Product Details
- Brand: Mitsubishi
- Model: HC3800
- Dimensions: 5.12" h x
13.58" w x
10.59" l,
7.72 pounds
- Native resolution: 1920 x 1080
Features
- Home Theater DLP Projector 1080p
- High Quality Glass Lens
- 1300 ANSI Lumens
- 4000:1 Contrast Ratio
Mitsubishi HC3800 1080p Home Theater DLP Projector
Product Description
1080p DLP Home Theater Projector, 1300 ANSI, 6 seg. Color Wheel, 4000:1 contrast ratio, 7.9 lbs., HDMI input (v 1.3),
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
By Klaatu Barada Nikto
I just received my Mitsubishi HC3800 three days ago, upgrading from my much-loved Optoma HD70 which has given me over two years of home theatre spectacle. This was not an upgrade I would have anticipated, but when the early reviews indicated that the Mits was an exceptional projector, I got interested right away. As happy as I was with the quality of the HD70 image, I looked forward to the day when I could afford a full-HD 1080P projector. And now that I've got one, I'm very pleased. It's great to know that my new setup is delivering the most that HD can give.You may be aware that the first shipment of these projectors had a problem with random shutdowns. Mitsubishi has responded speedily to resolve this problem. Check for a firmware release other than 1.0 to confirm that your unit has been fixed. Pressing the UP, DOWN, and ENTER keys simultaneously on the projector (not the remote) will display the firmware release. Mine is 3.0.Another issue that has been reported occurs in the display of widescreen black-and-white movies. The left, center, and right of the image show variations in color, one side looking too blue and the other too red. I put on my Blu-ray of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN to check for this problem and am happy to report that I saw no indication of color in the projected image.The final issue is concern about the projector synchronizing with the HDMI signal. I have a receiver with four HDMI inputs, all of which I use, and a 25' HDMI cable connecting the receiver to the projector. I have noticed that the projector struggles slightly more with the HDMI handshake than my Optoma did, but the image so far has consistently stabilized after a few seconds. If a bit of flicker during the initial FBI warning disturbs you, you may want to hold off on this unit!Now that I'm done with the issues, let me say that this projector puts out a breathtaking picture that obviously packs more punch than the Optoma. I've checked out at least a dozen Blu-rays so far, and my favorite is the (UK) ZULU, which looked beautiful on the Optoma but now looks like a 3D movie. The red uniforms leap off the screen. The image is also extremely sharp, as the early reviews mentioned, no doubt the result of the glass lenses. At this point I have done NO tweaking of the settings, and eventually I may do some minor adjustments, but out-of-the-box this thing looks great. (I did a lot of tweaking on my Optoma.)It's wonderful to get something that makes me want to enjoy all of my favorite movies yet again. I feel as giddy about this projector as I did when I first went from my 65" SONY CRT rear projector to the Optoma. Given the price, this projector is going to be hard to beat. I had been seriously thinking about the Optoma HD20, another 1080P projector, in light of my positive experience with the HD70, but the early rave reviews of this unit convinced me otherwise. I'm glad I forked over the extra dollars and got this one!
