Home > Consumer Reviews > Mitsubishi HC1500 720p DLP Home Theater Projector

Just installed the HC1500 and I am very impressed. Watched 300 last night on upconvert DVD player and the picture clarity and detail were unbelievable. Setup was no problem and very easy - even without lense shift. Throw distance for 100" screen is between 11.9' and 14.5' feet, so there are limitations. This unit is perfect for ceiling mounting as I did in my basement. Can't wait to watch Sunday ticket in HD.

Its quite a lengthy review provided by aholics. I am guessing it worth reading for 5 minutes, If you gonna spend the money

We absolutely jumped at the chance to get a close look at the new Mitsubishi HC1500 DLP projector since we missed the boat on checking out the HD1000U which preceded it. The attraction is a clean system that handles up to 720p for less than $1000. This projector is worth a serious look - especially at the street pricing you'll find on this model. It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that we live in a time when a projector can be had for this price possessing the level of features and amenities that come with the HC1500. If you break it down into price per square inch, you are saving a bundle by going with front projection at this price - as of this writing you can barely get a decent 40-inch LCD TV for the same money. RUN to your nearest Mitsubishi dealer and check this one out for yourself - you owe it to your wallet.

Pro
1080p/60 support
Main menu shows input signal resolution
RS-232C control
Excellent color
Good out-of-the-box performance

Con
No 480i support over HDMI
Significant rainbow effect
Default Sharpness setting too high
Can crush blacks if not careful

Things We Really Liked About This ProjectorContinuing the above thought, Mitsubishi has entered a projector into the marketplace with several very nice convenience features which help distance it from the pack and set it apart:

BrilliantColor
While not new, this function is nice in that it allows for a quick way to eek out more brightness to suit the time of day and ambient lighting conditions in your viewing room. It's almost like a built in day and night adjustment, however when activated it will crush your white levels so use sparingly.

12V trigger
Many times this feature gets left out of lesser-priced units. It's nice to know that the HC1500 can be used with a motorized screen if desired.

Price & RS-232C
At under $1000 you really can't beat this 720p projector for getting HD into your living room without breaking the bank. To also include RS-232C control options (with clear codes at the Mitsubishi website) is absolutely unreal in terms of value.

There are sufficient connections on the back of the Mitsubishi HC1500 to satisfy anyone I know. You have HDMI and component, with another available component input via the HD15 (VGA) connection. For those of you who don't have any HD sources and feel the need to blow up 480i imagery to ridiculous sizes there is a composite and s-video input as well. The surprise on the back of this unit, for me at least, was the presence of a serial RS-232C connection. With an 8-pin DIN to D-sub adapter you can fully control the HC1500 with an advanced system such as those from AMX, Crestron or similar.


Mitsubishi HC1500 rear connections

The HC1500 is really a great little box. With this many inputs and the ability to handle both 1080p/60 input signals (and with a 720p native panel resolution) it's going to be very hard to beat for value. The physical box itself has the same look of the HD1000 and HD4000 models. There is a manual focus and zoom adjustment just behind the lens as expected and much of the front and side panels are devoted to airflow and venting. As a result, there is a significant amount of light leakage from the front and right side of the unit. Fan noise was consistent but not terribly loud, though it did have a soft whine attached to it rather than a gentle whisper. An attached lens cap keeps the dust from settling on the lens when not in use. Aside from the remote, there are 7 buttons atop the unit for power, menu control, input selection and keystone correction. These buttons are multi-function and allow you to get the system up and running even if you are unable to access the remote.

Remote Control

The HC1500 remote is pretty good, especially given the low cost of entry for this projector. You have direct access to input sources (all 5 input options) as well as some ways to immediately interact with many of the primary picture controls (BrilliantColor isn't one of these, however). Discrete On and Off buttons/commands are available on the remote as well - and which enabled this remote to land a healthy 4/5 score. One of my favorite features was the presence of three AV memory setting buttons. Selecting one of these buttons allows configuration and/or recall of the Image Menu settings for that selection. In this way I was able to configure a setting for nighttime Cinema viewing, one for Daytime viewing and another for black & white films (with a slightly lower/warmer color temperature). These are excellent features to have and the Mitsubishi puts them right at your fingertips which is very nice.

The remote was also very easy to use and the signal bounced from the screen to the projector in almost any position. I tried pretty hard to point the signal in places where it might not reach the unit and most of the time I had to quite deliberately aim away from anything in order to allow the remote to file to reach its target. The only thing keeping this remote from attaining a 5/5 was the fact that the backlight was so dim it was at times difficult to read the buttons. All remotes should work this well.

The Menu System

Simliar to other Mitsubishi projectors that share nearly identical software, the menu system on the HC1500 is straightforward and easy to navigate. I still don't like exiting interior levels of the submenus by either scrolling all the way to the top or by pressing the Menu button, but its certainly something one gets used to and the menu system will not be used all that much once you have everything configured to your liking. I went over most of the Menu functions in my review of the Mitsubishi HC5000 as well as our reviews of the HD4000. Not too much has changed so feel free to look up those reviews for more details. You can now access BrilliantColor from the Image menu, which also makes that feature part of the AV Memory functionality and Vertical Location adjustments can be made for those who may have devices which require adjustment of the vertical image.


Movies were fun to watch on this projector for their color and black levels. As with other Mitsubishi's, however, I did have a significant problem with rainbows and they don't, for me at least, go away with time. Having interviewed enough people about this phenomenon, I no longer authoritatively say that everyone will experience rainbows as significantly as I - since everyone's perceptions of them are different. For me, the timings Mitsubishi uses (in this case a 4-speed, 7-segment wheel) wreak havoc with my optical system. My best recommendation to anyone is to try out this projector in your own home to see how you react. Don't look for rainbows, lest you find them, but find out if typical viewing material (include some high-contrast images with vertical line patterns) creates a problem for you.

