Yamaha LPX510 - LCD Projector - HD 720p User manual

High Contrast, High
Accuracy Front
Projection
The Yamaha LPX-510 is the latest high
performance LCD projector from Yamaha. It
offers many unique and truly useful features
that provide great flexibility in installation
and usage. It has the highest contrast ratio
of any LCD projector I have tested, and it
was accurately calibrated from the factory.
It delivers a beautiful picture and is an
excellent value ($5,495) for demanding
home theatre applications.
Description
The Yamaha LPX-510 uses three 1280 x
720 pixel, 0.7-inch, 1.78:1 polysilicon TFT
active matrix LCD panels manufactured by
Epson. It has a short throw zoom lens with
some unusual and highly desirable features.
The lens has a large zoom ratio of 1:1.5 and
offers both vertical and horizontal lens shift.
This allows placement anywhere in front of
the screen (actually a little below the screen
in floor installations or a little above the
screen in ceiling installations). The large
zoom range gives a throw distance of 1.35
to 2.00 times the screen width. Focus and
zoom are motorized. Horizontal and vertical
shift are manual but are easily accessed
from the top of the projector.
The light source is a 200-watt UHE lamp
that has adjustable power levels from 100
percent to 75 percent. An internal cinema
filter balances the light beam in most opera-
“It is a breakthrough product
offering wonderful flexibility of
placement, truly useful features,
comprehensive menu selections,
excellent contrast, and terrific as-
recieved calibration”
Yamaha LPX-510
Affordable Performance LCD Video Projector
BILL CUSHMAN
Device: 0.7 inch HTPS TFT x 3
Pixels: 1,280 x 720
Projection Lens: F=2.1 - 4.3, f=1.4 - 31.7 mm,
zoom motorized: x 1.5
Lens Shift: Vertical up: 100%, down: 50%, horizontal
left/right 50%
Motorized Iris: 100% - 75%
Projection Ratio: 1.355 - 2.038
Screen Size: 30-300 inch (16.9)
Lamp: 200W-150W UHP; 1,700 hours (200W
continuous); 3,000 hours (150W continuous)
Brightness: 1,000 ANSI lumens (iris: off, Cinema
Balance Filter; off) 350 ANSI lumens (iris: fully on,
Cinema Balance Filter: on)
Contrast Ratio: 1200:1 (iris: 75%, Cinema Balance
Filter: on) 1000:1 (iris: 100%, Cinema Balance
Filter: on)
Color Format: NTSC, PAL, SECAM, NTSC 4.43,
PAL-M, PAL-N and PAL60
Compatible Signal: 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p,
and 1080i
PC Signal: SVGA, XGA, MAC13", MAC16, MAC19",
iMAC VGA, iMAC SVGA
HDMI Input: 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i Digital YPbPr
and Digital RGB
Fan Noise: 27dB (lamp power min.); 34dB (lamp
power max)
Power Consumption: 290W
Dimensions (WHD In Inches): 17-5/16 x 5-3/8 x
12-5/8
Weight (In Pounds): 13.9
Price: $5,495
Manufactured In Japan For:
Yamaha Electronics Corporation, USA
6660 Orangethorpe Avenue
Buena Park, California 90620
Tel: [phone]
www.yamaha.com/yec
Yamaha LPX-510 LCD Video Projector
Specifications:
tional modes and operates automatically as
the picture modes are selected. An
adjustable iris is also provided (from 100
percent to 75 percent) to improve black
level and enhance contrast ratio.
The projector is about 17 inches wide,
13 inches deep, 6 inches high, and weighs
14 pounds. Both it and the remote control
have a silver metallic finish. All connections
are made to the back panel. Eight chromed
buttons plus an x-y rocker ring and two sta-
tus lights are located on the top of the pro-
jector. The ergonomically designed remote
has 22 buttons, a depressible four-way x-y
wobble pad, and a two-way backlight pad-
dle. The backlight paddle is exceptionally
easy to locate in the dark, but illuminates
only the five main control buttons for sim-
plicity of operation. To aid in proper adjust-
ment a crosshatch and gray scale test pat-
tern may be selected from either the projec-
tor or the remote. A double push of the
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power button is required to turn off the pro-
jector to avoid accidental turn-off, which
would reduce bulb life.
The Owner’s Manual is unusually thor-
ough and is almost completely devoid of
marketing hype. It offers many suggestions
that will help the average user extract maxi-
mum performance from the projector.
