For On/Off CR, I measured 1390:1 at 100 IRE,
as calibrated. If I had left the contrast at the default of 50 instead of
moving it to a setting with less banding, the On/Off CR would have been
closer to 1680:1. Using the internal 6500 test pattern instead of 100 IRE
would have resulted in an On/Off CR of about 2120:1, but getting that with a
real calibration would require pushing the contrast or gains very hard and
leaving little or no room for values above 100 IRE (Reference White), and
maybe even crushing some detail below 100 IRE. For ANSI CR, I measured 630:1
from the projector with the calibrated settings. This is among the best ANSI CRs for all front projectors
that I have tested.
(See my recent article on Contrast Ratios, for an explanation of On/Off vs.
ANSI CR.)
I measured 10.4 ft-lamberts from the brightest spot off a 96" wide StudioTek
130 screen in low lamp mode (Theater) with about 32 hours on the lamp and
the projector at a throw ratio of about 1.93x the screen width. This came to
290 lumens. With the default settings, it would have been close to 350 lumens,
and the 6500 internal test pattern would have been close to 440 lumens.
This particular 710AE was exhibiting a problem with starting the lamp, and
the lamp would fail to start more than half the time. This may have
contributed toward lower lumen readings, so I tried a second 710AE to get
more information about this. With the original lamp which had about 32 hours
on it in the second 710AE, I got close to the same readings as in the first
710AE. Using a newer lamp with just 6 hours on it in the original 710AE and
the same calibrated settings as above, I measured about 350 lumens, or 20%
higher than the original 290 lumens. It is possible that the variation seen
was from the second lamp having less hours on it, the lamp starting problems
causing the first one to age prematurely, just normal variation between two
lamps, or a combination of these factors.
Low lamp mode (Theater) and high lamp mode (Bright) with this projector have
a ratio of 3:4. That is, Bright mode is 33% brighter than Theater mode, and
Theater mode is 25% dimmer than Bright mode. Switching lamp modes without
recalibration would have taken my 290 lumen reading to about 390 lumens.
The projector was able to take a 1280x720 @ 48 Hz signal, and with the help of a
set-up done by a friend, we were able to measure the color wheel speed at about
288 Hz for all three primary colors (this would be 144 rotations per second
with 2 sets of each color). With normal 60 Hz input, the wheel spins at 300 Hz
(5x), so this indicates that the projector is going to 6x in 48 Hz mode. Many DLPs cannot do 48 Hz correctly, and at least one other single chip DLP
projector I've measured, which does slow its wheel down to a multiple of 48 Hz
when being fed 48 Hz, stays with the 5x multiplier and so goes from 300 Hz
with 60 Hz input to 240 Hz with 48 Hz input. Just being able to do a multiple
of 48 Hz is a nice feature, but getting 6x with this Samsung is an extra
bonus for those who are prone to being bothered by color separation
(Rainbow) artifacts and want to run at 48 Hz for film material (24 Hz originals). Those
who wish to feed a 48 Hz signal to this projector will likely need an
external scaler or an HTPC. I did find that, although the projector worked
for 1280x720 @ 48 Hz, the information screen in the menus indicates that the
input is 50 Hz.
With 1080i to the DVI input, using AVIA Pro, I was not able to get the gray
ramp to be smooth like with 720p input, and there was false contouring in the
horizontal direction in some real world 1080i material sent at 1080i from a
DirecTV HD TiVo which was more visible than when the projector was fed 720p
with the same material. Using the component input for 1080i made this false
contouring less visible. Based on this viewing, I would personally tend to
use the DVI input when I could reasonably feed the projector 720p and use
the component input when feeding the projector 1080i.
When changing the input between 720p and 1080i, the projector synced to the
new source within a few seconds, which I considered very reasonable.
I did not measure how loud the projector was, but in low lamp mode, it was
acceptable to me, while the owner of the projector told me that he found it
somewhat objectionable. It is not as quiet as some digital projectors
I have heard in the last couple of years, but better than others. In high
lamp mode, the sound increased significantly however, and went into a range
where I would expect it to be unacceptable to a large number of people,
unless they used a hush box or other method of deadening the sound (like
installing it behind a wall).
The lens shift mechanism is very solid and works well. I did not try the
extreme ends of the shift range.
With HD input, I did not see an option for stretching 2.35:1 material to the
whole 16:9 panel for use with an anamorphic lens.
While I did not get a chance to test it, the projector has an option to
set the color temperature to 5500 (among others), which is the correct level
for black and white films.
Viewing
I am not personally as picky about dead-on colors as some people
I know, but I can understand the appeal of the color that this projector
provides and the piece of mind with knowing that colors from it are matching
the standards after a proper calibration with a recommended meter (most
likely by a professional). I understand that the SP-H700AE has been popular
with some in Hollywood for its accurate colors. Not long ago, getting this
level of color performance would have cost significantly more, and it is nice
to see that this has been brought down to a price level where many more
people can afford it. After my calibration, I personally found the colors to
be nice with the material I viewed, but I have also been happy with the
color from a couple other projectors I've had, after I calibrated them.
I did most of my viewing from about 1.5x to 1.6x the screen width, which is
about the closest I would recommend for this projector (without use of
things like anamorphic lenses) to avoid seeing the screen door effect (SDE) or pixelization
for people who are sensitive about those. Many people can sit closer without
being bothered by these, but this is about the range I recommend as the
limit for this projector for people concerned about this aspect and who have
reasonably good vision.
I do not tend to see many rainbows (color separation artifacts) with DLPs
that have 5x color wheels like this one. I could see one now and then,
but nothing that bothered me during normal viewing.
The ANSI CR from this projector is very nice, but I could see during viewing
that the On/Off Contrast Ratio was not up to the level that I have seen with
some other digital projectors (including other single-chip DLPs).
The shadow detail was about in the range I would expect from a single chip
DLP with a six-segment color wheel, which means that it was pretty good. Single
chip DLPs with color wheels which don't contain dark segments have some
trouble doing fine details just above video black, since they need to dither
over quite a few pixels. It isn't a big difference that everybody would
notice, but there is some difference without the dark segment(s).
My friend received two of these projectors, and each had
problems which required repair, but this is a very small sample. In the
short time since then, there haven't been any issues (including the
original problem). There was some initial difficulty in getting the
projectors repaired which may have been related to Samsung not being
completely ready to handle issues with this fairly new model, but once
Samsung got the projectors, the communication was good, and the repairs were
done quickly.
Conclusions
My overall impression is that the Samsung SP-H710AE is a solid performer for the price range
if a person gets one without problems. For those who highly value color
accuracy of the primaries and grayscale, as opposed to things like high
On/Off Contrast Ratio, this could be an especially good fit, but you should
consider getting a
professional calibration so as to maximize the color accuracy.
In the future I would like to see Samsung combine what they have done for
colors with a dual iris system (I won't go into detail here about the
advantages of dual over single for DLPs), if they aren't going to implement
a dynamic iris system (or similar). A dual iris system can allow the user to
get a higher On/Off CR when they can get away with less lumens or
get more lumens with less On/Off CR when that is the desired
mode.
- Darin Perrigo -
Associated Equipment:
- Oscilloscope and circuit for looking at color wheel and mirror timing
(provided by Brent Robinson)
- Colorfacts with Eye One (Beamer) color sensor
- AEMC CA813 light meter
- 96"x54" StudioTek 130 projection screen