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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
I recently got in on the refurbished bandwagon for this projector. And I'm very happy with it. My old pj was the Mitsubishi HC3000 which was your average run of the mill 720p projector. The W5000 is a 1080p. I figured I'd share this journey! ;)

When the box showed up at the door I was amazed at how big it was. Turns out that they packed the actual pj in it's original box within this box. :dizzy: Opening up the pj box I was again amazed at how large this pj was. It was over double the size of my HC3000. Needless to say, hooking it up required a run to the local Best Buy to pick up a new mount. After hooking it up and running it the first time (1 hour on the bulb from the service center by the way), I was yet again amazed at the image it was capable of. I had thought that I had seen enough with my HC3000 that nothing could be that much better.

Anyway, I was originally going to write up a review on this projector but I figured there are more than enough floating around in cyberspace that it was unnecessary to do another. Plus it's a year old release. so instead I figured I'd add to the calibration side of things with a quick rundown of how this projector was, with relation to standards, out of the box. I'll also show how I got it close in about 45 minutes. I would have kept working on it but I ran out of time.

The equipment used was my eye-one pro spectrophotmeter - not to be confused with the numerous eye-one colorimeters floating around out on the market, a Sekonic L758C light/spot meter, my laptop, and CalMAN 3.3.

Back when I delved into calibrating my own projector, I used HCFR. While HCFR is an excellent tool, especially for beginners or the once a year folks, I found myself looking for more. Especially when I was posting some of the charts here and I found out that some of the math in the program was wrong. I believe this was fixed for the current release of HCFR. I still use it occasionally but I mainly use CalMAN.

CalMAN is a bit more intuitive than HCFR in that it actually has various modes that it can be run in. It has beginner mode for the beginner, intermediate mode (what I use) for a little more advanced use, advanced mode for those who want full control, and a design mode which states it’s for “Workspace design mode; chart and report layouts”. It’s a wonderful piece of software and well worth the $100 or so I paid for it. If you’re looking for the simple program that will guide you through by the hand eventually teaching you enough so that you can do what you want on your own, this is it.

Maybe after doing everything in CalMAN I'll redo it in HCFR and see what kind of difference there really is. :scratch:

These first four sets of readings are the 'out of box' readings on certain factory pre-set modes. The spectro was ~2 feet from the pj lens, facing the pj.
 

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Discussion Starter · #2 ·
Cinema Mode

Cinema Mode - out of box



***Take note that for these readings I had the meter set up ~10 feet from the pj. The others had the meter ~2 feet.***

That's why these Y values are a bit lower. I took readings closer, but the pdf report was empty. I'll have to see if I can rebuild it later.

I'll reserve my comments on this mode until I have a chance to rebuild the closer readings.
 

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Discussion Starter · #3 ·
Dynamic Mode

Dynamic Mode - out of box



This mode was extremely blue. Not recommended! By the way the RGB color balance chart is off a bit as my eye-one pro spectrophotmeter doesn't get decent readings at 0 and 10 IRE. And for some reason that throws that whole chart off. If there were a way to not include that chart, it wouldn't be there.
 

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Discussion Starter · #5 ·
User 1 mode (Warm color temp) - out of box



Someone at AVS had recommended these settings. User1 with 'warm' color temp selected.
Of all the modes out of the box, this one is probably the closest to D65.

I plan on adding more to this including readings after a DVE and Avia calibration. And maybe even one after running the THX optimizer.
 

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Discussion Starter · #6 ·
After getting all of those readings, I made several adjustments to try and figure out the controls in the service menu and the isf menu on the W5000. I've also been in touch with the folks at CalMAN several times as well as lcaillo. :bigsmile: I am still learning as I go with calibrating! :reading:

I made several runs only to find out that I goofed something seriously up. For instance, not putting the diffuser on the spectro. In HCFR I didn't have to do that. And for some reason I thought the older version of CalMAN worked without it as well. :dunno: So that was the first redo. The second redo came about because I was trying to get my lower end gray scale readings better and I found out that I should place the spectro as close to the pj as possible. Second redo. It was then that I was informed that my meter is fine it's either the pj, the source material, or both that are the problem on the low end of the gray scale. I've seen rumblings over at avs though that my meter isn't that accurate on the low end. :dunno:

So that was three days or so ago and countless hours lost in the basement theater staring at gray scale windows and 75% windows of the primaries and the secondaries. This morning I had time to do some work on black and white levels as well as the gray scale. I also came up with a better way to mount my spectro on my tripod which puts it 1 foot further back - ~3 feet. So here's where I stand right now:



Still needs a tad more work on the white level but at least my gray scale is more in line and I'm pretty much D65 across the board.

