Mitsubishi HC3900

To accompany its mid-range HC3200 and HC3800 Full HD DLP projectors, Mitsubishi has launched a slightly more unusual model. The HC3900 has a high-brightness 3,000-lumen lamp that's two to three times more powerful than most other home cinema projectors. So what exactly are all those extra lumens for?

Hardware & handling: noisy and power-hungry in Sport mode

The overall design, connections, power consumption on standby and remote control are the same as the HC3200 and HC3800. There's no point repeating myself, so I suggest you take a look at our HC3800 product tests to find out more.

So let's take a closer look at what's new. In Sport mode, with the lamp at its highest setting, energy consumption climbs all the way up to 300 W and the noise level to 31 dB. However, if you use the lamp in Eco mode, these values come back in line with other projectors in the range.

Image quality: Movie mode vs Sport mode

Below you'll find a quick comparison of the HC3900's performances in Movie mode (as featured in the product face-off) with its performances in Sport mode. You can find an explanation of how to read each graph in the video projector face-off.

Contrast: Movie vs Sport

Movie	Sport

The contrast level in cd/m² almost doubles between the two modes. Unfortunately though, the black level which remains high in both modes.

Brightness: Movie vs Sport

Movie	Sport

We had a bit of trouble fixing the projector settings in Sport mode, and this can be seen in the graphs above and below. Whereas in Movie mode the line looks almost flat, it certainly isn't in Sport mode, where you can tell the projector is starting to reach its limits.

Colour temperature: Movie vs Sport

Movie	Sport

The same can be seen in the brightness graphs, with the level remaining fairly stable in Movie mode but fluctuating more markedly in Sport mode.

Power consumption: Movie vs Sport

Movie	Sport

When the brightness doubles it would be logical to expect a sharp jump in power consumption. Here, though, the projector 'only' consumes 56 W more electricity in Sport mode.

Colour gamut: Movie vs Sport

Movie	Sport

No matter which mode you use this projector in, the colour gamut doesn't match any of the RGB colour points correctly. The biggest discrepancy is with the green point, and this can lead to a slight yellow tinge in the colours. Could this perhaps be due the lamp's brightness?

The depth of black isn't great in either Sport or Movie mode. If you look at the contrast comparison graphs above, you can see that the black is at 1.12 cd/m² in Movie mode, which is two to three times higher than in most competitors' LCD or DLP projectors. This is probably the price to pay for the projector's very high brightness.

This result is a little surprising, as under the same conditions, the HC3200 has a white level of 327 cd/m² and a black level of 0.46 cd/m², which proportionally speaking, is much better.

Video noise is very high in Sport mode. It drops noticeably when you switch to Movie mode, mostly thanks to the reduction in brightness. That said, rogue pixels are still visible and there's no setting available to try and get rid of them.

Bright areas are well handled. Unlike with the HC6800, there aren't any overexposed areas with the iris activated.

Upscaling & 1080p are the same as in the HC3200 and HC3800. Aliasing is visible on the diagonal lines when upscaling 576p DVD sources to the 1080p DLP chip. However, 1080p images are clear, sharp and well defined.

The rainbow effect is unfortunately unavoidable with single-chip DLP technology. Here, the effect is particularly noticeable in black and white scenes, just like with the H3200 and HC3800.

Image smoothness & 3D. There are no 3D capabilities and no picture smoothing to keep things glitch-free in fast-action scenes.

So what's the Sport mode actually for?

On a bright sunny afternoon or indoors with the lights on, the Sport mode won't work any magic on a film with unsaturated colours and low brightness, such as The Matrix. For content like that, you'd be better off switching to Movie mode and shutting the curtains. However, the Sport mode is perfect for bright and colour-rich images like sports matches.

We put the HC3900 to the test and set it up playing tennis matches from the French Open in a bright room with no curtains. With the sky slightly overcast we could see the images just fine. Once the clouds cleared and the sun came out, visibility remained good so long as the sun wasn't shining directly on the picture.