Optoma HD72 Menu System & Calibration

Image Menu

The HD72's menu system is easy to operate and comprehend. The user controls are expansive and should enable the user to get good calibration results without entering service menus. The user menu contains four headings labeled Image , Display , Setup and Options .

Under the Image menu you will find Mode, Contrast, Brightness, Color, Tint, and Sharpness adjustments. Selecting 'Mode' brings up a sub menu that has four different preset but adjustable video settings of: Cinema, Bright, TV, RGB and User.

We selected the 'Cinema' mode because it was the most suitable for home theater applications. Choosing 'Bright' increased the light output tremendously and also made the fan spin up to a much more audible level.

Selecting 'Advanced' from the Image menu brought up the next page of advanced adjustments: Degamma, Brilliant Color, True Vivid, Color, Temperature, Image AI, RGB Gain and Bias, Input Sources and Color Space.

Selecting 'Degamma' brings up a sub-menu with the following choices: Film, Video, Graphics and PC. Selecting 'Film' would be the best choice for home theater applications.

Brilliant Color is defined as a color processor that enables higher brightness while maintaining more vibrant colors. We found that setting Brilliant Color between 0 to +3 to be the best setting for our HD72. Anything more than +3 made the image look unnatural.

True Vivid is defined (cryptically) as a color processor that increases picture vividness. We chose to leave TrueVivid at 0.

Color Temperature adjusts the color of the image increments from '0' to '2'. The higher settings raise Kelvin thus producing a cooler looking image. We left the color temperature in the default '1' position.

Image AI is defined as an image processor that improves contrast by optimizing the brightness of the lamp. We found that the process must modulate the lamp output because we experienced flickering at times when AI was activated.

Image AI did improve the overall brightness and contrast of the image but we felt leaving it off was the best position for our review. One other thing to consider about AI is that, when activated, the fans in the projector speed up and the noise level becomes much more apparent.

Selecting RGB Gain and Bias brings up page 3 of the image menu and it contains all the settings for adjusting the Red, Green, and Blue gain and bias for achieving proper color temperature and grayscale tracking. An input must be active before this menu will appear.

Display Menu

Selecting the heading Display reveals options for: Format, Zoom, Overscan, Horizontal Image Shift, Vertical Image Shift, Horizontal Keystone, Vertical Keystone, and PC Mode.

'Format' allows you to select different aspect ratios including 4:3, 16:9, Native, and Letterbox.

'Zoom' is self-explanatory. It magnifies the image. Leaving Zoom in the off position is best for normal use.

'Overscan' allows adjustment of the size of the image that is cropped around the border of the image. Using the Avia DVD overscan test pattern, the user can check for overscan and adjust if necessary.

Horizontal and Vertical image shift moves the image up and down, this is not to be confused with mechanical lens shift. The image shift moves the image up and down within the 16:9 frame.

Horizontal and Vertical keystone can be used to square up an image when the projector is tilted up or down .We do not advise the use of digital keystone because it will degrade the image and create uniformity issues. If you install the projector in the geometrically correct position you will not need to use keystone.

Setup Menu

Under the heading 'Setup' you wil see options for Language, Projection, Display Type, and Signal.

Under 'Language' the user can select a language to read the menus

'Projection' allows the user to select the type of projection install. Front, desktop, rear desktop, front ceiling, or rear ceiling.

'Display Type' lets you choose the pixel type/aspect ratio: 16:9 (1280x720) or 16:10 (1280x768). So, what exactly is 16:10? This mode allows the user to display computer resolutions of 1280x768 or 1024x768 in a full frame with no cropping.

The use of the 16:9 mode would be the best choice for standard DVD and HDTV.

Selecting 'Signal' brings up a sub utility menu with the following adjustments for computer inputs: Phase, Tracking, Horizontal position, and Vertical position

'Phase' allows the user to change the display data frequency to match the frequency of your computer graphics card. This is very useful if the projector displays flicker or vertical noise bar.

'Tracking' enables adjustment of synchronization of the signal timing to correct flickering or an unstable image.

'Horizontal Position' adjusts the image on the screen horizontally.

'Vertical Position' adjusts the image on the screen vertically.

Options Menu

The last menu heading is labeled 'Options'. Here, the user will find Menu Location, Source Lock, High Altitude, Auto Power Off, Reset, Lamp Hour, Lamp Reminding, Bright Mode and Lamp Reset.

'Menu Location' allows the user to place the menu at various locations on the screen.

'Source Lock' prevents the projector from searching for other signals if the current signal on the input is lost. When this is turned on, the projector will search for a signal on the user specified input port.

'High Altitude'is a very handy setting if the user is located in a mountain area. The projector will operate the fans at a higher speed to compensate for the thinner atmosphere. This mode is LOUD.

'Auto Power Off' allows the projector to turn itself off at the user-selected time in minutes if there is no signal detected on the input.

'Reset' restores the projector back to the factory default values.

Selecting 'Lamp Settings' brings up a utility sub-menu with the following options: Lamp Hour, Lamp Reminder, Bright Mode, and Lamp reset.

'Lamp Hour' displays the time the lamp has been used.

'Lamp Reminder' displays a warning message to replace the bulb 30 hours before the suggested lamp replacement time.

'Bright Mode' can be set to ON to increase the brightness or OFF for normal viewing. The correct setting for home theater applications would be OFF. This will also lower the noise level of the fan.

'Lamp Reset' resets the lamp timer after lamp replacement.

Calibration

Out of the box, our review sample HD72 color temperature and gray scale tracked consistently from 30 IRE to 100 IRE but was on the cool side, tracking at about 8000K. Chances are, with a good calibration DVD and some calibration experience; you would obtain good calibration results using the HD72's expansive calibration menu. Using the Sencore 5000 color analyzer, we were able to achieve some pretty consistent color temperature readings (+ or - 2%) at D-6500K by adjusting the user controls in the set up menu.

We found that turning AI on and off had very little effect of the post calibration numbers, this indicates that if you calibrate your projector with AI turned off and then decide to activate it later your calibration will remain consistent. As indicated earlier in the review we found that the Brilliant color position of +3, True Vivid 0, and Color Temperature 1 gave us the best calibration and image results.

Audioholics/HQV Bench Testing Summary of Test Results

Perfect Score is 130

480i Component Video Connection

Comments on HQV Testing

We were very surprised to see such a capable video processor in such a low cost projector. The scaling and de-interlacing performance of the HD72 surpassed many of the DVD players we have reviewed recently. The Jaggies tests and Flag test were darn near perfect. The HD72 did, however, struggle with noise reduction. We found that lowering the sharpness control to its lowest level of '16' did help, but a considerable amount of noise still remained.

We were very surprised that the processor handled with ease the Film Detail test - locking on and staying locked throughout the sequence with no moiré detected. The HD72 passed the most important Cadence test of 3:2 - 24fps and also had no trouble with the Scrolling Horizontal or Rolling Credits test. This indicated that the processor onboard the HD72 can faithfully detect un-flagged film material and bad edits. The video processor/de-interlacer used in the HD72 is the new DDP-3020.