Mitsubishi HC6500

Big brother to the HC5500, the HC6500 is the constructor’s mid-range projector. Up a rung, the HC7000 completes the Full HD segment. Mitsubishi’s hook on this product is a bit vague: "Mitsubishi’s HC6500 projector is a major innovation in terms of design and reproduction of blacks". For the design OK, you can see what they mean. In terms of blacks, you’ll need to read our test to get the full story!

Handling, ergonomics

The first thing to note on the product is its great look. There has been a radical change of casing in comparison to the HC6000, HC5500 and HC4900. A little more imposing, it is also more curvy and has a trap at the back to house the controls. This makes it nicer to look at if you place it high up as the buttons and cables are hidden thanks to the way the casing is modeled.


It has a motorised zoom, lens-shift and focus. Thanks to this two-speed motor (fast and slow) it is easy to get precise settings. The lens-shift is missing on the HC5500 but is included here. It allows you to move the image slightly and can be very useful if you don’t want to place your projector in line with the projected image. The machine emits very little sound and the back-lit remote has plenty of shortcuts. Watch out though for the very high energy consumption when on stand-by: 6.7 watts. Why is it so high? When on, consumption is much better at 170 watts on our test.

Projected image

1000 euros is the difference between the HC5500 and HC6500. We have already looked at ergonomics, so lets move on to image quality and find out why the price difference is so large. In general terms, you can see that the image on these two machines is from the same manufacturer. The Mitsubishi stamp is there. They are dynamic and sharp. A side-by-side comparison with a product like the Sony VPL-HW10 or the Sanyo PLV-Z3000, makes the Mitsubishis the general consumer’s favorite. To the trained eye however, the image does seem less natural and some, including your humble tester, will go for more neutral models. Here’s the analysis in detail.

The first point to make is the depth of the blacks. They are a little more intense on this product. Here, for the first time, our Spider II sensor has recorded a 0. Please note that this doesn’t mean an absolute zero has been obtained. It just means that the sensor can no longer determine the residual brightness. How should we interpret this? Simply like this: the blacks are very deep. Other projectors also attain these levels. Namely, Sony, Panasonic and Sanyo. At these levels, the contrast ratio explodes and the score doesn’t really mean anything.


The HC6500 does not present the chromatic effects of the HC5500. If you pause and look hard at the HC5500 image, you will note the presence of fine green and violet lines in the light zones, linked to the fact that the LCD emissions are out of synch. You don’t get them on this product. After resetting the colour (see inset), you’ll get a very neutral result. The dominant violet disappears and is replaced by a very slight yellow tinge.

The Mitsubishi stamp can be seen in terms of the defaults of both products. The saturation of whites for example. The lightest tones are saturated and the Mitsubishis don’t handle the differences, in contrast to the Sony VPL-HW10 or the Sanyo PLV-Z3000. Blame the dynamic iris. If you disactivate it, at the cost of an increase in the depth of the blacks, this problem disappears. If the scaling is right, it is a little below the Sony. On a fixed image, sharpness improves. Nevertheless, when in movement, there are more parasite pixels and aliasing in the diagonal lines. Video noise is well controlled, although not as low as on the Sanyo, which is indeed far ahead of the game.

HC6500 or HC5500?

To make this choice, you have to know how to stay humble. Of course, we always want what’s best and the HC6500 is of course better than the HC5500. You do however have to take into account the fact that you’ll be paying an extra 1000 euros for it and that you need to be a real image connoisseur to notice the difference. A couple of things might however justify going for the more expensive machine:

- The HC5500’s zoom does not have a small enough image in terms of how far back you need to place it
- If you need to place your projector slightly off the angle of projection (no sideways lens shift on the HC5500)
- Black levels on the HC6500 are a notch up
- The HC6500 has a more fluid, sexy look.