Inputs And Signal
Compatibility
There are five main inputs, composite
video (RCA jack), S-video (4-pin mini-DIN),
Input A and Input B (5 RCA jacks each),
and an HDMI Digital input (HDMI connec-
tor). The composite input accepts virtually
all world television standards. Input A and
Input B can be configured for component,
RGB-TV, or RGB-PC operation. The HDMI
input accepts RGB digital signals and can
be used with products having a DVI output
by using a DVI to HDMI cable (not provid-
ed). Inputs A and B accept 480i, 480p,
720p, and 1080i as well as a large number
of computer formats. The HDMI input
accepts RGB 480p, 720p, 1080i, and com-
puter formats.
Menus
The main menu is divided into four
parts, the Image Menu, the Setup Menu, the
Info Menu, and the Reset Menu. The main
menu window can be located on any part of
the screen, and a simplified line menu func-
tion is provided for frequently used picture
adjustments. The menu system is extremely
comprehensive and flexible. It is intuitive
and easy to use, although my detailed
description may make it seem complicated.
The Image Menu is divided into Picture
Quality, Color Adjustment, Picture Mode,
Memory Save, Auto Setup, and Reset.
Picture Quality includes the Input parame-
ters (White and Black Level), Iris, Color
Intensity, Tint, and Sharpness. Tracking and
Sync adjustments are provided for some
input signals. Color Adjustment includes
Absolute Color Temperature (500K incre-
ments from 5000K to 10000K), Flesh Tone
(raises or lowers green), and an overall
RGB adjustment for Offset, Gain, and
Gamma (used to calibrate gray scale track-
ing). Picture Modes include Dynamic,
Bright, Standard, Cinema, Cinema Black, or
PC. Memory Save allows picture settings to
be saved to any of six memories, which can
be directly selected by dedicated buttons
on the remote.
The Signal Menu is divided into Signal,
Screen, Operation, User’s Logo, On-Screen
Display, Input Signal, Language, and Reset.
Signal provides a choice of Film/Auto or
forced Video Progressive modes. Motion
Detection adjusts the video deinterlacer.
Two levels of Noise Reduction plus Off can
be selected. Overscan can be set to either
4 percent or 0 percent (default on HDTV is
0 percent). Setup Level can be set to 7.5
IRE or 0 IRE. The HDMI input can be set to
Normal (maps video levels 16 to 235 to 0 to
255) or expanded (0 to 255).
Screen allows adjustment of Position,
Caption Zoom, Electronic Keystone (normal-
ly not needed, and should be avoided to
prevent artifacts), and Projection position
(front floor, front ceiling, rear floor, rear ceil-
ing). Operation includes Sleep Mode, Lamp
Power, Standby Mode, Trigger Output,
Settings Lock (Focus, Zoom, or Keylock),
and LCD Panel Alignment. Any image can
be captured and assigned as a User Logo.
The On-Screen Display can be moved and
its color changed. The Line Menu can be
turned on or off, and the Menu Color can be
changed. The Hide Screen can be Black,
Blue, or the User Logo, and the Startup
Screen can be turned on or off. Language and
Reset are the final items in the Signal Menu.
The Info Menu displays the Lamp Hours,
Source, and depending on the type of sig-
nal —Input Signal, Source Resolution,
Refresh Rate, or Sync Mode.
The Reset Menu includes the lamp timer,
picture memories, and a master reset.
Aspect Ratios
The aspect ratio choices are Normal,
Squeeze, Zoom, Smart Zoom, Through, and
Squeeze Through. Normal provides a 4:3
(1.33:1) windowboxed image when the
source has a 4:3 aspect ratio, and provides
a 16:9 (1.78:1) image on HDTV. The aspect
ratio on HDTV is not adjustable (all HDTV is
1.78:1, even when displaying upconverted
regular programs with side bars). Squeeze
is the proper setting for 1.78:1 (anamorphic)
DVDs. Zoom is the proper setting for 1.33:1
letterboxed DVDs. Smart Zoom is a modi-
fied geometry mode used to display 1.33:1
images using full screen width with minimal
observed geometry distortion. Through and
Through Squeeze are pixel-by-pixel
mapped modes similar to Normal and
Squeeze (for non HDTV images).
Scaling And
Deinterlacing
Scaling and deinterlacing is excellent in
all modes. A Genesis (Faroudja) DCDi™chip
is used for processing and contributes to
the excellent performance. I viewed a vari-
ety of demanding deinterlacing test pat-
terns on AVIA PRO and the Microsoft WHQL
test discs and results were generally very
good for both film and video sourced mate-
rial. Identification of the 2-3 cadence and
switching to film mode (inverse telecine)
took about 0.25 seconds. I also viewed the
“Montage Of Images” on the original Video
Essentials, and the continual switching from
video to film sourced material was seam-
less. I also viewed the Sony DRC demo
disc, which is all HDTV video sourced mate-
rial, downconverted for DVD, and results
86yamahareprint 6/15/04 2:14 PM Page 2

were excellent. Video sourced material can-
not be deinterlaced perfectly because the
two fields that make up an interlaced frame
are captured 1/60 of a second apart, but
the DCDi chip helped this projector also do
a superior job on video.