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
By D. Alexander
For many theater installs, the HC3800 and HC4000 replacement will be the best 1080p projectors in their price range. Epson's 8100 and 8350 are strong alternatives.This is my second 1080p projector model. I bought it from Dell after first trying and discarding three Viewsonic Pro8100 projectors. The first HC3800 that Dell sent had uneven sharpness across the frame. The subsequent two were refurbished units with other problems. The fourth and last was a new unit that I kept, and which now has 100 hours on the bulb.My testing area is a light-controlled room with a 12' x 5' 2.39:1 WilsonArt Designer White screen with 1.2 gain. The throw distance from the lens to the screen is around 16'.Before diving into the main review, I've listed some background issues:PROJECTOR SPECIFICATIONS:The three most important specifications of any projector are lumen output, ANSI contrast, and absolute black levels. Lumen output dictates how well the projector will handle ambient light and large screen sizes without washing out or becoming uncomfortably dim. ANSI contrast measures dynamic range, or the brightest and darkest colors the projector can display at the same time. The 'punch' of a picture with bright lights and dark shadows is heavily dependent on ANSI contrast. Lower ANSI numbers imply a flatter image with grayer blacks. Finally, low absolute black levels ensure that in completely dark scenes, black appears black and not a dark slate.Beyond image quality, certain features aid in placement flexibility. A generous zoom range allows the projector to display a range of image sizes at a particular distance, or the same image size while moving the projector. Lens shift allows the projected image to be moved without moving the projector or incurring keystone distortion. These features are more common in LCD projectors than DLP. More expensive projectors can have motorized or automated lens shift, which is helpful if the projector is placed in an inaccessible location or constantly switching aspect ratios.SCREEN TYPES:Screen gain is a multiplier that interacts with the projector's lumen output to determine how bright the picture will appear. A typical white screen with no additives has a gain of about 1.1. Maximum gain for white is about 1.3. Gray screens are 0.7 to 0.8. Screens with reflective additives like glass beads or silver can have a gain of up to 4. Gains above 1.3 correspond to progressively tighter viewing cones, so people sitting off-center to a high-gain screen will see a dimmer picture.The purpose of a gray screen is to shift the entire brightness range of the picture downward. Blacks become blacker, whites become grayer. The blackest black is ultimately determined by ambient light (either from a physical light in the room, or from projector light reflected from the screen to the wall and back to the screen). The combination of a gray screen and a high-lumen projector can effectively compensate for this light. A low-lumen projector will just produce a dim picture.DLP VS. LCD:There are two ways that modern projectors produce color: by shooting light through a spinning DLP color wheel, or by doing the same with an LCD panel. Each has ups and downs. LCDs can suffer from alignment problems between the RGB color panels, and some will show a noticeable grid between pixels on large screens. They do tend to have excellent placement flexibility, especially in regard to lens shift. DLPs will have a whine from the color wheel and the potential for some people to experience flashes of color ('rainbows') when they move their vision to different parts of the picture. Lens shift is uncommon. Zoom controls tend to be minimal.HC3800 PLACEMENT:The HC3800 is a DLP projector. It's very small, and when paired with a Vantage Point CGUPM12-S, blends in with my black ceiling. Setup was difficult because the lens on the HC3800 is angled and because the vertical center point of the projected image varies with the zoom setting. The lens offset (the vertical shift of the projected image relative to the lens location) is very aggressive, so if the HC3800 is mounted upside-down on the ceiling, wide zooms will produce a large image that may dip into the floor. Thanks to 8' ceilings, I ran into this problem.The native projected image is 1920x1080, a 16x9 aspect ratio. My screen corresponds to a resolution of 1920x800, so I used the HC3800's advanced controls to shift the image signal to the top of the pixel grid. The bottom 280 pixels project a black signal onto the floor that generally isn't visible. To match the top of the projected image to the top of my screen, I was forced to tilt the HC3800 slightly upward and correct with the digital keystone controls. The image degradation from keystone was invisible in movies and extremely subtle in Windows.HC3800 IMAGE QUALITY:Sharpness is very good. All four of my HC3800s were capable of sharp areas, though the HC3800 lens isn't as good as others I've seen. Two of the four were slightly blurry on the left side at wide zooms. The current HC3800 is capable of showing all the detail and every flaw in my Blu-Ray source material. Simply by virtue of the gigantic screen size, it's actually less forgiving than my Dell 2408WFP LCD monitor. I do feel that my Pro8100 had somewhat higher perceived sharpness because the LCD grid added space between the pixels.ANSI contrast is excellent. Any scene with lights and darks, which is almost all of them, has as much punch as a non-CRT projector can have. The HC3800 surpasses the two Epson LCD projectors significantly in this area.Absolute