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I watched the same scene during the day and again later when it got dark to assess the difference. Watching the Moria battle during the day was fine and I didn’t feel as if I was losing too much detail. But when things got a little darker I realised just how good this scene was supposed to look. I don’t see this as too much of a shortcoming since if I was to buy an MT500, I’d make sure that I had heavy curtains or blinds in the room so I could view movies during the day.

Watching Lawrence of Arabia was the polar opposite of The Fellowship of the Ring. With much of the film set in the blazing desert, I wanted to see how the MT500 coped with the very bright, sometimes over saturated imagery inherent in David Lean’s masterpiece. Watching Omar Sharif riding across the desert sands towards the camera for what seems like an eternity was just as enthralling on the MT500 as it was when I saw the remastered film at the Odeon Marble Arch (before they turned it into a multplex of course). I was concerned that the picture might seem washed out, but it didn’t. The scene where the sun rises over the desert dunes was rich with strong orange and red, while the scenes with the sun far overhead were pale and bleached just like they should be.

Even with the progressive scan mode disabled the image is good. In fast moving scenes a little bit of blur is discernable but only if you’re looking for it and even then it tends to be with background movement. That said, it’s fairly safe to say that anyone investing in a projector like this will have a DVD player with progressive scan capability.

I wanted to see if Toshiba had concentrated solely on DVD video performance so I tried playing some games on the MT500. Hooking up my Xbox via S-Video rather than component still produced a superb image, and again the contrast was impressive, even when wandering around dark and gloomy game areas. Running Halo with a massive projected image and the sound piped through a Dolby Digital amplifier is definitely how it’s meant to be played.

I also hooked a PC up to the MT500 via a digital DVI connection. The panel has a native resolution of 1,024 x 576, but running the PC at a standard 1,024 x 768 resolution seemed fine. The image was impressive and there was no problem using windows. Again firing up a game on the PC produced great results, although you need to make sure you have FSAA turned on because jaggies look seriously bad on a screen that big.

The fans inside the MT500 can be noisy, but I didn’t notice them while watching a movie or playing games. One thing worth noting is that when the projector is put into standby mode the fans will activate to cool everything down. You must not switch the power off until the fans have stopped. Also, I was sitting a couple of feet away from the MT500 and I doubt I would have heard anything if it had been ceiling mounted.

Obviously a high quality projector like this doesn’t come cheap, but it’s not as expensive as I expected it to be. I found the MT500 going for £2,579.13 which may sound expensive, but it’s a lot less than you would have been paying for a projector like this even a year ago.

So will I be trading my 40in Toshiba TV in for an MT500? Most definitely. After all why would I limit myself to a 40in screen when the MT500 can throw a 150in image. That said, I can’t really afford or accommodate one right now but as soon as I find a house where I can dedicate a room to my home cinema setup I’ll go out shopping for an MT500, or whatever Toshiba has replaced it with by then.

Verdict

The MT500 is a truly stunning home cinema projector. I tried very hard to find fault with it, but it performed almost flawlessly in every environment. If I had the cash and a place to mount it in my flat I’d be saving up for one of these right now. As it stands, the MT500 is high up on my wish list for 2004.

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