Sony VPL-HW10 Owners AND Calibration Thread - Page 2

OK Sports Fans ... Calibration tip #1

I did experiment with the service menu calibration of the auto iris.

*** Warning ***

Before we begin, understand that diving into the service menu has risks. The risk that you could change a value, and having not written it down, be unable to go back. So, when going into the service menu to make adjustments, ALWAYS write down the factory settings your are about to alter.

*** End Warning ***

Use the following remote commands to enter service mode

ENTER ENTER <- ENTER then answer YES to the question asking if you want to enter the service mode.

You will note at the bottom of the main menu DEVICE has appeared in the blue border. Go down and click DEVICE.

You will see a number of sub-menus open.

For this adjustment, you will go to the OTHER menu.

Use the UP/DOWN arrow keys to scroll thru the menu. Adjustments to values are made with <- -> keys.

Look for:
(01) IRIS ADJ (0)
(02) OPEN REG (725)
(03) CLOSE REG (347) Change this to 140. It takes awhile to click your way down, so be patient.

Don't worry about the other settings.

What does this change? The auto iris is triggered by luminance values. OPEN REG controls at what value the iris become fully open. CLOSE REG controls at what value the iris starts top open.

You might note on low APL scenes (dark scenes) there is a difference between running MANUAL IRIS set to MIN and running the AUTO IRIS. The Manual IRIS will make the scene darker. By lowering the CLOSE REG, the same low APL scene under AUTO IRIS can be lowered to a similar darkness.

Is there a down side? Yes, but it is minor. As scenes work their way up from lower APLs the IRIS is made to open, but not as quickly as when the CLOSE REG was set to the factory setting. However, the degree to which lower APL scenes are made darker by this change is not linear through the entire luminance range. Rather, by the time the scene luminance level hits 30 IRE (in analog terms) the effect of the change is eliminated and the AUTI IRIS tracks normally to the point at which it becomes fully open. Make sense?

Give it a try. Here is a good test. Take the IronMan BD and click through the few chapters markers, which start with the following images...

1) woman in bed, dark room
2) stirring pot by fire
3) backgammon board
?) airplane in front of Stark Enterprises

Notice how each of the scenes look under the factory auto iris setting. With the change in place, look at the same scenes again.

1) is nicely darker
2) is modestly darker
3) is very slightly darker
?) is full brightness

You can see how much you are changing the scene's black level by going up to the 1st item in the OTHER service menu, (01) IRIS ADJ, and changing it from (0) to (1) and back to (0). You need to leave this setting at (0).

The next step if you like what this adjustment changes, would be to tweak the GAMMA curve just a bit. I believe it is possible to adjust the GAMMA curve to help raise a bit of the lower APL range without bringing absolute black back up. I have not played with this as it is something I'd like to do with test patterns while taking some readings. However, switching to GAMMA 1 is a pretty good 1st step to try.

Also, I just arrived at the CLOSE REG 140 number by eye. A better number might be determined by taking measurements to confirm how dark you would like the target low APL scenes to be. 140 seems good for now.

I watch a bit of the Troy BD with these changes in place, and while I enjoyed better blacks in very dark scenes, other low-mid, mid, mid-high & high APL scenes still looked excellent.

Let me know if you have any questions.

RJ
...

PS... in the service menu, you will see a SAVE feature at the bottom of the main menu list. You will have to commit to saving the changes other wise they will be lost and all changes return to factory settings on shut down.

Gizm...

Try my tweak for lowering black level output at lower APL.

You might also consider a ND filter since 18.5 ftL has some room to move down and still be nice in a darkened room. There may also be the potential for using a Hoya FL DAY filter to support the HW10's RED challenged lamp and expand native contrast just a tad.

How about 10/20 IRE levels?

Thanks

I was wondering how the projector GAMMA curves affected the plot.

This is similar to what VW60 owners have been discussing and some of them have been using the Image Director software to create custom gamma curves.

If I end up keeping the HW10, this is an area I look forward to exploring.

That's OK, the number could be different as they reflect variations in the performance of the two projectors.

Make the change to the (03) CLOSE REG (355) setting. Instead of taking it (140) you might take it to (146) representing about half the difference between our two settings.

Please note changing this setting is real slow, much slower than usual, so it will take a couple of minutes for the numbers to click down. Just hold the <- on the remote and watch the number slow tick down. (yawn)

Cheers

RJ
...

I don't recall lamp time yet, but I'd assume 2000 HI and 3000 economy unless I see better numbers reported.

After speaking with Sony, I found out you have 11 months to decide to get a warranty, so you don't have to decide right away.

I wouldn't buy anything higher than a 1.3 gain, and depending on how much ambient light would want to have in the HT, a screen that enhances contrast might be a good choice.

The HW10 on a 1.3 gain screen will be plenty bright, even in economy lamp mode.

Better to be safe and follow the terms quoted on the Sony website.

I don't have the Die Hard title, how about Swordfish? How would you rate the black levels on that title? It's a great title for testing flesh tones.

I agree about IronMan and those cave scenes. However, tweaking the HW10 to help them perform better could also be considered part of the objective. But I understand the penalty might be crushing blacks on titles with well graded color and contrast.

Thanks for pointing that out. I will recalibrate the CLOSE REG adjustment with a better source. The adjusted number will probably be higher than (140).

I'm gonna start over,. This time I'm gonna do as someone over in the VW60 forum suggested and see what effect the CLOSE REG changes have on 0 IRE, 5 IRE & 10 IRE reference test patterns.

I'll see what CLOSE REG setting allows the 0 IRE reproduction of the AUTO Iris and Manual IRIS (MIN) to appear the same. That would be the floor setting for CLOSE REG.

