The Mitsubishi HC 7000 is a Full HD, LCD projector. Released in autumn 2008, the device is still selling for a hefty 2,500 GBP online.

Florian Friedrich, tested on December 14, 2009

Versatile, thanks to lens-shift and wide zoom region.
High native contrast and excellent automatic iris.
Outstanding video processing.
Great 24p reproduction.
Very quiet fan.

Not very bright.
Some motion blur.

For the ambitious home theater, you can’t do much better than the HC 7000. Mitsubishi’s elegant high-end model not only displays HD signals in top quality — it also does an excellent job with TV programs and DVD movies. Believe it or not, it even beats the contrast on Panasonic’s PT-AE 3000, the best LCD projector yet. Our headlining criticism, however, is the slight blur in fast-moving pictures.

Most important connections:

2x 1x 1x

Features

Everything you need: the HC 7000 has two HDMI inputs, and can accept YUV and Scart-RGB signals via its VGA socket.

The elegant, black-violet, lacquer-finish casing has double walls for better dust-protection and cooling. As with the predecessor Mitsubishi HC 5500, this model uses trusty HQV video processing from Silicon Optix, as well as a 1.6x zoom lens that suppresses scattered light using an iris. The 2D lens-shift, zoom, and focus — all of which are motorized — provide flexible positioning. Two HDMI inputs and one YUV should cater for typical users, but the VGA socket will also accept a further YUV signal — or a Scart-RGB signal — if necessary. Standard definition source devices can connect to the S-Video and composite connections.

Operation

Operation is extremely simple, although the menu’s design takes some getting used to. One positive aspect is the picture-cropping (overscan) setting: You can set the cropping for each input separately and even fine-tune it between zero and 10 percent for SDTV video. The tried-and-tested remote control lights up when you press a button — very handy in the dark home theater.

Contrast and Black Representation

Mitsubishi quotes a legendary On/Off contrast of 72,000:1, which the projector claims to produce using ultra-fast dynamic iris adjustment (“Diamond Black Iris”). Plenty of manufacturers tell tall stories about contrast, so we were quite surprised to see that our measurements actually came (fairly!) close to confirming this value: In the “High Brightness” mode, the Mitsubishi produced a maximum contrast of 63,000:1. Of course, this dropped when we adjusted the colors correctly, but only to 37,000:1 — which still stands alone as record value for an LCD projector. This stunning performance is down to the extremely low black level of just 0.01 lumens, which in turn is down to the “Diamond Black Iris” — the iris almost completely blocks the lamp’s output during black images.

The maximum contrast within a single picture, also known as the “in-picture” or “native” contrast, is quoted at 4,000:1 by Mitsubishi. In fact, the HC 7000 even manages 4,100:1. And with that, it surpasses both the Panasonic PT-AE 3000, which previously led the LCD camp, and most DLP projectors. Even the ANSI contrast, at a smacking 450:1, is heading towards the best DLP value, 530:1 — this record was set by the Marantz VP 15-S1.

Effect of Iris on Brightness and Contrast

The HC 7000’s automatic iris can be set to one of five levels, whereby level one darkens dusky scenes most strongly. To avoid pumping effects when a dark scene follows a bright one, Mitsubishi uses real time gamma adjustment. If the video levels in dark scenes don’t extend across the full dynamic range, the projector enhances the contrast in accordance with the picture’s contents. This also partly compensates for the light-swallowing effect of the iris. To determine the HC 7000’s native (in-picture) contrast, we played back a black test pattern with a small, one-percent-sized white box in the center, as shown below.

Here, the gamma adjustment cannot interfere; only the iris can affect the brightness of the white box and, hence, the in-picture contrast. The automatic iris already proves its worth in the weakest setting, “5”, eliminating a great deal of scattered light, increasing the contrast, and reducing the brightness only subtly to 61 percent of the initial value (with the iris deactivated). Closing the iris further barely improves the contrast further but progressively reduces the brightness.

As you can see in the graph, the white box shows only 23 percent of its initial brightness from level 3 onward. This loss of brightness only affects dark scenes; in brighter scenes, the iris opens and allows 100 percent of the light to pass. With the iris open, the in-picture contrast falls from around 4,100:1 to around 2,900:1 — which is still more than respectable.

Color Reproduction

Despite a slightly extended gamut, the HC 7000 displays natural-looking colors.

Even in very dark grayscales, the HC 7000 barely deviates from the ideal white point, maintaining a constant value of 6,700 Kelvin in the “Medium” color-temperature setting. Fine-tuning fans will love the color-temperature menu, which allows the user to adjust the contrast, brightness, and gamma for each of the primary colors (R, G, B) separately. Slight green and pink tints in sharp structures only appear in certain test patterns. The HC 7000 produces sharp images right up to the edges of the projection area, giving its best results with wide-angle zoom.

Fine patterns look crisper here than on the Panasonic PT-AE 3000, but the typical LCD raster is more visible on the HC 7000 than is the DLP raster on the Panasonic — the almost-structureless elegance of DLP or SXRD projections is beyond the Mitsubishi’s talents. The price you pay for the deep blacks and high contrast is a relatively dark projection, even with the iris switched off. The eco mode is therefore only suitable for screens of up to two meters wide.

Picture Quality of Standard Signals

Besides outstanding de-interlacing of movies and excellent edge-smoothing of TV material, the A–D converters impress with top sharpness and color resolution via YUV. Scart-RGB images from analog satellite receivers exhibit an equally high level of quality. Line-flicker and comb effects appear only occasionally in sports broadcasts. DVD movies via HDMI-576i also benefit from the Mitsubishi’s crisp, flicker-free, contrast-rich projection. In “Cars”, as night falls over the desert town of Radiator Springs, the neon sign glows in vivid color. Even the brown-red rust on the madcap truck “Hook” shows clearly differentiated shading in the nighttime sequences. Processing of standard signals is better on the HC 7000 than it is on the Panasonic PT-AE 3000.

Picture Quality of HDTV Signals

Signals in 1080i format, from an HDTV documentary, for example, display in impeccable progressive quality, with almost none of the red fringing during motion that we saw on the earlier HC 5500 model. The new model displays details in HDTV test patterns with almost the same sharpness as the best DLP projectors. The projector shows its strengths, for example, in “Iron Man” when Tony Stark races across the night sky in a rocket suit.

Even without the iris, the city lights are contrast-rich and crisp against the pitch-black background. If you activate the automatic iris, the residual illumination in the black letterbox bars comfortably halves. In bright scenes, the HC 7000 impresses with vivid color. Signals in 24p format display fluid, judder-free camera pans, although these suffer from slight blurring. Documentaries and sports broadcasts at 50 or 60 hertz make it clear that the projector lacks motion-enhancement technology such as that found in the Panasonic PT-AE 3000: Fast motion blurs, but static images are razor sharp.

Ideal Settings

Gamma Mode: Cinema

Contrast: -1

Brightness: 1

Color Temp.: Standard

Color: 0

Sharpness: 0

CTI: 0

Auto Iris: Auto 3

Lamp Mode: Standard

Over Scan: 100%

* These settings apply to realistic playback of HDTV/Blu-ray material through the HDMI interface in a darkened environment. Manufacturing and HDMI playback device deviations might necessitate slight adjustment.