I could not find the hs51a listed on the onecall site, only the 51, where did you see it?

It isn't on the Onecall site, just Sonystyle right now. I don't think dealers have them yet. Sonystyle always gets stuff a bit earlier, just like the Ruby.

I did finally find it on onecall. You have to search just on Sony and then page through the returns. They have it at "boat", i.e. full retail of $3499.

I'm actually waiting for confirmation of 1:1 mapping on HDMI from Robert George before I place my order anywhere for the HS51A.

Guess, I'll have to wait another 2 weeks for confirmation. Hopefully someone gets it before then...

I'm actually waiting for confirmation of 1:1 mapping on HDMI from Robert George before I place my order anywhere for the HS51A.

Guess, I'll have to wait another 2 weeks for confirmation. Hopefully someone gets it before then...

Rieper see here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6244722&&#post6244722

I found this interesting on pg 28 of the manual :

"Note that if the projecor is used for profit or for public viewing, modifying the original picture by switching to the wide mode may constitute an infringement of the rights of authors or products, which are legally protected."

Someone needs to tell Ted Turner about this.

I'm actually waiting for confirmation of 1:1 mapping on HDMI from Robert George before I place my order anywhere for the HS51A.

Guess, I'll have to wait another 2 weeks for confirmation. Hopefully someone gets it before then...

HS60/51A can get 1:1 mapping perfectly via HDMI input.

I found this interesting on pg 28 of the manual :

"Note that if the projecor is used for profit or for public viewing, modifying the original picture by switching to the wide mode may constitute an infringement of the rights of authors or products, which are legally protected."

Seeing as studios are going after people that sell DVD players that trim/bleep the "naughty bits" from movies, a silly disclaimer doesn't sound so crazy.

Hello CKL!,

I have been reading with interest the lively discussion re test methodology, over in the $3500.00 plus forum about the Epson TW600/800. High lighting the possibility of inaccuracy of the instrumentation at low light levels levels.

I was reading your informative reviews again on the TW600 & the HS60. Thus considering the above, I was wondering if the CR of the Sony could really be in the region of 10,000:1 as Sony claims?

Hello CKL!,

I have been reading with interest the lively discussion re test methodology, over in the $3500.00 plus forum about the Epson TW600/800. High lighting the possibility of inaccuracy of the instrumentation at low light levels levels.

I was reading your informative reviews again on the TW600 & the HS60. Thus considering the above, I was wondering if the CR of the Sony could really be in the region of 10,000:1 as Sony claims?

Typically the CR specs from the manufactures are exaggerated; even under the best conditions you may only be able to get within ½ to ¾ of the manufactures specified CR.

With that said Sony was claiming 6000:1 on the HS50/51 and I believe it was Kris D that was seeing around 5000 to 5500 to 1 with an HS51. Which is really amazing for an LCD, not to mention how close his numbers were to Sony’s.

I am very, very, close to making the phone call and ordering an HS51A, if I can get it to 8000:1 CR I would be very happy.



P.S.
If I am wrong about Kris’s CR #’s I am sure he will be more then happy to correct me.
:D

No, you are right. DarinP and I calibrated the unit and that is what was measured.

As for real specs vs advertisers you are completely right, but do take into account Sony's recent release of the Ruby which boasted 15K:1 I believe and both Greg Rogers of WSR and Darin have measured that with the Ruby, so they met their spec there too it seems. Makes the 51a that much more appealing (and part of the reason my order went in last week!).

Typically the CR specs from the manufactures are exaggerated; even under the best conditions you may only be able to get within ½ to ¾ of the manufactures specified CR.

With that said Sony was claiming 6000:1 on the HS50/51 and I believe it was Chris D that was seeing around 5000 to 5500 to 1 with an HS51. Which is really amazing for an LCD, not to mention how close his numbers were to Sony’s.

I am very, very, close to making the phone call and ordering an HS51A, if I can get it to 8000:1 CR I would be very happy.



P.S.
If I am wrong about Chris’s CR #’s I am sure he will be more then happy to correct me.
:D

The example you cite of 5500 is a 15% deviation from Sony's spec. WSR measured the HS51 at 5700:1 approx.

CKL got 5068:1 CR from the HS60/51A and 2900:1 CR from the HS50/51(where as you guys got.......5000 - 5500:1) What's goin' on here!

Kris!..........have you and Darinp any intensions of publishing a document of outlining the finer techniques of calibrating projectors with DI's..........many, many would be indebted to you guys! :)

I don't think there is some finer technique, only patience. It took a long time. Stacey Spears was also on hand to help too. Aside from being about the smartest guy I know when it comes to video (makes me look like an infant), he is also ISF certified. Of course compromises were made but the end result looked great. I have even more hopes for the 51a and even some potential for some surprises if things work out like I hope. Some surprises that will benefit us all!!!

I don't think there is some finer technique, only patience. It took a long time. Stacey Spears was also on hand to help too. Aside from being about the smartest guy I know when it comes to video (makes me look like an infant), he is also ISF certified. Of course compromises were made but the end result looked great. I have even more hopes for the 51a and even some potential for some surprises if things work out like I hope. Some surprises that will benefit us all!!!

Can't wait! :)

You don't intend to couple the 51A with a High Power screen by any chance do you!?

nope. I have a Studiotek 130 and I may try out a Grayhawk RS depending on the economics of it. Right now I already use a ND2 filter with the HS-51 so a Grayhawk may take that need away and help with what little ambient light I may have in the room.

The example you cite of 5500 is a 15% deviation from Sony's spec. WSR measured the HS51 at 5700:1 approx.

CKL got 5068:1 CR from the HS60/51A and 2900:1 CR from the HS50/51(where as you guys got.......5000 - 5500:1) What's goin' on here!

Screens do make a difference. There color (White, Silver, Gray), gain, and size of the screen can have a dramatic effect on the over all picture and contrast ratio.

Not sure what CKL used with the HS60, maybe he can post his screens specs. But I think Kris said he uses a 77" screen. The larger the screen the more light it will eat up.

I think CKL uses a Studiotek 130 as well, but his may be bigger. Mine is small by most standards but it is the largest I can use in my room since I use matched main speakers and they are about 4 ft tall. Besides, that puts me just at about 2x's screen width, which I really like.

Screens do make a difference. There color (White, Silver, Gray), gain, and size of the screen can have a dramatic effect on the over all picture and contrast ratio.

Not sure what CKL used with the HS60, maybe he can post his screens specs. But I think Kris said he uses a 77" screen. The larger the screen the more light it will eat up.

CKL uses a 92" Studio Tek 130.......THE REFERENCE STANADRD!(Not as the Greyhawk RS!)

But screens shouldn't affect on/off CR irrespective of gain or type, as both IRE 0 and IRE100 will be affected by the same amount. A larger or smaller screen will not have an effect on on/off CR either, for the same reason. Sure going to a larger screen will make the whites dimmer per unit area, but so will the blacks, thus maintaining the on/off CR.

There has to be more to this! :)

CKL uses a 92" Studio Tek 130.......THE REFERENCE STANADRD!



I believe this is what he uses: StudioTek 130 - Luxus Communicator (http://www.stewartfilmscreen.com/engineering_specifications/comm.html)

http://www.avbuzz.com/bbs/av/av-uploads/2005/09/24/1127574798.jpg

Rieper........that's a 92" Studio Tek 130 Luxus "Model A" ElectriScreen.......if I'm not mistaken :D

BTW that screen retails in Australia for US$6500.00! :eek:

I thought that was a dealership or something where they demo'ed? I don't think that is actually the room. Unless AVBuzz has a big office or something. Notice the cables on the back wall still in packaging and seemingly on display?

I thought that was a dealership or something where they demo'ed? I don't think that is actually the room. Unless AVBuzz has a big office or something. Notice the cables on the back wall still in packaging and seemingly on display?

Kris - Exactly who do you think CLK is? Why do you not think this is the room and how do you think CLK gets the products that he reviews? I think that you are correct this is assoicated with a dealer that demo's AV and audio products. I am not sure if CLK works for the dealer or not, but I am confident that this is dealer's showroom. I am curious why there is still only one review of the new Sony HS560/51A worldwide by only one reviewer who only reviewed a pre-production projector, not the final retail version? I am tracking the HS-51A, but not trusting anything that I read here until there more reviews posted by others. Anybody? CLK would you like to respond? Reviews do not mean anything to me unless they are accompanied by full disclosure and level of independence from the manufacturer. :confused:

I know that CKL reviews for AVBuzz, and I think he does a great job too. I don't mean any disrespect. I was just commenting on that picture. That very well could be an office room that they use for evaluation, hence the gear all over the place (not very clean for a dealership), but it also could be a dealership.

Getting a pre-production unit is not unheard of either, especially overseas. Cine4home does that all the time.

Since the HS-51a came in under the radar here in the US, you may not see a review of it until after CES. Sony hasn't really made any real type of formal announcement and may be concentrating on the Ruby right now. I will review mine with the help of DarinP when I get it. I am sure that WSR's Bill Cushman will probably do a review as well to follow up his HS-51 review.

I don't involve the business selling projectors or AV product. The photo attached in previous post is the dealer's showroom where we carried out a demo show for our AVBuzz memebers. It is not my testing room. Yes, the on/off contrast doesn't relate to the screen. I measure the light directly from the projector but not the reflection from the screen. Regarding the reading of contrast, there is no a absoluted accurate figure. The value will be various for different measurement meter, projector setting, measurement method, lamp hour and environment. Well most people believe environment won't affect on/off contrast but ANSI contrast. I think different environment will affect the black level setting and then on/off contrast. But the difference is not huge.

The eyeone sensor from Colorfacts is not accurate to measure the luminance. I use a light meter which can take 0.01 lux at the minimum. Mostly the black level at screen position is too low. I normally move the light metter to the position 2-3ft from the projectors so as to get sufficient black level. I also compare the data from various positions to obtain consistent results.

As what I said, there is no absoluted accurate on/off contrast. But you can compare the figures from same reviewer who use the same equipment and measurement method.

For your reference, I got 17000:1 from Ruby at Auto Iris after D65 tracking. It is slightly higher Sony's spec and WSR's review.

By the way, I have compared the performance between the pre-production and production unit. I didn't measure all the items as what I recorded in my review. I think both performance is similar except the production unit has solved the blinking effect at Auto Iris when the subtitles and spotted objects appear.

The photo attached in previous post is the dealer's showroom where we carried out a demo show for our AVBuzz memebers. It is not my testing room.

Aha, sorry, but I think I got it right this time:

http://www.avbuzz.com/audio-video/200509/SonyHS60report/DSCF0033.jpg


Is that a Stewart Filmscreen Luxus Communicator StudioTek 130 (http://www.stewartfilmscreen.com/engineering_specifications/comm.html) by any chance?

I might be getting one for myself eventually to work with the HS51A.

It's a Stewart StudioTek 130. Not sure the "Luxus Communicator" part!

Btw, Happy New Year to all! :)

regards,

Li On

Thanks for all the good on the HS51a. Does anyone know where a quick comparison between the 51 and 51a can be seen? I would like to see the specs side by side so I can druel a bit more.

John

The Studio Tek 139 Luxus Communicator is a manual screen, with a handle sitting bottom centre/center of the screen bar.

The Studio Tek 130 Luxus "Model A" ElectriScreen, doesn't have the handle. Other than the handle both screens look identical.

Although the Communicator has less of the upper black masking drop....I think!

Thanks for all the good on the HS51a. Does anyone know where a quick comparison between the 51 and 51a can be seen? I would like to see the specs side by side so I can druel a bit more.

John

I second that one !!!

The only stated difference is on/off CR HS50/51 - 1000 to 6000:1, HS60/51A - 1700 to 10000:1.

Cosmetically, The ring around the Lens area is chrome in the HS50/51 and black in the HS60/51A.

Edit: Should have stated in manufacturers documentation. :o

Difference between 50/51 and 60/51A:

-60/51A has solved the 1:1 mapping issure. Now it can have pixel perfect at HDMI input.
-60/51A has the black plate and improved auto iris to lower the black level and boost the on/off contrast
-When the scene jumps from bright to dark, 60/51A shut the iris quicker and deeper than that of 50/51
- The lumen output from 60/51A is slight higher but not too significant.

Thanks for the information. I checked out your review of the projector and I must say it looks very good. I was surprised to see that SDE was noticeable at 1.8x the width.

One other question for you, is the Hitachi TX200 the same as the HDPJ52?

Thanks,

John

Difference between 50/51 and 60/51A:

-60/51A has solved the 1:1 mapping issure. Now it can have pixel perfect at HDMI input.
-60/51A has the black plate and improved auto iris to lower the black level and boost the on/off contrast
-When the scene jumps from bright to dark, 60/51A shut the iris quicker and deeper than that of 50/51
- The lumen output from 60/51A is slight higher but not too significant.

Thanks for the info CKL. I am curious though. The product sheets from Sony say that the "high contrast plates" reduce light scatter within the projector. This would of course lower the baseline of light coming out which would improve absolute blacks and therefore On/Off contrast, but I would imagine that it would improve ANSI contrast as well since you wouldn't have as much stray light in the PJ affecting darker areas. Did you measure any improvement in ANSI contrast? This is, in my opinion, DLP's strongest point and it makes a considerable difference with most viewing. It adds a lot of dimension to the image since the majority of material out there has a higher APL than lower. Just curious. I have a 51a on order now and will hopefully have it within the next two weeks.

I don't think CKL does measure ANSI.....due to room conditions?

But I must say his reviews are my Projector Review Bible.

All reviews of the same period are done the same, with the same equipment chain, except for the projector, where the projector is the only variable.

Love your work Mr CKL! :)

Thanks Highjinx for your comment.

Sony staff did a presentation at the demo show. There were some diagram showing by the Power Point. However, I don't understand how the high contrast plate works. I've requested them to send me those diagrams but they didn't.

I don't measure the ANSI contrast becasue of the environment and equipment. My room is not dark enough to evaluate the real ANSI. Even in a completed dark room, the ANSI contrasts I measured using my existing light meter were quite low and the range was limited. I believe it needs a high quality light meter which can measure the lightness of the reflection from the screen. This type of light meter is quite expensive. I hope to try the Minolta one next time.

I do feel the instant contrast from HS60 is higher than HS50. The improvement is caused by the boost of on/off contrast but I don't know if it involves ANSI contrast.

Regarding the SDE, I can see the them at 1.8x while ac388 (the owner of HS60) can't. So different people has various sensitivity of SDE.

Difference between 50/51 and 60/51A:
-60/51A has solved the 1:1 mapping issure. Now it can have pixel perfect at HDMI input.
Did getting pixel perfect mapping on HDMI require adjustments on the source signal, or does it work with standard HDMI 720P output settings such as you would get from an upscaling DVD player?

Has Sony added any new adjustments for HDMI under the Signal menu? On the HS51 they only had vertical and horizontal shift for HDMI input, no H Size or Dot phase as is available for Input A.

It doesn't need to adjust unless it doesn't show the full screen where you can set the vertical and horizontal position.

It doesn't need to adjust unless it doesn't show the full screen where you can set the vertical and horizontal position.
OK, thanks. That is good to know for people using upscaling players with no adjustments.

Has Sony added any new adjustments for HDMI under the Signal menu? On the HS51 they only had vertical and horizontal shift for HDMI input, no H Size or Dot phase as is available for Input A.

Size, phase or clock adjust only apply to an analog connection. On the HS60 HDMI input, H/V position/shift adjust does NOT affect 1:1 mapping. It just shift the image around the panel so there maybe some edge crop if the image is not center.

regards,

Li On

It doesn't need to adjust unless it doesn't show the full screen where you can set the vertical and horizontal position.

CLK,

I've been tracking this thread for a few days and must thank you for the valuable insight on the HS60/HS51a reviews. What recommendations can you offer for screen selections to go with this projector? I plan to install it in my family room for night time movie viewing only.

Stewart Studiotek or Vutec Bright White.

B&H shows this unit in stock. Any other sources yet?

Ben

HI CKL,

Is Vutec available in HK, if yes, where ? Also, is the price for Vutec lower than Stewart or not ? Thanks.

Alex


Stewart Studiotek or Vutec Bright White.

It is cheaper than Stewart but no dealer in HK.

Hello everybody.
This is my first post. I’m from Majorca (Spain – Europe). Sorry for my bad English. I’m a satisfied owner of the hs-60 but my diy screen is too dark for this projector. Do you think that the dalite video spectra is a good option instead of the most expensive studiotek?
Thanks.

From Reading this thread from the biginning, please correct me if Im wrong. The HS51A is basically the HS60?

