Mitsubishi HC3800 1080p Home Theater DLP Projector Review

I’ll preface by stating I’ve only watched one movie on it so far. But what I’ve seen I’m duly impressed!
The body has a very simple glossy black look to it. The remote is easy to use, and the menu system has a low learning curve on figuring out.
The projector is small — I guess — by 1080P standards, but does have some weight to it.
Booting up takes about 15 secs (guessing) before you get a picture image. The noise level varies alot with this projector depending on the signal that’s being fed to it. Since this is a DLP, it uses a color wheel.
In a quiet room the color wheel can make a metallic spinning sound that can be heard when fed a video signal of 60 fps — default for DVD and lower type of signals. It’s nothing noticeable when playing a movie, but you will notice it before the movie starts.
However that also depends on where you sit. Depending on the location to where you sit in relation to the projector, you may not hear it at all. I’ve also heard from AVS Forum people that the color wheel sound
goes down after about a 100 hrs of use as the projector goes through it’s early use phase.
On the other hand, if your Blu-ray player can convert your signal to 24P, or if the blu-ray movie is formatted to play as such, you won’t hear a thing! Let me repeat that. You won’t hear A THING! That’s because the color wheel slows down to accommodate the 24 fps signal. (Though some people may be more susceptible to rainbow effects with the slower spin.)
Also the projector is VERY QUIET (in low lamp mode) for fan noise. I had an Infocus 4805 before, and it was much more noticeable with fan noise. DLP’s have a reputation of being louder than the comparable LCD projector. But I would wager this isn’t outputting more than 25 decibels of fan noise, and in my sound-insulated room with NO audio playing, I barely registered the projector was running.
I should note I have only 7 1/2 ft ceilings, and this is ceiling mounted. I had to use just a 3 + keystone effect to adjust the trapezoid shape of tilting my projector up. (You can find a really nice aluminum ceiling mount for cheap on a certain other famous selling website.)
Out of the box image quality is excellent! I haven’t done any major tweaking of the image, and I register it’s fairly close to D65 color in low lamp moade, Cinema gamma, and Medium temp.
I will note that sometimes I get a “no image” message as the Blu-ray player boots up the disc, or if a it’s a lag from previews to main menu on the disc. I hear this is fairly commone thing, and I don’t know if that’s due to the projector losing it’s signal, or the fact I have a 15 ft HDMI run to my player.
I have yet to see this happen while playing a movie. All in all, if you’re wanting to finally get 1080P sweetness at a reasonable price, get this projector!
Note – I do favor DLP technology over LCD when it comes to projectors, but if this projector had been crap, I would’ve said so.)
After only 3 hrs of use, I got a faulty image that required me to restart it. Contacting Mits Support, they tell me it’s a “board issue” and the projector needs to be replaced.”
On a VERY positive spot, before I even got my DOA Case # from Mits, after talking with Amazon support, they have ALREADY sent out a new projector for me! What a surprise! I might get it tomorrow. Just hoping this 2nd projector isn’t a lemon like the first one.
Kudos to Amazon for giving me such good customer service!
I really do think this is the best 1080P projector for the sub [...] category, it’s just a shame I’ve read about many users getting lemon projectors the first time out. (Not necessarily from Amazon, just in general.)
Mitsubishi HC3800 1080p Home Theater DLP Projector Feature
- Home Theater DLP Projector 1080p
- High Quality Glass Lens
- 1300 ANSI Lumens
- 4000:1 Contrast Ratio
Mitsubishi HC3800 1080p Home Theater DLP Projector Overview
1080p DLP Home Theater Projector, 1300 ANSI, 6 seg. Color Wheel, 4000:1 contrast ratio, 7.9 lbs., HDMI input (v 1.3),
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jun 26, 2010 05:00:07