black levels are good to very good. Credits and space scenes with small stars look inky. Scenes where a character is bumbling around in the dark are less compelling; as your vision adjusts, the blacks look closer to slate.Color gamut is good to very good. Greens and blues are fairly strong. Red, a bit less so. I haven't calibrated the colors yet, but they seem roughly akin to a standard 72% NTSC computer monitor. The gamut is noticeably less wide than my 102% NTSC 2408WFP.Color accuracy is good to excellent. Like all projectors, the HC3800 is capable of a brighter green than red or blue, so the high-brightness white balances will cause a green push. Medium white balance and the first two gamma modes are much more accurate and preferable with little sacrifice to brightness. Color is pleasing out of the box. This projector does not require an external calibrator to look good.Brightness is very good to excellent. The HC3800 is capable of high lumen outputs while preserving black levels and color balance. Few, if any comparable projectors can go as bright in this 'Best' mode, though some of them have special 'Sports' modes capable of extremely high brightness with a green push. For screen sizes over 100" with significant ambient light, these alternatives may be a better choice.Subjectively, the HC3800 and 12' screen have astonished almost every first-time viewer. When backed by a powerful speaker system, the experience is as thrilling, or more, than any theater I've encountered.HC3800 GENERAL:No complaints about the menu system, which is effective, easy to navigate, and functional.The HC3800 has an 'Aspect' button on the remote that digitally switches between 2.39:1 and 16x9 aspect ratios. This is the most compelling feature of the unit if you intend to use it with an HTPC and a 2.39:1 screen. Switching aspects with other projectors like the Panasonic AE4000 or Viewsonic's Pro8100 requires moving the lens around. The HC3800's digital switch is instantaneous. You do lose some resolution; 16x9 uses the equivalent of 1420x800 pixels instead of the full 1920x1080, but the downsampling algorithm is excellent and you won't miss the difference.I've seen a couple of niggling issues among my four HC3800s. One had a small amount of light bleed from the projector body. In a noise-dampened room, the high-pitched whine of the color wheel is too apparent to me. The HC3800 is also acutely sensitive to HDMI cable quality. With my 25' cable run, every now and then, I'll see a subtle sparkling in the deepest blacks. Earlier firmware revisions of the HC3800 also had a tendency to shut off at random for some people. This issue did not appear on any of my units with firmware version 7.SCREEN SELECTION:I'm compelled to write a small aside on screen aspect ratio and how it relates to anamorphic content and the Aspect button.With DVD, the standard NTSC resolution is 720x480. PAL, the European format, is 720x576. These correspond to aspect ratios (width:height) of 1.5:1 and 1.25:1. Movies are filmed at wider aspect ratios, generally 1.85:1 or 2.39:1. Encoding these films to DVD conventionally wastes a lot of vertical resolution; in the case of a 2.39:1 movie on a PAL DVD, the upper and lower quarter of the DVD picture would be a black signal. So-called anamorphic DVDs solved this problem by distorting the aspect ratio of the film to fill the DVD frame, squashing it on the horizontal axis and expanding it on the vertical. A special anamorphic lens attached to a projector could then stretch this signal out horizontally to remove the distortion, thereby using all the resolution of the DVD format for the film. The projection screen would typically have an aspect ratio of 2.39:1.Blu-ray changes things. The universal BD resolution is 1920x1080, an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The BD consortium has redefined 'anamorphic' to mean 'a movie filmed in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1'. Most BD disks are therefore labeled anamorphic. None, however, employ the squashing technique of anamorphic DVDs. Wider films simply encode black bars in the BD signal; a 2.39:1 film on BD will have an actual resolution of about 1920x800, with the remainder above and below as black. Because there's no aspect ratio distortion, anamorphic lenses have nothing to compensate for, and are therefore of no use.*Let's bring all this down to Earth. If you buy a projector, you'll need a screen. But what aspect ratio? The ideal used to be 2.39:1 with an anamorphic lens, but is that still true? Here's how it works with the HC3800, assuming the projected image is adjusted to fill the screen width:1.78:1 Screen* 2.39:1 content - content is centered, filling the screen width. 1920x815 resolution. Projected black bars fill the remaining screen height on the top and bottom.* 1.78:1 content - content matches screen area. 1920x1080 resolution.2.39:1 Screen* 2.39:1 content - content matches screen area. 1920x815 resolution. Black bars projected above and below screen area.* 1.78:1 content - content is centered, filling the screen height. If projector image is resized with zoom controls, resolution is 1920x1080 and while black bars appear on the left and right sides of the screen, they are not projected. If Aspect button is used, resolution is 1420x800 and the black bars are a projected black signal.If we assume you want the largest possible screen (within the constraints of viewing distance) and your screen is height-limited, 2.39:1 gives the largest area. If width is the limiting factor, then 1.78:1 will be larger. And if you're unwilling to sacrifice any resolution, only 1.78:1 will preserve it for all content without manipulating the projector's zoom controls.