Fujifilm's FP-ZUH6000 follows in the digital footsteps of the brand's groundbreaking FP-Z6000 and FP-Z8000 and retains the title for the weirdest looking projector on the planet—and that's a compliment. Its unique periscopic lens delivers extreme set up flexibility by being able to be swiveled and rotated for a wide variety of positions. Its ultra-short throw optics combined with the FP-ZUH6000's unique dual-focus optical design makes for vivid, sharp, and bright imaging. The projector's choice between its native HD and pixel-shifted UHD resolution allows it to make the most of the material in use, while the ZUH6000's laser lighting elements should stand up to harsh use for years and years.

With some of the most extensive and thorough color adjustments available, there's even a way to get the most out of images shot with Fujifilm. While the ZUH6000 has wired networking, it lacks Wi-Fi for collaborative settings. More to the point, its sophisticated optics add a lot to its price tag but because the ZUH6000's projected image can be aimed at places where others can't, it could be a winner for specific applications.

Insights into Our Reviewer's Process

Check out this video podcast interview with Brian Nadel discussing his review of the Fujifilm FP-ZUH6000 UST projector.

Features

It may look the same as the FP-Z6000 and FP-Z8000 models with its prominent lens stalk, but the FP-ZUH6000 starts with a new chassis and case. At a list price of $24,999, it is expensive compared with the Panasonic PT-RQ6L with a UST lens, but the ZUH6000 does put out a lot of light for the money.

While just about every other projector points its image straight out of the system, the ZUH6000 is a marvel of mechanical and optical design with a rotatable lens pod. Able to be pointed in just about any direction, it has 20 individual optical elements behind it so that in addition to pointing forward with the lens on the left, it can be set above the device's case, sticking out like a turtle's head protruding from its shell.

When deployed, the lens pod can even rotate 360 degrees independent of its stalk, providing an incredible assortment of different positions, including turned around to send the video over the ZUH6000's body as well as set straight up or down. It even can be set up with the projector's body hidden in a drop ceiling or box on the floor with only the snorkel lens emerging for a stealth installation. Happily, the stalk has a mechanical lens lock to keep it in place.

Based on its dual-prism design, the ZUH6000 carries on the Z6000 and Z8000's ability to independently focus the center and the corners. This versatility eliminates one of the main drawbacks of UST projectors: variable focus across the screen. Few projectors have this ability, and it helps one achieve incredibly sharp focus from corner to corner of the screen.

The ZUH6000 is not small at 19.5 x 6.9 x 19.1 inches (WHD) with its lens folded flat. That's about the same amount of space as the Z6000 or Z8000, but it is wider and shorter. Its periscopic lens can add up to 4.2 inches to its height when fully extended.

Happily, the ZUH6000 weighs in at the same 39 pounds as the Z6000 model, which may call for two people to safely install it. It can be ordered in black or white, has four attachment points underneath, and four adjustable feet.

Rather than a one or two large loud fans, the projector keeps itself cool with several small fans, resulting in one of the quietest projectors around. It draws air into intakes below and on the left side and blows hot air out the right side. It needs three feet of clearance all around and six inches above and below.

I applaud the inclusion of a metal power cord lock clip to prevent it being kicked out at the wrong moment. I wish others would include this simple expedient against preventable AV mishaps.

Happily, the ZUH6000 uses the same lighting recipe as the Z6000 but has the capacity to mix in extra red tones. The projector's high-performance 455-nanometer blue diode laser sends its beam to a phosphor disc and on to the projector's color wheel that creates sequential streams of colored light for the 0.65-inch DLP imaging chip. After passing through the ZUH6000's complex optics and periscopic mirrors, the final image emerges from the heavily convex output lens. It includes a protective cover.

Rated to put 6,000 lumens onto a screen, in the real world the ZUH6000's laser lighting components delivered a slightly higher 6,071 ANSI lumens on the test bench. That's a marginal one percent over its spec and plenty for a large conference room, lecture hall, or mid-sized church. It's rated to last 20,000 hours of use.

One snag: For locations where ambient light makes 6,000 lumens insufficient, you may want to stick with the 8,000-lumen FP-Z8000 at WUXGA. For now, the ZUH6000 is Fujifilm's only 4K model at 6,000 lumens.

Able to create a native 1920 x 1080 image, the projector's output can be boosted to UHD levels using the latest pixel shifting technology. The projector precisely moves the DLP imaging target up and down as well as side to side so quickly that the ZUH6000 can put a 3840 x 2160 image on screen at an impressive 120Hz refresh rate. In other words, it would be a shame to only use the ZUH6000's HD abilities, particularly when projecting ultra-high-resolution material.

The ZUH6000 can project a variety of formats from 4:3 to 16:9 or even a Microsoft 21:9 Teams video conferencing set up. Able to shift the image by 35 percent right or left as well as up or down by 82 percent, it also has keystone correction for up to five degrees horizontally and vertically and the projector's Corner Fit routine makes squaring off the image easy. It goes beyond many UST projectors with a modest 1.1X optical zoom lens that should be enough for fine tuning its image size.