I have a light controlled room in my basement with black carpet, black ceiling and dark purple walls. I currently have the HS 10. Would the HS51A be a good upgrade?

Thanks for all the good info!!
Flan

I think as long as you have a screen of 1.3x gain n above, it should work well with HS60.

Hello everybody.
This is my first post. I’m from Majorca (Spain – Europe). Sorry for my bad English. I’m a satisfied owner of the hs-60 but my diy screen is too dark for this projector. Do you think that the dalite video spectra is a good option instead of the most expensive studiotek?
Thanks.

HS60 n HS51A is the same model as it is stated on the cover of my owner manual.

The only difference is the 51a has the ethernet port and the image director software, the HS-60 does not.

In case anyone missed it, I posted my impressions of the new HS51A in this thread...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=626438

With the obtuse title I gave the thread, most of you may well have missed it :).

Thanks to Kris D. for helping me set up this pj. Kris, I tweaked the brightness and contrast a bit after talking to you and got that "wow" factor going. A really nice projector and I am feeling much better about it than when we last spoke. I look forward to hearing your comments when you have had a chance to wring out your new unit.

CLK (and others), I know you've also seen the Ruby. Not a very fair comparison since the Ruby is 3X more than this PJ. But how do the Ruby and HS51A compare?

I currently have the Dwin TV3 for about 2-1/2 yrs now and I am bothered by the rainbow from time to time (not really bad, but there). Back then LCDs did not compare well with DLPs, but now they are closer (??) and would like to change due to rainbows and ditherings (not sure of terminology/spelling). Would love to upgrade to a Ruby, but having a tough time justifying $$, so my next alternative is the 51A since LCD had improved lately (based on reading reviews and here). So, again, I'm wondering how good or close the 51A is to the Ruby. Or how does the black level of 51A compares to that of the TV3?

Thanks!

Just a quick one. We had our sony HS 20 stolen and is to be replaced by the insurance company by a sony HS 60 is the Sony HS 60 going to be an improvement over the Sony HS 20 even though the HS 20 was double in Value to the HS 60?

All the best and happy new year.

Crash Carpenter
Adelaide
Australia

Just a quick one. We had our sony HS 20 stolen and is to be replaced by the insurance company by a sony HS 60 is the Sony HS 60 going to be an improvement over the Sony HS 20 even though the HS 20 was double in Value to the HS 60?

All the best and happy new year.

Crash Carpenter
Adelaide
Australia

Actually, you are ahead if you compare street prices of a hs20 to the hs60. Used HS20 are probably well under $2k US while the Sony is selling at MSRP at $3500. I think the 20 may have less screen door but everything elso sb better on the 60.

crash:

Don't worry, the HS60 will be a huge improvement over the HS20.

Pip

CLK (and others), I know you've also seen the Ruby. Not a very fair comparison since the Ruby is 3X more than this PJ. But how do the Ruby and HS51A compare?

I currently have the Dwin TV3 for about 2-1/2 yrs now and I am bothered by the rainbow from time to time (not really bad, but there). Back then LCDs did not compare well with DLPs, but now they are closer (??) and would like to change due to rainbows and ditherings (not sure of terminology/spelling). Would love to upgrade to a Ruby, but having a tough time justifying $$, so my next alternative is the 51A since LCD had improved lately (based on reading reviews and here). So, again, I'm wondering how good or close the 51A is to the Ruby. Or how does the black level of 51A compares to that of the TV3?

Thanks!

Ruby is significantly brighter than HS60. Moreover, SDE is not a issue at Ruby. So Ruby is more suitable for bigger screen and shorter viewing distance.

Ruby has much better processing of 1080i HD source than HS60. I'm talking the video processing but not the resolution. Ruby's 1080P resolution take great advantage for viewing HD source. But the difference between 720P and 1080P projectors for viewing DVD is not so huge.

If you are mainly watching DVD at smaller screen and want to wait for price drop of 1080P projectors, then you can choose HS60, otherwise go for VW100.

If you are bothered by the typical problems of rainbow effect, panning artifacts from single chip DLP, I don' t think the new single chip 1080P DLP will solve such problems. You won't be wrong to order VW100 at this moment.

Thanks, CKL. I'm about 13-14ft viewing distance on a 100" diagonal and more than likely will be watching mostly DVDs. The 51A Sony spec is 1200 ansi, but your review indicated at significantly lower??

The only difference is the 51a has the ethernet port and the image director software, the HS-60 does not.

Kris,

Robert George has already reported receiving his HS51A.

Any news from you? Did you call Sony for an update/status on your HS51A?

We're all looking forward to your first impressions...

Thanks.

Li On,

Would you please advise what settings you are using on your HS60 including any gain, bias & service menu tweaks. I know our pj's will vary a little and my screen is only 1.0 gain, but as yours has been calibrated I would appreciate your input as a starting reference.

Thanks & regards

Kris,

Robert George has already reported receiving his HS51A.

Any news from you? Did you call Sony for an update/status on your HS51A?

We're all looking forward to your first impressions...

Thanks.

Should be anytime. With CES going on I don't have any one at Sony to follow up with in terms of order status, but I will probably get the PJ next week sometime.

Hi,

i'm from Germany and had the chance to see two units of the HS 60 (one "out of the box" (only shortly) and one tuned by Cine4Home) at my dealers showroom. I am thinkung about upgrading from my Z4 primarily because of (a bit of) shading and the visible dynamic iris in some scenes. Here are my impressions of the HS 60. Very good overall picture quality, very good colors and black level (especially on the tuned unit), no visible shading on one unit, a bit of (but less than on my Z4) on the other, no visible VB on both, SDE IMHO just a bit more than on my Z4 (for me personally not a problem at 1,6x-1,7x picture width), very silent (low lamp mode). The action of the dynamic iris was visible but not bothering to me in just one scene, in which the Z4's DI drives me crazy.
But now to the major problem: Both units hat massive convergence problems, which seem to be caused by the optics and not the panel alignement. Blue was shiftet to the left in the rigt side of picture and to the right on the left side (so to say to the "inside") whereas green was shifted to the outside, giving the picture a clearly visible greenish/yellowish line of 1-2 pixels especiallay on the right edge of the picture (a bit less on the left edge). The effect was nearly unchanged by the lensshift, but was considerably changed by the zoom, where the effect was reduced (bot not completely eliminated) when projecting a very big picture with maximum zoom. According to my dealer this is a general problem of the HS 60.
What are your observations according to this issue?

Regards,
STD

On the HS50 there are the same problems - I saw units with perfect (really perfect) convergence, and units with badly (and very visible) misaligned panels, with >2 pixels off. Unfortunately, it seems to be a matter of luck. I've also found out that lens shift and zoom change the convergence (but not by that much, maybe 0,5-1 pixel at most, I think), which maybe is the price to pay for flexibility. It just seems to be the nature of the beast. Also, AFAIK, convergence problems are common in most 3-chip pjs.

We must remember that there are no perfect projectors at any price point - the "Ruby", for example, also has convergence issues; a 1-chip DLP pj doesn't need convergence adjustments, but the rainbows kill it for me, so there you have it...

It's a pity, though, that manufacturers are not a little bit more careful with factory calibration: panel alignment, VB, shading, dead pixels - it seems to be a lottery, sometimes. We know it’s also a matter of price level, but it’s understandable that customers don't expect this kind of problems when they buy a product that is new out of the box. I know I’d pay an extra $50-$100 if that would assure me that I’d have a no-issues-out-of-the-box projector. This is much more important than, say, having a pj with a good D65 calibration out-of-the-box, because this is a thing that can be adjusted by the user, but those other issues cannot, so you'll be stuck.

Dave.

can anyone post the iris settings from the hs60. I will test on the hs50.

thanks

Li On,

Would you please advise what settings you are using on your HS60 including any gain, bias & service menu tweaks. I know our pj's will vary a little and my screen is only 1.0 gain, but as yours has been calibrated I would appreciate your input as a starting reference.

Thanks & regards

You can find the settings of RGB gain and bias after D65 tracking in my review. The link is listed at my signature.

Thanks!
but i am looking something like that Before Adjustment:
Open Reg: 42
Close Reg: 210

After Adjustment:
Open Reg: 40
Close Reg: 202

Would the Carada Brilliant White (1.4 gain) be a good fit with this projector? Looking at the 110 inch diag....with the projector 13 feet back,ceiling mounted, viewing at about 13 feet as well?

I know I’d pay an extra $50-$100 if that would assure me that I’d have a no-issues-out-of-the-box projector.

Right, me too ... but I think you'd rather pay $1000 or even significantly more for getting that. This is one of the major problems when producing for the mass market. Having a perfect product in the lab is one thing, producing it cost-efficiently for the masses is a different one ...

Also, AFAIK, convergence problems are common in most 3-chip pjs.

It's a pity, though, that manufacturers are not a little bit more careful with factory calibration: panel alignment, VB, shading, dead pixels - it seems to be a lottery, sometimes. We know it’s also a matter of price level, but it’s understandable that customers don't expect this kind of problems when they buy a product that is new out of the box. I know I’d pay an extra $50-$100 if that would assure me that I’d have a no-issues-out-of-the-box projector.
Dave.


I think you would find that most of them leave the factory calibrated and then just based on how they are handled in transit some might get out of alignment. I don't know about you but I have stood at UPS and watched the loaders punt boxes from one end of the truck to the other, not giving a damn whether the contents were expensive, fragile or whatever. If you are concerned about proper alignment then buying from a local retailer you can take it back to would be important.
As to alignment, try and think how little the chips would have to mis-aligned inside the unit to make a 1-2 pixel error on the screen 10 feet away.

I had a friend years ago who gave me grief on the mis-alignment at the edges on my old tired Novabeam but the next time I was at his house I pointed out that the error on his new Japanese rear projector was twice as bad and across the entire image.

M./

Sony VPL-HS60 is now availble in US I saw couple of websites have them in stock and price dropped about 800.00 from the first posting. now the lowest I found is for 2883 + shipping. At the same time the previous version prices are coming down. If you guys like to stick with SONY VPL-HS51 the price are falling less than 2000.00 now. My primary analysis between 51 and 60 is 6000 vs 10,000 contrast. any comments ?? I ordered a 51 and going to place it in my full ambiant light Family room with the combination of new ChromaVue HCS-W80 I will post the results by next week. Till then hoping to hear some good comparison between 51 and 60

This or Epson Cinema 800 (cost isn't so much a factor)?

which would you get and why?

Sony VPL-HS60 is now availble in US I saw couple of websites have them in stock and price dropped about 800.00 from the first posting. now the lowest I found is for 2883 + shipping. At the same time the previous version prices are coming down. If you guys like to stick with SONY VPL-HS51 the price are falling less than 2000.00 now. My primary analysis between 51 and 60 is 6000 vs 10,000 contrast. any comments ?? I ordered a 51 and going to place it in my full ambiant light Family room with the combination of new ChromaVue HCS-W80 I will post the results by next week. Till then hoping to hear some good comparison between 51 and 60

Check CKL's reviews on both units on Avbuzz. The HS60 is called the HS51A in the US. ON the 51A vs 51: Better contrast , better black level, a tad brighter, perfect pixel mapping via HDMI, more advanced iris action.

There is a post above somewhere by CKL stating the differences between the two units.

EDIT: CKL's post

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6827466&&#post6827466

Sony VPL-HS60 is now availble in US I saw couple of websites have them in stock and price dropped about 800.00 from the first posting. now the lowest I found is for 2883 + shipping. At the same time the previous version prices are coming down. If you guys like to stick with SONY VPL-HS51 the price are falling less than 2000.00 now. My primary analysis between 51 and 60 is 6000 vs 10,000 contrast. any comments ?? I ordered a 51 and going to place it in my full ambiant light Family room with the combination of new ChromaVue HCS-W80 I will post the results by next week. Till then hoping to hear some good comparison between 51 and 60

I only found one dealer selling HS60 on pricegrabber.com so where are you finding these places? Are they reputable or are they from a Brooklyn storefront?

Please send me some URL links to these stores.

Thanks.

I only found one dealer selling HS60 on pricegrabber.com so where are you finding these places? Are they reputable or are they from a Brooklyn storefront?

Please send me some URL links to these stores.

Thanks.

Keep in mind the VPL-HS51A is the US version of the HS60.

My primary analysis between 51 and 60 is 6000 vs 10,000 contrast. any comments ?? I ordered a 51 and going to place it in my full ambiant light Family room with the combination of new ChromaVue HCS-W80 I will post the results by next week. Till then hoping to hear some good comparison between 51 and 60
The HS51 does not do 1:1 pixel mapping, so you will not be able to bypass the internal scalier. The HS60/51A can do 1:1 pixel mapping so you should be able to bypass the internal scalier if you feed it a 720P source.

Quick question.

Can you get the same 1:1 pixel mapping on the51A/60 using DVI to HDMI as you do using the HDMI? In other words is it just that the signal has to come into the 51A/60 on that HDMI input that creates the mapping or is it something else in the HDMI interface.

A multi-region DVD player I want to use has a DVI output but no HDMI.

Thanks for any info.

M./

Quick question.

Can you get the same 1:1 pixel mapping on the51A/60 using DVI to HDMI as you do using the HDMI? In other words is it just that the signal has to come into the 51A/60 on that HDMI input that creates the mapping or is it something else in the HDMI interface.

A multi-region DVD player I want to use has a DVI output but no HDMI.

Thanks for any info.

M./

Yes...........720p DVI from DVD to HDMI on projector = perfect 720p pixel mapping!

Yes...........720p DVI from DVD to HDMI on projector = perfect 720p pixel mapping!
How are you confirming this from a DVD player? Just curious because I thought it required a scaler or PC which could output true 720P test patterns.

How are you confirming this from a DVD player? Just curious because I thought it required a scaler or PC which could output true 720P test patterns.

The DVD player will have to scale the 480i/576i data to 720p via DVI/HDMI hence "720p DVI from DVD (player) to HDMI on projector = perfect 720p pixel mapping.......but I could be wrong!.......where is CKL?

The DVD player will have to scale the 480i/576i data to 720p via DVI/HDMI hence "720p DVI from DVD (player) to HDMI on projector = perfect 720p pixel mapping.......but I could be wrong!.......where is CKL?

Yes, I asked because I wanted to get a second "thought" on it but my take on the digital interface is just that it is the connector that has changed, not the digital interface other than the additional of an acronym that refers to high definition.

The multi-region unit I an looking at has an internal Faroudja DCDi scaler (along with the kitchen sink) for less than $200.

http://www.oppodigital.com/

I have been around the A/V - hometheater industry for over 25 years and I think the unit above might be the most for the least of any product I have ever seen.

I'm jazzed;

German-restored, UK regioned, PAL encoded, 21 disc Laurel&Hardy DVD box set here we come (me and my 10 year old ;-).

M./

To verify if it is 1:1 pixel mapping, you need to use PC or scaler which can output 720P testing pattern. We can't use DVD player to do so. If we've already confirmed it is 1:1 mapping by PC or scaler, then it should be fine for DVD players because all DVD players output the same HDTV 720 standard which is the same as that at PC or scaler.

When we don't have PC or Scaler, if the projector can display full 1280x720 from DVD player, I mean there is no overscan or chopping, we can assume it is 1:1 mapping. Please be reminded that the MPEG decoder may chop some pixels before they are passed to the scaler. If the projector has a real mode of the aspect ratio which can display the native input signal without scaling, we can compare the situation of 480P to 720P. If both display no overscan or same chopping, then we can assume it is 1:1 mapping.

The timing or frequency of 720P DVI is the same as HDMI. The color space can be different. You can select HDMI to output either RGB or component format while most DVI are fixed at RGB only.

I only found one dealer selling HS60 on pricegrabberso where are you finding these places? Are they reputable or are they from a Brooklyn storefront?

Please send me some URL links to these stores.

search for Sony VPL-HS60 through web search - pricerunner com and you will get bunch of online store but I don't know about the credentials....

I searched it and found out that Sony launched same product way back in Australia and after conversion it only 2000.00 but no US warranty and many are not willing to ship to US because of the warranty issue.

When we don't have PC or Scaler, if the projector can display full 1280x720 from DVD player, I mean there is no overscan or chopping, we can assume it is 1:1 mapping.
Lots of good info. Thanks.

My concern was that even if the DVD player output showed no overscan or cropping, the HS60 might still be processing the image. I saw something like this on my HS51 before the blanking fix. When I tried to get 1x1 mapping from my PC by DVI to HDMI I could not do it. Even though the image was cropped, I don't think it was being scaled because everything was about the same size as the VGA input image which was perfect 1x1. I could see the 1 pixel B&W checkboard clearly over VGA, but over HDMI it became a uniform gray and all the text looked fatter and fuzzier. So even if it was not scaling the image, it was smoothing or averaging the pixels somehow.