Light Output,
Contrast, And
Colorimetry
During almost all of my viewing and test-
ing, I used the projector in the Cinema
Black mode at 75 percent lamp power. The
iris is set to 75 percent in the Cinema Black
mode and the Cinema Filter is active to bal-
ance the red, green, and blue light beams.
All of these settings reduce the total light
output, but the output was sufficient to pro-
duce a dynamic picture with about 25 foot-
Lamberts from my Da-Lite High Power
screen. Output was about 315 lumens and
the on-off contrast ratio measured about
1050:1. The contrast ratio is the highest I
have ever measured on a LCD projector.
The lamp had 91 hours of use at the time of
the measurements. These measurements
were at D65 with the contrast control set to
0 for superb gray scale tracking, even at
100 IRE. No clipping occurred and gray
scale tracking was still good slightly above
100 IRE, to allow for margin in program vari-
ation. If the contrast control is pushed high-
er, the projector will meet the Yamaha con-
trast spec of 1200:1. With the iris and lamp
both at 100 percent, and the projector in the
Bright mode, I measured a maximum output
of 933 lumens with clipping at 100 IRE. With
no clipping, output was about 560 lumens.
The achievement of a true contrast ratio
over 1000:1 at D65 with conservative set-
tings represents a milestone for LCD projec-
tors. I believe the contrast and black level
of this projector will satisfy the great majori-
ty of viewers on virtually all images.
Colorimetry was excellent. All primaries
and complements were close to HDTV and
SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and
Television Engineers) standards. The red
primary was highly saturated, not the
orange red found on most consumer televi-
sions. Green was accurate, not the yellow
green found on some products. Blue was
slightly more saturated than HDTV and
SMPTE standards, but this never detracted
from the image. Rich deep blue hues found
in some stained glass windows and cobalt
blue glassware was beautifully reproduced.
In direct comparison with a direct view con-
sumer TV set (Sony Trinitron), it was easy to
see the difference in the blue primary. The
consumer TV had a lighter, almost cyan
blue and the projector had a much deeper
blue.
Technical Performance
Evaluation
NO CALIBRATION REQUIRED! As
received this projector had almost perfect
gray scale tracking to D65 when set to
6500K and Flesh Tone 3 in the user menu.
From 70 to 100 IRE the delta E value was 0
or 1. From 40 to 100 IRE it was a maximum
of 2, and from 20 to 100 IRE it never
exceeded 4. I performed a calibration to
see if I could improve the gray scale track-
ing and was able to achieve a value of D65
with a maximum delta E of 2, from 20 to 100
IRE. Observing test patterns and a variety
of programs, these two calibrations looked
essentially alike. In addition to an almost
perfect gray scale, all settings for Black
Level, White Level, Color, Tint, and
Sharpness were either perfect, or had only
the slightest error at the factory default set-
tings. This is the first projector I have meas-
ured that was set this accurately from the
factory. All measurements were taken using
a 720p RGB digital signal fed to the HDMI
input. Although not included, YPbPr results
at 1080i and 480i were similar.
I ran extensive tests on all inputs except
the S-video input. Anyone using the com-
posite video input is in for a pleasant sur-
prise. The 3D comb filter has superb per-
formance. No cross-color was observed on
static images, and the projector exhibited
only minimal cross-color on moving test pat-
terns. No dot crawl was observed. The
composite video chroma response was the
best I have ever measured, exhibiting good
response to almost 2 MHz (0.5MHz is typi-
cal). There was no chroma delay with only
minimal chroma smearing, and the color
decoder had only very minor error. Luma
response was excellent and easily repro-
duced the DVD limit of 720 lines per picture
width.
Black level retention was essentially
perfect on all inputs. It was refreshing to
encounter menu items clearly specifying
the selection of 7.5 IRE or 0 IRE black
level. The white level control could be
adjusted with absolutely no effect on the
black level.
Input A, set to display component video,
has superb performance at both 480i and
480p. The color decoding matrix and the
chroma response were both excellent. The
YPbPr sweep on Digital Video Essentials,
and the many chroma tests on AVIA PRO
were all reproduced flawlessly.
