Optoma HD72 Projector Review – Image Quality

Shadow detail

The HD72 does a very good job on shadow detail. I should note that often projectors (even after calibration), do not produce a true black. Rather you get a dark to very dark gray, depending on contrast levels, “AI” and other settings. In a perfect world

your “black” should be very close to true black, and it should be a perfectly balanced gray. Most projectors though, are off from a neutral gray. For example, with the Panasonic PT-AE900u, those blacks (such as a star scene) have a bluish caste. With the Optoma HD72, the shift on blacks is slightly toward brown. (This coloring of blacks, however is less than the Panasonic’s shift to blue. It is not objectionable, and all in all about as good as any, except Sony’s more expensive HS51A which really did neutral blacks.)

More important, is producing good black levels, and allowing the viewer to see the details in shadow areas. These two images (above and below) are the same frame, the first was exposed normally when photographed, the second, intentionally overexposed. The reason for this, is that my digital camera cannot capture the full dynamic range of what the projector can produce. So, on the first image the mountains look very good, but you really can’t see detail in the right side of the image. By overexposing the second image, I have allowed you to see the see the shadow detail in this scene, that the projector captures.

The image above from Star Wars shows the HD72 picking up good shadow detail in the front of the rock walls on the right (give or take the limitations of my digital camera). One more image which displays good shadow detail is this image from Sin City:

Color Dynamics

“Vibrant colors” is the phrase you will keep reading in this review. That is the HD72’s real strength. This Optoma being an exceptionally bright projector, only partially explains the vibrant colors, but the combination of the richness of the colors and the brightness of the projector certainly has certainly convinced me that this is one excellent projector, image wise!

The HD72 projector uses “Brilliant Color” technology from TI. This is the first projector I have seen sporting this combination of firmware/settings. I am aware that Mitsubishi’s new HC3000, a more expensive DLP projector also uses “Brilliant Color”, but I haven’t yet been able to get one for review. BTW, for most of my viewing I have Brilliant Color set for 4 (1-10 scale). I found 3 or 4 to be the most natural, with 4 providing the punchier image, which I preferred.

The image above is also a good image to start our consideration of the Optoma HD72’s color dynamics. One thing striking, about the HD72 projector is its ability to bring out color especially in darker areas. I have found this also to be true of Optoma’s H78DC3, one of my favorite projectors. I would watch a scene on the more expensive Optoma, and notice subtle colors that went unnoticed on other projectors.

The same is true for the HD72. Another good example of this is this night skyline shot from I, Robot. I notice more color in some of the lights than I did with the Panasonic AE900u, for example, which tended to display this image as a little more “black and white” looking.