Planar PD7150 Technology Overview and Setup

Planar's Existing 16:9 HD Projector Lineup

The PD7150 is a 720p DLP product; however it offers such advanced features as horizontal and vertical lens shift, large optical glass assembly, and robust (Pixelworks) video processing (plus it has discrete on/off IR remote codes). Even their near-entry-level PD7010 sports RS-232 support, dual digital inputs (HDMI and DVI-D), and a 12VDC trigger, making it more suitable for custom install use and advanced applications.

Overview of the Technology

The PD7150 doesn't offer any particularly groundbreaking advances, but it implements exiting technologies quite well:

• Pixelworks PW463 Chip Video Processing
  The PW463 is an all-in-one 8-bit video processing, deinterlacing and scaling chip that handles all of the duties required to correctly display an incoming standard definition or high definition image on the PD7150. Pixelworks chips are found in many name brand projectors.
• DarkChip3 0.8-inch LVDS DMD
  This newest 720p chipset from Texas Instruments promises to increase contrast ratios through a steeper (12-degree) mirror tilt for the on/off pixel positioning and a slightly smaller fill factor for less interpixel spacing.
• Professional Features for Custom Installers
  The new Planar DLP projectors offer some custom installer-friendly options, such as discrete IR codes for on/off functions, 12VDC trigger output and RS-232 control. Many of these features exist not only at just the high-end of the line, but also for Planar's entry-level products as well.

Basic Setup and Installation

The Planar PD7150 is an easy projector to use. The vertical and horizontal lens shift makes it easier to line up the image to the screen. Though there is no "lock" function, once we had set the position of the lens, the image did not seem to drift or come out of adjustment during our testing. Vertically, the PD7150 has a maximum extension of +100% shift vertical and -65% vertical and a +/-15% horizontal shift. Both cannot simultaneously be used to their extremes as the assembly will have to account for the curved lens housing. Take a look at the throw chart to see how this projector might be mounted in your room to fit your screen size:

Throw Chart for Distancing the Projector from a 16:9 Projection Screen

We fired the projector onto an ISF-certified 100-inch Stewart Filmscreen Studiotek 130 with 1.3 gain. The projector has a rather short throw lens in comparison to other systems utilized recently in this reference configuration. Coupled with a nice zoom lens, we could place this unit anywhere from 9.8 feet to 12.6 feet away to hit the screen correctly. We had ours positioned at about 11.5 feet from the screen and mounted so that lens shift was kept to a minimum (keystoning, of course, was kept off).

We utilized HDMI cables (from DVIGear) for the majority of our testing and also utilized component video cables (courtesy of Blue Jeans Cable). Our reference source player was the Denon DVD-3930CI which was able to output 1080p as well as 480i via HDMI – and the Planar correctly handled and identified both formats with no problems.