Glad to hear that you confirmed true 1x1 mapping on the HS60 for standard 720P input. Maybe Sony actually listened to all the whining we did about the HS50/51 :D

Wasn't the HS50/51 only capable of pixel mapping via VGA & not HDMI.............with or without the fix?

Wasn't the HS50/51 only capable of pixel mapping via VGA & not HDMI.............with or without the fix?

No,
Before the Fix you could get 1:1 on HDMI and VGA, only on HDMI it had the blanking. After the fix you could only get 1:1 on VGA, the blanking on HDMI was gone, but so was the 1:1 pixel mapping.

[QUOTE=CKL]To verify if it is 1:1 pixel mapping, you need to use PC or scaler which can output 720P testing pattern.

How do we get the PC to output the 720P testing pattern? Is it from some sort of testing software we need to download? I'll appreciate your advice on the procedures to verify 1:1 mapping. Thanks.

You can use Nokia Monitor Test software to display the testing pattern which is exactly the same resolution as the setting of your video card.

Blanking is possible to be 1:1 mapping if the panel blanking is the same as signal blanking. Just like the cases of Marantz 12S4 and Panasonic AE700. So we can't verify 1:1 mapping by DVD players.

yes highjinx you can get 1:1 mapping thru vga before and after the "fix" jeff

zip- question, how could it be 1:1 mapping on the hdmi with blanking? only possible if the panel is not 1280x720 which i beleive it is? Anyway this is kind of a dead horse as its been beaten to death in the vpl-hs51 thread. jeff

How do we get the PC to output the 720P testing pattern? Is it from some sort of testing software we need to download? I'll appreciate your advice on the procedures to verify 1:1 mapping. Thanks.
See this post in the UNofficial Sony VPL-HS50/1 tweak thread

zip- question, how could it be 1:1 mapping on the hdmi with blanking? only possible if the panel is not 1280x720 which i beleive it is? Anyway this is kind of a dead horse as its been beaten to death in the vpl-hs51 thread. jeff
The black borders obscured part of the available image, so it could still have 1x1 mapping for the pixels that are displayed. Just imagine on your PC monitor if you placed black paper about 10 pixels wide all around the edges. Even though you can't see all the available pixels, the ones you see are still 1x1 mapped to the image coming from the graphics card.

Assuming all external light is blocked from the room, how dark do the walls have to be in order to achieve the great black level everyone is talking about for HS60?

Assuming all external light is blocked from the room, how dark do the walls have to be in order to achieve the great black level everyone is talking about for HS60?

On dark scenes it's not a big problem, you won't gain that much for having an all dark room. The problem is when there are dark parts in the picture and bright ones at the same time. On a white room, the bright parts on the screen will illuminate it and bounce back at the screen. This will lighten the dark parts of the picture, and you'll loose a lot of contrast. Unfortunately I have a white room (not home-cinema-exclusive...), and I notice this frequently. One of these days I was watching an animated movie with subtitles. There was a scene where there was a night sky of a very deep blue. I could see that the subtitles were also tinted blue, because all the room was illuminated with that color and bouncing it back at the screen. One way of minimizing this, without painting your room, is to have a higher gain screen, which has a narrower viewing position, and bounces less light to the ceiling and to the sides (and also reflects less light coming from those sides).

Dave.

Hi guys,

My HS10 died about a month ago. The optical engine went. 30 months and no warranty. Repair cost was more than I paid new.

Sony offered me the HS51A at employee price. (Just about equal to the lowest street price I could find) It was that or no pj, since I am moving in a few months. I don't want to run new wires or do anything special like redo the ceiling mount etc.

I am installing it on the ceiling now. Here are some of my questions:

Are the HS60 talked about here and HS51A the same unit?
I need an adapter to adapt from DVI cable to HDMI input. The adapter should be female on the DVI side and male on the HDMI input side, right? Just a second check before I order.

I use my pj as a TV set. I mostly watch HD satellite TV and sometimes watch DVDs on my Bravo D1. I used my components HD sat receiver output to the component input on the HS10. I put the Bravo DVI output to the DVI input on the HS10. For the HS51A, which should get the HDMI slot (from the HDMI adapter/ DVI cable)?

Right now I just want to get this projector working. I will spend a lot more time here later and get up to speed on this new projector.

Thanks anyone for some help. It seems like forever not having a big screen "TV".

Gary

See this post in the UNofficial Sony VPL-HS50/1 tweak thread

Hi jschefdog,

Thanks for the info. I tried to download your pixel mapping test pattern zip file, but got this message: "Internet Explorer was not able to open this Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later." I tried a few times and got the same message. Could you please post this test pattern file again?

Also do you have a test pattern for focus adjustment? I recently upgraded from a VW-10HT to the HS51. In the 10HT, there's a test pattern display which is a great help for adjusting the focus. The HS51 does not have this test pattern! If such a pattern is not available, is there a simple reliable way to fine-tune the focus?

Thanks again in advance.

On dark scenes it's not a big problem, you won't gain that much for having an all dark room. The problem is when there are dark parts in the picture and bright ones at the same time. On a white room, the bright parts on the screen will illuminate it and bounce back at the screen. This will lighten the dark parts of the picture, and you'll loose a lot of contrast. Unfortunately I have a white room (not home-cinema-exclusive...), and I notice this frequently. One of these days I was watching an animated movie with subtitles. There was a scene where there was a night sky of a very deep blue. I could see that the subtitles were also tinted blue, because all the room was illuminated with that color and bouncing it back at the screen. One way of minimizing this, without painting your room, is to have a higher gain screen, which has a narrower viewing position, and bounces less light to the ceiling and to the sides (and also reflects less light coming from those sides).

Dave.

I got my HS60 on Monday and finally got it setup today. However, even when displaying a completely black image (auto iris, low lamp on 80" diagonal), the image appears grayish rather than black. My viewing environment does have white walls, but even if I block out most of them with dark sheets it doesn't help. I know I cannot expect true blacks from an LCD PJ, but I did expect HS60 to be able to deliver something closer to black than gray in this situation. Do I have my expectations set too high, or could there be something wrong with the unit?

Hi guys,

My HS10 died about a month ago. The optical engine went. 30 months and no warranty. Repair cost was more than I paid new.

Sony offered me the HS51A at employee price. (Just about equal to the lowest street price I could find) It was that or no pj, since I am moving in a few months. I don't want to run new wires or do anything special like redo the ceiling mount etc.

I am installing it on the ceiling now. Here are some of my questions:

Are the HS60 talked about here and HS51A the same unit?
I need an adapter to adapt from DVI cable to HDMI input. The adapter should be female on the DVI side and male on the HDMI input side, right? Just a second check before I order.

I use my pj as a TV set. I mostly watch HD satellite TV and sometimes watch DVDs on my Bravo D1. I used my components HD sat receiver output to the component input on the HS10. I put the Bravo DVI output to the DVI input on the HS10. For the HS51A, which should get the HDMI slot (from the HDMI adapter/ DVI cable)?

Right now I just want to get this projector working. I will spend a lot more time here later and get up to speed on this new projector.

Thanks anyone for some help. It seems like forever not having a big screen "TV".

Gary


YES, the HS51A is the US version of the HS60.

If your trying to hook up a DVI cable to the HS51A then YES, Male HDMI to Female DVI.

DVI and HDMI are the same, only HDMI can also send an audio single as well as digital video over the same cable. Go head and leave the DVI on your Sat receiver and add a HDMI/DVI adapter to the DVI cable for the HS51A, it will work the same as if it were DVI to DVI.

You should be good to go.

I got my HS60 on Monday and finally got it setup today. However, even when displaying a completely black image (auto iris, low lamp on 80" diagonal), the image appears grayish rather than black. My viewing environment does have white walls, but even if I block out most of them with dark sheets it doesn't help. I know I cannot expect true blacks from an LCD PJ, but I did expect HS60 to be able to deliver something closer to black than gray in this situation. Do I have my expectations set too high, or could there be something wrong with the unit?
Is this your first projector or are you comparing it to your previous projector? Did you calibrate brightness and contrast? I've read that, depending on your setup, contrast should be set anywhere between 75-80 and brightness 40-50.

From the reviews I've read, it sounds like black level should be amazing and not overwhelmingly gray.

Thanks for the info. I tried to download your pixel mapping test pattern zip file, but got this message: "Internet Explorer was not able to open this Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later." I tried a few times and got the same message. Could you please post this test pattern file again?
Maybe AVS cleans out the attachments after a while to reduce the database size. The test patterns are attached. I don't have anything specifically for focus, but for the HS-51 I usually just look for the screen door in something white such as the Windows cursor. When focus is perfect you can clearly see the black lines between the white pixels.

Is this your first projector or are you comparing it to your previous projector? Did you calibrate brightness and contrast? I've read that, depending on your setup, contrast should be set anywhere between 75-80 and brightness 40-50.

From the reviews I've read, it sounds like black level should be amazing and not overwhelmingly gray.

It is my first projector.

A few years ago I saw the Sanyo Z2 in action and while I didn't have a chance to see how it performed displaying a pure black image, I do remember the fogginess (everything supposed to be black seemed greyish) from a lack of black level. I would actually say that the level of fogginess, as I remember it, would be about the same as I experience now with the HS60, although it is important to remember that the viewing environment was not the same.

Even if I set brightness to MIN the result is basically the same (although brightness does clearly have an effect, if I set it to MAX the image is clearly a lot brighter -- brightness is set at 50 and contrast at 80)

Even the Ruby looks dark gray to me with a pure black out sequence so no worries there. Digital projectors just do that. But how are the blacks with material? That is the real question. Black out scenes are rare and since your eyes have to adjust to them your iris's will help.

Even the Ruby looks dark gray to me with a pure black out sequence so no worries there. Digital projectors just do that. But how are the blacks with material? That is the real question. Black out scenes are rare and since your eyes have to adjust to them your iris's will help.

The blacks with material are definitely gray. I'd say foggy describes it pretty well, but again I don't know how much is contributed from my viewing environment. I've experimented with covering the walls with dark sheets but nonetheless there are still some light areas reflecting light back.

I cannot capture it with my digital camera unfortunately. It flattens the range of the picture so it looks great on the pictures with dark blacks :)

The blacks with material are definitely gray. I'd say foggy describes it pretty well, but again I don't know how much is contributed from my viewing environment. I've experimented with covering the walls with dark sheets but nonetheless there are still some light areas reflecting light back.

I cannot capture it with my digital camera unfortunately. It flattens the range of the picture so it looks great on the pictures with dark blacks :)

What do you have your Iris set at?

HS60's black at Auto Iris after proper calibration belongs to the lowest category comparing to other digital projectors including single chip DLP.

Darin and I will measure fully calibrated absolute black when mine arrives. I will have info in mid to late February because of business trips.

What do you have your Iris set at?

Iris is set to auto.

Iris is set to auto.

Some remarks:

1. Actually, having a dark room is not better for the perception of black on an absolute black picture. The dark room is helpful for presenting bright details mixed with dark details, because there will be less reflected room light (light coming from the screen to the walls and back to the screen). A black room is for having the best contrast between dark and bright.

2. There is no "perfect black" picture with any digital projector.

3. After being in the dark for some minutes, your eyes will see even a very faint light, which could look somewhat brighter than it really is. What really matters is how it looks during film watching.

4. Don't go looking for flaws, or you'll see them all the time. :) Remember that a normal movie theater also has gray blacks, not black-blacks. Most movies theaters have similar or worse blacks than the HS60. One tends to loose reference, when searching for flaws...

Having said that, I wonder what your factory auto-iris settings are... On the HS50 there was some variation between units, so some would say "great blacks" vs "poor blacks" or "dim unit" vs "bright unit", because the iris would close more or less, according to the factory setting. My HS60 has the CloseReg setting at 221, which I actually find to be a little too much (too dark and more visible action of the iris on dark scenes), but maybe I need to do some more tweaking. Having it on 215-218 for now appears to provide a little bit more pleasurable experience (dark scenes are brighter and there is less iris movement perception), at a sacrifice of a slightly worse black level on very dark scenes (only).

(start disclaimer)
BUT! - I must give the same advice I always do - Do not touch the factory menu if you don't know what you're doing, you may damage your unit and there is no "reset" to get back to factory values (I took a list of all values first, for example). If you mess up and end up with no image, you'll have to send your unit to service, and that will NOT be covered by guarantee. Also, it's possible that you LOOSE your guarantee just by going into the service menu (I don't know). You have been warned...
(end disclaimer)

Dave.

Your local theater sounds unimpressive. Mine however is brand new with curved widescreens and the experience is breathtaking if you don't mind the talking and bathroom runs with people walking around.

Actually, having a dark room is not better for the perception of black on an absolute black picture

It does and it doesn't. It does in that reflected light doesn't elevate the baseline of black on the screen. In other words, light scattered back to the screen doesn't elevate what absolute black could be if the light didn't get back to the screen.

It hurts perceived black levels though. If your entire room is black, including the walls around the screen, than that is what you are comparing too in a sense. With a lighter colored wall around the screen blacks will appear darker because they are being compared to something lighter. This is kind of like when blacks look REALLY good with stuff that is shiny around them. A good reference for this is Trinity's black leather outfit in the Matrix films. That always looks REALLY black because of all the white highlights in the outfit. But it is a trick of perception.

Having said that, I wonder what your factory auto-iris settings are...

I'll check out the factory settings tonight. Is the factory menu on the HS60 accessed in the same manner as the HS50/51?

Your local theater sounds unimpressive. Mine however is brand new with curved widescreens and the experience is breathtaking if you don't mind the talking and bathroom runs with people walking around.

Ok... :) Actually, there are a LOT of movie theaters in my area (more than 130 cinema rooms, just counting by memory...), and while there are better movie theaters than my HS60 at home (of course, and I was only talking about black level!), what I found out is that the average movie theater is not that good. Actually most of them are really worse than my home-cinema experience, even considering resolution (yes, DVD vs film!), because many are most of the time badly focused, and have bad (too used) film copies...

Of course, I also have near me better theaters, like 3DLP digital ones, for example, but those are not your average "local theater"...

Cheers,
Dave.

It does and it doesn't. It does in that reflected light doesn't elevate the baseline of black on the screen. In other words, light scattered back to the screen doesn't elevate what absolute black could be if the light didn't get back to the screen.

It hurts perceived black levels though. If your entire room is black, including the walls around the screen, than that is what you are comparing too in a sense. With a lighter colored wall around the screen blacks will appear darker because they are being compared to something lighter. This is kind of like when blacks look REALLY good with stuff that is shiny around them. A good reference for this is Trinity's black leather outfit in the Matrix films. That always looks REALLY black because of all the white highlights in the outfit. But it is a trick of perception.

That's basically what I meant to say, but maybe your explanation helps to clarify this further. :)

Dave.

So Kris, when building the false wall in my room that will support the screen I should use a dark gray flat colored material as opposed to a flat black material?

I do believe the room reflection affects the setting of black level. Say using AVIA's moving black bars to set the proper black level. A white room needs higher setting of brightness (black level) so as to make two moving black bars be visible, than that of a dark room.

"A good reference for this is Trinity's black leather outfit in the Matrix films. That always looks REALLY black because of all the white highlights in the outfit. But it is a trick of perception"

I much prefer the black and what's in it with Kate Beckinsale .... Selene's outfit. :)

On reflections the POS Graywolf does wonders for the Sony HS51.

Say Folks,

I'm looking at an Ikea coffee table to house my 51A (still on order) and from the photos it looks like the projector lens will be at about 9-10 inches off the floor. The table is about 17 inches high and I will mount the projector inside it.

Does anyone have any experience with the ratios for mounting the projector to achive a particular point for the bottom of the projected image?

My screen is a motorized Draper Targa with a matte surface but is still in very good condition (and already mounted) and so I need to try and use it.

It was custom made for a house I had that had 12 foot ceilings and so I can bring the screen quite a ways down the wall now.

I have seen the big Qualia rear projection set and liked the image being centered in my horizontal line of sight.

Anybody have any advice as to whether they think I can get the image down to the 18 inch level with the projector at about 9 inches?

Thanks for any tips/advice.

M./

Say Folks,

I'm looking at an Ikea coffee table to house my 51A (still on order) and from the photos it looks like the projector lens will be at about 9-10 inches off the floor. The table is about 17 inches high and I will mount the projector inside it.

