Mitsubishi HC5000

By Max Christoffersen

June 2007

Mitsubishi HC5000 HD LCD projector. $7999

Mitsubishi HC5000 projector

Rear panel of the HC5000

There was a time when I said that LCD was dead. It had plateaued and other display technologies would superceded its obvious limitations. That was 2000. And it shows what I know.

Today, LCD is alive and well and the new range of 1080p LCD based projectors are going places I previously didn’t think possible.

The images produced by the new LCD 1080p machines are vibrant, dynamic with extraordinary detail and depth of field. This is the stuff we dreamed of in the late 80s, that pixels would vanish, detail would be king, projectors would be quiet and the fun of big image making in the home would outweigh the drawbacks.

High-Def Fun

To get the fun started, The Mitsubishi was used in my system with a Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player on my custom 96”x54” AT screen. Some quick calibration was done to bring the contrast and brightness levels and over saturated colours into balance. The feed was HDMI direct from the Toshiba HD-DVD to the projector over a 10 metre cable.

I started the projector up and then I had to check – was it actually going? The sound level is very low on this machine and while not totally silent it’s claimed 19dB level was a very welcome bonus! Put a hushbox on this projector and the ideal of a silent noise floor is a genuine possibility!

I started with HD-DVD concert material and first up was the HD-DVD version of The Eagles Farewell 1 HD-DVD concert from Melbourne. The opening scenes at the Rod Laver Centre really did make me a believer - detail from inside and outside the venue was alive with detail and it is eye popping, WOW-factor stuff.

The concert footage with Henley and Company was equally impressive. At times the image making really did make me think the band was standing right there in front of me. The long awaited ‘window on reality’ from a mainstream disc was there with stunning detail and depth of field on stadium seating, drum kits, off-stage monitors, instruments and performers. The HC5000 delivered a spectacular sense of clean stable image making that is typically washed out by lesser displays and SD-DVD. The HD image produced ‘pop’ to the extreme which if not seen before is going to be a visual revelation at your place.

Digital drawbacks

If there is a reservation it is that digital projection remains somewhat clinical in its delivery. Some mechanical and ‘electro-mechanical’ artifacts interfere in the image-making bliss. You could argue that digital projection in the late 2000s is very similar in the consumer-landscape as digital audio was in about 1988. It captivates in part because of the convenience, in part because of the novelty and in part because of the performance. (Your order may vary). But what it doesn’t do is captivate in the same way that analogue does; with warmth and a ‘sense of ease‘ and organics in its delivery.

On the good news front, there is only the vaguest hint of the grey veil typical of earlier low contrast LCD based projectors and while the purest in me says the compromised shadow detail and failure to produce total absence of light (blackout) remains a major weakness, the overall image making remains high in the fun factor while the downsides remain the domain of projector purists.

Mitsubishi mechanics

The HC5000’s on-board iris is there to improve contrast ratio but it is detectable in the viewing and ‘clunky’. It intrudes into the image making, with detectable staggering as the iris shouts down reducing light output. However, a much larger issue for me is the significant amount of RBE type artifacts occurring in fast pans and other scenes. Other 1080p projectors have also been attributed with this fast motion smearing including the Sony VW100 and the JVC RS-1. This may not be immediately obvious and may take time to become apparent - but be warned!

The Mitsubishi is a projector that confirms that the fun is back in projection. It is about as close as you can get to high-definition plug and play, and given its flexible room placement, quiet operating noise, bright image and claimed longevity of the new C2Fine panels and lamp-life (5000 hours with low lamp), it’s simply a fun projector that will keep many enthusiasts happy for some time.

There are caveats to long-term ownership, but the exciting thing is the suspicion that neither Mitsubishi nor LCD is finished yet!

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