Benq w6000 - Page 76

Setting the PJ just 1' away from a surface, you could get a 3" x 6" projected image. In actuality, you could go even smaller...but visible resolution would be at best problematical.

But with the degree of brightness you have to deal with (...over 7500 foot lambert...) you'd need to project onto a ultra Black surface.

Of course, you can move upward in size from there to whatever parameter you want.

Right after this post I was finally able to put my hands on one of these at a Fry's that still had a demo model on the floor. Unfortunately the manual for these is correct, the closest distance you can focus is 3'4" which gives an image 16" wide by 9" tall. I was needing an image a bit smaller than this. My only hope would be if the focus ring can be "freed" to allow it to focus at a closer distance. Not something I want to spend $1500 for to figure out.

A 16x9 image!!

Whatta coincidence!

My bad. I simply related the values I found on a projector calculator.

I just recently installed a BenQ W6000 to light up a 125" wide 2.37 Seymour Centerstage XD at about 17ft from screen. I am coming from a Mitsubishi HC3000 ( " 720p " ).

The issue is no matter how well I focus (on cross hatch pattern& menu text), I cannot get text or the picture overall to be razor sharp. The overall image from a blu ray (Kung Fu Panda 2, Star Wars - A New Hope) just does not have that sharpness when compared to my Mits HC3000 that is even lower in resolution! So I thought, ok, maybe calibration would help. I performed grey scale calibration (using Eye1 LT + Calibration for Dummies) and while the color improved a lot, the image still is not razor sharp and still missing that punchy DLP look that I am accustomed to from the Mitsubishi. It's weird but a close up shot of someone's face, I can see the fine details like facial pores fine. But a scene with a wide angle shot (ie Star Wars Star Destroyer fly over ) does not look as sharp as it should. I also want to note that I am not even zooming the image to fill up the 2.37 screen (aka "zoom method").

As a test, I took my old Mits and also placed about 17 ft back against the same Seymour screen and same HDMI cable. To me, the menus look sharper and the overall image looks more refined . I did take the screenshots below with my phone so there could be some shaky hands factor here but I think it's still obvious the Mitsubishi menu text is sharper (2nd photo below). In person, it looks as crisp as "AV Memory 2" as shown in the 2nd photo as opposed to "ISF Night" in the BenQ photo. It may not be obvious in the BenQ photo but when I see it person, it looks a bit out of focus (no matter how I adjust focus ring) and I suspect is also affecting the overall performance.

I also performed a search on this thread and saw Coderguy's response on page 59. Could I be having a defect with my unit? After reading over and over about how razor sharp the W6000 is, I am sad that I am not seeing it and it just does not seem right that my Mits HC3000 appears sharper and the overall picture quality more refined than the BenQ!

For starters regardless of how silly it sounds 720p has a tendency to make text appear sharper. Because of the larger pixel outline and the larger pixel themselves.

Regarding the W6000 its menus are never sharp looking... its just their nature. Having used numerous units the image below represents the sharpest I have seen. I would use the built-in test pattern as it will quickly tell you how things stand. You can check out the entire image and as long as you have all of the colors within a pixel via the white lines (fairly hard to do at the edges - especially with lots of lens shift) you should be good to go.

Remember the focus changes for the first thirty minutes or longer. So if you focussed after it was up and running for a while it will be out of focus when you first turn it on... until it warms up. Also, you can focus to an area of the image and sometimes it's better to focus towards the left or right than the center of the image. Overall the image will be sharper.

Thanks Charles.

I went over to the W7000 forum and Zombie's photos shows exactly the kind of sharpness I would expect. My AVS HD title screen looks much softer than Zombie's. I know the W7000 is technically a different model but I am pretty sure the 2D is very similar to the W6000.

Here are photos from my W6000 on the projector cross hatch (right hand side, not center of screen) with the best focus I could get. The blurriness on the sides of my photo is due to my Canon 50D DSLR @ f2.8 and camera focus on the center vertical line. I was trying to get clear, discrete pixels like in Zombie's but could not. And the weave is because the screen is Seymour Centerstage XD material.