Does anyone have any experience with the ratios for mounting the projector to achive a particular point for the bottom of the projected image?

My screen is a motorized Draper Targa with a matte surface but is still in very good condition (and already mounted) and so I need to try and use it.

It was custom made for a house I had that had 12 foot ceilings and so I can bring the screen quite a ways down the wall now.

I have seen the big Qualia rear projection set and liked the image being centered in my horizontal line of sight.

Anybody have any advice as to whether they think I can get the image down to the 18 inch level with the projector at about 9 inches?

Thanks for any tips/advice.

M./

The lens shift has quite a range in the verticle plane and not too shabby a range in the horizontal from what I have seen. I think you will be ok. But download the manual for the projector, the answer to you question is there.

MY NEW HS-51A IS ENROUTE ON THE TRUCK AND I CAN'T FIND ANYONE WHO CAN TELL ME THE SPECS FOR THE MOUNTING HOLES.
I WANT TO USE MY PEERLESS UNIVERSAL CEILING MOUNT BUT AFTER SEVERAL HOURS OF SEARCH (INCLUDING OVER AN HOUR OF FRUSTRATING TALKS WITH MULTILEVEL CSR'S AT SONY), NOBODY AT THE DEALER, AT PEERLESS, NOR SONY CAN GIVE ME A SIMPLE ANSWER FOR MY QUESTION: WHAT ARE THE SPECS FOR THE MOUNTING SCREW HOLES ON THE BOTTOM OF THE HS-51A.

CAN ANYONE OUT THERE HELP ME WITH THIS SPEC?

THANKS, chasby

I recomend not a upside down instalation. I have in my homecinema sligthly more shading upsiddown. Now it stand on a board under the celing.

I recomend not a upside down instalation.

Why not?

The lens shift has quite a range in the verticle plane and not too shabby a range in the horizontal from what I have seen. I think you will be ok. But download the manual for the projector, the answer to you question is there.

Since I sorted out the vertical shift, I thought I would post it for others.

I got the manual down and for anyone else who wants to work low, the maximum shift is 50% of the vertical dimension of the screen image as measured from the center of the lens.

The image is spaced vertically with the lens at the center point with half the image below and half the image above the center of the lens. My screen will be 38 inches vertical and if I wanted the image to start at the floor without having to use the image shift I would have to have the center of the projector lens at 19 inches off the floor. I could then shift the image up so that the bottom edge is even with the center of the lens or at 19 inches. This ratio holds true for any vertical height and again is based on the vertical dimension of your projected image. If your screen is 50 inches tall you can shift the image up 25 inches.

In other words if my projector is 12 inches off the floor I can shift the image up to 12 inches off the floor but I can't get it higher. Since I have a cabinet along that wall that is 16 inches high I will have to figure out another projector table (I guess). I may look into just lengthening the feet to get the few inches I need.

Thanks,

M./

I got the manual down and for anyone else who wants to work low, the maximum shift is 50% of the vertical dimension of the screen image as measured from the center of the lens.

The vertical lens shift for the VPL 50/51/60 is 100% of the screen height. The horizontal lens shift is half of the screen width.

WHAT ARE THE SPECS FOR THE MOUNTING SCREW HOLES ON THE BOTTOM OF THE HS-51A.
Since no one else is answering. I don't have a HS-51A, but I would assume mounting it is the same as the HS-51 since they did not change the cabinet. You can download the manual for the HS-51 from the Sony web site. It has some information on ceiling mounting including dimensioned drawings, but I don't know if it is what you are looking for.

http://esupport.sony.com/perl/select-system.pl?DIRECTOR=DOCS

The vertical lens shift for the VPL 50/51/60 is 100% of the screen height. The horizontal lens shift is half of the screen width.


Hey, you made my day. You're right, the graphic in the manual is confusing and late at night I didn't grok the differences but it does *say* it will shift it whole vertical distance. If it works then I am home free with inches to spare.

The table I have found is perfect for my needs and finding something higher was going to be difficult.

Thanks,

M./

My new HS51A arrived late Wed. afternoon and by 7:30 PM it was installed and running in my HT. Here are my impressions:
1. My previous post turned out to be a false alarm: the Peerless Universal ceiling mount comes with a generous assortment of screws and after finding the correct screws for the HS51A, I had the adapter plate attached in less than 15 minutes and the HS51A mounted and connected in less than an hour. To my extreme dismay the dealer sent me a M-DVI to F-HDMI adapter instead of the F-DVI to M-HDMI adapter that I need for my Dish 811 Hi-Def connection. Since its a 200 mile round trip to the closest dealer that might have this adapter, my first two nights of viewing have been with an S-video connection to the Dish 811 and a component video connection to my Zenith DVB318 (feeding 720p upgraded video.)
2. Right out of the box the DVD's look great! Watched scenes from "SW-Revenge of the Sith", "Finding Nemo", "Sound of Music" and "Dances With Wolves" and I'm convinced that with tweaking (calibration) the HS51A will be a fantastic improvement over my broken Hitachi PJ-TX100.
3. Std. Def. TV (on S-video) from my Dish 811 is substantially improved over my replaced projector.
4. Since I live in such a remote area it would probably cost a fortune to get my unit professionally calibrated.
5. I would greatly appreciate a sampling of calibrated settings that I might try with my set-up.

I have a dedicated HT with black ceiling, dark grey walls, deep burgundy carpeting and total light control. I have a 118" Carada BW screen (1.3 gain) and my 1st row of seating is at 13' (1.5XSW.)(My initial impression is that SDE is negligible at that distance.) Also the projector is very quiet as compared to my previous unit.

As I get a better calibration and an adapter to view HiDef via HDMI, I'll post more results.
Thanks, chasby

Chasby,
Congratulations.
Where'd you get your projector.

Milt99,
I purchased mine at ABT Electronics in the Chicago area. Good retailer, free shipping, and they solved my adapter problem with a free "Next Day" shipment of the correct adapter.

chasby

Has anyone else got any vertical banding with their HS60's yet?? I've tried both HDMI HCPC inputs & component inputs but both sources still give the image VB. It is not too severe but I do find it slightly distracting on some scenes. Greyish and white scenes show it up the best.

Hoping to be able to tweak the HS60 via the service menu at some point to reduced or eliminate this problem. Shame there's not a VB tweak option in the menu somewhere like on the Z3/Z4.

HS60 so close to being a great projector it hurts. :rolleyes:

I have the HS60 for over a month. Does the unit have VB ? The answer is YES, but it is so slight, you can barely see it. I am VB-sensitive but this Sony doesn't bother me one bit. If you want to draw a parallel comparison on VB with other LCD units, like AE900 n Z4, Sony is only 1 or 2, the others are at least 4-5, while 10 is the worst case like my old AE500.

If the HS60 really bothers you, you should start thinking DLP, since the Sony offers you the best LCD picture now at a reasonable price, especially if you want to stay away from the RAINBOW.




Has anyone else got any vertical banding with their HS60's yet?? I've tried both HDMI HCPC inputs & component inputs but both sources still give the image VB. It is not too severe but I do find it slightly distracting on some scenes. Greyish and white scenes show it up the best.

Hoping to be able to tweak the HS60 via the service menu at some point to reduced or eliminate this problem. Shame there's not a VB tweak option in the menu somewhere like on the Z3/Z4.

HS60 so close to being a great projector it hurts. :rolleyes:

If the HS60 really bothers you, you should start thinking DLP, since the Sony offers you the best LCD picture now at a reasonable price, especially if you want to stay away from the RAINBOW.

It bothers me but only slightly. I still think the VB I have on my unit is worse than any VB I have seen on my mates Z3 or the Z4 I owned for a short period.

I preferred the picture of the HC3000 over the HS60 but the Rainbows on it, for my eyes were horrendous.

The slight VB on my HS60 is easier to live with than the poor blacks, IMO of the Z4 or the RBE of the HC3000.

With time and tweaking I hope to reduce the apparent VB on my unit.. If I can do that I will keep this PJ for a good while if not than I have an excuse to upgrade again in a years time. :)

If there is a way to reduce the VB to zero, please share it with us.

My new HS51A arrived late Wed. afternoon and by 7:30 PM it was installed and running in my HT. Here are my impressions:
1. My previous post turned out to be a false alarm: the Peerless Universal ceiling mount comes with a generous assortment of screws and after finding the correct screws for the HS51A, I had the adapter plate attached in less than 15 minutes and the HS51A mounted and connected in less than an hour. To my extreme dismay the dealer sent me a M-DVI to F-HDMI adapter instead of the F-DVI to M-HDMI adapter that I need for my Dish 811 Hi-Def connection. Since its a 200 mile round trip to the closest dealer that might have this adapter, my first two nights of viewing have been with an S-video connection to the Dish 811 and a component video connection to my Zenith DVB318 (feeding 720p upgraded video.)
2. Right out of the box the DVD's look great! Watched scenes from "SW-Revenge of the Sith", "Finding Nemo", "Sound of Music" and "Dances With Wolves" and I'm convinced that with tweaking (calibration) the HS51A will be a fantastic improvement over my broken Hitachi PJ-TX100.
3. Std. Def. TV (on S-video) from my Dish 811 is substantially improved over my replaced projector.
4. Since I live in such a remote area it would probably cost a fortune to get my unit professionally calibrated.
5. I would greatly appreciate a sampling of calibrated settings that I might try with my set-up.

I have a dedicated HT with black ceiling, dark grey walls, deep burgundy carpeting and total light control. I have a 118" Carada BW screen (1.3 gain) and my 1st row of seating is at 13' (1.5XSW.)(My initial impression is that SDE is negligible at that distance.) Also the projector is very quiet as compared to my previous unit.

As I get a better calibration and an adapter to view HiDef via HDMI, I'll post more results.
Thanks, chasby


chasby, can you explain what you mean with "negligible" SDE at 1.5X, does this mean you can see it all the time or just on bright scenes and how visible is it? This question is also meanted for any HS51a(60) owner. I'm about to replace my old panny AE500 with this beast my only concern is the SDE. I have 106" screen and my panny gives me zero SDE at 1.5X. I don't want to trade zero SDE for contrast (I want both :) ). Any repliies very much appreciated.

I also upgrade from a AE500 to the HS60. What an improvement !!!

I will sacrifice 'very slight' SDE for much better sharpness, better black, lower picture noise, much lesser VB n more accurate coloring from the Sony.

Maybe AVS cleans out the attachments after a while to reduce the database size. The test patterns are attached. I don't have anything specifically for focus, but for the HS-51 I usually just look for the screen door in something white such as the Windows cursor. When focus is perfect you can clearly see the black lines between the white pixels.

Thanks, jschefdog, for the tip on fine-tuning the focus. I was also able to download the test pattern zip file. It appears that I could not just open the file directly from the AVS forum. I have to first save it to my hard drive and then open it. Thanks again.

I have now logged in about 25 hours of viewing with my new projector and it is awesome.
Did a preliminary tweak with AVIA in the Cinema mode (low lamp mode.)

Installed a good quality component video cable between my Dish 811 and the HS51A (through my Denon 3805) as a temporary connect until I get the correct F-DVI to M-HDMI adapter. Will eventually do a component vs. HDMI comparison.

Installed a feed from my Dell laptop using the D-sub 15 pin connector and the APA(Auto Pixel Alignment) program in the HS51A seems to have worked perfectly: computer screen picture is very clear and slide shows from my digital camera are great.

Yesterday watched the Senior Bowl Game on ESPN-HD, the documentary "Great Africa" on Equator-HD, and the Gatti-Daamgard fight on HBO-HD and the picture quality was fantastic.

For me SDE is NOT A PROBLEM. At 13 feet viewing distance (1.5X) for my Carada 118" BW screen you really have to stare at bright white regions to get to the point that you "think" you see SDE. At 10 feet you do see SDE but only in bright solid color areas.

So far I'd say that low lamp mode will suffice for most viewing situations, since I have total light control and very dark ceiling and walls.

Only one very, very minor complaint: why didn't Sony put a power switch on the projector so one doesn't have to unplug it to totally power down the projector?

chasby :)

I have now logged in about 25 hours of viewing with my new projector and it is awesome.
Did a preliminary tweak with AVIA in the Cinema mode (low lamp mode.)

Installed a good quality component video cable between my Dish 811 and the HS51A (through my Denon 3805) as a temporary connect until I get the correct F-DVI to M-HDMI adapter. Will eventually do a component vs. HDMI comparison.

Installed a feed from my Dell laptop using the D-sub 15 pin connector and the APA(Auto Pixel Alignment) program in the HS51A seems to have worked perfectly: computer screen picture is very clear and slide shows from my digital camera are great.

Yesterday watched the Senior Bowl Game on ESPN-HD, the documentary "Great Africa" on Equator-HD, and the Gatti-Daamgard fight on HBO-HD and the picture quality was fantastic.

For me SDE is NOT A PROBLEM. At 13 feet viewing distance (1.5X) for my Carada 118" BW screen you really have to stare at bright white regions to get to the point that you "think" you see SDE. At 10 feet you do see SDE but only in bright solid color areas.

So far I'd say that low lamp mode will suffice for most viewing situations, since I have total light control and very dark ceiling and walls.

Only one very, very minor complaint: why didn't Sony put a power switch on the projector so one doesn't have to unplug it to totally power down the projector?

chasby :)

Welcome to the club! :D Glad you're enjoying your new pj! :)

About that power switch, I guess there would always be people who would turn the unit off on that switch without giving the unit time for the cool down period after shuting it down... ;)

Dave.

My New PJ is on the way. I need to know some thing about placement. Can I place my pj on top of a double firing subwoofer. I don't think the subwoofer have any video shield.... will this affect my Sony PJ's video signals.

If this is going to be an issue then I have to place the subwoofer in some other place and make arrangement of some end table since I am not planning to mount it on the celing.

My New PJ is on the way. I need to know some thing about placement. Can I place my pj on top of a double firing subwoofer. I don't think the subwoofer have any video shield.... will this affect my Sony PJ's video signals.

If this is going to be an issue then I have to place the subwoofer in some other place and make arrangement of some end table since I am not planning to mount it on the celing.


You need to be carefull about vibrations!!

get a end table or somthing , where have you got your subwoofer located?

My New PJ is on the way. I need to know some thing about placement. Can I place my pj on top of a double firing subwoofer. I don't think the subwoofer have any video shield.... will this affect my Sony PJ's video signals.

If this is going to be an issue then I have to place the subwoofer in some other place and make arrangement of some end table since I am not planning to mount it on the celing.

There is no way I would ever put my $3500 investment on top of a subwoofer. That’s just asking for trouble, in my opinion.

get a end table or somthing , where have you got your subwoofer located?

I placed subwoofer away from Screen area to side of viewer's sofa side to hide the big guy.

My 51A came today and the included ID SW is Windoze only. The manual says the adjustment range is somewhat limited. Has anyone used the SW? and was it worth the effort? I will have to have a friend bring his laptop over to use the ID and don't want to bother if there isn't much improvement to had.

Thanks for any info.

M./

Received and installed my HS60 last night. I bought an Australian model from forum member Sime (great price and transaction by the way), replaced the IEC and fired it up.

It's projecting onto an 84" white Carada screen and the results are great. The black levels almost remind me of CRT, certainly much, much better than the blacks on the Sony Grand Wega II LCD RPTV it's replacing.

Screen door is minimual from 10' viewing distance, the fan noise is very very low (much lower than the GWII's fan) and colors are great.

Via AVIA, the color decoder looked almost perfect at factory settings and only needed the slightest tweaking.

Great projector.

I found an new Service Menu tweak worth looking into.

Once you are in the FACTORY service mode, go to the bottom menu below W/B, then go into DISPLAY ENGINE. Look for...

04 DE/UF SW = 1 try changing it to 0.

This controls the GAMMA shading section inf the Service menu, 1 = ON, 0 = OFF.

When you put up full field grayscale test patterns, and you go from 0 to 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 & 100, do any of the patterns appear to be a little more red on one side/corner and blue on the opposite side/corner? If yes, try watching one of the test patterns while changing 04 DE/UF SW to 0. You will see the side to side red/blue bias disappear.

It has come to my attention Sony does not do a perfect job of programming the GAMMA shading section in the factory service menu. My projector was recently repaired, and while it was restored to it's previous good condition, the GAMMA shading was back to normal but still not perfect. I attempted to pick the most offending luminance level in the GAMMA menu and began writing down the settings while I remapped everything to 0-0-0. I found when I had remapped all 273 point adjustments, all of the red/blue bias error went away. Unfortunately, the setting changes did not stick as they somehow switched back to their previously programed value as I continued to work with the projector.

