Planar PD7150 Daytime Viewing and Calibration
I would not consider this to be a good projector for daytime viewing. While the Gamma can be set to 1 and White Enhance set to 'On', allowing the full lumens to be output from the unit, it still does not perform well in ambient situations. Stick with a light-controlled room, but know that you have some options in the event that you have some light leakage during the day.
Calibration – Getting Those Black Levels Right!
Quite simply put - the Planar PD7150 is an EXCELLENT projector out of the box. When we calibrated Brightness and Contrast and set the unit to 6500K color temperature mode, we measured 6500K at 30IRE and 6400K at 80IRE. While the RGB chart may show heightened green levels, this wasn't readily apparent in the perceived picture. The Brightness setting was spot on, but our Contrast levels needed to be bumped to '11' (yes, 'this one goes to 11').
We utilized datacolor’s ColorFacts Professional 6.0 software to calibrate and measure the grayscale response of the PD7150. I was very pleased with both the starting configuration of the projector and the end-results of calibration. The process was painless and we were able to dial in our desired settings very easily.
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Before Calibration |
After Calibration |
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You don't want green to be your dominant color. Just about any other color would be better. When viewing real world images, the picture didn't appear to have a green tint. |
We were able to really dial in all but the highest extreme of the Planar projector. The calibration "stuck" better than most projectors I've tested of late. |
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The initial luminance graph isn't bad except for a slight dip around 80IRE from what we'd be looking for. |
After calibration the chart is nearly spot on. |
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Color temp measured an incredibly "out of the box" accurate 6400K across most of the range. |
You can argue that dialing in the projector, while balancing the levels up to 80IRE, actually caused a slight shift into the 6800K range for 90 and 100 IRE. |
Only the very top end of the projector seemed to go a bit off during calibration and we noticed that backing down the Contrast and re-running calibration seemed to do the trick. Keep this in mind when you run this projector. Full Contrast ratio measured "off the charts" for my sensor's reliability but we know that the real world reading was better than 1400:1.
At maximum output, we measured over 36 cd/m^2 reflected off the 100-inch Stewart Studiotek 130 screen. Not the brightest projector we've measured, but it certainly does the job in a home theater setting. In ECO mode we showed a max of 29 cd/m^2 at 100 IRE. White Enhance mode should actually be 'On' according to our measurements as it yielded better and consistent color response overall.
