Is the Mitsubishi HC5000 bright enough for a 128" screen?

Mad Monk

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Just need a little advice on screen sizes for the HC5000. After two weeks of reading these forums like mad along with projectoreviews.com I have decided to go for the Epson TW1000 or the Mistibishi HC5000 as my first ever projector. I have read that the Epson is bright enough for a large screen whilst the other 1080p entry level projectors aren't that well equipped for a screen >100".

I will be sitting 12' away from the screen. Mostly I will be using the projector to view films at night so there will not be too much of a problem with ambient light although I will be also using the projector once a week in a sunny room to view chumpions league football. I will also be bashing it with some xbox 360 in a dimly lit room.

If the projector is good enough for use in daytime (with curtains drawn) can somebody please point me in the right direction for a suitable screen. I really would like a huge 110"+ screen. I would prefer motorized and my budget is around £500 altough I dont mind a pull down screen at all if the quality is better.

:lease:

.....or should I just buy a ax100 for now and upgrade to the JVC 1080p daddy in a years time.....surely even my fussy eyes wont know any better lol
 
None of the modestly priced new 1080p PJs seem to be light canons at all. 128" would probably be too much for any of them. I would be a bit more conservative, especially from 12' away. Rmember that there may not be enough throw.

Nick
 
I have kept my screen to a 72" wide screen (80+" diagonal) and its fine. I would think 128" might be pushing it a bit unless you got a screen fabric that pushed up the light as much as possible
 
To know if a pj will be bright enough for a particular screen size, you need to know the measured lumens (not advertised) of the projector, and divide that number by the area of the screen (in square feet). If you don't know the genuine lumens, reduce the advertised lumens by 30 to 40%. The resulting number needs to be around 12 to 16 (Foot Lamberts) if you want to have cinema levels of image brightness in a light controlled room. If you want tv/plasma levels then you need it 2 to 3 times brighter. The FL can be increased by using a screen with gain, but if you want it dimmer, you can use an ND filter.

You will also find that the pj may have different light output depending on how much zoom is used. The lens won't have a constant aperture so larger the image is zoomed, the more light and less contrast you will get, and the smaller the image is zoomed, the dimmer and more contrast it will have.

Gary
 
From ProjectorReviews review of the Epson TW1000 said:
But back to serious screen recommendations. Of my three somewhat different screens, a projector this good with very respectable black levels works well with all three. Still, I have these observations. For serious movie addicts "purists" looking for the functionally best image, the Firehawk G3 is awesome. With lamp on high and a slightly calibrated Theater Black 1, the Epson easily handled my 128" G3.

For those on a financial diet, though, the very affordable Elite Cinetension HC Gray (motorized, but similar surfaces are available from them in fixed frame) , provides a very good alternative. In fact, one thing I really like about their HC Gray, is that it really has very little "HC" (high contrast). As a result it has a wider viewing cone, and you suffer almost no roll off in the corners.

The Carada Brilliant White with it's roughly 1.3 gain, is, of course a real plus if you are fighting a lot of ambient light, but it is probably best if you feel the need for huge screen sizes. I don't know that I would particularly choose it for anything under 110" diagonal. I imagine the Brilliant White, could probably work well with sizes to 150" diagonal, and still let you use some of the "better" image modes.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/epson/HomeProCinema1080/performance.asp

Art does mention he had the lamp on high to handle his 128" screen, and it does get louder (26db low mode IIRC, and 31 or 33 db ish on high from memory), you'd have to determine whether you could live with that ideally before buying if you can

Edit: Oops my bad - just realised your question was more about the Mitsuibishi than the Epson
 
This is what Art said about the Mitsuibishi in terms of screen recomendations

ProjectorReviews - Mitsuibishi HC5000 said:
Projector Screen Recommendations

Not overly large, for sure! I was never happy in Cinema (best) mode, watching movies with the projector set to fill my entire 128" diagonal, light gray high contrast surface Firehawk screen. By reducing the image size to 110" diagonal, though I found watching movies to work out just fine.

Dynamic Iris and AI, notwithstanding, the HC5000BL does a very good job in terms of black levels. As a result, for those wanting as large a screen as possible, I would recommend a screen with positive gain, like my other screen, the Carada Brilliant white - with it's 1.4 gain. My own Carada is 106" diagonal, and I found the image to be more than bright enough!

Please note, if your walls are pretty dark, you can get away with a bigger screen than with off white walls.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/Manufacturers/mitsubishi/HC5000BL/performance.asp#screen

Hope that helps :)
 
I notice my panny Ae1000 says a max screen off 200" and I sopose the mits is around that size as well.

Once you start to go over 100" do you start to loose picture Quality etc ??

I would like to use a 150+" screen in the future when I get my new house. would you think this is possible ??

what are the main actions to consider when wanting to use a HUGE screen ??

Rooms needs to be like a bat cave ?

You should place your projector so you dont use any zoom ?
 
Thanks for the reply all. All the information is much appreciated.

I'll have to read up on 'lumens' tonight and decide if this projector is right for me. I had no idea it would involve me doing math lol.

The room where I am going to place the screen on is 16' wide by 9 1/2' high. I will be sitting 13' away with the projector mounted on a shelf just below the ceiling. The walls unfortunately will be light coloured with a dark floor. I've just now realised that mounting a huge fish tank opposite the screen is not the best thing in the world for reflecting light off the projector screen but I guess a huge cloth will take care of that :)

I am limited to the projector that I can buy as my budget is £1500 for the projector and £500 for the screen. I know that I have to take the import route on the projector but is £500 going to be enough for a largish screen?

Any advice on what size screen I could get away with for my wall would be appreciated. I may consider another projector (the AX100 looks very bright) if its means a larger screen and very similar picture quality to a layman (with sesitive eyes :cool: )

I wonder what the picture would be like with a AE1000 on a 200" screen....
 
I notice my panny Ae1000 says a max screen off 200" and I sopose the mits is around that size as well.

Once you start to go over 100" do you start to loose picture Quality etc ??

I would like to use a 150+" screen in the future when I get my new house. would you think this is possible ??

what are the main actions to consider when wanting to use a HUGE screen ??

Rooms needs to be like a bat cave ?

You should place your projector so you dont use any zoom ?

I have an AE1000 and a 120" Graywolf screen (gain 1.8) and it is plenty bright enough for me. If I zoom back to 92" approx it is brighter, but not so different I'd loose sleep over it.:) Given that I use an ND2 filter on the 120" screen and my AE1000 is in econ mode for the lamp (which I'm dubious that does anything TBH), I don't see why 150" wouldn't be OK in a dark room and minus the ND2 filter. It may just mean that you replace the lamp sooner if it becomes too dim before the 2000 hours is up. I only have about 100 hours on mine so far, so I can't say how much it will dim, or whether it is a linear thing (if any one knows please tell:thumbsup: ).ATM I don't have a proper curtain across my patio door so I get a bit of light coming in even at night and it's still fine with the above setup.

I don't know how different the HC5000 is in terms of actual lumens output compaired to mine, but if it's similar then the above should apply. FWIW I use mine in 'Cinema 1' or 'Colour 1' mode which are the dimmest settings (approx 350-400 lumens IIRC from a US review I read). TBH in hindsight I would have got the PJ first and tried it on a painted wall before ordering the screen.:rolleyes:

PS: If I read correctly, then full zoom will give the brightest image, verses minimum zoom, FWIW I have mine at 6 metres throw so it is at almost minimum zoom (darkest).
 
I use my hc5000 to project a 136 inch image onto a blank wall from about 15 feet away. It looks fine to me. :)
 

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