Hmmm, I thought. Maybe there is a way to turn this GAMMA shaping section off. So I began looking. I found it. Line item #4 of the DISPLAY ENGINE factory menu controls the GAMMA shaping ON/OFF condition.

I'm gonna see if there is a way to SAVE changes within the GAMMA shaping menu, since the SAVE option in the service menu did not work.

If your projector also exhibits a red/blue bias, give this tweak a try and post your results.

Has anybody upgraded from the HS51?
Also does the HDMI input accept 1080p inputs or is it just 1080i. Also is it also 1 to 1 mapping? If some of these were answered in the previous pages, I apologies.
The reason I ask is, that my brother is going to be buying my HS51 and I wondered if I should buy another of the same model or go for the upgrade.
Thanks for your input...

Bytehoven, thanks a lot for this great hint on gamma correction !

Has anybody upgraded from the HS51?
Also does the HDMI input accept 1080p inputs or is it just 1080i. Also is it also 1 to 1 mapping? If some of these were answered in the previous pages, I apologies...
Earlier in this thread it was reported that the HS-60/51a will do 1x1 pixel mapping of a 720P input to HDMI.

In case anyone missed it on the AVS home page, Audioholics has posted a review of the HS-51a (http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/SonyCinezaVPLHS51Ap1.php).

Earlier in this thread it was reported that the HS-60/51a will do 1x1 pixel mapping of a 720P input to HDMI.

nice! so no need to use the HD15 analog input on the 51a/60? yay! :) Would be nice to feed everything to the projector thru just one HDMI cable... and have all my inputs feed into a video processor (never mind that I don't own one yet)...

can someone point out any comparisons between the 51 and 51A? I'm wondering if the 51A is just as quiet, and if the SDE is the same (since I don't have a problem with SDE on my 51.)

Thanks.

Has anyone seen panel misalignments on the HS51A/60?

This was my biggest complain on the HS51s. See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=487169 for more info.

Has anyone seen panel misalignments on the HS51A/60?

This was my biggest complain on the HS51s. See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=487169 for more info.

I just got the 51a in today and have near perfect pixel alignment. Blue may be shifted about 1/2 a pixel. Red and Green are dead on. I calibrated quite a few of the old HS-51s and the ones I saw after the "fix" had been implemented were all perfect as well.

I found an new Service Menu tweak worth looking into.

Once you are in the FACTORY service mode, go to the bottom menu below W/B, then go into DISPLAY ENGINE. Look for...

04 DE/UF SW = 1 try changing it to 0.

This controls the GAMMA shading section inf the Service menu, 1 = ON, 0 = OFF.

When you put up full field grayscale test patterns, and you go from 0 to 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 & 100, do any of the patterns appear to be a little more red on one side/corner and blue on the opposite side/corner? If yes, try watching one of the test patterns while changing 04 DE/UF SW to 0. You will see the side to side red/blue bias disappear.


Are you saying you have perfect color uniformity after this tweak? That's one of the things that has always bothered me about LCD. When looking at a solid colored background (such as skies, snow, etc.) there would always be colored spots or tinting somewhere. I saw this same red/blue gradient on my old HS20 and never considered buying Sony's newer projectors because of the issue. How bad is the vertical banding on your unit?

-Mark

Are you saying you have perfect color uniformity after this tweak? That's one of the things that has always bothered me about LCD. When looking at a solid colored background (such as skies, snow, etc.) there would always be colored spots or tinting somewhere. I saw this same red/blue gradient on my old HS20 and never considered buying Sony's newer projectors because of the issue. How bad is the vertical banding on your unit?

-Mark

Hey Mark.

Yes, since switching the service menu item I mention, I do have the best edge to edge grayscale uniformity thru the entire luminace range. Granted, I did have to recalibrate white balance because turning off the gamma shading made the white balance more blue. But the red push of the gamma shading was not uniform which was also reflected in the numerical settings as I went thru the 273 GAMMA screen points on each of the 11 luminance levels. The gamma shading offsets were directly responsible for my red/blue left/right grayscale uniformity errors. I would recommend anyone try turning off the factory mode line item, and see how it affects your grayscale performance. It had the most impact at the lower and mid luminance values of 10, 20, 30, 40 & 50.

I have never seen VB. Before my projector went in for service and I was doing some very wild calibrations, I was able to arrive at a calibration that produced VB on a light blue sky or under water scene. However, these were extreme calibrations I would never consider using under normal conditions.

I just wanted to post some initial observations on the HS-51a I have in my demo room. I had the older HS-51 for quite a while and have calibrated a few of them. It was never easy. The new 51a was much easier for an initial calibration. I do not know what Sony has done but the unit is tracking grayscale much more linear. Gamma is still a touch off though. There are no wild swings in color balance like I used to experience with the old 51a. I have only done a quick calibration and I plan on doing some serious tweaking as soon as I get some more hours on the bulb. Colors are very good. Primaries are nearly exactly on target and secondaries are perfect. I have a AE900 on hand to do some comparisons and a BenQ 8720 just left for its new owner. I must say there is no perfect projector between the 3 but the Sony has more strengths than weaknesses. If RBE is not an issue, the 8720 wins due to its increase brightness and less SDE but contrast and blacks on the Sony are right there. I mean they are dead even. Colors on the Sony are more saturated and a good bit better to my eyes. The Panny can't compete in the blacks dept, even with a filter but it is so much smoother and SDE becomes an issue with the Sony inside 1.8x. The Panny is also brighter. Overall, the 51a is an evolution for Sony. Paired with the right screen in a light controlled room and the right veiwing distance, it is definitely the 720p PJ to beat.

I just wanted to post some initial observations on the HS-51a I have in my demo room. I had the older HS-51 for quite a while and have calibrated a few of them. It was never easy. The new 51a was much easier for an initial calibration. I do not know what Sony has done but the unit is tracking grayscale much more linear. Gamma is still a touch off though. There are no wild swings in color balance like I used to experience with the old 51a. I have only done a quick calibration and I plan on doing some serious tweaking as soon as I get some more hours on the bulb. Colors are very good. Primaries are nearly exactly on target and secondaries are perfect. I have a AE900 on hand to do some comparisons and a BenQ 8720 just left for its new owner. I must say there is no perfect projector between the 3 but the Sony has more strengths than weaknesses. If RBE is not an issue, the 8720 wins due to its increase brightness and less SDE but contrast and blacks on the Sony are right there. I mean they are dead even. Colors on the Sony are more saturated and a good bit better to my eyes. The Panny can't compete in the blacks dept, even with a filter but it is so much smoother and SDE becomes an issue with the Sony inside 1.8x. The Panny is also brighter. Overall, the 51a is an evolution for Sony. Paired with the right screen in a light controlled room and the right veiwing distance, it is definitely the 720p PJ to beat.

Love some calibration tips! :) ..........please!

Maybe we need a tweak thread.

Having no ABC-HD I experimented to get the best SuperBowl picture on my new HS-51A. My great-room HT (with Hitachi 65TWX, Anthem AVM-20, and Dish 501) is connected to my dedicated light controlled HT (Sony HS-51A, Denon 3805, Dish 811) via an Anthem 2nd zone 50' S-video cable.
To my great surprise the best picture quality was using that wierd combination of:
Dish 501 to Anthem AVM-20 to Denon 3805 to Sony HS-51A (S-video input.)
Of course the 501 puts out a 480i 4:3 picture which is the aspect I used to view the game.
Bottom line is the HS-51A puts out a very watchable SD picture!!

chasby :)

Hello everyone! I have been searching and searching for some info and I cant get a clear answer, not even from the dealer. I am upgrading to the HS51 and I can get it for $2600, BUT should I pay the extra 500 bucks to get the HS51A instead? Is it that big of a difference? Thanks, and please be easy on this newbie! :D I have had my sharpvision projector for almost 12 years and its time to replace it, FINALLY!

~jon

Hi,
My opinion (worth what you paid for it. :)
...it comes down to: is $500 a lot of money to you?

To me, the 51A is not worth $500 more than the 51. (I own the 51.) I'd say get the 51, and use the $500 to start saving for when you upgrade to a nice 1080p projector in 3-5 years. :) I paid about the same for my 51 last year, but I'm only planning on keeping it until awesome 1080p projectors are available in the uder $3k price range...

Check Ebay for the 51A if you're comfortable with that. There seems to be a few legit sellers there with prices in the same range as the 51. Make sure you'll be getting a receipt from an authorized dealer. Good Luck.

Hey Mark.

Yes, since switching the service menu item I mention, I do have the best edge to edge grayscale uniformity thru the entire luminace range. Granted, I did have to recalibrate white balance because turning off the gamma shading made the white balance more blue. But the red push of the gamma shading was not uniform which was also reflected in the numerical settings as I went thru the 273 GAMMA screen points on each of the 11 luminance levels. The gamma shading offsets were directly responsible for my red/blue left/right grayscale uniformity errors. I would recommend anyone try turning off the factory mode line item, and see how it affects your grayscale performance. It had the most impact at the lower and mid luminance values of 10, 20, 30, 40 & 50.

I have never seen VB. Before my projector went in for service and I was doing some very wild calibrations, I was able to arrive at a calibration that produced VB on a light blue sky or under water scene. However, these were extreme calibrations I would never consider using under normal conditions.

I finally tried your "shading tweak" last night. I'm afraid it didn't work out for me. :( Changing that #4 value from 1 to 0 (which probably, like you said, disables the gamma shading adjustments) produced very visible spots of red/pink and blue/green on most luminance values, from dark to bright (I use an HTPC), which means that Sony's calibration, although imperfect, is better than not having it at all (in my case). I guess I'll have to try the "normal" route of adjusting the thing by eye, when I get the time and courage. :rolleyes:

BTW, on the gamma menu, for the various (11) shades of gray, on my unit they are all a little biased towards green. Is your unit like this too?

Finally, concerning VB, on my HS60 and my previous HS50, I can see it on the green panel. It’s easy, using the HTPC. I just set a picture to all-green (using "paintbrush", or whatever). This shows that the VB is mostly visible on this panel, as other colors (red, blue and combinations of these colors) don't show it. My VB is not pronounced. I can live with it because it's not visible on most movies. But I wish there was a way to tweak it. Particularly there are two darker stripes on the left side of the screen that are in the green panel and which are easier to spot during some movie scenes (yellowish landscapes or light-gray backgrounds), that I wish I could edit out...

One funny idea that occur me was to do it on the source (not the ideal situation, of course). As I use an HTPC, it was a matter of having a filter to apply to the whole image to counteract the effect. This could also apply to shading, although it would probably be even more complicated to implement (different settings depending on luminance... ok, back to earth... :p ).

Dave.

BTW, on the gamma menu, for the various (11) shades of gray, on my unit they are all a little biased towards green. Is your unit like this too?

Dave.

Hmmmm, interesting.

My gamma adjustments did not have a green adjustment at any point on any screen. Most of the adjustments were to the (+) RED and (-) BLUE, and as I said these adjustments were consistent with the bias error I was seeing in the gray scale patterns.

I would note I was only able to try the gamma shading disable tweak on my repaired projector. I never tried it with the old prism block.

Thanks for checking your rig.

Hmmmm, interesting.

My gamma adjustments did not have a green adjustment at any point on any screen. Most of the adjustments were to the (+) RED and (-) BLUE, and as I said these adjustments were consistent with the bias error I was seeing in the gray scale patterns.

I would note I was only able to try the gamma shading disable tweak on my repaired projector. I never tried it with the old prism block.

Thanks for checking your rig.

Sorry, I think you misunderstood me. What I meant is that the supposed 11 shades of gray are all a little greenish in appearance. I was not referring to the menu's color adjustment values, just to the whole appearance of the image. For example, on level 11, instead of a close-to-D65 white I get a visibly greenish white, and the same for the other gray levels (they all look a little bit green). I just wanted to know if your unit is also like this (it's probably normal, because the idea is just to get an uniformly-colored picture; color temperature calibration is not the purpose of this menu...).

Dave.

Once again we thank Byte for a great find!

The 04 line item in the factory menu works exactly as you describe - it turns gamma shading on or off, essentially causing all gamma shading to be zeroed out.

I have already spent a lot of time manually adjusting the shading in the lower IREs. Because of this, when I turn gamma shading OFF, it results is a slightly worse picture at the lowest IREs. However, I have yet to tackle the higher IREs, and when I turn shading control off, it results in substantially improved shading at higher levels.

Based upon my results, and the reports of many others, it seems that Sony's factory shading equipment is seriously flawed. Many (if not all) reports have been of the same shading problems in the same areas of the image. As turning shading gamma OFF seems to result in a better picture, it seems that Sony's calibration equipment is actually making the shading worse than no calibration at all. It would be nice if more users would test this. I also hope that Byte will report this back to Sony, and they can either adjust or replace their calibrator, or stop calibrating altogether.

One of the best tweaks for this unit may be to turn this control off. Apparently this will result in a much more uniform picture with very little effort.

As the IREs I have already spent hours adjusting are slightly better than the control OFF setting, it does appear that one can improve on the OFF setting - if one wants to spend the time. For those who do, using this control is a great tool! Switching on and off as you view makes it much easier to see exactly where and at which levels your problems are. I’ve been putting off the work of tackling the higher IREs, but now I’m sure I can do it much faster thanks to this trick.

Lastly - I agree with Eric. I really wish there was a consolidated tweak thread for the 50/60 - as there is for the Panny machines. These Sonys are tricky to adjust, and there have been many excellent posts with great info on ways to improve the picture. Quite a few members have spent much time posting solid information. It’s a shame it’s buried in these massive threads among the speculations, screen opinions, scaler discussions, etc.

Perhaps someone has been bookmarking the hard tweaks, and will have the time to consolidate them.

Thanks again Byte,

Pip

Dave:

You posted while I was writing. I take it that your machine is a 60? Perhaps the factory shading on the 60s is better than the 50s? Maybe Sony has a new and improved shading calibrator? I hope more members will try this and post their findings.

Yes - the level screens one sees when adjusting gamma are green and not gray. I've no idea why. Because they are green, I've never been able to use these screens to see where the shading problems are. I use gray scale patterns, fields, or black and white material. One has to guess which gamma level corresponds to what IRE level - it isn't easy or straightforward.

Pip

I finally tried your "shading tweak" last night. I'm afraid it didn't work out for me. :( Changing that #4 value from 1 to 0 (which probably, like you said, disables the gamma shading adjustments) produced very visible spots of red/pink and blue/green on most luminance values, from dark to bright (I use an HTPC), which means that Sony's calibration, although imperfect, is better than not having it at all (in my case). I guess I'll have to try the "normal" route of adjusting the thing by eye, when I get the time and courage. :rolleyes:

BTW, on the gamma menu, for the various (11) shades of gray, on my unit they are all a little biased towards green. Is your unit like this too?

Finally, concerning VB, on my HS60 and my previous HS50, I can see it on the green panel. It’s easy, using the HTPC. I just set a picture to all-green (using "paintbrush", or whatever). This shows that the VB is mostly visible on this panel, as other colors (red, blue and combinations of these colors) don't show it. My VB is not pronounced. I can live with it because it's not visible on most movies. But I wish there was a way to tweak it. Particularly there are two darker stripes on the left side of the screen that are in the green panel and which are easier to spot during some movie scenes (yellowish landscapes or light-gray backgrounds), that I wish I could edit out...

One funny idea that occur me was to do it on the source (not the ideal situation, of course). As I use an HTPC, it was a matter of having a filter to apply to the whole image to counteract the effect. This could also apply to shading, although it would probably be even more complicated to implement (different settings depending on luminance... ok, back to earth... :p ).

Dave.


Yes , i have a little VB on the green panel , i search a tweak me too.

Can I try the GAMMA tweak on the HS51? If so, I forget how to get to the service menu. I have red and blue color on the sides of my greyscale test patterns as well.

Yes you can. It may be even more helpful on the 51 than on the 60/51A.

For this you need the factory menu: ENTER, ENTER, LEFT, ENTER; then up when prompted.

Pip

Hello everyone! I have been searching and searching for some info and I cant get a clear answer, not even from the dealer. I am upgrading to the HS51 and I can get it for $2600, BUT should I pay the extra 500 bucks to get the HS51A instead? Is it that big of a difference? Thanks, and please be easy on this newbie! :D I have had my sharpvision projector for almost 12 years and its time to replace it, FINALLY!

~jon

WHY be always BEHIND the current -{best Blast}

Bite the bullit and get the HS 60........at least it will STILL have some value compared too,... if you spent less and bought a secondhand unit,.....which you most probably would not even be able to pass on.

