Product Review
 

Samsung SP-H710AE Single-Chip 16:9 DLP Digital Projector

Part III

July, 2006

Darin Perrigo

 

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

© Copyright 2006 Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity

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