Movie Theater Video for the Masses

Toshiba TDP MT500

The MT500 has a restrained white shell of fairly compact dimensions. The connectors (two YUV, one S-Video, one cinch, and one DVI-D) are located on the side of the unit and not on the back as is usually the case. On the opposite side are the power connector and the on/off switch. However you'll have to be careful not to place the projector against a wall, because the heat is vented out the back of the projector instead of the sides. There are very few buttons on the top of the unit. They include start and stop, of course, the menu button and its four navigation buttons, and one last one for entering your selection. The relative austerity of the unit is compensated for by the ergonomics and functionality of the backlit remote control, which gives you access to all adjustments via the onscreen menu or manually.

Now let's look under the hood. Toshiba has chosen a 12° DMD chipset and a matrix with a resolution of 1024 x 768, with 192 pixels cut off. The 5x speed (300 Hz) six-segment color wheel reduces rainbow effects. Finally, the Silicon Image Si 504 video processor has been used to remove as many imperfections as possible from the image.