Mitsubishi HC7000 - Physical Tour 2

Posted on November 19, 2008 by Art Feierman

Lens Throw

The 1.6:1 throw range of the lens allows the projector, (measured from the front of the lens), to be as close as 10 feet, 2 inches to a 100" 16:9 diagonal screen, or as far back as 16 feet, five inches. You can use these numbers to calculate the distances for other sized screens. While a 1.6:1 zoom range is less than many other 3LCD projectors, many of which have 2:1 zooms, the HC7000's range should be enough to work well in the vast majority of people's rooms.

Lens Shift

The HC7000 has both vertical and horizontal lens shift. Both functions are motorized and controlled from the remote.

For a 100" screen, the HC7000 can be mounted as high as approximately 12.3 inches above the top of the screen surface. From there, or it can be placed all the way down to 12.3 inches below the bottom, and anywhere in between. Although some projectors, on the same sized screen, may be able to go as much as extra foot above or below, the HC7000's range is just fine for most. The only time where another foot or so of lens shift would be nice, is if you are ceiling mounting, and happen to have a rather high ceiling - say over 10 feet, and you don't want the projector to hang down too far from the ceiling. Some others would let you get the projector one foot closer to that higher ceiling.

Anamorphic Lens

Very clever, these folks at Mitsubishi. Not only is there support using a 2.35:1 screen with an anamorphic lens, but Mitsubishi can be used without a motorized sled, to watch 4:3 and 16:9 content. They accomplished this feat with a second anamorphic mode specifically for that purpose.

This is a different approach than Panasonic's PT-AE3000, which needs no anamorphic lens at all (less cost). Still, for Cinema-scope (2.35:1) movie watching, the Mitsubishi uses all of it's pixels while the Panasonic approach does not, so you have a a smaller pixel structure, and should have a crisper image with the Mitsubishi. That's doubly true, since the Mitsubishi produces a sharper image than the Panasonic to begin with.

Now it's time to consider the picture quality. You won't be disapointed.