Sanyo 30 Hdtv

Byline: Steve Mullen

When you walk into a classic theater - not a multiplex - what is the first thing you notice when the movie starts? I'll bet it's not the film's temporal rate. What you notice is how truly big the screen is. Cinema's essence is a large screen. No matter how much we process video to look like film, programming does not have a cinematic look until you see it projected - large.

SMPTE recommends that a screen provide a 30-degree viewing angle. Also, optimum screen width = viewing distance/1.8664. Therefore, if you sit 10ft. from a 16:9 screen, a 64in. wide (72in. diagonal) image will provide a cinema experience. At this size, Vanilla Sky's closing scenes can induce vertigo.

Using the SMPTE recommendation, you would have to sit no more than a meter from a 19in. direct-view or LCD display. While this is fine for an editor, it won't work for a client group. Rear-projection HDTVs offer large screen size at a low cost. However, their bulk precludes them from use in all but the largest post suite. Moreover, most HDTVs do not display 720p natively.

Because they mount flat to a wall, plasma displays are perfect for home and studio. However, unless you purchase a high-quality plasma, you'll find the image contaminated by digital grunge. And although wonderful plasmas are available, they come at a frighteningly high cost.

Which leads us to video projectors. These can easily mount to the ceiling, yet they are lightweight enough to be taken into the field for impromptu presentations. I am going to rule out single-DLP projectors arbitrarily because there is too great a risk that you, or someone in an audience, will be sensitive to "rainbows" appearing around rapidly moving objects.

That leaves us with a large population of LCD projectors. My goal at NAB was to find one being displayed that both looked good and had a street price well under $2,000. I felt a projector in this price range would be a good match for the coming wave of HDV-format camcorders, which includes the new JY-HD10U from JVC.

I found just such a projector in the Sanyo booth. Based upon listserv reports, I was expecting it to look good - and I was not disappointed. One of the marketing points for the PLV-Z1 is that it has a native "one-quarter HD" imaging system. In this context, HD is 1080i that has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels in a 16:9 aspect ratio. The Z1 has three 0.7in., TFT active-matrix LCD panels, with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a video resolution of 960x540 pixels - 518,400 pixels.

The virtue of a one-quarter HD imager stems from the fact that 1920x1080 (2 million-pixel) LCDs are very expensive. Lower-resolution LCDs obviously cost far less. With one-quarter HD LCDs, the internal digital scaler resizes the 1920x1080 image by one-half on each axis. This "even-multiple" scaling to 960x540 keeps scaling artifacts to a minimum. See Pete Putman's "Match Me If You Can" in the March 2003 issue.

Of course, whether you work in 720p or view lots of commercial 720p HDTV (ABC, Fox, ESPN), you are right to protest that HD is not only 1080i. The scaling needed to fit 1280x720 into 960x540 is 1.33 horizontally and 1.33 vertically. While the scaling is linear - as it is for 1080i - it is not a factor of two.

Therefore, it is fair to conclude that real benefit of a one-quarter HD image is that its aspect ratio is natively 16:9. This is not the case when equally low-cost XGA (1024x768, 786,432-pixel) imagers with a native 4:3 aspect ratio are used. The full imager is employed when 4:3 video is presented. However, to obtain a 16:9 image, a 589,824-pixel, 1024x576 window - centered vertically on the imager - is used. HD video is then scaled to fit this window. Annoyingly, because either 768 or 576 lines are employed depending on the aspect ratio of the video projected, the projected image height changes as one switches between aspect ratios.

At NAB, the Z1 was fed only by a DVD player and there was no way to view HD. Thus, I asked Sanyo to send a PLV-Z1 to me. The Z1's features include digital keystone correction, horizontal and vertical lens shift, and an excellent, illuminated IR remote. The projector weighs only 7.5lbs. and has an MSRP of $2,495.

I placed the PLV-Z1 near the ceiling, approximately 9ft. from a matte screen. At this distance, maximum picture width was 8ft. Because I do not often view in a totally dark room, I left the Z1's lamp at Bright. Fan noise was nearly inaudible. Fan noise was completely inaudible (rated at 28dB) in the Home Theater setting that provides a less-bright picture but a much longer bulb life.

After turning color saturation to zero, I checked the Z1's user-adjustable color balance adjustments. Typically, a display's Cinema mode provides the best shot at a 6500 degree K grayscale. At the Xlow White Balance setting (36R, 29G, 27B), the image was quite red. At the Low setting (33R, 30G, 28B), the image was very warm. The picture was still warm at the Mid setting (32R, 31G, 30B) - while at the High setting (31R, 31G, 31B), the image was neutral.