Rainbows aside, I really enjoyed both the color and the detail this system afforded me. The better the signal you feed this projector, the better the results you will get - and you can get REALLY nice results.

HD DVD - Batman Begins
This movie came out rather dark, as though the transfer was done poorly - the problem is we know that the transfer was flawless base don other projector reviews. Thinking back to my luminance graph I quickly realized that setting this projector "by the book" will result in some crushed blacks - at least in my experience. When setting black levels (Brightness) be sure you can raise the value a notch or two higher than normal. Unfortunately, this raises your blacks overall, but I'd rather than than lose the detail present in DVD and HD-DVD images. There were moments of real detail and exceptional opportunities to see how well the HC1500 handled gradients, skin tones, deinterlacing of motion elements and detail. Batman Begins was a very enjoyable movie to watch, and the Mitsubishi HC1500 gave an impressive performance. Any perspective anomalies in the photos below are likely due to the camera angle and type used and not the projector.







Both color and detail were present and beautifully portrayed through the HC1500 projector.


The problem with having a nice projector and a great movie like Batman Begins, is that I quickly got lost in the story and took entirely too long to grab some of these beautiful screen captures. It is a sure bet that you will enjoy the images shown by the HC1500 - they are stunning.

HD DVD - We Were Soldiers
This HD DVD is best described as a DVD that was reprocessed into HD DVD without much ado. The images are grainy, but the detail pokes through at various times throughout the film and black levels were honest and not crushed or clipped. Colors were vibrantly shown by the DLP system and overall this reminded me of how standard definition DVDs looked like on the HC1500 projector. The system doesn't enhance poor images, but it does a great job of allowing the best possible picture to shine through.







Blacks were rich and deep; and colors popped during the scenes that didn't involve the rather barren landscape of Vietnam.


HDTV - Discovery HD Channel
I watched several shows on Discovery HD, including Build It Bigger and Into the Lion's Den. Both had some excellent imagery (as expected) and I was floored by the detail exhibited by the Mitsubishi. This projector can really show off a nice image - the key is finding them. With this unit you will find yourself watching more and more HD content and quickly becoming an early adopter of HD-DVD formats simply to have more material to view on the big screen.







Notice the hair detail in the above picture and the lack of crushed whites in both. This is partially due to the correct setting of White levels (Contrast) and disengaging the BrilliantColor feature.


Here are some additional screen captures form a DiscoveryHD promo I simply HAD to display:







Detail, detail, detail! And colors are absolutely vibrant - you will not be disappointed with this picture.


ConclusionI give the HC1500 my full recommendation with a hearty warning: If you are susceptible to rainbows I highly suggest you get a look at this model before jumping into a purchase. To my eyes this was a significant issue, more so than other DLP models I have reviewed recently. This projector is worth a serious look - especially at the street pricing you'll find on this model. It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that we live in a time when a projector can be had for this price possessing the level of features and amenities that come with the HC1500. If you break it down into price per square inch, you are saving a bundle by going with front projection at this price - as of this writing you can barely get a decent 40-inch LCD TV for the same money. RUN to your nearest Mitsubishi dealer and check this one out for yourself - you owe it to your wallet.

Beautiful display. OTA HD is stunning. Much better color than the one it replaced. Quiet enough that you have to look to make sure it is on while it is warming up. Don't mount it before you turn it on and see where the display is relative to the projector. I ceiling mounted it and the display was more than a foot below where the manual said it would be. Could have been my mistake, but take a couple of minutes to be sure.

This product was delivered about a week after I ordered it. I brought it with me to Afghanistan and it has lived up to expectations in using it here. It does not seem to be bothered by voltage fluctuations in city electricity and runs OK on our solar system (with inverter to boost current to 220v). The size of the picture is a little smaller than I would like, given the dimensions of the room in which it is used. However, these facts were not available at the time I bought the projector.

This is my first projector and I have spent many an hour looking for the "right" one.

After looking for at least 4 years at different projs, I had settled on 2-- the Panasonic AX200 and the Sanyo Z5. The pro reviews were great and I elected to buy the Sanyo, but I decided against it, and the Panasonic, after reading user reviews on various AV sites. Sounded like some problems may have carried over from previous models. So, I re-drew my list and came up with the 1500. Good pro reviews and user reviews.

The projector is much brighter than I expected, especially in a dark room. The room where it is used has windows that take up about 80% of one wall and so there is plenty of light in the afternoon. But the projector is up to the challenge especially since I am projecting on a bare off-white wall. I definitely would have no complaints with a real pj screen.

I have tried the s-video, vga and component cables and found they are all good (s-video being the worst, of course). The vga is much better than the s-video when displaying a downloaded movie from the computer. Component is great and I haven't tried the hdmi because I don't have the cables. By the way, you CAN use composite cables, video and audio, as component cables. It DOES work if you happen to have them around and they are of good quality.

There is no rainbow effect for me and the colors are good. You kinda have to play with the settings to get the optimum look for the particular movie you are watching especially for "dark" movies.

My projector sits about 12 feet from the wall and gives me about a 94" screen. I can sit it further back for a larger screen because my wall is a half wall. I like the larger screen that 14 feet gives me and so that may be my only wish--a shorter throw.

The projector is quiet in low mode. The fan turns on is more audible in standard mode. In a completely darkened room or a dark room with ambient light, you won't need to up the lamp mode.

My friend's love it and I think "movie night" with the neighbor's is going to be a permanent feature in my house.

My final thought is that with my next projector I will concentrate less on the lumens and more on contrast and throw.