It truly is a great unit,Iv'e had one for three months now-bought it because my NEC CRT PJ broke down........the closest I could get!

Thanks guys for your input! I got the HS51A, and it rocks! I have some tweaking to do to make it perfect, but my dvd's have never looked better!

~jon

Is there any interest in starting a 51A/60 calibration/tweaking thread?

I hope to have a 51A in the next week or so, and I look forward to posting some info.

Yes, I think a somewhat cleaner slate for the new model would be good. The info on the 51 might not be all that applicable and now that they are readily available there will be more and more people who need info.

I can contribute some things for newbies as the manual leaves a lot to be desired as to the user interface for the 6 user settings. I had to sort them out for myself and went in circles for a while.

Also I used your general settings posted a couple of days ago and the image pumped up nicely so I do think that the work you are doing in the trenches is usable by others who may not want to get into heavy calibrations themselves but could use some advice on getting into a nicer ballpark.

I'm still mulling over wading in with a Spyder2Pro/GetGrey disc so maybe there will end being advice based on a number of different calibration schemes.

Thanks,

M./

I started a new calibration/tweak thread for the HS-60/51A. I have asked David for sticky status.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=644116

Please consider posting all new calibration and tweak information in the new thread. You might also consider moving any previous tweak info you have posted over to the new thread.

That’s grate Byte,

Thanks for starting a new thread. I just got my HS51A last week and am so far vary happy with it. Its everything I thought it would be and more, but as the story go's there is always room for improvement. So lets get tweaking.

I had the opportunity to audition the HS60 yesterday and have to say very disappointing.
I have the HS50 and have been very satisfied with the image it produces -even though a bit on the dim side.
The HS60 is dim, I mean really dim .
The machine was being displayed by Sony here in Perth , in a light controlled room .The bulb only had burned 30 hours.
Immediately afterwards I had a quick look at a Sim2 -Domino.
Different class -ok more than twice the price of the HS60 , but for me the HS60 unwatchable.

Sniff, Sniff.... I smell ********.

Most likely cause for this comment is the fact that everybody is saying what an improvement the HS60 is over the 50 and that makes his purchase seem less valuable.

I really can't see any point in Sony releasing an inferior product. And I see even less reason for folks like Robert, who've compared the two, to say there's a very worthwhile difference.

Just the thought's of a HS50 owner.

That seems rather harsh, essentially saying he's lying to justify his purchase. I'd say it's more likely the unit he saw has a defective bulb; it's not at all uncommon.

Greetings,

OK I finally posted my review of the HS51A last night. At the urging (complaints) of some, as I ususally don't talk about calibration (other than whether a projector badly needs it), I did post the RGB gain and bias settings I came up with after about an hour with Avia Pro. (Yes I could have spent more time, but I got color temp at 30 IRE and 80 IRE within +/- 10 of 6500K...) - a good time to quit.

For those of you curious:
http://www.projectorreviews.com/manufacturers/sony/hs51A.asp

PS, I have to return the projector to Sony in a couple of days, but before I do, additional info will be added to the review this week, including side by side images of the Sony against, the Optoma HD72, the Optoma H78DC3, and BenQ PE7700, and hopefully the Panny AE900u (if my webmaster will let me borrow his).

PPS. As noted in the review, this unit came to me with about 255 hours on the lamp, (from their pool of review units, and also, I can't tell if it is a full production unit, or late pre-production. (The manual isn't bound, so I suspect that this was an early unit). By the same token, manufacturers tend to make sure their review units are in top shape, which is why they are usually referred to as "golden" units.

Many manufacturers do not want reviewers using projectors borrowed for dealers to make sure we get "good-un's". I recently took a lot of heat from one major manufacturer, for reviewing one of their models that I borrowed from a dealer. They got a good review and were still mad! -art

I think both guys maybe correct in their own way(except the bs part). Since I have to say the HS60 is not a bright projector to start with, n if you pair it with a low gain screen(like I did with a 0.8 gain one), plus a not so well light-controlled room, the picture can be pretty dim. That's why now I have changed to a Stewart Studiotek 130(1.3 gain) n more black-out curtain in the room, the picture now did have enough lumen to make me a happy guy. ;) ;) ;)

I got a 2.5 gain glass beaded screen and it's too bright. It picks up every little bit of ambient light and the blacks are grey unless it is pitch black in the room, and even then it picks up light from my white walls. I will order me a 1.0 or 1.5 gain screen, thats what I had before and it was alot better. UNLESS you guys can recommend an even better screen. The 2.5 would be great for my 12 year old sharpvision though! OHHHH and I hooked up my new XBOX 360 and WOW!!!! IT LOOKS KILLER!!! I just wish they put an upscaling dvd player in it!

~jon

I think both guys maybe correct in their own way(except the bs part). Since I have to say the HS60 is not a bright projector to start with, n if you pair it with a low gain screen(like I did with a 0.8 gain one), plus a not so well light-controlled room, the picture can be pretty dim. That's why now I have changed to a Stewart Studiotek 130(1.3 gain) n more black-out curtain in the room, the picture now did have enough lumen to make me a happy guy. ;) ;) ;)

Here, this might work beter.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/Manufacturers/Sony/HS51A/index.asp

:D

PS edit...

It would be nice to know your service menu RGB gain/bias settings for the color temp you made the offsets.

You could also try the DISPLAY ENGINE menu, Line# 04 DE/UF SW set to (0) to turn off the Gamma Shaing and possibly eliminate the red bias error you saw on the left side of the 30IRE screen.

I would also note there are better street prices than you report and I would be happy to give you some $$$ proof in private so you can go back and declare the HS-51A the HOT winner. :D

Greetings, Bytehoven,

First thanks for correcting the link. That's what I get from typing it in from memory, instead of copy paste.

I did not look inside the service menus. I assume (is that safe) that all HS51A's have the same settings in there.

As I said, this was a quick calibration, and I found, as noted, that the picture, overall looked very good, and the flesh tones were about as good as I could expect. (There's certainly more variation in fleshtones from one DVD to the next than any error on this particular HS51A, with these settings.

I figure that my basic settings might help the average Sony HS51A buyer. As noted before, I don't do my reviews for tweakers - nothing against "you guys", but the folks that go into service menus are a very tiny percentage of the the buying public.

Someone has to address how a projector performs for people who won't do what you guys do. This way, when someone opens their new HS51A and finds the colors a little off, they can try the settings I posted. Not perfect, but definitely closer than out of the box.

As to prices, I will PM you. -art

Presenter,

I know in your review you compared the Sony to a single chip dlp but
for those of us who cannot live with single chip dlp rainbows will you compare the Sony to the Epson 800?
Is the higher cost of the Epson justified in its picture quality?

Brad

Presenter,

I know in your review you compared the Sony to a single chip dlp but
for those of us who cannot live with single chip dlp rainbows will you compare the Sony to the Epson 800?
Is the higher cost of the Epson justified in its picture quality?

Brad

I wish I still had an Epson 800 here. But here goes. You'll find better color out of the box on the Epson, but if you like tweaking, the Sony ends up great - the Epson needs almost none. I was 100% pleased with the color after I did a non-service menu calibration. The Epson's big advantage is that it is a LOT brighter, especially if you are watching HDTV with a fair amount of light.

The Sony is sharper. My screen, a 128" Firehawk is just too big for the Sony. But If I had a 100", I'd pick the Sony. (even if the prices were closer). Hope that helps. -a

May I say I found your PM very interesting.

I would have never thought it would be appropriate to play fast and loose with some real world facts, just to keep your advertisers happy.

I found it offensive you would misrepresent the real world pricing of the HS-51A in your review, play hardball with this false pricing info against the competition, and then end the review by saying "if the street price was $300-$500 lower today, (putting it significantly less expensive than the Optoma), it would have received the award."

Shame on you.

What other journalistic compromises have you made on behalf of your advertisers?

I have no choice but to suspect your entire review, especially when you targeted this HS-60 thread to reference the review and present (maybe even shill) your choosen award winner the Optoma H78DC3.

Harsh criticism? Perhaps, but I'm sure some other AVS readers might provide some balance.


Oh, well, I guess I have to deal with this. As I said in my email, when I talk about general selling prices for a model, I look to authorized direct dealers, you know, the kind that actually may know something about what they are selling. Manufacturers that use distributors instead of managing their own dealers, have more problems with dealers that know nothing, and in many cases dealers that pick up an occasional projector here and there provide service that is sub-par. (IMO). So the prices I post aren't the lowest. I make no claim that they are, and I, as I said, am not a shopping service. I made a sound business decision, to do the pricing the way I do, for various factors, and the reasons I don't go looking for the lowest price on the internet, and report it are:
1. That's not what I do - not a shopping service
2. I keep the prices I quote between different models consistant, as I went through on the email to you. And the price you got your Sony for is about $400 below the price of the H78DC3 from a direct authorized dealer after the $400 value of the free lamp, which I told you. There is only a $400 difference +/- any way you look at it. And that's whether you shop for the lowest prices or the average price.
My numbers are correct, and the net prices are that close. And I'll stick by my opinion that the H78DC3 is a better projector for people without Rainbow problems, or lens throw requirements, etc., don't come into play. But different people like different things. If the lowest net price of the Sony were around $800 or so less than the Optoma H78DC3 I would have considered it a significantly less expensive projector, and I would have given it the Award. As it is, the Sony is about $400 less than the Optoma, (whether you compare lowest prices or average prices of direct authorized dealers doesn't matter.

Now lastly, there is not a journalistic compromise issue here at all, your logic is faulty I'm one of the very few reviewers that even tries to put street prices in perspective. Most just quote MAP or list price and are done with it. Journalistic compromises are why few reviews really compare projectors against each other, and why so few shootouts are ever seen. It's them pesky advertisers. (they don't like advertising in a magazine in a comparison review edition if they don't win the comparison). Read reviews in most magazines, every projector is either very good, really really good, or great.

But more importantly, since you challenge my integrity, I write about projectors, I've been a "high end" semi-tweaker person for 35 years, modifying tube audio amps and comparing two phono cartridges side by side on identical turntables, back in the old days when I managed high end/esoteric audio stores. [B] Point is: I do this for a living because its fun.[ And it wouldn't be fun if I was making stuff up./B]

I take my projectors very seriously, and with about a dozen and half HT projector reviews posted on my site in the last 2 years, and letting all the forum folks know about them, I get lots of feedback, and never not had any one of many hundreds of emails complain that the info I was providing was false and misleading. But then, I thought you actually read the review. Am I wrong, is the Sony one of the brighter projectors, does it have great fleshtones out of the box, does it not calibrate beautifully (final result), etc. I've disagreed with some, but...

I believe my integrity is fully intact.

An apology would be nice, but, jeez, its the AVSforum. -art

Greetings, Bytehoven,

First thanks for correcting the link. That's what I get from typing it in from memory, instead of copy paste.

I did not look inside the service menus. I assume (is that safe) that all HS51A's have the same settings in there.

As I said, this was a quick calibration, and I found, as noted, that the picture, overall looked very good, and the flesh tones were about as good as I could expect. (There's certainly more variation in fleshtones from one DVD to the next than any error on this particular HS51A, with these settings.

I figure that my basic settings might help the average Sony HS51A buyer. As noted before, I don't do my reviews for tweakers - nothing against "you guys", but the folks that go into service menus are a very tiny percentage of the the buying public.

Someone has to address how a projector performs for people who won't do what you guys do. This way, when someone opens their new HS51A and finds the colors a little off, they can try the settings I posted. Not perfect, but definitely closer than out of the box.

As to prices, I will PM you. -art

The pictures of the Sony in the review look like the Sony HS51 not the 51A, the HS51 has a chrome ring surrounding the lens where as the HS51A/HS60 has a black ring in it's place.........correct?.....what gives.....?!

Sorry, there was an important #3 above. Since it was the point you were making
3. If I did reviews and made a point of "being a shopping service" and posting the lowest prices, I wouldn't have advertisers. So I chose typical prices of direct authorized dealers. And as I said, people who want the lowest prices will find them (good dealer or bad). And I don't say, these are the lowest prices.
-art

I'll be back in a few of days, to let you guys know when the side by side Sony comparsion photos to the H78DC3, BenQ PE7700, Optoma HD72, and hopefully the Panny 900u are up.

Sorry, there was an important #3 above. Since it was the point you were making
3. If I did reviews and made a point of "being a shopping service" and posting the lowest prices, I wouldn't have advertisers. So I chose typical prices of direct authorized dealers. And as I said, people who want the lowest prices will find them (good dealer or bad). And I don't say, these are the lowest prices.
-art

I'll be back in a few of days, to let you guys know when the side by side Sony comparsion photos to the H78DC3, BenQ PE7700, Optoma HD72, and hopefully the Panny 900u are up.


I'm new to this forum (about 6 weeks) and so am not completely up to speed on this forums policies but I have been online since 1984 and on the 'Net since 1993 (prior to Mosiac the first browser). All during that time, the action of notifying info sources (whether they were newsgroups, forums etc.) of your commercial site as you have done above was considered spamming (even before the term spamming was coined).

You are using this site as a free ad medium for your advertiser based site. You seem to be waging a one man campaign along these lines

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/evil/did-nvidia-hire-online-actors-to-promote-their-products-152874.php

Do you charge your advertisers by clicks throughs? monthly page sponsorship? or impressions?

If I wanted to be extra cynical I would say you are trying to spam the search engines by embedding links from this very popular site back to your site. On an espresso site I frequent the site admin would delete your posts and links for this type of behavior.

Overall Art, your entire presentation here from the beginning has felt a little (maybe more than a little) hinky.

What's up?

M./

Hm, dunno about pricing in the US, but here in Europe the HS60 costs half as much as the Optoma H79, which should be the same as the H78DC3. I mean it's not like some hundreds Euros less, but two thousand Euros less (and last time I checked, 1 Euro was worth about $1.2).
So no matter what prices are in the US, the Optoma is not nearly an alternative for the HS60 around here. Not to speak of fast dimming lamps in many Optomas and the darned rainbows.
Apart from that, the Optoma is a nice projector as well, it's just I could buy two HS60 for the same price.

I have ordered my PJ and need a recommendation on a good ceiling mount. Looked at the Ominmount PMD and the Sony proprietary mount. Any pros, cons or indifference?

Would appreciate any info.

Thanks. JK

I have ordered my PJ and need a recommendation on a good ceiling mount. Looked at the Ominmount PMD and the Sony proprietary mount. Any pros, cons or indifference?

Would appreciate any info.

Thanks. JK

When I was considering using a ceiling mount I looked at both carefully (online) and felt the Omni was the better deal both price-wise and for a clean look.

M./

I'm using the peerless universal mount w/ the spider mount plate, and while it works, it doesn't allow you to really lock down the adjustments. If I accidentally bump the PJ, it can move in the mount a little. Also, unless you're using a threaded rod to attach it, the rotational adjustment is very difficult to get correct.

In the US, the Sony's lowest prices online are about $700 $800 or so below the Optoma H78dc3. But Optoma is giving away a free lamp. That puts the difference at about $400.

The lowest price on the Sanyo z4 and the Panasonic (also from direct authorized dealers seems to be about $400-$500 below the Sony, but The Panasonic has an additional $400 rebate plus $300 of blockbuster rentals (if anyone cares). The Z4, like the Optma has a free lamp - value about $400. So the net price of the Sony is much closer to the Optoma than the Sony. And that's my point. $300-$400 dif to the Optoma, vs $800 Dif to the Z4 or Panny.

Presenter I don't usually confront members, in fact I don't think I ever have but your posts are getting annoying and approach thread crapping.
This is a thread about the Sony VPL-HS51A\60 not the Optoma\Panny\BENQ anything. They have their own threads.
It's also not about generating hits for your website.

If you have some info for improving the PQ of the HS-60 great, I'm all eyes.
If you want to post on AVS about your impressions, super.

Personally I don't care about out-of-the-box performance comparisons except as a starting point and I'd be willing to venture that 99.9% of the
members on this forum don't care either. That's why we're here. That's why this thread is here.
I'm really not trying to chase you off or get in your face, just requesting that you post something relevant to the topic.
Thanks.

I try to, but all my long emails are in direct response to personal attacks. People quibbling about whether one projector is in the same price range as another. I'd much rather be answering questions about SDE or screen recommendations.

I think my reviews do have useful info for all but the hard core tweakers. However, I didn't start the whole thing (at least I don't think I did) about which projector is better - on this thread. That was in the review and it upset a lot of Sony users.