With a 0.34 throw ratio, the ZUH6000 doesn't need much space to operate and can project a 73-inch image (measured diagonally) at about 20 inches from the screen. The projector tops out at a 25-foot image but it begins to wash out at about 10 feet. See how it measures up with the ProjectorCentral Throw Calculator.

It's easy to navigate and use the projector's options. In addition to seven color temperature settings, the ZUH6000 has individual red, blue, and green adjustments. It's easy to adjust the levels of hue, saturation, and gain as well as change the projector's peak white level to avoid washed out images.

A big bonus is the inclusion of High Dynamic Range (HDR) decoding of encoded material for greater contrast, vividness, and highlights. It can be set to Auto or Off but lacks an option for intensity or the HDR format.

With Fujifilm's roots in professional photography, the ZUH6000 does something that others can't. It has display modes for simulating the color balance of the company's VELVIA (Vivid), PROVIA (Standard), and ETERNA (Cinema) film simulations. This alone can make it the projector of choice photographers, moviemakers, and film schools.

There are also modes for Bright for top illumination and Multiprojection, which also serves as a stand-in for an sRGB setting. It lacks a user defined setting, however.

The projector's two HDMI inputs are augmented with an HDMI-out for an overflow room or a speaker's lectern display. The ZUH6000 has an HDBaseT source selection for networked video but no legacy analog video inputs. There's a USB Type A port (for powering a streaming module) and Type B port (for diagnostic purposes) as well as an old-school RS-232 serial port.

Its audio-out jack is for when the projector's 10-watt speaker isn't loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. There's neither an audio-in circuit nor a microphone input.

While it has wired networking, the ZUH6000 lacks Wi-Fi that could have been a way to enhance its collaboration skills in the office or classroom. The LAN connection can deliver excellent information and adjustments with its browser interface and well-designed pages. After logging in with username "admin" and nothing in the password box, I added my own.

With more detail than just about any other projector, the information is squeezed into dense pages that need to be zoomed out to reduce up-and-down scrolling. The dashboard covers the basics, like on/off, picking the source and picture mode as well as fine tuning the color balance, while the Display page gets down to projection nitty gritty details with lens shift, zoom, and focus. It's able to work with AMX, Extron, PJ-Link and Crestron Connected 2 external control systems.

When setting the projector up, the back-mounted control panel can help get its configuration just right with the expected four-way navigation pad and an actuation key in the middle. The three LEDs up front go beyond the ability of other projectors by showing a wide variety of internal information like each fan's status through color and blinking.

Its small remote control is powered by a pair of AAA batteries and had a 35-foot range; it can be extended by wiring it to the projector with an audio jumper cable. There are buttons for turning the projector on and off as well as changing the input, display the grid test pattern, and muting the audio.

The unit's three-year North American warranty includes shipping out loaner units in the event of a failure. We are told that the company will release a two-year extended paid warranty option soon, as well.

Performance

Far from being quick on the draw, the ZUH6000 took 29.3 seconds to start up and got to its full brightness moments later. Later, its fans stayed on for 20.8 seconds after being turned off to cool its components. This might be a little slow for a room that will be used by a variety of groups over the course of the day.

While in use, its fans kept the ZUH6000's exhaust temperature to 111.0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Color Modes. The ZUH6000 provides access to five picture modes, including Standard that corresponds to the color balance you get with the company's PROVIA film, while Vivid is a match for its VELVIA products. The Cinema setting is matched to Fujifilm's ETERNA movie film stock.

That said, it has two more mainstream picture configurations. The Bright mode is for all-out illumination, while the Multiprojection mode can be used for panoramic arrays. Its neutral color balance mimics an sRGB setting. There's neither a Presentation setting nor a high-contrast Dicom Sim setup for projecting medical scans.

Presentation Viewing. The ZUH6000's Bright picture mode emphasizes top illumination but at the cost of its color balance. It's not nearly as bad as the high output settings of other projectors in its class and will work well for more than just numbers and graphs on a screen. Its slightly green cast is better than most competitors but means that photos can look odd and distorted.

At 6,071 ANSI lumens, its output is about one percent over its 6,000-lumen spec and more than enough for projecting material with the room lights on and the window shades open. In other words, it can work just as well for a classroom lesson on sentence structure, spreadsheet-oriented sales meeting, or a museum digital exhibit.

By contrast, the Standard mode projects a warmer image that mirrors the look of Fujifilm's PROVIA color film. The setting delivered 4,541 ANSI lumens. Its daylight balance color makes for vibrant images and an overall rich look that make colors pop on the projection screen.

Meanwhile, the Vivid mode corresponds to the color balance of Fujifilm's VELVIA film with its intense color rendition. At 4,424 ANSI lumens, it's still bright enough for many uses but its purples and pinks might prove to be too much for many mainstream uses.

The Multiprojection mode not only is how you set up a projector array for a panorama but mimics the sRGB flat color balance. It delivered 4,570 ANSI lumens.

Video Viewing. Keyed to Fujifilm's ETERNA film stock, the Cinema mode pushes things the other way with a low level of color saturation and a smooth transition of tonal gradations. It may look muted compared the movie modes of other projectors, but it has a realistic look that works well when the lights are turned off.

