Benq w6000 - Page 8

That review makes we want to keep my W6000 boxed up. Sounds like a sloppy implementation. I have been testing the Sharp XV-Z15000 this evening and it is on the money out of the box. Reviews on the Sharp have been very very good. Its no frills (no FI, native 24P playback support), but seems like they put their money where it counts. When I look at the cost of the sharp vs. the benq (plus the cost of calibrating the benq which apparently is a necessary evil), the benq doesn't seem all that great of a deal. I guess I will know after tonight.

I wish ProjectorCentral had compared it to the Sharp as well.

Noise can be an issue on any UHP lamp based fp but it is more problematic with DLP. This would not be an issue with something such as the W30000 LED projector.

Speaking of no-frills, how's the Sharp's contrast/blacks with the DI 'off'???

Really? Why would a UHP lamp have an effect on noise? I thought image noise had to do with processor chip speed, DLP chip speed and color wheel speed (combinations)?

(Assuming the noise isn't in the source to begin with!).

Yes those are all correct as well. UHP requires multiple components that contribute to noise such as those. The DLP chip itself should not contribute to much to this as there is nothing needed between the tiny mirrors. You could also call an iris movement noise too I suppose.

We are talking image noise, right? Why would an DI contribute to that?

I still don't understand why a UHP lamp (as opposed to xenon) would contribute to image noise

Also, the DLP chip has a lot to do with image noise as it comes down to how fast the mirrors can flip on/off. Older chips were slower, new chips faster mirrors.

When you say 'iris movement' it makes me think your are talking about audible noise...

My apologies to the reviewer, but IMHO, that is one sorry review. Hard to read, very thin on substance and somewhat incoherent. Looking forward to a professional review on Monday.

LOL, welcome to Projector Central

I never hear iris movement from 8 feet away with my W5K. I'm not sure why UHP versus xenon would make a difference as well. Perhaps the "micro-noise" is only limited to those lamps such as those used in the W6K and less a problem with others?

Ok, you're talking about audible noise, we (I and others) were talking about image noise...

Understood now.

The image noise described in the review, is exactly like the image noise that I saw on the W5000 that I had over a year ago. I returned the W5000 for this reason alone.

I also couldn't live with the W6000's high-pitched, low volume whine, lasting one second, every few minutes. Due to this image noise and the audible noise, the W6000 is no longer on my short list to replace my Panny 200.

I'll be looking at the InFocus SP8602 now, which unfortunately is almost 2x the price of the W6000.

Well from the projector central review:

Out-of-the-box color. After calibration, the W6000 has very life-like, well-saturated color. Before calibration, however, color is a mess. On our test sample, the entire image was heavily biased towards green, which essentially rendered the pre-programmed color temperature settings useless. Instead, starting from one of the User color temperature settings, you can adjust the gain and bias of red, green, and blue until the image is balanced properly. This process is made much more precise by the use of a light meter, but the human eye is a very sensitive instrument all by itself and you can get reasonably good color without any equipment at all.

1. "Color is a mess". Very descriptive.
2. Color temp settings, did they investigate the possibilities?
3. Then this reviewer suggests that a "Light Meter??" , Gee I could grab my ancient Luna Pro F out of the closet and do a calibration. But "The Human eye is a very sensitive instrument all by itself". Yep, tell the newbies to start fooling around with gains and cuts without the proper hardware and software. Give me a break. No equipment at all. Yea, right.

I will wait for real user reviews from more trusted sources, AVS members in particular.

Joe

Art @ projector reviews.com always does a great job. His review should be up soon...this weekend or next week.

Yet he already said the contrast sucks (ok, my hyperbole) w/o the DI on.

We are all waiting.

In the interim I'm transferring a lot of Vinyl into the digital domain. Easy these days.

Joe

I believe you sold your w5000 before the noise fix, or which helped, art also covered that.

Also Digital on the forum claimed the W6000 has less image noise. Maybe he can discuss more in detail about the sharpness, and image noise on this projector.

We will see what art has to say.

Pretty much everything said about this projector by projector central seemed to be the exact opposite of what we were told by others who have seen it.

I never liked projector central reviews, but this one seems even more out of left field.

Began testing the W6000 last night. I am pretty disappointed at how they let it go out the door. There are issues for sure (out of the box picture, iris noise/functionality, picture noise). I will post in a separate thread today and will be comparing to two direct competitors: the Sony HW-15 and the Sharp XV-Z15000. It would be great if Art posted "at least his calibrated settings" in his blog. At least then I and other owners could begin to assess picture quality fairly given it is so far off now that there is no point in reviewing it now.

PCentral's review does NOT reflect at all what i test here with the W6000
i'll post my settings
you can get imho (perceived having played with many machines) 1000-1300 lumens WITHOUT any green push, with excellent skin tones (as confirmed by Art) and super ansi contrast. of course BC off.
picture mode: standard
color temp: normal
some correction on RED GREEN BLUE, push Yellow as with the W5000.
lamp: normal (=full)

only thing is the hearing of the DI functioning so put it in a hush box or behind you but lol if you have high sensitive speakers, powerful system, it's a non issue.
make sure though you place it perfectly horizontal so no keystone use (first impression i get) and so use the front knob to adjust image height

again , excellent machine for big cinemascope screens and anam lens (300-400cm widths)
screenshots this weekend

Murilo:

If they did in fact fix the image noise issue on the W5000, why does their new W6000 have the same issue ???

If possible, don't you think that they would have made sure that their new model didn't have this issue, out of the gate so to speak ???

After all, their in business to make money, which means sales. And they've just lost mine.