Easy solution. I'm gone from this thread. Have fun. If someone wants to ask me a real question or get an opinion that might actually be helpful to them, instead of just bitching that I didn't think the Sony was the best projector on the market, they can email me at my website. I rarely check PM's here because its the same kind of attack stuff. Now those that want, can waste their time bitching anyway, but I won't be reading... bye!

I am not sure how I feel about the recent posts on this thread. I did try to warn Art several months ago about posting comments on this forum without providing full disclosure of his advertising relationships. We all must accept that advertising is necessary to support the independent reviewers of projectors and other home theater products (even Art has to eat). I even with the knowledge that Art site is supported by advertisers and by a company that he used to own, I read with great interest his reviews on projectors. Taking his comments along with the reviews from other online review sites, I am comfortable that have enough information to make a knowledgeable purchase. Yes, being closely aligned with advertisers give the impression of bias, but what reviewer of high-end home entertainment products is totally independent? I hope that we are open enough on this forum to accept a variety of different opinions and reviewer thoughts on these products and let each product raise or fall in market place based on its own merits. As far as prices: I truly believe that a person who is savvy enough to find Art’s website and AVS Forum, is also smart enough to google, Sony HS-51A and come up with the lowest price on the web. Art’s reviews have provided me with valuable information, but like all reviews they should be validated by other sources. I, for one, will miss Art’s contributions to general body of knowledge about products that only a few of us will ever actually see. Am I Art supporter, contrary so – I am been for his biggest critics for not fully disclosing his business relationships when discussing the merits of products. I would encourage Art to continue to read this forum just to find out what the hardcore AVS’er is thinking; so that his reviews will also consider our needs and don’t let a couple of posters limit his involvement.

Let’s live in the real world. There are several expert posters on the forum who are in the AV business – why else would an “expert” be hanging around here?

I found some new factory menu adjustments worth looking into, and I thought I would copy them here until the new tweaking thread takes off.

For those folks who notice a little EE on the 60/51A, even with the sharpness set to OFF.

DISPLAY ENGINE

25 DE/HPF ON = 1 Turning this to (0) eliminates EE visible around dark letters & lines. You can see an apparent shift to a softer image.

26 DE/HPF TAP = 1 With Line 25 set to (1), this control has a range of 0-3. Setting to 3 moves the EE around dark letters to the left. Setting to (0) completely center the EE, while manitaining a very slight edge detail enhancement.

Both of these appear to be High Pass Filter (HPF) controls. Check them out.

Are these tweaks for 51a or 51 also?

I did not try them on the 51, but they work on the 51A.

I found setting 25 DE/HPF ON = 0 basically turns OFF the sharpness control.

Setting 26 DE/HPF TAP = 0, 1, 2 or 3 defines the range and degree of sharpness characteristics. I found I prefer 0 as there is still some edge effect to the sharpness control, but the smallest false edge.


Is there still some shapening action when the user (remote) control is set to the minimum?

Are you seeing a false edge in watching movies/TV or only in looking for an edge on test images?

Thanks,

M./

I kind of agree with you that we should not chase away any expert or non-expert advice. Since we want to hear all the tweak or comment coming from every angle, in order to bring out the best in our investment. To trust one's opinion or not is all up to your own judgement.

However, for all those people in the AV business n want to express their view here, it would only be fair to state their background before putting out the comment. Since the last thing people want to read is, this place becoming a ONE-man forum.







I am not sure how I feel about the recent posts on this thread. I did try to warn Art several months ago about posting comments on this forum without providing full disclosure of his advertising relationships. We all must accept that advertising is necessary to support the independent reviewers of projectors and other home theater products (even Art has to eat). I even with the knowledge that Art site is supported by advertisers and by a company that he used to own, I read with great interest his reviews on projectors. Taking his comments along with the reviews from other online review sites, I am comfortable that have enough information to make a knowledgeable purchase. Yes, being closely aligned with advertisers give the impression of bias, but what reviewer of high-end home entertainment products is totally independent? I hope that we are open enough on this forum to accept a variety of different opinions and reviewer thoughts on these products and let each product raise or fall in market place based on its own merits. As far as prices: I truly believe that a person who is savvy enough to find Art’s website and AVS Forum, is also smart enough to google, Sony HS-51A and come up with the lowest price on the web. Art’s reviews have provided me with valuable information, but like all reviews they should be validated by other sources. I, for one, will miss Art’s contributions to general body of knowledge about products that only a few of us will ever actually see. Am I Art supporter, contrary so – I am been for his biggest critics for not fully disclosing his business relationships when discussing the merits of products. I would encourage Art to continue to read this forum just to find out what the hardcore AVS’er is thinking; so that his reviews will also consider our needs and don’t let a couple of posters limit his involvement.

Let’s live in the real world. There are several expert posters on the forum who are in the AV business – why else would an “expert” be hanging around here?

Edited... please read the forum rules.

BTW, on the gamma menu, for the various (11) shades of gray, on my unit they are all a little biased towards green. Is your unit like this too?

Dave.


Hi Dave...

I just wanted to confirm on my new 51A, the gamma shading menu is blown out blue/green as well. The 51 had a normal color temp gray/white, but the 51A does not.

I am checking this with Sony, asking if there is a toggle somewhere in the service menu for setting the gamma shading area back to a normal and useable state. As it is, it's impossible to know if gamma shading problems exist on any of the 11 video levels.

RJ
...

Hi Dave...

I just wanted to confirm on my new 51A, the gamma shading menu is blown out blue/green as well. The 51 had a normal color temp gray/white, but the 51A does not.

I am checking this with Sony, asking if there is a toggle somewhere in the service menu for setting the gamma shading area back to a normal and useable state. As it is, it's impossible to know if gamma shading problems exist on any of the 11 video levels.

RJ
...

Hi there, Bytehoven! I was almost sure that my previous hs50's gamma levels were also normal gray/white, but thanks for confirming it! That blue/green bias does make it more difficult to calibrate "by eye". Maybe this has something to do with a new way of automatic machine calibration that works better with this weird color temp?

Dave.

My HS51 gamma levels have always been green, making it very difficult to adjust. I hope you find a way to make them gray.

Pip

If you go into DISPLAY ENGINE to line

18 USC ON = 1 if you turn this to (0), you get the same blown our green/blue image as when entering Gamma Shading. This setting on (0) is basically bypassing all of the RGB Gain/Bias controls as well as the master contrast, brightness, hue, color controls, meaning these controls no longer function on the image.

I found it is possible to then use the PANEL DRIVER OFFSET & GAIN RGB controls to get back a normal grayscale which is displayed in the GAMMA shading menu, but these changes then affect the global settings for everything else via their offsets. Basically, an interesting find but not a practical solution.

I plan to go thru all of the factory menus and compare their settings to the values noted in the HS-51 service manual.

Has anyone gotten a HS-60/51A service manual yet? If yes, I would love to compare notes and see where they differ.

Byte:

Some additional comments on the shading problem:

The only way I've been able to make adjustments has been by viewing gray fields from AVIA, and guessing which of the "levels" corresponds to which IREs. Your new on/off switch has made this process much easier. Adjustment of gamma shading is a very difficult and tedious process to begin with, and as you say, it is made that much more frustrating by the green screens.

Without reviving the Presenter controversy, one valuable aspect of his review was the photo of a gray field at 30 IRE. This clearly shows that the Sony factory shading calibration is still very poor. It also shows the same sides of the image being red and blue/green as has been reported by many members. From all observations, Sony is miscalibrating the shading in a very consistent manner, leading to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with their equipment or method.

I own an HS51, and I love many aspects of Sony’s projectors. While this shading problem is rarely an issue with color material, the severity of it is unacceptable with black and white material. Black and white movies are not supposed to be multicolored. I’ve inspected quite a few Yamaha LCDs for shading, and have never seen one with the slightest problem.

Based on the information from this forum, it seems like Sony’s shading problem is caused buy faulty equipment rather than carelessness. I hope you can help them make progress with this issue.

Thanks so much for all the work you have done, and keep us posted on your new find.

Pip

Hi all, well l finally had a demo of this pj and was very impressed with the pq, the only thing that left me wanting was its dimness in dark scenes ....the guy demoing it was running it in dynamic mode too so l'm wondering if there is anyway to get around this as it would be even worse running in low lamp mode l presume....otherwise l would buy this at the drop of a hat ( it was being shown on a lpmorgan galleria screen 1.1 gain ........shame you cant run a higher wattage globe or somthing, anyway if anyone has any hints/ ideas to get better detail in dark scenes and a bit more grunt out of this l'll buy it for sure ( maybe a supernova would fix it ).cheers ken

Hi all, well l finally had a demo of this pj and was very impressed with the pq, the only thing that left me wanting was its dimness in dark scenes ....the guy demoing it was running it in dynamic mode too so l'm wondering if there is anyway to get around this as it would be even worse running in low lamp mode l presume....otherwise l would buy this at the drop of a hat ( it was being shown on a lpmorgan galleria screen 1.1 gain ........shame you cant run a higher wattage globe or somthing, anyway if anyone has any hints/ ideas to get better detail in dark scenes and a bit more grunt out of this l'll buy it for sure ( maybe a supernova would fix it ).cheers ken

I'm not sure what you mean by "dimness in dark scenes".

One way to get better shadow detail is to use GAMMA 2 or 3. Both of these raise the gamma level in a way that is particularly effective with lower and mid luminance values. In fact, Gamma 2 and 3 are closer to what should be considered as a flat gamma response, while gamma 1 and OFF reproduce lower luminance values darker than they should be. I use gamma 2. There is also software for creating custom gamma settings which could do a better job than the ones provided by Sony.

Dynamic Mode use the Iris OFF mode, and it's not going to be as dark as the projector can be under the Auto Iris mode. I only use Dynamic Mode the HI lamp when watching sports with some lights on in the room.

ok, so gamma adjustment will help the luminance problem in darker scenes thats good to know,what screen are you using for the projector bytehoven?also another thing that concerned me was this was running dynamic mode on a new globe...things will get a lot dimmer down the track all things being eqaul.........how do you compare the hs60 for luminance compared to say a panny700? l also had a look at a z4.......lot more luminance of course but didnt have those blacks that l wanted and dlp is out for me as my daughter cant handle them....cheers and thanks for responding hope this can be an option for us as l really like the pj otherwise....ken

I have not had the chance to compare the Sony to any other LCDs. Some other folks have, but I have stayed focused on squeezing every bit of performance out of the Sony.

I have been able to make some comparisons to the 51/50 and the 51A/60, and they are very close in performance.

I have (2) screens. I have a 92" DaLite High Power for personal viewing from about 13'. This screen is awesome and worth trying if you can mount the projector in the right place. I also have a 86" ultra white Matte screen I use when I have a full house because the image brightness is uniform throught the room. You have to be in the sweet spot with the HP to feel the magic.

What size screen will you be using?

If you have to use High power lamp mode, don't worry about it, just do it. A replacement lamp is only $250 if you shop around, so don't skimp on your image brightness just to make your lamp last longer.

There are brighter projectors, but the Sony seems to offer a nice balance of black level and maximum brightness if your screen size in the 100" range. The trick might be getting your projector properly calibrated for 6500k as well as 7500k and 9300k. The 7500k and 9300k will offer a nice expansion of image brightness when you need it. I actually prefer 7500k most of the time and I also like 9300k color temp on some movies.

There is more than one way to skin this cat. :)

I have not had the chance to compare the Sony to any other LCDs. Some other folks have, but I have stayed focused on squeezing every bit of performance out of the Sony.

I have been able to make some comparisons to the 51/50 and the 51A/60, and they are very close in performance.

I have (2) screens. I have a 92" DaLite High Power for personal viewing from about 13'. This screen is awesome and worth trying if you can mount the projector in the right place. I also have a 86" ultra white Matte screen I use when I have a full house because the image brightness is uniform throught the room. You have to be in the sweet spot with the HP to feel the magic.

What size screen will you be using?

If you have to use High power lamp mode, don't worry about it, just do it. A replacement lamp is only $250 if you shop around, so don't skimp on your image brightness just to make your lamp last lon



There are brighter projectors, but the Sony seems to offer a nice balance of black level and maximum brightness if your screen size in the 100" range. The trick might be getting your projector properly calibrated for 6500k as well as 7500k and 9300k. The 7500k and 9300k will offer a nice expansion of image brightness when you need it. I actually prefer 7500k most of the time and I also like 9300k color temp on some movies.

There is more than one way to skin this cat. :)




true, l will be going 100" , we have a fully light controlled room with dark walls and ceiling.the room itself is 7.2metres x 5.2 metres........would go for a stewart studiotek if l could afford it but its $4000 here, so probably go for an lp morgan or somthing....how do you find scenes where there is starfields etc...do you get that big 3d look with it...the one l seen was demoing vertical limit .....was incredible to watch apart from where it'd go into icecaves then it all got a bit dim.....might have confused the iris with the wayit was sort of 50/50 .anyway hope l can get this pj to do what l want if l buy .cheers ken

At about 110 hours my 51A seems to be getting better! I have a totally light controlled room with black ceiling and dark grey walls. My screen is a 118" Carada BW (1.3G) and my 1st row of seating is at 1.5X. I am using low lamp mode at least 90% of the time.
Since I plan to replace my Dish 811 with one of their new MPEG4 machines, I decided to live with some minor tweaking until I can get a calibration with my new receiver.
I did an AVIA tweak and switched over the Cinema mode to Custom Gamma 2 and my HDTV PQ is awesome.
I am also very pleased with DVD's from my Zenith DVB318 feeding upconverted 720p.
Yesterday I had another surprise: To watch SDTV at 4:3 aspect I switched the 811 over to feed 480p to the 51A. When I wanted to go back to HDTV I thought I would try 1080i out of the 811. To my total surprise I think the PQ is noticeably better with the 1080i feed than the 720p (native) feed.
Does that make any sense at all??
I would appreciate any comments regarding this surprising result. (By the way, I'm still using the 51A's component video feed rather than HDMI.)

Happy 51A owner, chasby :)

If I remember correctly, all HD programs are delivered at 1080i. Of course, you want to get as much info to your projector as possible. In this case, you only downmix once to fit your 1280x720 panel in the projector.

If using 720P, the downmix is already done inside your 811, which limit the amount of info going into the projector.

Also, I believe the scaler in your Sony is much better than the one inside 811. However, if you switch to HDMI from component, the picture will even be sharper n cleaner.


At about 110 hours my 51A seems to be getting better! I have a totally light controlled room with black ceiling and dark grey walls. My screen is a 118" Carada BW (1.3G) and my 1st row of seating is at 1.5X. I am using low lamp mode at least 90% of the time.
Since I plan to replace my Dish 811 with one of their new MPEG4 machines, I decided to live with some minor tweaking until I can get a calibration with my new receiver.
I did an AVIA tweak and switched over the Cinema mode to Custom Gamma 2 and my HDTV PQ is awesome.
I am also very pleased with DVD's from my Zenith DVB318 feeding upconverted 720p.
Yesterday I had another surprise: To watch SDTV at 4:3 aspect I switched the 811 over to feed 480p to the 51A. When I wanted to go back to HDTV I thought I would try 1080i out of the 811. To my total surprise I think the PQ is noticeably better with the 1080i feed than the 720p (native) feed.
Does that make any sense at all??
I would appreciate any comments regarding this surprising result. (By the way, I'm still using the 51A's component video feed rather than HDMI.)

Happy 51A owner, chasby :)

If I remember correctly, all HD programs are delivered at 1080i. Of course, you want to get as much info to your projector as possible. In this case, you only downmix once to fit your 1280x720 panel in the projector.

If using 720P, the downmix is already done inside your 811, which limit the amount of info going into the projector.

Also, I believe the scaler in your Sony is much better than the one inside 811. However, if you switch to HDMI from component, the picture will even be sharper n cleaner.

Are you seeing the pixels when sitting that close ? I can still barely see them at 1.8x.


At about 110 hours my 51A seems to be getting better! I have a totally light controlled room with black ceiling and dark grey walls. My screen is a 118" Carada BW (1.3G) and my 1st row of seating is at 1.5X. I am using low lamp mode at least 90% of the time.
Since I plan to replace my Dish 811 with one of their new MPEG4 machines, I decided to live with some minor tweaking until I can get a calibration with my new receiver.
I did an AVIA tweak and switched over the Cinema mode to Custom Gamma 2 and my HDTV PQ is awesome.
I am also very pleased with DVD's from my Zenith DVB318 feeding upconverted 720p.
Yesterday I had another surprise: To watch SDTV at 4:3 aspect I switched the 811 over to feed 480p to the 51A. When I wanted to go back to HDTV I thought I would try 1080i out of the 811. To my total surprise I think the PQ is noticeably better with the 1080i feed than the 720p (native) feed.
Does that make any sense at all??
I would appreciate any comments regarding this surprising result. (By the way, I'm still using the 51A's component video feed rather than HDMI.)