Then any title like IronMan with poor blacks, should probably be handled using the the Black Level picture control to restore black level performance.


Pepsi... do you know what's happening with GAMMA 3? Do you know what the intended gamma values are for the Sony gamma curve settings 1, 2 & 3? Thanks for that observation.


barfman... No input lag here. The HW10 has very fast panel response and the image processing should not be a time lag as some predict with the Reon/HQV processing on other projectors. I am also going thru a DVDO Edge video processor which has a GAME mode, which I believe by passes much of the unnecessary processing for video game images.

OK... an update on the service menu auto iris adjustment discussion I started.

Tonight I experimented with a calibration video source of 0 IRE from the GetGray SD-DVD. The only BD calibration disc I have with a full screen black field is the DVE BD disc 7.5IRE full black field.

With the Get Gray 0 IRE screen, I made adjustments to the CLOSE REG . I had the MANUAL IRIS set to . I switched back and forth between MANUAL IRIS and AUTO IRIS 2 after I made adjustments to the CLOSE REG .

With the Get Gray 0 IRE field, at CLOSE REG <131> I could not longer observe a video brightness change as I switched between Manual and Auto Iris 2. This suggests on my projector under AUTO IRIS 2 and a video signal of 0 IRE, the IRIS becomes fully closed at CLOSE REG <131>.

I watched Road Warrior. Every once in awhile I noticed the IRIS function, but reproduction look very good through out.

Was my shadow detail suffering from this adjustment? That is a good question.

If higher CLOSE REG values means the IRIS is increasingly open during the darkest parts of the movie, this suggest a loss of overall OFF/ON contrast, which results in brighter blacks. Very similar to adjusting the brightness higher, which does provide more detail in dark scenes, but at the expense of the deepest reproduction of absolute black.

With my <131> setting, I then tried the GAMMA 1 & 2 settings, to raise the low-mid and mid grayscale. I will note that switching between the GAMMA settings had not effect at increasing projected brightness with the 0 IRE signal. Only the higher grayscale value were effected.

So, I believe I have expanded the HW10 contrast ON/OFF range. Any apparent loss of shadow detail lost from the darker reproduction of low APL scenes, can be restored by GAMMA setting 1 & 2, without compromising absolute black.

I am happy with the results, although I would like to use Image Director to tweak the GAMMA setting options.

Now I am wondering... what is Sony trying to achieve by running the IRIS partially open during the deepest blacks and what are all of the side effects of running a lower CLOSE REG ?

I have to see if my old Sony technical contacts are still with the company and willing to talk about the projector setup.

There are color controls for the primaries. I'm not sure how they are different from the VW60, but they appear to offer what's needed to get a CIE chart looking good.

At some point I hope to post the observed/measured gamma curves are for the HW10, including it's presets. It has been suggested they likely to be similar to the VW60.

EDIT: The HW10 does not come with Image Director 3. However, I have a copy of ID3 and the HW10 does not work with software.

Ohlson...

I have not yet dived into any white balance or color tracking adjustments.

I'm sorting out which probe to use, as my old PL OpticONE is kinda long in the tooth.

Honestly, the white balance and color tracking are very good out of the box. I am interested to see how much they are off. I have been trying to form a guess on what is off, and maybe beside just needing to achieve a little flatter white balance, its the extreme top and bottom which is appear to be just a little more off the line. The top end more so than the bottom.

As far as tweaks, I have only tweaked the CLOSE REG service menu setting.

I am running the STANDARD picture mode with:
Contrast 90
Brightness 50 (both checked with AVIA Pro and DVE BD)
Color 50
Hue 50
Sharpness 25
Black Level OFF
Gamma OFF
Color Temp MID or HIGH ( I'm not a 6500 purist and like to watch some material with a little less RED )
Lamp LOW (HI lamp is too bright on my current 92" Hi Power and 80" ultra white painted screen)
Auto IRIS 2 (although I will start using auto iris 1 to see if I can distinguish a difference, supposedly it tries to achieve max contrast)

We watched Indy-Crystal Skull BD tonight with guests. The kids had been watching Tinker Bell SD-DVD on the HS51A. When all of the adults came down to take over the HT, I switched to the HW10 to show some of the Tinker Belle animation. Now animation looks great on all projectors, right? When the HW10 kicked in, the difference was dramatic. It was the 1st time my wife has seen the HW10 in action. When Indy started, the projector was a hit and the experience a blast for all.

It was only my eyes that would have offered critiques on a few of the extreme high and low APL scenes which exhibit the weaknesses in the projector's ANSI and native contrast. In general, unless the AE3000 offers something really special, I believe I am going to be an official HW10 owner.

Performance at the CLOSE REG <131> setting was excellent. I only noticed the iris adjusting one time in the Cusco Insane Asylum, where they jump around to a number of challenging low & low-mid APL scenes. Even then the iris adjustment was a subtle darkening of a low APL scene.

Back to the topic of calibration probes, I am considering the Chroma 5/C-5 for my upgrade. I understand the limitations for color tracking adjustments and how my calibration process would benefit from profiling the probe with a i1 Pro. Can anyone lend me their i1 pro so I can profile a new Chroma 5 on my screen with the HW10?

If anyone has compelling comments on an alternate probe choice to the Chroma 5, please feel free. I haven't spent any $$$ yet.

EDIT: I did have one other setting tweak. I tweaked red & blue horizontal convergence , both to (-2) to provide perfect convergence. Vertical convergence required no adjustment. May I also note chromatic aberration performance is excellent, with very, very minimal artifacts on the extreme left & right , suggesting the HW10 has a very nice piece of glass.