In Standard mode, at the Z1's Xlow White Balance setting (36R, 30G, 29B), the image was too warm. At the Low setting (33R, 31G, 30B), the image was slightly warm. The picture was neutral at the Mid setting (32R, 32G, 32B) - while at the High setting (31R, 32G, 33B), the image was cool.

I decided to set White Balance to High in Cinema mode. I then used the logarithmic bars of the Video Essentials DVD to increase Contrast slightly (to 34 from 32) while using the pluge pattern to lower Brightness (to 28 from 32). Using SMPTE color bars and a blue filter, I lowered Color (to 30 from 32) while Hue remained unchanged (at 32). Sharpness, set to zero, had the least edge-enhancement artifacts. I left the gamma set at mid-point (8), while I disabled both Auto-Gamma and Auto-Hue.

I saved these values into all four PLV-Z1 user memories. This gave me identical RGB color balance settings across all four memories, and it gave me a base of Contrast, Brightness, and Color settings. Later I adjusted three of the memory settings to compensate for differences among my video sources: HD cable, DVD, and digital cable. Wonderfully, the four memories are directly accessible on the remote. Moreover, you can cycle through the memories - plus the Cinema and Standard settings.

Composite (RCA), S-Video, component (RCA), and RGB (DB-15) inputs are available. No DVI input is provided, but by the time one with DHCP is necessary, I am certain true HD projectors will be available in this price range. Supported SD video formats include NTSC, NTSC 4.43 (480i/480p), PAL (757i/757p), PAL-M, PAL-N, and SECAM. In addition, these HD formats are supported: 720p, 1035i, and 1080i. Although I did not try it, the Z1 also supports computer input at these resolutions: VGA, SVGA, XGA, and SXGA. (All are scaled to 964x554 pixels.)

The Z1 has direct selection of inputs - a very desirable feature. I fed the component input from a Scientific Atlantic Explorer 3100HD cable box. The box, from Time Warner, outputs only 1080i, which means 720p video is up-scaled in the STB. Therefore, I began by viewing many of the PBS 1080i demos. To give the image more punch, I increased Contrast (to 38 from 32). The "Cuban Taxi" piece was especially great viewing. The Z1's color reproduction was superb, with no sign of "red push" that applies sunburn to every face. However, it was with these PBS segments that the projector's lack of resolution was most apparent. It failed to deliver the "virtual window" experience offered by higher-resolution - and far more costly - projectors.

My non-progressive DVD player fed the S-Video input. When watching DVD movies, a stair-step effect often plagued moving diagonal lines. This indicates the projector's de-interlacer does not correctly handle 3:2 pulldown. Therefore, a progressive DVD player should be used with the Z1.

The Z1 has three NTSC viewing modes: Normal (4:3); Full (linear x-axis zoom to stretch anamorphic to 16:9); and Zoom (linear x- and y-axis zoom to expand letterboxed video to 16:9). These modes thankfully can be applied to 480p via the component input. While this might not be an issue in a post suite, I noted the Z1 fails to provide a Subtitle Zoom option to view letterboxed films where subtitles are placed below the picture.

In today's world of zillion-lumen presentation projectors, the Z1's rated 700 ANSI lumens - with a contrast ratio of 800:1 - does not sound like much. However, I found these numbers to be more than adequate. During the day, in a room with a large south-facing window covered only by blinds, I could still view a very clear picture.

Watching an 8ft.-wide image from 10ft., the LCD's screen-door effect was visible and annoying. So, with regret, I reduced the image to 68in. - the Z1's minimum width at 9ft. - where the effect was much less visible.

JVC's JY-HD10U is the first of the coming HDV camcorders. Using a CCD with slightly more than a million elements, it records an image whose measured resolution is approximately equal to that provided by the Z1. On playback, HD10 rate-doubles the 720p30 video to 720p60, which the Z1 displays natively. Material I shot with the HD10 looked great projected by the Z1.

With a street price of less than $1,500, Sanyo's PLV-Z1 is not only a bargain, it's a reasonable entry-level display for those venturing into the world of low-cost HD production.

Contributing editor Steve Mullen is owner of Digital Video Consulting, which provides consulting and conducts seminars on digital video technology. Mullen can be reached at d-v-c@mindspring.com. His website is www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c.

BOTTOM LINE

Company: Sanyo Chatsworth, Calif.; (818) 998-7322 www.sanyolcd.com

Product: PLV-Z1

Assets: Imager with one-quarter HD resolution (960x540); bright enough for semi-dark rooms; direct selection of inputs.

Caveats: A screen-door effect is visible when you sit too close.

Demographic: Low-cost HD production pioneers.

Price: $2,495; less than $1,500 street.

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