Happy 51A owner, chasby :)

Here is a link to my .xls calibration data file.

I have provided a few ON/OFF contrast measurements.

If you want to try using your Color Temp OFFSETS menu instead of the Factory mode RGB controls, simply subtract the FACTORY HIGH, MID & LOW RGB settings from the particular column with the same color temp.

Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions.

http://www.blanca.com/51A/RJ%2051A%20Calibration%20SpreadSheet.xls

*** Please Note ***

I have posted alot of settings and they might be a little confusing. I went through the process of approaching the 51A calibration from many angles, and it's reflected in my spreadsheet.

You will note they are laid out in sets, with the groupings being 9300/7500/6500 at each calibration approach.

The best Gamma tracking were with sets G-H-I & J-K-L -w- FLD. They were also the brightess and best on/off contrast respectively.

The best RGB & color temp tracking were R-Q-P & O-N-M -w- FLD because of the special RGB tweaks.

I suggest picking a color temp from each of the sets and find which looks best, then use that set for 9300/7500/6500. If you have a screen size of 92" or smaller, the FL-Day filter calibrations really help on/off contrast.

I have the hs51a and a 92 hc dalite screen I sit about 12' away and i see SDE. Is there a fix for that or a tweak of some sort?

I have the hs51a and a 92 hc dalite screen I sit about 12' away and i see SDE. Is there a fix for that or a tweak of some sort?
Sit further back ;-).

I see it too on some films but only fleetingly. Mostly older B&W films and only in the highs (lighter shades). Do you see it such that it always bothers you? I can see the SDE of the LCD screen on the laptop I am typing on right now but I don't let it bother me.

Maybe I am less bothered than others but when I think back to all the convergence issues of CRT displays I feel I am miles ahead with LCD.

M./

I have the hs51a and a 92 hc dalite screen I sit about 12' away and i see SDE. Is there a fix for that or a tweak of some sort?

YES.

Grab a pair of binoculars. Look at the pixel structure while you very slightly defocus the projector lens clockwise and counter clockwise.

You will notice in one direction the edges of the pixels begin to lose focus while the overall pixel body remains apparent. Defocusing in the other direction causes the pixel to almost uniformly lose focus.

It only take a slight touch of defocus in the right direction, to hide SDE.

Give it a try.

Some folks can not get past the notion the projector is less than perfectly focused, but for those who can, a little defocus goes a long way in help improve or eliminate SDE.

Thanks for the info I will give defocussing a shot

ordered mine today, going to run it with a locally made 1.4 gain screen ....get them delivered mid this month when we finally get back in our house :)..cheers ken

I've just been told by a dealer (Crutchfield) that the HS51a has been discontinued - which seem kind of crazy since it's been available for only a few months AFAIK. I had one on order there ... Has anybody else heard this? If so, any idea on a replacement?

I've just been told by a dealer (Crutchfield) that the HS51a has been discontinued - which seem kind of crazy since it's been available for only a few months AFAIK. I had one on order there ... Has anybody else heard this? If so, any idea on a replacement?

I just called SonyStyle and they had no such "end of life" info on the 51A. The 51? Yes, with the 51A being the replacement.

I don't know which is correct, but I might tend to place a little more credibility on the Sony source.

Thanks for the info...this is interesting. I did a pre-order with them and they quoted me what I thought was a pretty good price ($2499 - which was the same as they were selling the HS51 for) with the pj due in on 3/6. I was concerned about SDE so I wanted to be able to return it if I it bothered me (it's my first pj) and they have a very good return policy and are very reputable AFAIK.

(thinking out loud) They wouldn't just be saying that so they can cancel my order, would they? I'll try asking them if they can show me some proof that it's being discontinued and I'll report back what I hear.

Thanks for the info...this is interesting. I did a pre-order with them and they quoted me what I thought was a pretty good price ($2499 - which was the same as they were selling the HS51 for) with the pj due in on 3/6. I was concerned about SDE so I wanted to be able to return it if I it bothered me (it's my first pj) and they have a very good return policy and are very reputable AFAIK.

(thinking out loud) They wouldn't just be saying that so they can cancel my order, would they? I'll try asking them if they can show me some proof that it's being discontinued and I'll report back what I hear.


The 51A was back ordered at Sony Style, so maybe Crutchfield meant that rather than being discontinued.

The 51A was back ordered at Sony Style, so maybe Crutchfield meant that rather than being discontinued.

It's back ordered at Sony style? Damn, I just got one from them a few week ago.

Lucky me. :D

Ok - sorry for the confusion everyone. It seems it's just Crutchfield that has discontinued their plans to carry the 51a...I'm asking them to ship me one anyway, but if they can't I'll just order from somewhere else.

I'll bet they carry the 51A once they have sold their stock of 51s.

Pip

http://www.cine4home.de/
a review if anyone wont take a look.

Is there an English version of it somewhere ? Thanks.

just right click>translate page into english

Yes, I did use the Babefish to translate but it is still tough to read. However, it seems to say the HS60 has more VB than the old 50. Can anyone confirm that ?

Yes, I did use the Babefish to translate but it is still tough to read. However, it seems to say the HS60 has more VB than the old 50. Can anyone confirm that ?

You are right!

I meant if somebody own both 50 n 60 to verify this comment.

Well, I had the 51 and now I have the 51A, and so far I have not noticed any VB, and I have watched a few kids cartoon films, which might tend to show some VB on the pastel light blue/green back grounds.

The only negative artifact I have found with the 51A is the bright corners shared with the Ruby. I have tweaked the IRIS function to help it fully disappear when going from a bright to dark black scene. But I also anticipate the issue will disappear further as the lamp ages and dims a little, like folks have observed on the Ruby.

I've had the HS50 and now have the HS60.

My HS50 had more VB than my new HS60 (which still has a little). Before this, I had the chance to watch two other HS50 units and they also had a little VB. I think that, like shading and panel alignment, it's a matter of luck to have a unit with more or less VB. I don't think this VB problem has anything to do with the new model (at least that's not my personal experience).

Concerning VB, I should stress that even on my HS50 the effect was minimal on some scenes and simply not visible on most. It's much less than any other LCD that I've seen before. I watched some Epson D4-based units (from panasonic and hitachi) and a Sony HS10 some time ago and the effect was easily visible to me, even before I knew that it was called vertical banding (VB). It seems to be a limitation of current LCD technology. I chose LCD over single-chip DLP because of the RBE, or else I would have taken the DLP route. For me, the HS60 is the best alternative to DLP at its price.

Dave.

For me, the HS60 is the best alternative to DLP at its price.

Dave.

Me Too.

If I I was running a bigger screen and could handle the extra lumens, I would consider a 3 panel DLP like the InFocus 777 or the AVS deal on the eCinema 333.

Eventually, I see myself replacing the 51A with a 3 panel DLP unless there are siginificant improvements in LCD & SDRX.

Eventually, I see myself replacing the 51A with a 3 panel DLP unless there are siginificant improvements in LCD & SDRX.

Same here, especially if 3-DLP prices come down... ;)

One other thing that I found interesting in the cine4home review, btw, is that they also point out the HS60 to have a little bit less SDE than the HS50, and that they found the pixels to be like rectangles, instead of being rounded squares like in the HS50. This is exactly like I described in the tweak thread, so it seems Sony DID change this aspect on the new model. :)

Dave.

Ok - sorry for the confusion everyone. It seems it's just Crutchfield that has discontinued their plans to carry the 51a...I'm asking them to ship me one anyway, but if they can't I'll just order from somewhere else.
Weird, I wanted to get one from them, but am a little worried because they only list the HS51 (doesnt say "A" on the site). I asked them, and they said that they would be carrying whatever the newest model is. It is possible that when they said discontinued, they meant the HS51 non-A model? If I order one from them, I will make sure to get a full guarantee that the model I get was the one I asked for. If anyone has successfully recieved a unit from Crutchfield, could they please report back here?

gobirds, not to fault you, but does it make any sense that they would discontinue a product that they just picked up (you said it was pre-ordered)...

The model Crutchfield is selling as of now is the 51, not the 51A. It's possible a sales rep was confused. They may have a note on their system regarding the impending discontinuation of the 51, and the sales rep may have thought it was the same product.

It's also possible that Crutchfield may have a large stock of model 51s, and have decided not to list or take orders on the 51A until they sell down their existing stock of 51s.

Pip

It's also possible that Crutchfield may have a large stock of model 51s, and have decided not to list or take orders on the 51A until they sell down their existing stock of 51s.
We've already seen that some of their sales people are un- or mis-informed. Or are they saying what they need to to sell what they have to sell to anyone unaware enough not to know?

jjesusfreak01,

the whole thing at Crutchfield turned out to be a mistake and I ended up getting my 51A from them last Thursday :-) I was waiting for Crutchfield to carry the 51a for a month or so - I wanted to buy from them since they have a very good return policy (they take it back for any reason, they pay shipping, no restocking fee etc - though they aren't a deep discounter). I got tired of waiting and emailed them to see why they didn't have it yet and they said that, even tho it wasn't on their website yet, I could pre-order it using a link they sent me. So that's what I did. Then I got a call from them saying it was being discontinued - well it turned out that it was just the internal Crutchfield model number that was changed so that it looked to Crutchfield like the one I ordered had been discontinued... So I ended up getting the 51a and I'm very impressed and happy with it so far :-). They may have them in stock now - if you want to order from them I'd just email their customer service or give them a call.

jjesusfreak01,

the whole thing at Crutchfield turned out to be a mistake and I ended up getting my 51A from them last Thursday :-) I was waiting for Crutchfield to carry the 51a for a month or so - I wanted to buy from them since they have a very good return policy (they take it back for any reason, they pay shipping, no restocking fee etc - though they aren't a deep discounter). I got tired of waiting and emailed them to see why they didn't have it yet and they said that, even tho it wasn't on their website yet, I could pre-order it using a link they sent me. So that's what I did. Then I got a call from them saying it was being discontinued - well it turned out that it was just the internal Crutchfield model number that was changed so that it looked to Crutchfield like the one I ordered had been discontinued... So I ended up getting the 51a and I'm very impressed and happy with it so far :-). They may have them in stock now - if you want to order from them I'd just email their customer service or give them a call.
Do you have the internal link? Also, any way I could possibly find what you paid for it. IE, difference between HS51 retail? (since you cant post prices...) Same, higher, lower?

I am just wondering because I have conversed with them (through their online chat) and was told both times that the HS51A should be the one in stock, because it is the newer model, and their inventory turns over quickly. Taking your post with me, I will probably call them to order (if I cant get the pre-order link) just to be sure I get the one I want. Thanks for the info!


EDIT: Finished talking to them. It seems there is no record of a pre-order, or even the model number of the new version in their systems. I may just order one and hope the new model is the one I get.

Do you have the internal link? Also, any way I could possibly find what you paid for it. IE, difference between HS51 retail? (since you cant post prices...) Same, higher, lower?

I am just wondering because I have conversed with them (through their online chat) and was told both times that the HS51A should be the one in stock, because it is the newer model, and their inventory turns over quickly. Taking your post with me, I will probably call them to order (if I cant get the pre-order link) just to be sure I get the one I want. Thanks for the info!


EDIT: Finished talking to them. It seems there is no record of a pre-order, or even the model number of the new version in their systems. I may just order one and hope the new model is the one I get.
I'm sorry for butting in here, but I don't understand why, with all their internal confusion - it's discontinued, it's not discontinued, you can pre-order it, you can't pre-order it - anyone would want to take the chance. Vendors need to instill confidence in me before I deal with them.

I'm sorry for butting in here, but I don't understand why, with all their internal confusion - it's discontinued, it's not discontinued, you can pre-order it, you can't pre-order it - anyone would want to take the chance. Vendors need to instill confidence in me before I deal with them.
Ill probably end up taking the chance. Crutchfield has an extremely good return policy, so if I dont get the right one, I can return it easily. Theoretically, they should have the new one in now, so I would probably end up getting it. The reason I would go for Crutchfield is that they have very good prices on this particular projector (cant say what obviously).

Ill probably end up taking the chance. Crutchfield has an extremely good return policy, so if I dont get the right one, I can return it easily. Theoretically, they should have the new one in now, so I would probably end up getting it. The reason I would go for Crutchfield is that they have very good prices on this particular projector (cant say what obviously).
Yes, but their "very good price" is for the 51. At least that's what's on their site. Good luck.

Yes, but their "very good price" is for the 51. At least that's what's on their site. Good luck.

Yes, CrutchField does have the HS51 for a good price but you could go to onecall.com and get the HS51A for the same price as CrutchField's HS51.

Hey guys, will my lamp last longer if I have it set to high altitude? (faster fan speed)

Thanks!

Yes, CrutchField does have the HS51 for a good price but you could go to onecall.com and get the HS51A for the same price as CrutchField's HS51.
There are a bunch of places selling the 51a for that price. Which is why I don't understand why someone would order from Crutchfield and "hope" they get the 51a.

There are a bunch of places selling the 51a for that price. Which is why I don't understand why someone would order from Crutchfield and "hope" they get the 51a.
Ahh, well, ignorant me! I had not seen another store selling it for that. I had only seen it sold for $500-$1000 more...

Thanks for the info!

jjesusfreak01,

The 51 and 51a were the same price from them - plus if you look a bit you should be able to find a $50 coupon code. The link they sent me 20+ days ago isn't working now, so that's no use to you. Try emailing them and they may send you a link that would take you to the order page. I guess there's a chance that they aren't selling any more of them...Good luck.

jjesusfreak01,

The 51 and 51a were the same price from them - plus if you look a bit you should be able to find a $50 coupon code. The link they sent me 20+ days ago isn't working now, so that's no use to you. Try emailing them and they may send you a link that would take you to the order page. I guess there's a chance that they aren't selling any more of them...Good luck.
Its more likely they just switched to the new model, and didnt properly update their databases. The reason I think this is because you said they changed the model number and told you it was being discontinued. They probably originally thought the models would be sold separately, but then when they realized it truly was just a replacement, they changed the model of the new one you ordered to the model of the old one. The rep I chatted with said he cannot find any model in their system besides the HS51 listing, and because this model is being discontinued (though there system does not say this), it is extremely likely they just have the new ones. Like I said, the rep I talked to had no record of an HS51A. Anyways, I will probably just get it from OneCall unless Crutchfield decides to get their act together and put correct model numbers on their pages. Both of those vendors are extremely reputable, but Crutchfield seems to just be having problems with this model...

BTW, just so everyone knows, MSRP on the HS51A went down to $2999 last week.

Hey guys, will my lamp last longer if I have it set to high altitude? (faster fan speed)

Thanks!

It's commonly accepted that heat is probably the most responsible for pj components failure, especially the lamp, but also (in LCD pjs) for polarizer and LCD panel degradation. The Sony is supposed to have a good airflow design, so it's probably not necessary to run it at high altitude (fast fan) mode, but it does stay cooler if you use that mode. Also, don’t forget to pay attention to the filter replacement period. Lamp duration seems to vary a lot, though, indicating that sometimes it's just a matter of luck.

Having said that, I've been using my HS60 mostly in high altitude mode (even though I shouldn't need it), and I only disable it when watching very quiet movies or when listening at very low volume (late at night). I don't know if this will make any difference to lamp life (or polarizer and LCD panel life).

Dave.

It's commonly accepted that heat is probably the most responsible for pj components failure, especially the lamp, but also (in LCD pjs) for polarizer and LCD panel degradation. The Sony is supposed to have a good airflow design, so it's probably not necessary to run it at high altitude (fast fan) mode, but it does stay cooler if you use that mode. Also, don’t forget to pay attention to the filter replacement period. Lamp duration seems to vary a lot, though, indicating that sometimes it's just a matter of luck.

Having said that, I've been using my HS60 mostly in high altitude mode (even though I shouldn't need it), and I only disable it when watching very quiet movies or when listening at very low volume (late at night). I don't know if this will make any difference to lamp life (or polarizer and LCD panel life).

Dave.
Of course, the Sony is widely accepted to be one of the quietest projectors, period, so I cant imagine running it in HAM is going to make it that loud.

BTW, those retailers who are selling it above Sonys price are probably going to have a hard time...

BTW, just so everyone knows, MSRP on the HS51A went down to $2999 last week.
Thank you!

BTW, just so everyone knows, MSRP on the HS51A went down to $2999 last week.

Still $5000 north of the border in Canada. :(