* Some users choose to introduce the aspect distortion themselves and correct it with an anamorphic lens. This allows 2.39:1 projection without a projected black signal above or below the screen, though with no additional resolution. Countering that advantage are increased cost, lens distortion, lost brightness, and lost sharpness from the initial interpolation.HIGH-BRIGHTNESS SETTINGS:For anyone with a large screen, I've spent a few hours attempting to find the brightest color settings that don't cause problems elsewhere. The idea was to create a steep gamma curve for 90% of the brightness range and then to roll off the last 10% to prevent clipping. The result is a lot of black detail and enough brightness in Eco mode to approximate full lamp.User Gamma: Sports (or Video) 10/10/5Contrast: 0Brightness: 5Color Temp.: MediumColor: 1Tint: -1Sharpness: 1BrilliantColor: OffInput Level: NormalSome of this merits explaining. Sports gamma is the brightest of the three available gamma curves. Unlike the same mode on other projectors, it has very little green push. It's also good about adding definition to the blacks without messing with the black point. I compensated for the green with a slight tint adjustment.Contrast sets the white point, in theory. Most of my tweaking was in the interaction between this control, BrilliantColor, and the input level. All three clip the white point in different ways. Input level does it in a neutral way at RGB 235 or so. Contrast starts neutral, but will cause a green push at higher settings.BC is an enigma. On a gradient chart, it has no effects on pure R, G, or B, but brightens and clips other colors, including whites on a grayscale gradient. It only makes sense to have it enabled with the 'Enhanced' input level; with 'Normal' input, you'll seen posterization (banding) on the bright side of a gradient. You can fix the banding by dropping the contrast control to -12 or so, but then you lose the additional brightness.For movies, my best results were clipping the input levels with 'Normal,' but then bringing up the blacks with Brightness so that pure black in a movie was mapped to pure black on the projector. That setting was ultimately 5. When I had Enhanced input with BC on, I ended up at -25. The results were similar, but the first way is less of a tug-o-war on the tone curve.Anyway, on my screen, the above settings result in a very bright picture, no banding, neutral contrast, and fairly accurate colors. I'm very pleased with it for movies. Windows itself benefits from less aggressive gamma.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
By MP06011999
I've put about 100 hours on my 3800 so far and here's the skinny:* It has a great picture with lots of color saturation and enough lumen for my 144 inch screen with a little ambient light.* Picture adjustments are a bit confusing, but little needed done anyhow, so no big deal.* Installation with the 30+ degree lens offset is a bit tricky and makes for a limited use depending on your room.* NOW THE BIGGIE - It has to go in to Mits for some problems. And they are: 1) The picture goes from cold (blue) on the right side of the screen to warm (brown) on the left side of the screen. This is only visible, yet very visible, in white or light color images. 2) There is an artifact on the lower left side of the screen that looks like a dirt smudge in the shape of a football about the size of a football on this 144inch screen. It is not on the outside of the lens or the screen and is probably dust on the optics inside. Which is also probably what causes the cold / warm issue mentioned above - dust on the internal optics. 3) There is a distinct clicking sound coming from the projector in about 1 minute durations whenever my forced air furnace kicks on. Naturally, heat rises to the ceiling where the projector is mounted about 4 inches down from. The extra heat causes the fans to kick on high (I guess) and makes a discernible "clicking" sound. It is annoying in anything but very loud scenes.Well, that's about it. I discovered all of these issues about 50 hours ago, but I am not taking down the projector until after the Super Bowl. I have to say, the image is nice and sharp with deep colors. The quality issues, however, I guess confirms why the 3800 cost me about $1300. Would I buy it again? Well, yes. Given its warranty, price and the other choices out there, even with these issues, I still think this was the best choice for me. I love DLP and the image of this projector confirms as to why. And, when taken into consideration with everything you buy these days, perfection is not the norm. I think Micro$oft conditioned us for that, but I digress.Note: I do have the 3.0 firmware.UPDATE: 10/26/2010 - Working like a champ. Mitsubishi retooled / reworked this model and it appears that they have them working like they should. True, I originally went through 3 of these before I got one that worked without issues. However, it has worked so well that I went and purchased another unit a few months ago. So far, both units are working fantastically. The image is truly amazing! One projector is shooting a 144 inch image onto a homemade screen and the other a 135 inch image onto a StudioTek 130 (the benchmark of screens).. The pictures are truly amazing. Everyone is blown away when they see what these inexpensive little projectors can do.I cannot stress enough the importance of making your viewing room as dark as possible, especially when going this large.
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