HDTV Reviews

Portable, compact and lightweight projector is ideal for presentations and video

We had the chance to try out the new HP mp3320 portable projector and run it through a few tests. What we found was a well thought out, well designed presentation tool that delivers a very good image whether you’re showing PowerPoint presentations, video, or both.

The HP mp3320 is a lightweight (3.8 lbs), compact (9.9” × 8.3” × 2.7”) portable projector designed for easy transport and quick setup. It is primarily intended for professional presentations in businesses or schools but it also does an excellent job when connected to a DVD player (or even playing games). Right out of the box you can tell that the folks at HP have been doing their homework and really tried to make this one of the easiest to use professional-quality projectors on the market.

The projector comes with a carry case, remote control, VGA cable, 10-foot power cable, USB cable, quick setup booklets, warrantee information, and manual on CD-ROM. On the front of the unit there is a built-in lens cover (a nice touch) and an IR receiver port. On the top are manual zoom and focus rings, a button to release the front elevation foot, and controls that match those on the remote control. There are also lamp and temperature warning lights. On the back of the unit are another IR receiver port, a security slot, a USB port for connecting to a computer, an audio-in port, composite video port, S-video port, and a VGA port that can also accept component or HDTV signals with an optional cable. All the ports are clearly marked and color-coded. The power cord port is located on the side of the unit and one of the feet on the underside can be raised and lowered to adjust tilt. Another nice touch is a threaded hole on the underside allowing you to mount the projector on a tripod. You can also mount the projector from a ceiling with optional mounting hardware or behind a screen for rear projection.

The remote control is about the size of a credit card and has buttons for powering the projector on and off, a hide button for blanking the screen, buttons that emulate a computer mouse as well as page up and page down buttons for when the unit is connected to a computer via the USB port. It also has a source select button, auto synchronization button, buttons for navigating the on screen display (OSD), an enter button, a back button, and a picture mode button (for switching between graphics and video modes). The slightly raised buttons are laid out nicely and easy to use even in the dark. It also has a pretty powerful IR transmitter inside and that, combined with the two IR receiver ports on both the front and back of the projector, means that you can point the remote almost anywhere and the signals will be picked up.

Setting up the projector is about as easy as it gets. Take it out of the case and put it on a table anywhere from 4 to 40 feet away from a screen (or white wall if you don’t have a screen). This creates images anywhere from 30 inches (diagonal) all the way up to 24 feet (diagonal). Connect your computer or video source (or both), optional audio source, optional USB connection to a computer’s USB port, and the power cable. Rotate open the lens cover, turn everything on and hit the power button. While the projector is powering up it displays countdown numbers and searches for any viable signals.

Before testing the mp3320 I had been using a widescreen LCD display and forgot to reset the computer’s graphics resolution before connecting to the projector. On powerup the projector politely displayed a message stating that the resolution was out of range. Without that message I could have easily believed that something was wrong with the projector and wasted a lot of time trying to figure out the problem.

If you are connecting a laptop to the projector there is a quick reference card that lists dozens of common laptops and which keys you have to press in order to send signals out via VGA.

Once you’ve got an image on the screen you can adjust the zoom, focus, and position of the image. If you need to you can raise the front of the projector with the drop-down foot in the front and if the table isn’t quite level you can raise one of the feet on the bottom of the unit. From that point on you’re ready to go. Once you are familiar with the projector you should be able to get it setup and running in less than two minutes. And when you are finished the projector has an extra quick shutdown cycle that only takes about 30 seconds so you can be done and all packed up in a flash.

The OSD is simple to use and contains quite a few options. There is a ‘Quick Choice’ menu that contains controls for keystone adjustment, resetting keystone, jumping to the next input source, setting the picture mode to computer or video inputs, adjusting brightness and contrast, hiding the image, muting and adjusting the volume. There is a more detailed ‘Select Input’ menu for manually selecting VGA, composite, S-video or activating the auto-scan. The ‘Adjust Picture’ menu contains controls for adjusting mode (computer or video); picture (white intensity, picture enhancement, color temperature, aspect ratio, and reset); color settings (brighness, contrast, sharpness, color saturation, tint, red, green, blue, color space, and reset); Shape settings (keystone, reset keystone, and widescreen input); VGA settings (auto-sync, frequency, tracking, vertical offset, horizontal offset, and reset). There is also a setup menu for selecting OSD language and timeout, activating lamp saver mode, select projector position (ceiling, front, or rear mounting), activate or deactivate auto-scan, reset lamp hours, or reset everything back to factory defaults. Finally there is a help menu that displays projector and input information as well as a set of diagnostic tests for the projector and remote.