Deinterlacing at 480i was superb. I felt the
overall image quality from DVD was best
using a Sony DVP-S9000ES, feeding 480i to
Input A. Images from the Bravo D-1 feeding
720p to the HDMI input were almost as
good. Only a tiny difference was observed.
The Bravo is a flag reader, and doesn’t fare
as well with cadence problems and bad
edits. It also exhibited slightly more arti-
facts. These were tiny differences; both
units looked superb on good DVDs.
Input B, set to both YPbPr and RGB-TV,
was tested on both 720p and 1080i using
an AccuPel HDG-3000 test generator.
Performance was very good, showing only
the slightest roll-off at the highest frequen-
cies using 720p. YPbPr was slightly better
than RGB-TV. Aliasing was handled well
and typical of the limitation of a 1280 pixel
wide display.
With Input B set to RGB-TV, 1080i HDTV
images from an RCA DTC-100 DirecTV
Receiver looked superb. On standard defi-
nition material, the DTC-100 outputs a non-
standard 540p format, which the LPX-510
recognized as 856 x 480. This caused the
picture to be slightly too tall, clipping a lit-
tle from the top and bottom. Using com-
posite video from the DTC-100 when
watching SDTV programs can avoid this
minor glitch.
The HDMI input was fed a variety of test
patterns and was essentially flawless and
“pixel perfect” when the source resolution
was 720p and overscan was set to 0 per-
cent (default setting). On 1080i, 720p with
overscan, and 480p there was only minor
aliasing. High frequency response on the
HDMI input was superior to that observed
Yamaha LPX-510
Gray Scale Tracking 720p HDMI
IRE Factory Calibrated Factory Calibrated
°K °K dE dE
10 6065 6180 17 15
20 6465 6570 4 2
30 6396 6383 3 2
40 6562 6451 2 2
50 6562 6451 2 2
60 6477 6430 2 1
70 6492 6430 0 1
80 6499 6554 1 1
90 6499 6499 0 1
100 6499 6437 0 1
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on Input B (YPbPr or RGBTV) at the highest
frequencies for both 720p and 1080i. HDMI
overscan defaults to 0 percent on 480p,
720p, and 1080i. It is selectable and can
easily be set to 4 percent if extraneous
material is present in the program source.
The default setting on other inputs is 4 per-
cent, but 0 percent can be selected if
desired.
Two menu choices are available for the
HDMI video level, Normal and Expanded.
Normal maps 16 to 235 digital video values
to a range of 0 to 255, thus below black
and above white signals cannot be repro-
duced. By using Expanded for digital video,
16 to 235 video is preserved as 16 to 235
and below black and above white signals in
the range of 0 to 15 and 236 to 255 can be
reproduced. When these settings are
selected, a minor readjustment of the Black
Level to –6 is required.
Subjective Picture
Analysis
Almost all quality program material
looked superb using any input. Accurate,
noise free, gorgeous images were the norm,
and all of this was achieved with no addi-
tional calibration. Calibration made tiny
measurable improvements at low video lev-
els, but did not noticeably change the
appearance of DVD and HDTV images from
the factory settings.
I watched a large amount of HDTV, and
the images were superb. Master And
Commander on DVD is a dark and gray
movie, and it was reproduced well, even in
the dark scenes. Big Fish, Love Actually,
and The Last Samurai looked excellent. The
Space Shuttle launch and Video Montage
on the new Digital Video Essentials was ren-
dered with beautiful, accurate colors. The
Sony DRC Demonstration DVD looked
superb, almost like HDTV except in wide-
angle shots.
I’m extremely sensitive to rainbows and
color flashes on DLP projectors, as well as
the temporal dithering artifacts that are
common to DLP. Even though I may not
mention rainbows in reviews of DLP projec-
tors, I always see them and their absence is
welcome. This projector has none of the
typical DLP artifacts that often distract me
from the movie or HDTV program I am
watching.
Several shows I watched on Discovery
HD Theater looked almost like reality. HDTV
produced as live or recorded video (CSI,
Tonight Show With Jay Leno) look sharper,
more noise free, and more detailed than the
best films, but many films also looked
superb. The highest compliment I can pay
this projector is to say that it rendered a
beautiful, accurate, noise free, and high-
resolution picture—devoid of annoying arti-
facts—with adequate contrast ratio on a
great majority of program material. It looked
exactly as it should.
Summary
This is overall the best LCD projector I
have tested. It is a breakthrough product
offering wonderful flexibly of placement,
truly useful features, comprehensive menu
selections, excellent contrast, and terrific
as-received calibration. It is extremely quiet
and provides great value. Almost anyone
looking for a fine home theatre projector will
be thrilled with its performance. ■■
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