Its HDR decoding is more subtle than many competitors and can appear at first to be underwhelming. It delivers more realistic imaging by slightly expanding the color palette and providing more highlights to HDR encoded material. Using the ZUH6000's HDR and Cinema modes, BBC's A Perfect Planet Blu-ray looked great, particularly the iguana sequence where the orange reptiles pop from the gray and green immediate background with blue sky in the distance.

That said, it did well with non-HDR material, as well. I ran a few video lessons from John Green's Crash Course on navigating the digital world as well as the University of Colorado's pHET science and math interactive simulations. Everything played smoothly without any stuttering, freeze ups, or dropped frames.

The projector's Eco mode does a good job of reducing its power needs by lowering its light output. It dropped the brightness by 44 percent to roughly 3,000 lumens while lowering power consumption by 45 percent.

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By using several small fans instead of one or two large ones, the ZUH6000 is remarkably quiet. It hit a peak of 43.2dBA in a room with a background noise level of 36.6dBA. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, this means that compared to other projectors in the 47 to 48dBA range, the ZUH6000 is close to silent.

Using a soundproof room, Fujifilm rates the projector at 34 and 36 decibels for Eco and Normal brightness levels.

Conclusion

Fujifilm's FP-ZUH6000 looks and acts like no other projector around. Similar to its older brothers, Fujifilm's FP-Z6000 and Z8000, it has an aimable periscopic lens stalk that allows the image to be aimed just about anywhere and allows the luxury of focusing the corners and center independently. Its HD imaging can be doubled up using pixel shifting to create UHD streams that look great and have thorough color adjustments, including modes that correspond to Fujifilm's film stocks.

On the other hand, there's no Wi-Fi, although it has wired networking and some of the most extensive monitoring a customization pages available. In the final analysis, its MSRP price of $24,999 can't compete with more conventional ultra-short throw projectors. Fujifilm engineers never set out to make a conventional projector, however, and its competitors can only look on with envy as the ZUH6000's lens is rotated and swiveled into place.

Measurements

Brightness. With five color modes to choose from, the ZUH6000 can match the projection parameters to the material at hand. In the Bright mode it put out 6,071 ANSI lumens, which is plenty for most presentations and classroom lessons and one percent over its 6,000-lumen spec.

Meanwhile, Standard mode emulates the company's PROVIA film and delivered 4,541 ANSI lumens, while the Vivid setting is keyed to the company's VELVIA film and put out 4,424 ANSI lumens. Its Cinema mode mimics the color balance of Fujifilm's ETERNA film and puts 4,365 ANSI lumens on the test screen.

The Multiprojection mode is for more than ganging several projectors together because it emulates the popular sRGB color mode. It delivered 4,570 ANSI lumens. The projector lacks a Dicom Sim mode for projecting medical scans.

Fujifilm ZUH6000 ANSI Lumens

Display Mode	Normal
Bright	6,071
Standard (PROVIA)	4,541
Vivid (VELVIA)	4,424
Cinema (ETERNA)	4,365
Multiprojection	4,570

Power. The ZUH6000 consumed 490 watts at peak power in Bright mode. If it's used for eight hours a day for 200 days out of the year, the ZUH6000 should cost about $130 a year in electricity costs if you pay the national average of 16 cents per kilowatt hour.

Using the projector's Eco mode can save roughly 45 percent on electricity but at the cost of 44 percent lower brightness. In other words, it might lower the annual electricity bill by about $60 but by making it a 3,000-lumen projector.

Zoom Lens. The ZUH6000's 1.1X zoom lens was accurate, centered in its action and reduced output by only three percent.

Brightness Uniformity. Using an 8-foot screen, the ZUH6000 had a mediocre brightness uniformity of 85.6 percent.

Fan Noise. By reengineering the projector's heat flow and employing several small fans, designers have made the ZUH6000 one of the quietest projectors in its class. It had a maximum noise level of 43.2dBA. Others in its class and the earlier Z6000 and Z8000 models were closer to 47 or 48 dBA.

Eco mode can lower the output by a little over a decibel. The room had a background noise level of 36.6dBA.

Fujifilm rates the projector at 34dB for Eco and 36dB for Normal illumination.

Input Lag. Using a 1080/60 Hz signal, the ZUH6000 had a measured input latency of 24.8 milliseconds in HD, which is plenty fast enough for a video gaming team or after-school activity. Unfortunately, this latency rose to 50.8ms using the projector's 4K abilities. The measurements were done with a Bodnar Signal Input Lag Tester.

Temperature. The ZUH6000 peaked out at a maximum temperature of 111.0 degrees Fahrenheit. The hot spot was the top right of the exhaust vent.

Connections

• HDMI 2.0 (x2)
• HDMI-out
• HDBaseT (RJ-45)
• Wired Network (RJ-45)
• Serial Port (RS-232)
• Audio-out (3.5mm headphone jack)
• USB Type A (for power)
• USB Type B (for diagnostics)
• Serial port (RS-232c)
• Remote control in (3.5mm audio cable)

For more detailed specifications and connections, check out our Fujifilm FP-ZUH6000-B projector page.

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