/DivX/Xvid upscaling excellent! I really wasn't expecting good performance here, but watching a 350-500 mb episode off US TV is more than acceptable and an impressive bonus for me.

HD Photo display (7.2 megapixel HQ photos) excellent!

Blue Ray performance - as you would expect, slightly better than all the above.

No picture noise, artifacting or anything of concern seen so far.

Not so good:

Lens cap is fiddly and has no mounting point to attach to the machine - it's likely to get lost easily

The shape and dimensions make it difficult to eyeball the "ideal" positioning of the lens to the screen

The weight is not center balanced - it is back heavy which makes fitting and removal form a roof mount a little "scary" if you think too much about how much $$$ you are holding over your head!

Remote is no where near as cool as the machine itself

The remote backlight does not stay on long enough

more impressions to come!

Cheers

Chops

Edited November 9, 2008 by Guest

[weff]

I auditioned a HC7000 at Big Picture People in Knox last Friday and was impressed with just how quiet it was - could not hear the fan at all even right under it.(about 60cm away) (There was a bit of background noise in the store from the other demo rooms so it wasn't "dead" quiet - but quiet enough I expected to hear something from it.).

Supposedly this is "the" quietest projector on the market currently - usually in a quietish room the first thing you notice is the whir of the projector fan.

Impressive specs - still undecided though as the Sony VPL-VW80 has been my preference.

[weff]

Hi Weff .. I have to be honest and say I didn't even consider the Sony or Panasonic - past experiences have put them both into my "inept" set, basically down to abysmal after sales service.

Wel Sony is already in my "inept" set for abysmal before sales service - but I'd rather not condemn them yet given my current projector is a Sony (VPL-VW10HT) and been pretty pleased with it (excepting its price) to date. The only other bugbear has been the fan noise - which you do tend to "tuneout" after a while - but its nice to have absolute quiet in a quiet part of a film and not the background whir of a fan. It's like I have a PC in the loungeroom too - but only the LCD/keyboard/mouse parts - the rest is in the next room in a insulated cabinet so I can surf/watch TV etc without fan noise So the HC-7000 so far has significant appeal on that score alone.

[jgh]

I auditioned a HC7000 at Big Picture People in Knox last Friday and was impressed with just how quiet it was - could not hear the fan at all even right under it.(about 60cm away) (There was a bit of background noise in the store from the other demo rooms so it wasn't "dead" quiet - but quiet enough I expected to hear something from it.).

Supposedly this is "the" quietest projector on the market currently - usually in a quietish room the first thing you notice is the whir of the projector fan.

Impressive specs - still undecided though as the Sony VPL-VW80 has been my preference.

I have the HC6000 and am extremely impressed with it - but I'm a little envious now (LOL)! I bought mine through the Knox Big Picture people, and had them instal etc. They weren't high pressure (though that doesn't bother me much - I find it easy to say no) service was first rate and I recommend them very highly

[glenncol]

Wel Sony is already in my "inept" set for abysmal before sales service - but I'd rather not condemn them yet given my current projector is a Sony (VPL-VW10HT) and been pretty pleased with it (excepting its price) to date. The only other bugbear has been the fan noise - which you do tend to "tuneout" after a while - but its nice to have absolute quiet in a quiet part of a film and not the background whir of a fan. It's like I have a PC in the loungeroom too - but only the LCD/keyboard/mouse parts - the rest is in the next room in a insulated cabinet so I can surf/watch TV etc without fan noise So the HC-7000 so far has significant appeal on that score alone.

Hey weff

If you seen the one at knox this last Friday, it had been calibrated by Aaron

[whitey66]

I auditioned a HC7000 at Big Picture People in Knox last Friday and was impressed with just how quiet it was - could not hear the fan at all even right under it.(about 60cm away) (There was a bit of background noise in the store from the other demo rooms so it wasn't "dead" quiet - but quiet enough I expected to hear something from it.).

Supposedly this is "the" quietest projector on the market currently - usually in a quietish room the first thing you notice is the whir of the projector fan.

Impressive specs - still undecided though as the Sony VPL-VW80 has been my preference.

The HC7000 street price is $1600 cheaper,will that influence your decision?

Edited November 10, 2008 by whitey66

[weff]

The HC7000 street price is $1600 cheaper,will that influence your decision?