I'm gonna work on the Gamut tonight. I've been having issues with green not lining up properly the last few days. But I've got some new ideas to try out.
 

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Discussion Starter · #10 ·
I'm still not there yet Ahmed. I have yet to work on my color gamut. It had given me fits previously. But I think I have it figured out now and I'm planning on finishing up tomorrow night. :T

And it was actually several days of trial and error. Mainly though to get a better handle on CalMAN and also to try and figure out the limitations of my meter. I haven't had that great of luck on the low end and I always thought it was the meter. But the folks at CalMAN think it's something else - the pj, the source or a combo of both. I'm gonna keep fiddling with it a bit.

The other thing that's really taken some getting used to is the amount of info that's adjustable in the ISF and the service menus. :reading: :dizzy: :scratch:
 

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Discussion Starter · #15 ·
I'm a little over 14' back. I can't recall the exact measurement. :scratchhead: The fan isn't that loud at all. I don't notice it anyways. I believe the fan noise is supposed to be 28db. Not sure if that's in normal mode or whisper. I have mine set at whisper.
 

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Discussion Starter · #17 ·
It's quieter than my HC3000. I pretty much sit right underneath it and I never notice any noise from it at all. I think the whisper mode that I run it at might be a bit more silent than the 28db. But who knows? :dontknow:
 

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Discussion Starter · #23 ·
Ok so here's the final charts after calibrating the pj. Remember this is the pj only! Nothing from the screen. That will come in the next few days and will more than likely be posted in the screen forum. About the only thing that I really want to work on is the gamma. It's low at 2.1 and I'd like to be in the 2.2-2.4 range.

Here's how it ended up:

RGB - got better readings on the lower end at night. Apparently some of the light leaking through may have messed with my lower readings.



Gamma - as I said, I need to get this up a bit more.



Gamut - I guess I am one of the many that cannot get green to sit properly. :dontknow: It's well within parameters though with a DeltaE of less than 4.

 

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Discussion Starter · #24 · (Edited)
So after finishing all of the above up last night, I had a little spare time. So I figured I might as well do a run through HCFR and see how the two programs match up. The results from HCFR stunned me. :blink: There will be a short explanation following the charts.

Grayscale measures - not even close



Primaries and secondaries



Color Temp



Gamma - the only thing that was close...



RGB levels - way off...



CIE plot



As you can see it's quite a bit different than the results from CalMAN. At first I figured that I had a bad calibration of my eye-one pro spectrophotmeter. So I re-calibrated and re-did them again. They came out identical and that is what you are looking at up above. At that point I was fairly certain that HCFR was again mired by bad math. The original version was so i figured they had yet to fix it. But later, after heading to bed, I came to realize that these measurements were taken with the diffuser in place. I don't think HCFR is very accurate with the diffuser in place. CalMAN requires it when pointing the meter at the pj. I guess what I'm saying is don't come to any conclusions quite yet. I'll redo the HCFR readings again on Wednesday and see if in fact, teh diffuser is the cause for the major errors.
 

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Discussion Starter · #27 ·
I actually knew that Rodny. I just forgot to in this case. :hide: The confusing thing to come out of that was that the diffuser causes that much of a shift in the measurements? :dunno:

New readings will be coming today with HCFR.
 

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Discussion Starter · #31 ·
Everything so far has been projector only. After dinner tonight I plan on doing another run of HCFR pointed at the projector. And then I'm going to do a calibration with the screen. If I am correct in my thinking, very little if any will need to be adjusted since Black Widow is D65.

If your gamma is too low, then your image may be too dim with your blacks being too bright. I fixed my gamma by adjusting my W5000 up to a gamma of 2.4. I did a reading of it yesterday and it was 2.2 across the board. I believe your gamma will be fine once you get everything else set right. Work on your black and white levels Ahmed, after that check your grayscale, and when you get that all set do your primaries and secondaries. Hopefully lcaillo will chime in if I'm cuckoo!

As for the 6.5fL, have you tried moving the sensor around? Ideally you should be somewhere around 12fL. I measure my brightness using a spot meter. My HC3000 with a new bulb was ~12fL. I haven't checked the W5000 yet but I'll do it tonight and let you know. I use a 100IRE window for that.
 

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