One of the nice features of the OSD is that when making some adjustments you can instantly jump to a related adjustment. For example, if you are adjusting the brightness setting you can push the up arrow and it will jump straight to the contrast adjustments.

When you have the projector connected to a computer via USB you can move the cursor around the screen, click left and right mouse buttons, and page up or page down. This is handy since it means you can control your whole presentation while moving around the room using only the projector’s remote control. Moving the cursor around using the remote control isn’t fast or terribly precise but it does work.

As far as the picture itself goes, we ran the mp3320 through our usual battery of calibration and test benchmarks using the DisplayMate program from DisplayMate Technologies (www.displaymate.com). It contains hundreds of test screens that can zero in on even the subtlest problems. We also tested the projector with a variety of video sources such as a DVD player and television input. The projector performed admirably on nearly every test we ran without our having to make any adjustments to the projector at all. Color reproduction was excellent, brightness, contrast, and grey-scale were also quite good. The mp3320 uses a Texas Instruments DLP chip with a five-color color wheel that improves red, yellow, and pastel colors. The 2,400 ANSI (max) lumens and 2,000:1 contrast ratio also make for a nice bright, sharp picture.

We only found two problems during our image tests. On one test screen using a 256 intensity level color ramp set on magenta there was an odd vertical tearing of the image at roughly the 200 section. This was probably a flaw in the particular unit we received and not common to all mp3320s but unless they send us another one there is no way to tell. However since the problem was so slight and only occurred in a very unique situation it would probably never be noticed during normal operations.

The other problem we noticed was something common to many DLP-based projectors. Because DLP projectors display each color one at a time in rapid succession there are some people (I happen to be one of them) who will see rainbow color flashes, particularly when you glance quickly from one part of the screen to another. This is not the fault of the projector. DLP technology just has to get a bit faster. Like the other problem this is minor and will only be noticeable to some people.

Conclusions
I liked the HP mp3320 projector quite a bit. It is light, small, easy to setup and use plus it has great picture quality. I also appreciated the little design features that make it an ideal unit for making presentations or just watching movies. The single small speaker is nothing to write home about but should be adequate for smaller audiences (if you need to set it up in an auditorium you’ll want to use an alternative sound system). The remote control is small and easy to use with enough power to let you point almost anywhere and still have the signals picked up by the projector. Moving the pointer around the screen is slow and awkward but it does work. Using the OSD is quite easy and there are more than enough options to adjust but the odds are you’ll only need to access the OSD occasionally (our unit seemed to be adjusted perfectly right out of the box). I liked the built-in lens cover and even the carry case has separate pouches inside for all your cables and quick start guides. The ability to mount it on a tripod is also a clever touch. The magenta color ramp problem was probably specific to our particular unit (likely covered under the warrantee) and the rainbowing problem isn’t the projector’s fault so I’d have to say that neither count against its overall ratings. Finally, $1,399 is a very attractive price for a projector of this quality and versatility.

The mp3320 projector is ideal for the boardroom, classroom, on the road or even to take home after work for a little family entertainment.

Specifications
HP mp3320 series digital projector
* MSRP: $1,399
* Display Technology: DSP light engine 0.7-in. 12 degree DDR DMD with five segment color wheel
* Brightness: 2,400 ANSI (max) lumens
* Contrast Ratio: 2,000:1.
* Dimensions: 9.9 in. × 8.3 in. × 2.7 in.
* Weight 3.8 lb
* Resolution: XGA (1024 x 768)
* Inputs: VGA, S-video, composite-video (RCA) (optional cable for component-video input). Mini-phone stereo audio input (Monaural speaker, 1-W peak output)
* Video compatibility: NTSC M (3.58 MHz), 4.43 MHz; PAL B, D, G, H, I, M, N; SECAM B, D, G, K, K1, L; HDTV 480i/p, 575i/p, 720p, 1080i
* Lens: 2.0 to 2.4 throw ratio (distance/width)
* Optical zoom: 1:1.2
* Lamp: 200-W P-VIP lamp, 2000 hours (half life). Lamp-saver mode reduces lamp power from 200 W to 160 W, extends lamp life to 4,000 hours.
* Operating Noise: 37dB
* Warranty: standard, one-year warranty or optional three-year warranty
* Projection screen size: Adjustable from 24.4 to 292.5
* Projection distance: Approximately 3.3 to 29.4 ft
* Misc.: Projector can be mounted on a standard camera tripod. Built-in lens cover. Manual focus and zoom.

For more information visit www.hp.com.
Source & thanks to: http://tvs.consumerelectronicsnet.com