I recently purchased a Sony VPL-VW40 SXRD projector and have a question regarding the brightness and contrast settings. When I use the DVE pluge pattern, I adjust the brightness untill blacker than black disappears. The problem is that it doesn't fade out like it did with my old DLP projector. The intensity of blacker than black stays the same until it just vanished. With this being the case, should I leave the brightness one step above the point where it vanishes, or does this indicate that the grayscale is off significantly? Also, the cinema mode on this projector (which is said to be good for light controlled environments) sets the contrast at 90 out of 100 as a default. This seems to be rather high, no? I used the step pattern on DVE to see if it was clipping white, and couldn't get it to clip even at a maximum contrast setting. So with this being the case, how do I set contrast? I have never worked with a SXRD projector before, so I am not sure if what I am experiencing is just inherent to the technology. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Greetings

bright dark ... no relation to grayscale here. It can be correct regardless of where you set your brightness.

regards

Greetings

Contrast ... 90/100 ... too high? says who? You? Where it is set is irrelevant to too high or too low.
if you follow the three rules to setting contrast ... it ends up where it ends up ... If it is at 99 ... then that is where contrast is set.

If you already do not see clipping ... then simply move to the next rule. There is nothing wrong with the projector ... there is actually something right about its design. :)

regards

I didn't mean to imply that the projector is doing something wrong, I just meant that DVE says to adjust the contrast until you see clipping of white and then back off a little. Since I do not see clipping, how do I set contrast properly; or is it not possible to set without instrumentation of some kind? Thanks for you help.

Greetings

Follow the three rules for setting contrast.

No clipping
No discoloration
No eye fatigue

in this order.

Since you can't clip ... you have met rule #1. Time to move to rule #2 ...

There is nothing wrong ... the projector is actually designed right in this respect. Preventing people from wrecking the image even if they wanted to. :)

regards

thanks! I will go back to the contrast to see if I am getting any discoloration. I haven't watched enough to determine eye fatigue. Any ideas about the brightness? should I make the blacker than black vanish or bring it one step above that? Also, it seems like the brightness adjustment is not linear. When I adjust it up above blacker than black, the 2 and 4% bars vary in brightness on each increment (meaning that even though I am adjusting the brightness up, the bars may become darker). I hope I am explaining this properly.

Greetings

Make the BTB bar disappear. And if you want ... take it down further if it makes the 2% bar even darker ... but does not make it disappear. You will probably get better gamma response out of it this way.

Eye fatigue varies between people ... and varies even for the same person from day to day. You can't really set it for a specific eye fatigue setting. There really is none. Just be aware of it.

On a projector ... once you meet the first two criteria for contrast ... the fatigue thing almost always falls into place. Just be aware of it.

Don't bother shooting for a specific light output reading as those numbers that people pluck off the net apply to reference viewing environments. Unless you have one ... they don't apply.

regards

thanks for the info. I will try it out when I get home tonight.

FWIW, I ended up with brightness/contrast just about on the defaults of 50/90 for my VW40. Of course, your environment will be different, mine is nearly a bat cave.