PLV-Z4 Remote & Calibration

I really liked the Sanyo CXTS remote control. It's small, fully backlit, and has all of the buttons you'll need to efficiently operate the projector. Most importantly perhaps, it has direct input buttons as well as handy screen size adjustment controls to flip between Full, Normal, and Natural Wide modes when watching standard definition cable TV. The unit fits easily in the hand and your thumb, unless you have very small hands, can easily reach all of the buttons. This is exactly what I look for in a projector remote control.

Pros

• Fully backlit
• 'Light' button on the remote glows in the dark
• Direct input selection for all 6 inputs
• Extensive Image Controls

Cons

• None

Projector Calibration

We ran a thorough 'before and after' test on the PLV-Z4 and were pleased to see that the projector nearly nailed the CIE chart right away, showing that it has the capability of producing very rich primary colors in accordance with HDTV standards. This was quite impressive and started us off on the right foot with respect to calibrating the unit.

We also took a quick contrast measurement (full field, not ANSI) and found it to be 126:1. This was in the projector's default factory configuration and set in the 'Pure Cinema' mode. We also measured a healthy 37.98 cd/m^2 off the 100" diagonal Studiotek 130 screen with the projector placed 10' away.

After calibration, contrast was 575:1 - which promptly dropped back down to 126:1 if we went back to the default 'Pure Cinema' mode. Black and white levels definitely need to be tweaked for best picture results.

Here are some of the before and after measurements as shown by the Datacolor ColorFacts Professional 6.0 software:

Calibration Notes

We were very pleased with the performance of the Sanyo PLV-Z4 projector. We've seen better 'out-of-the-box' results, but these marks demonstrate this projector is no slouch. For someone looking to get a good picture without having to do any setup, the Sanyo will perform very well. One thing you will want to attend to, however, are the black and white (brightness and contrast) levels which we found were not spot on during our initial tests. In Reference System 3, we had Brightness set to -12, and Contrast set to +3. Red was set at +9, Blue at -1 and Color temp was on Low1. The lens iris was at -44 (default for Pure cinema mode). In the advanced menu, our settings for RGB Gain were (-4, -7, -9) and RGB offset was (-13, 0, -4). We did not adjust RGB gamma for this review.

Pixel cropping tests showed 1 pixel cropped on the left and 1 on the right with both component and HDMI inputs. The resolution test easily passed our 6.75MHz video test with perfect clarity and pixel separation. The Sharpness control was a tough one, but I would recommend putting it at -3. If you still feel it is perking up the edges a bit too artificially or you want a softer image, try -5. Anything below that and the image actually begins to visibly soften. While softening the image is not necessarily a bad thing on an LCD projector, I prefer to direct users to defocus using the lens optics to further lower the visibility of SDE (screen door effect). Take a look at the min and max Sharpness control effects as seen using an Avia Pro resolution pattern:

Notice the differences between the Sharpness settings. Minimum (left) and normal (right)

Audioholics/HQV Bench Testing Summary of Test Results

Perfect Score is 130
Sanyo PLV-Z4 Benchmark Score: 60 (not bad, but unflagged film deinterlacing was unimpressive)

Test	Max Points	Film	Film PF	L1	L1 PF	L1	L1 PF
Color Bar	10	10	Pass	10	Pass	10	Pass
Jaggies #1	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Jaggies #2	5	0	Fail	1	Pass	0	Fail
Flag	10	5	Pass	5	Pass	5	Pass
Detail	10	5	Pass	5	Pass	5	Pass
Noise	10	10	Pass	10	Pass	10	Pass
Motion adaptive Noise Reduction	10	5	Pass	5	Pass	5	Pass
Film Detail	10	10	Pass	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 2:2 Video	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 2:2:2:4 DV Cam	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 2:3:3:2 DV Cam	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 3:2:3:2:2 Vari-speed	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 5:5 Animation	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 6:4 Animation	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 8:7 animation	5	0	Fail	0	Fail	0	Fail
Cadence 3:2 24fps film	5	5	Pass	0	Fail	0	Fail
Scrolling Horizontal	10	5	Pass	5	Pass	0	Fail
Scrolling Rolling	10	5	Pass	5	Pass	0	Fail
Total Points	130	60		46		35

Comments on HQV Testing

It keeps being brought up in forum discussions and in casual conversation that the HQV tests are troublesome to many. While the Sanyo actually scored pretty well, the HQV tests are mostly a concern for those looking for their projectors, source components, or displays to handle deinterlacing and noise reduction. The PLV-Z4 had some of the best noise reduction circuitry I've seen in a budget projector (just look at past reviews and see how many times that test is failed by the competition). The flower and scenery detail in the HQV disc was well preserved and noise was greatly reduced, without the "floater" effect that can occur if noise reduction is overdone. When viewing HQV test results, be sure to not use them as a litmus test for comparing projectors 舑 to the exclusion of calibration data, usability and everything else discussed in the review. HQV scores -on any product - are just a small part of the whole evaluation. With that said, a score of 60 is no slouch, but I would definitely like to see better jaggie reduction and handling of mixed mode deinterlacing. If you are feeding the Sanyo interlaced signal, be sure to set the Progressive mode to 'Film'.

We did our moving zone plate test whereby we evaluate a "stress test" of 2:3 pulldown edits and found it handled it up to +/-3 speeds with breakup occurring at +/-5 in the horizontal direction. There was almost instant moiré in the vertical zone plate movement with breakup at +/- 8. Diagonal zone plate movement showed those subtle jaggies that liked to creep in with this display.