Home Video Asylum

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Re: Projection vs. rear. and brands and other general questions.

12.109.186.150

You need to do a more careful comparison. There is a huge difference between the Pioneer Elite, Sony XBR, and Mitsubishi Diamond Vision rear projection units compared to the lower priced (<$4K) equipment.

The higher priced ones have line doublers, 3:2 pulldown detection, finer pitch screens equating to a wider angle of view and less "grain" in the picture. The Pioneer has an ambient light detection circuit that automatically adjusts the picture to room light levels, etc. etc.

You may not notice the difference unless you compare each with different sources: off-air NTSC reception, DVD, and satellite. Make sure that all of the controls are centered (brightness, contrast, color, sharpness) and that the color temperature is set a 6500K. You then WILL see differences between manufacturers and between different models.

The two Mitsubishi models I looked at had bright pictures, but the color cast was slightly magenta. When corrected (green added), this caused color shifts in the shadows (green) while the midtones & highlights were neutral. The Hitachi's were neutral, had good dynamic range (dark to light), but I thought the screen pitch was too large - resulting in a grainy picture and the angle of view being narrow. The dealer only had one Sony unit, and I don't think it was an exemplary example from that manufacturer as we could never get it setup (converged) correctly. No other electronics store where I live had one - so I could not get a good demonstration.

The Pioneer had the finest pitch screen, and greatest dynamic range, although its picture did not seem as bright as the Mitsubishi. However, the Pioneer had the best line doubler, best translation of 4:3 material to 16:9 format, and most natural color. It also did the best with DVD material (movies).

You need to more carefully "audition" the units with different source material just like you would do with an amplifier or speakers. Make sure everything is set "neutral." This is extremely important as most units are setup for the showroom - brightness all the way up and color temperature at 9K so that they look as bright, contrasty & flashy as possible. When set correctly, you will see the difference.


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