W6000 cross hatch


W6000 playing AVS HD disk.

Have you tested different sharpness settings? With my W5000 menus and cross hatch patterns are not sharp with lower settings. Sharpness at 6 gives correct sharpness and clarity in my unit but it can be different in W6000.

Also check clarity controls and at least set luma and chroma transmission to 0. I can't remember if these had any effect on projector menus but they definitely ruin any image you input. Also make sure no overscan is in use.

Yes, be sure all image processing is off. For your tests, try a simple piece of white paper or a smooth mat white screen sample if you have one to take the weave out of the picture. After that, if your lens shift is maxed, shift the image up on your screen to get out of that max shift area. Then refocus and see if it makes a difference. Be sure the source for your grid is the same as the W7000 sample AND coming from a device that is not doing any image processing itself. Typically, the ideal thing is to use the PJ's internal test patterns which will should rule out any source issues. If was a 3-chip I'd say us a green grid to rul out convergence but that can't be a problem on a single chip.

Zombie's images look terrific however you should be able to see the pixel grid across the entire image. It won't be as defined around the edges but it should still be there. Regarding the cross hatch it doesn't look good although everything appears to be within one pixel (in any direction) and you're bound to have some issues at the edges. Having red off in both directions is the easiest to spot in actual images. The other image lacks any pixel definition (grid). My guess is the chromatic aberration would be beyond my threshold... I would see about swapping it if possible.

I'll look at mine later today when I have it on. I'm pretty sure it doesn't exhibit that odd miss-convergence look. I realize there can be no miss-convergence on a single chip, but it does have that look.

I will say that I have never found the Windows desktop to look quite as sharp on W6000 as my previous X10, but interestingly BD's look as sharp or sharper. The W6000 was the first projector I've had that could show the difference in sharpness between a re-coded BD (MKV) and the original.

Definitely be sure to check the sharpness settings. I think we've posted the settings considered to be best previously in this thread.

@ Big Lebowski - This morning I tried sharpness at 8 and the cross hatch is still not well defined. Playing a blu ray, the image is visibly sharper but the image then very noisy. I also verified that Luma and Chroma were set at 0.
@ GetGray - I tried a white paper and no difference. My lens shift was also at the lowest level (joystick all the way down). Last night I raised it to the default mid point but not much difference for me in terms of projector cross hatch pixel sharpness and definition.
@ Charles R and Talon95 - I'm going to give BenQ a call and see if I can swap out my unit.

Thanks everyone for your input.

I noticed if I shifted the image downwards as far as possible the bottom of the image would have much more chromatic aberration than the upper or middle. Even though the manual states other wise.

Ignore the rainbow colors you can see. That's just from some interaction between the DLP wheel and my camera. Pretty sharp. In person, I don't see any color other than black and white in that image. You can see a bit of a shadow in the vertical line, but that is due to some processing/sharpening that the projector is still doing. I've got sharpness on 3. Going to 2 might get rid of that. I forgot to try it.

Oh, but not so good here,

Mine looks the same as talons grid above.

^^^ Are you guys using any vertical lens shift?
If so, try centering the lens and check the sharpness.

*If you're using any keystone, zero that out as well.

**Vertical lens shift may cause chromatic aberration.

The W6000 should be razor sharp.

I'm close to center on the lens shift. Near max zoom (closest to the screen) though.

I tried different zoom ratios and tried also centering the lens but that CA was still the same.

Over the years I have viewed a half dozen or more and haven't mistaken one yet for a razor. I will say they vary unit to unit and typically fall into two or three groups. The sharpest being from the image I posted a while back. You couldn't spot any CA via the menu (in the center of the image) and at the edges all of the colors were within one pixel in any direction. The worse being the menu lacked any real definition almost like there was vaseline on the lens. Looked very much like a badly aligned 3-chip projector. The others falling some where in between.

