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Shot at the Silver Screen
The Toshiba TLP-MT7 LCD Projector
by Max Christoffersen
September 2001
Toshiba TLP-MT7 LCD Projector. $13999
If
anyone deserves to make a buck out of HT projectors it’s Toshiba.
It’s pretty simple: without Toshiba, we may not have high quality
home theatre projection at all. Because the golden rule of garbage in
= garbage out, applies so dramatically with projection, home theatre demanded
a high quality source.
But VHS was pitiful, TV was marginal and LD offered more than it ever really delivered. Enter DVD. The rest is history, but thanks to Toshiba, DVD was launched and home theatre projection would never be the same again.
So it was with some smug satisfaction that I hooked up my own Toshiba 5109 progressive DVD player to its namesake, the Toshiba TLP-MT7 projector to see how well the two near relatives got along.
Like the ground breaking Sony VW10HT before it, the new Toshiba uses dedicated 16x9 LCD panels, so this is a dedicated home theatre projector designed to provide maximum image resolution from LB source material.
You can also use 4:3 TV programme and 'cut and crop it' into a new widescreen version. But depending on the source programme, the results can range from spectacular to 'don’t try this at home...'
While the Toshiba MT7 has a 'me-too' look about its LCD specifications and performance, there are some differences from that 'other' 16x9 LCD projector, the Sony VW10HT, that will be welcomed by home theatre projection enthusiasts.
First, this projector is quiet. Noise may not be an issue when the initial novelty value of projection is high, but over time, few issues cause as much angst as high fan noise. At >31dB The Toshiba has the lowest fan noise I have heard from any projector with the exception of fan free CRT units from Sony, Vidikron, DWIN and Barco.
Second, this is among the smallest LCD units available making for an even easier 'invisible' home theatre install.
Third, the Toshiba offers keystone adjustment, which is a necessary feature to compensate for skewed on-screen images projected from less than optimal projector angles.
Like other modern LCD projectors it has minimal zoom control and instead relies on being located at a set distance from the screen.
The remote has two 'levels' one a master menu the other a smaller major settings menu, which makes it near impossible for anyone to accidentally change any important settings. Connections are a stock RCA/S-Video and VGA port (for upscaled images all the way up to 1280x 720 1080i) resolutions.
And all in all, the TMT7 offers some bonifide technical advantages that put it into a new user-friendly class for a 16x9 LCD projector. But technicalities are best left at the door: the only real question anyone needs answered is how good does it look?
There is a simple answer too: bloody marvelous - for an LCD projector. It was fired up on one the largest 4:3 screens I have ever seen in a mid-afternoon demo with high ambient light. At around 130” diagonal this was a big bit of vinyl to illuminate but this 1000 ansi lumen projector did it with ease. Which suggests if you want to go big, the MT7 will handle it - particularly if Toy Story 2 is your chosen DVD.
But as with all other LCD display devices, there is a hint of 'something getting in the way' between you and the image when the LCD panels make their presence felt as a light gray-veil over the image. While there was scant trace of pixelation, there is still a slight trace of a shallowness to the depth of field.
All LCDs suffer to some extent from this effect, but that doesn’t take away from the clarity, colour depth and focus and edge definition of DVD, which on the Robert DeNiro sports film The Fan is a genuine blast!
The black level is always is a failing of all digital projectors. As LCD is a fixed light display it means there is always light going to the screen. True black then is near impossible to reproduce and this is true of the MT7.
But a new Digital Gamma Correction setting attempts to compensate for this and does a good job of making the most of its low 400:1 contrast ratio. It’s not CRT or even DLP in black level, but it will produce a satisfying image when mated with a quality low gain screen.
Given
the Toshiba’s user-friendliness, improvements in overall performance
and compact size, it’s easy to say that it’s the current best
in the 16x9 LCD class.
Viewers may wish to see even greater contrast ratio performance and maybe some easier connections, but if quality LCD projection from a dedicated ‘16x9’ capable projector is your slice of home theatre heaven, the Toshiba MT7 should bring the cinema home to your place.
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