Mitsubishi HC3000 | $3499 | 
For: HD picture performance; quiet running in low lamp mode
Against Really ugly; rainbow effect; HD could look slightly sharper
Verdict: The HC300 may not be a looker, but its pictures will steal your heart – if you can stand the rainbows.
The problem for DLP is that Texas Instruments has only relatively recently developed an affordable 16:9-ratio DLP chipset with the 720 lines (minimum) of resolution necessary to earn the HD Ready badge. These chipsets still demand more of a premium than more readily available, similarly-specced LCD systems.
The result is that DLP HD Ready projectors have struggled to compete with LCD models on price. So, while cheap LCD HD competitors are now fairly common, and even quality offerings like Hitachi's PJ-TX200 and Panasonic's PT-AE900 both break $3500, the Mitsubishi HC3000 is to date only the second ‘high-end' DLP model we've seen to sneak under four grand (the other being BenQ's impressive PE7700). The question is, how severely has the HC3000 been compromised to hit its price point?
To be honest, the HC3000 presents a pretty ugly face to the world – unless you happen to find swathes of plastic, bland shapes and industrial looking grilles particularly attractive.
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Connectivity considerably improves the mood though, by including an HDMI jack and component video inputs. There's good support, too, from a D-Sub PC interface, a 12V trigger output, USB and serial connectors, plus S-video and composite video options for anyone willing to sully their nice new projector with such standard-definition sources.
The HC3000's native resolution is not the 1280 x 720 usually found on DLP projectors, but rather 1280 x 768 – a subtle distinction perhaps, but one which makes it more compatible with WXGA or XGA computer standards, and means you've got 48 lines to play with for shifting the image up or down a little if it helps your installation.
Other key stats include a claimed 4000:1 contrast ratio and maximum 1000 Lumens brightness.
On the features front, the HC3000's most intriguing is its BrilliantColour option. Designed by Texas Instruments, BrilliantColour in its fullest form is intended to improve colour tones by using a new processing chipset in tandem with a special colour wheel. But actually this Mitsubishi doesn't use the special colour wheel, instead adapting the BrilliantColour chipset to work with a standard six-segment, four-speed affair.
Another trick of interest to movie fans is the projector's Low Lamp mode. As well as reducing fan noise (to very low levels) and increasing lamp life, this also benefits black level response – though the brightness drops down to 700 Lumens.
Black levels can be increased even further courtesy of an iris open/close toggle, with the closed option reducing the amount of light let through the lens.
Setting the HC3000 up proves reasonably straightforward. We liked the provision of both horizontal and vertical keystone adjustments for correcting the image shape, even if the projector is set to the side of (as well as above or below) the centre of your screen. The only downer is a zoom range of only x 1.2, which potentially limits the room sizes it will comfortably work in.