The best I would call obviously sharper than your typical 3-chipper although this urban legend might need to be put to rest... especially since BenQ stopped making these a long time ago and I'm sure they don't have too many replacements sitting around. Actually, my old 1080p DLP Optoma was sharper outside of one corner where I presume the lens wasn't up to snuff.

I spent a little time messing with mine. Found some interesting things,

1) Yes, centering the lens shift helps focus and CA.
2) I see more CA with more zoom (larger image for a given distance), but oddly focus looked slightly better. May be best to be centered on this also then.

With a little more work squaring up the projector and getting closer to the center of the lens shift noticeably improved the Windows desktop image. I don't think there is any noticeable change in video image sharpness though, at least not at my viewing distance (about 1.5x).

talon95, are you seeing sharp pixel definition on the BenQ generated cross hatch pattern like you are seeing on the white background pattern that you previously posted? My unit is on it's way back to BenQ to be checked out.

I was looking for a pattern in the menus (and service menu) but couldn't find it. Where is it?

I am pretty sure it is in the regular menu (not Service or ISF) .. 2nd to last tab. called "test pattern" i think? i don't have my unit in from of me but from what i remember if a source (blu ray player) is on or off , it affects whether or not the test pattern is greyed out or not (accessible).

I'll take a look when I get home tonight. I pretty sure that I'm not getting a really sharp pixel grid though. Not really bad, but not as good as I've seen (like my old Infocus X10). It's acceptable to me though. I knew it wasn't quite as good the first day I had the W6000, which was 2 or 3 months ago. Everything else works really well on this unit, so I didn't think it was significant enough to try swapping units.

So I know we should be focusing on the grid first. But grid aside, are your images as sharp as Zombie's W7K and do you notice any significant difference if you vertical shift your lens from default to all the way up or down or zoom? I could not help but feel that my W6K image from a reference quality blu ray (kung fu panda 2, star wars episode III) did not look nearly as sharp as Zombie's (I almost wanted to say upconverted DVD but that is probably exaggerated)... maybe just slightly out of focus but enough to bother me.

Does it look this out of focus to the eye when you are up close? the camera exposure can cause a lot of flaring which will mash all the pixels together in the photo. When I took the W7000 photos, I set my Nikon SLR to manual exposure and adjust the shutter speed so it looks closer to what my eye is seeing.

The pixels by eye, are quite defined when I look up close. The original W7000 I demo'd had a lens issue and I could barely get the center of the screen in focus, and almost everything outside of center was out of focus. The replacement was much better, still not quite as perfect as my BenQ SP890 (same lens, same chassis) which is pixel perfect from edge to edge, top to bottom. We use it for PC demonstrations and this particular sample is excellent. I've seen enough projectors this year to see noticeable sample variances from the same manufacturer.

Yea, that was it (built in grid). It was greyed out until I killed the input signal. There's no doubt that the W7k that Zombie has has better focus based on the grid image. Definitely less streaking (for lack of a better term) coming off each pixel. Otherwise it's about impossible to know based on screenshots IMO. It's got to translate in to a somewhat sharper image. I'm not sure I would want it to be too much sharper though as it is already somewhat unforgiving of any video noise in the source.

Mine is better in person. I took those shots with my phone! But the thing I noticed is there is a lot less of that "streaking" off each pixel in your image. Ok, I'm going to have to fire up my X10 to see what the grid looks like on it. I've never bothered with that in the past.

On my Canon SLR, I did not use manual exposure or adjust shutter speed so that that could definitely contribute to how the screenshots look as it does but when I did look up close I could not see well defined pixels like in your screenshot. It looked blurred together with some grooves on the sides but I could definitely not see square pixels. To me, this would support why I could not get a clean, crisp image from a reference blu ray disc like KFP2 or SW Ep 3 no matter how carefully I tried to focus. I also turned off image processing like chroma and luma.

I feel like I am beating a dead horse here. I'll wait and see what BenQ comes back with. Appreciate you taking the time to chime in.