Digital 2004,
Can you post your complete and specific calibrated settings for Cinema Mode and Standard Mode? I have limited lamp hours to test the projector and I want to limit fiddling. It would be much appreciated.


A note on the IRIS. When I was a kid I could hear the alarm posts as I walked in and out of a sears or macy's or similar store. With the W6000, I hear the IRIS electronics which unfortunately tips me off to to its working. IT is very uncertain what to do when it works and that becomes more noticable than other IRIS systems.

As far as the value of the W6000 when I do my comparison, the question will be this: Will the extra 200 lumens and great placement flexibility be enough to warrant the extra $800 (plus any calibration costs) over the Sharp? Inherent in that question willl be whether the Benq can match the sharp in picture quality and low image noise level.

Digital2004:

Please post your COMPLETE calibration settings so that loganross can try them in his W6000.

We have two opposing opinions on the W6000's PQ:
Digital2004 and Art = The W6000's PQ is great.
Projector Central and loganross = The W6000's PQ sucks.

If loganross trys your settings in his W6000, and if he then finds that his W6000's PQ is great; I'll order a W6000 ASAP.

TIA

Only by MSRP.

coming coming
no micronoise issue like the W5000 had
it's dlp though so it will never be as clean as a lcos
but you don't have color shading, whites are shiny, ansi is great, sharpness is great (not the best ever but very good) and no rainbows (i have on my SIM2 but it's rare on the giant screen, more visible on the 220)
note i am NOT a D65/6500 afficionado !
i want great skin tones, best contrast and lumens and so i often work at colder temps but without green push!! (hate that). often clients who sometimes know a bit wonder super colors you're at D65 ? i say: well, no !!
yesterday it was THE NEW WORLD on the 4meters scope screen (mp, not a woven type, a contrast lumens EATER). SIM2 D80E calibrated "personal" (high color temp etc)
stunning !
bottom line: you CAN get 1000lumens with excellent colorimetry on the Benq.
(gamma: 2.2)

I don't know the reviewer, but he is the same guy who in his Vivitek review wrote:

For projectors especially that is most definitely not true. ANSI CR does not describe the black and white levels that can appear in the same image at the same time, it describes the white and black levels for a very extreme example of an image. One that is about 5 times as bright as the average movie image and even a higher multiple than that from many real images that contain both black and white. A projector like a CRT can have 130:1 ANSI CR and be able to do multiple thousands to one maximum CR across images that contain both black and white. If a CRT with 130:1 ANSI CR could never do more than 130:1 in any one image it would look pretty poor compared to what they can actually do. And the JVCs would look much poorer if they could never do more than about 300:1 in any one image, but fortunately that is not the case. The more white in the image the lower the CR in general, but also the more our eyes bias to see gray as black.

The maximum CR that a particular projector can do in any one image would be more like the native or static on/off CR, not the ANSI CR. ANSI CR matters, but it measures something different than the reviewer claimed. Anybody who stuck that Vivitek up against a new JVC with the dynamic system turned off on the Vivitek (leaving ANSI CR the same) and then tried scenes with a little bit of white and a lot of black (like some in Star Wars) would likely see pretty clearly that the Vivitek didn't have more range between white and black there. And those are the kinds of scenes where the maximum range between white and black (or maximum intra-image CR) is achieved, not scenes with extreme amounts of white, like the ANSI CR checkerboards.

I'll be a little bit skeptical about his claims about contrast ratio until he figures that one out (I sent them an email about the subject matter, but didn't get a response).

In the comparison between the W6000 and the HC6800 he said:

That part about greater range may or may not be true depending on the native on/off CRs and ANSI CRs of both. The W6000 has a greater range between black and white in the 4x4 checkerboard for ANSI CR, but for real images the W6000 may have greater range in some and the HC6800 in others (with things like individual street lights or car headlights in otherwise very dark scenes tending to favor the higher native on/off CR projector, but depending on the individual mixes). If their native on/off CRs are very close then the higher ANSI CR of the W6000 may come through in most mixed scenes though. Since the reviewer showed some lack of comprehension of the subject matter in his Vivitek review I'm not sure what to conclude about his claim about the W6000 vs HC6800 there.

--Darin

Darin,
Stop giving the best pj review mag a hard time.

to make things simple: the Mitsu maybe does better at the night scene in UNFORGIVEN with the just the light from that open air fire.
while the Benq does better during any daylight scenes.

they have a bias towards LCD also

I didn't conclude that Art said the PQ was 'great'....maybe if you ignore the caveat (that he mentioned) regarding the poorly implemented DI, and the poor contrast performance (Art again) of the W6000 when DI is not 'on'. Yes, he did try to say something nice, he did say the picture quality is 'great', but it is not enjoyable to watch in this mode--with the DI active, as he mentioned, it's very distracting.

To me that is not an overall 'PQ is great' conclusion.

The W6000 is nowhere near the HW15 in absolute black level, but I have to say that it`s a light canon! That may also explain the mediocre black level.
Other than that, the picture has great contrast and is plenty sharp. The biggest disappointment so far is image noise. Hopefully BenQ will fix this with a FW update.

Just an update. I have been unsuccessful at getting settings from anyone. Since I use an HT PC and Have the colorvision Spyder Pro, I just ran auto-calibrations on both the Sharp and the Benq. I will test movies shortly.

The sharp showed an good improvement on the colorvision before/after demonstration. Not much of a change for the benq. For both calibrations, I turned off auto iris and kept default settings for cinema mode (no brilliant color, etc.). For the benQ I reduced saturation for all colors to 40.