Not especially - I'm more concerned about getting a projector I'll be happy with afterwards.

I only went into BPP out of curiousity to see what they would recommend and the HC7000 was a surprise.

(I've bought from BPP (Knox) before - in June I succumbed and bought a Yamaha RX-Z11 , Soavo speakers(7.1), Pioneer LX608A plasma and Pioneer LX70A BD player - kind of melted the finances - but got a great deal and brilliant service from them. ).

I'm also wanting to go Cinemascope - but due to room layout have to use a motorised screen (screen comes down in front of plasma) - so looking at getting a custom built Screentechnics 2.37:1 Electrocinema screen - since standard models are usually 16:9. I currently have a 100" 16:9 Screentechnics - so a 130" Cinemascope version would replace it for about the same 16:9 size.

(Quoted RRP from ScreenTechnics earlier this year was $3800- - a custom vertically masked one (for 16:9 or 2.37:1) was around $7000 RRP.)

...and of course something I still need to do is get Avical in to calibrate it ! (yes - I saw the calibrated by Avical sign on the HC7000 - I really need to go back there and take another look - with source material I'm more familiar with.)

[jutta]

What's the going street price for the 7000

[gbickle1503560852]

Last I heard, retail had gone up from $5499 to $5999 as a result of the dollar dropping (this is still heaps cheaper than in the EU or UK though). The last street price I heard was $4980 (from memory) - PM me if you want to know from where.

LCD with D6 Panels costing over $2000 more than a Sony with SXRD Panels... what happened to the good old days when LCD used to be the value for money projectors

Same street price as the VW80

[glenncol]

LCD with D6 Panels costing over $2000 more than a Sony with SXRD Panels... what happened to the good old days when LCD used to be the value for money projectors

Same street price as the VW80

Nah its not the same street price as the VW80, HC7000 can be had for around the $4400 mark and the street price for the VW80 will be anywhere between $5170 and $5600

[jutta]

Last I heard, retail had gone up from $5499 to $5999 as a result of the dollar dropping (this is still heaps cheaper than in the EU or UK though). The last street price I heard was $4980 (from memory) - PM me if you want to know from where.

I'm in Tassie so we don't get that much of a choice down here.

Just researching at the moment still. Will be building another house next year and want to plan the HT room.

But this does sound like a good piece of kit.

Will check out gear in Sydney early next year. Don't have a Melb trip planned in the near future.

Where should I go in Sydney to view a few of these machines??????

[MrGadget]

Is this projector ment to be superior to the Sony one at just over $3K?

[gbickle1503560852]

Is this projector ment to be superior to the Sony one at just over $3K?

If you consider Colour Uniformity and fill ratio as important then its definately not superior

I have yet to see an lcd that can project a perfect white picture with no hint of discolouration.

I have compared the pixel structure of a TW2000 to an SXRD... close up you can see the flyscreen clearly on the LCD, whereas on the SXRD it is less pronounced. The problem with that is even though pixel structure is not obvious from normal seating distances it translates to a slightly more digital feel to the picture.

Dont get me wrong, LCDS have come a long way, but how they manage to charge $2000 more than the Sony SXRD is beyond me.

Edited November 17, 2008 by gbickle

[gbickle1503560852]

Have you seen the HC7000 in action?

If by close up you mean 30cms from the screen you can clearly see flyscreen (but you wont see much of the rest of the picture at that distance). On my HC7000 it's only visible on pure white (at around 30cms), throw some colour in and it's not detectable. What you are describing is a function of the mechanics of the projection if you couldn't see this on an LCD it probably means it;s not focused on the screen properly.

I'm happy with mine in comparison to a mates JVCHD1 .... no matter how good or cheap the Sony is I would not own one given the "fun" I have had with them in the past.

I am using the screendoor example to illustrate that LCD doesnt have the fill ratio of SXRD thats all.. I havnt seen the HC7000 but i cant imagine a D6 panel to have a better fill ratio than a D7 panel

I know you cant see screendoor at normal seating positions but the higher fill ratio of SXRD translates to a more natural image.

I dont want to Have a go at the HC7000 ... Its probably an excellent projector... I just remember when LCD used to be the value for money projector but nowadays DILA and DLP equivalent models are just as affordable.

[gbickle1503560852]

Deleted Duplicate post...

Edited November 17, 2008 by gbickle