I found this projector to be exceptional in color and contrast. I also noticed screen door effect at close seating distances - perhaps an acceptable trade-off for a very sharp picture. This is an extremely sharp-looking picture, and if you sit at least 1.75x the screen width away from the projected image you will have a very enjoyable experience.

I went with a couple darker DVDs that would show off the contrast potential of this projector. With a stated 5000:1 contrast (see our measurements) I wanted to get an idea of just how well the PD7150 would recreate black levels in my light-controlled room.

DVD: Jet Li's Fearless
There's nothing better than a good martial arts (Wushu) film - except for maybe a Samurai movie… Well, regardless, this action flick wasn't the best looking picture I'd seen all year, but it did have lots of great color and image depth. We viewed some other films for detail, but take a look at these images and note the excellent black levels captured to the best of my camera's abilities:

DVD: The Illusionist
This movie was the "clone" to The Prestige (in Hollywood all movies come out in topically-related pairs as an initial idea leaks and multiple studio clamor to get on board).

DVD: Shark Tale
It was now time for some color and edge detail. An obvious choice was Disney's Shark Tale, which has an exceptionally good range of colors and edges to check out the real world performance of the DCTI color edge enhancement feature. As with the test patterns, we still recommend this be set to 1 or 0, depending on whether you feel the enhancement bothers you, or simply makes colors pop more. It can do either based on your perspective. We noticed a tad more vibrancy when it was engaged, but it also had the effect of occasionally coming off as bad edge enhancement artifacts.

DVD: The Fifth Element
I wanted to toss in a reference disc example to my viewing sessions and The Fifth Element Superbit seemed to be a good place to start. This Superbit DVD actually looks worlds better than its Blu-ray counterpart due to noise-free mastering. Color is superb and there is no edge enhancement to speak of. As a reference standard definition disc, there is little out there that comes close to this quality. The Planar PD7150 showed off its attention to detail with this disc. Edges were clean and crisp, without being artificially enhanced (depending on your DCTI setting of course). Pay attention to the color edges and facial detail in these shots as well as background and texture detail.

HDTV: House, Bones, Discovery HD
As a final series of viewing tests we watched several episodes of HD cable shows. House is one of the better shows on television in terms of clarity and detail (CSI: Miami is also very good).

Conclusion

Planar is definitely going after the higher-end custom install market with this fine piece of machinery. The PD7150 has exceptional color and contrast (real-world) and phenomenal optics that make for a razor-sharp picture on screen. There are cheaper alternatives, however they may not be as well positioned and feature-rich for the custom install community. They also may not come as well calibrated "out of the box".

Planar has hit a home run with this unit and we're excited to see them address nearly the full range of products at every price point. The next time you're in a grocery store checkout, modernized gas station or hospital and see a Planar screen, you might want to think about getting that logo into you home as well.

About Planar
Planar Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLNR) is a leading provider of valued-added display hardware and software for a variety of specialty display markets worldwide. Hospitals, shopping centers, banks, businesses, and other discriminating consumers depend on Planar to provide unique display-based solutions to exacting requirements leveraging its operational excellence, technical innovation, and go-to-market capabilities. Founded in 1983, Planar is headquartered in Oregon, USA, with offices, manufacturing partners, and customers worldwide. For more information, visit www.planar.com.