Official Sony VPL-HW15 Thread - Page 8

Any opinions of the BW7 keeping a $700 price in mind? I have the opportunity to pick one up and I'm wondering about it's performance. Really doesn't seem to have any followers here on AVS so I'm looking for any opinions/experience/info.

Thanks!

Had to google to see what a BW7 is - looks like more of a business oriented 1280 x 800 LCD projector, so it's quite a different animal. At the price it's probably not bad, but there are other 720p projectors around in a similar range. Also, the specs I see quote a 1.2x zoom range and no lens shift is mentioned, so be very careful to check that this projector would fit your setup.

So after a couple of nights of thinking it over, and swapping between a Sony VW60 and a Benq W6000 I have on hand, I keep going back to one thing: the SXRD picture is just relaxing to me. The W6000 is a wonderful projector in many ways and I like it a lot, but just can't get over living with rainbows again. There seems to be a threshold that my old HD80 did not cross, that the Benq does.

Since the VW15 improves on the VW60 in a few ways as far as image goes (brightness, black level/contrast), I decided that's the way I'm going. As discussed earlier in the thread, it looks like the lens shift won't quite get it down to my screen height, but someone pointed out to me today that I can order an adjustable extension for my Chief mount to lower it by 6-9" if need be. (It's only $50, pretty reasonable.)

It's back ordered, but anticipated arrival is around 1/23. Just in time to get it setup and tuned in for "you know what".

For starters I had a Optoma HD80 and I have had both a HW15 and W6000 in my theater. I would agree with your comment regarding relaxing. It's simply a more natural feel rather than in your face. The image looks smoother with the same amount of detail... perhaps a little less pop. I never saw rainbows with my HD80 and I'm not sure if I did with the W6000 but I would see stripes of colors when looking at test patterns close to the screen (when moving my head).

Nice choice on the Sony. I came out with the same conclusion as you did when I audition the 2 units, plus the W6000 has a bit more picture noise than the HW15.

I really wanted to like the W6000 - I got a really great deal on it so it would have saved me about $1k over the HW15. The extra pop in the image is nice especially on sports and animation. I just seem to fall in the more rainbow sensitive portion of people, but for others who don't it's a great choice.

I want the W6000 to work too, since my last projector is Mit. HC3100 which is a DLP. Also, the size of Benq is perfect too which is similar to the Mit., while the HW15 is huge when comparing. I did see the RBE on W6000 n not on HC3100, maybe the difference is 4x vs 5x colorwheel speed.

Also, the Auto Iris on Sony is so smooth that I have not caught it once after 65 hours of watching so far.

Anybody know how to get into the service mode of this model ???

For those that are interested, I just did an input lag test on my HW15, with Rock Band 2.

I got 24 ms, which is excellent.

Write down all of your settings before playing!

Thanks n will do that.

Does anyone else notice when turning on the projector it takes quite a while for the focus to retain its sharpness. I focused the projector after it had warmed up and it looked great. However when I later turn it on I notice it looked really out of focus... so I adjusted the focus again.

Well after it warmed up it was out of focus so I'm presuming once I have it sharp after its warmed up I should leave it along. Such that it will be out of focus the next time I turn it on until it warms up.

Usually I turn it on for about 2-3 min. before watching it, but no focus problem as you said.

Charles R, just wondering if you have any more feedback on this focus shift when powering on. How long does it take to stabilize? My HW15 is probably another week to 10 days from arriving so I'll be curious to check this issue then.

I haven't played with the current unit anymore but I'm sure it's a normal thing. My last projector (not a HW15) would shift the entire image downwards (eventually six pixels) as it warmed up as well as refocus a bit. The entire process took around an hour.

When you think about it there are a ton of different lens in there and I'm sure they must shift at least a little as the projector warms up. I had an earlier unit and its alignment (single pixel white lines across the image) was a little better than the current unit if I remember correctly so I'm getting a third unit to see if it's better. The current one isn't bad it just doesn't appear to be as good as the first.

I have been waiting on that unit to play around. Looks like it might not show up until Monday and my current screen might be sold on Tuesday so I'm getting nowhere slowly.

My VPL-HW15 arrived today, a week earlier than expected. Mounted it early this evening, and have been just enjoying the heck out of watching it for the last 4 hours.

Early comments: after demoing the Epson HC 8100, Benq W6000, and Sony VPL-VW60, I liked the VW60's LCOS picture. I decided that the reported improvements of the HW15 in brightness and black level would put it a notch above the VW60 for me, and ordered one. So far, it's everything I hoped for and better. It's clearly brighter and lower black levels, a bit better shadow detail. I can get it to a point where during a blackout in a scene, I can only barely make out the letterbox bars, and I have to look hard. The HW15 may not have the absolute best black level but that's good enough for me! In low lamp mode there is enough brightness that there is a nice "pop" to the picture similar to the dynamics of the W6000 without what I found as a bit of harshness on the Benq. (Didn't have the chance for a side by side comparison with it, though.) I'm not a color guru/purist, the colors out of box in Cinema and Middle color temp look pretty nice so far, though I'm sure I'll try tweaking a bit later. It also seems a bit sharper, subjectively, than the VW60 even without the benefit of the cool motorized lens. Definitely a bit quieter too, esp. since low lamp mode in the HW15 seems slightly brighter than high lamp in the VW60.

At any rate, so far I am VERY, VERY pleased. It was fun but also a bit of a pain to get here (and I'm sure the folks at Best Buy are going to be happy to not see me walking in with a box again, lol), but worthwhile and I'll be enjoying the VPL-HW15 for quite a while, hopefully.

I am pleased with the HW15 as you do, however, I feel strange that I don't see a lot of people buying or talking about it, as much as Panny or Epson. Plus the selling price of Sony here in HK is even 10% lower than the other two.

Can anyone tell me any issues they may/may not have with ventilation? I am looking at getting one, but I have a small theter room and will need to mount it close to the rear wall ceiling mounted. The manual online (for the HW10) says you shoud have almost 12 inches of ventilation space all around the unit. It will be ceiling mounted with lots of ventilation space all around it, except for the rear. I will only have 4-5 inches between it and the rear wall. Will that be enough space? I do not want to void my warranty. I am thinking that Sony is just covering themselves by saying they need that much ventilation space. Has anyone installed theres close to a rear wall with no issues?

I thought the same thing. The Sony was first on my list, but by the time I got my HT far enough along to start ordering equipment, my researched leaned towards the Panasonic PT-AE4000U instead.

The main selling point for me for the Panny was the Lens Memory feature. I really wanted to go with an anamorphic lens, but the budget just won't allow it right now. So the Panny had the next best thing in an "automatic" way of adjusting a 16:9 display onto a CIH screen to approximate a 2.35:1 image.

In the end, the Panny's features (and price, to a lesser extent) and the fact that so many people were writing about it, and raving about it, pushed it to #1.

Now...if budget wasn't as much of a concern, I'd probably go with the higher-end Sony and pair it with an anamorphic lens.

The vents are on the front corners, and then all along the back side. Also, the inputs are on the left side (when ceiling mounted) which helps with rear clearance. I tried turning the lamp from low to high, and checked the air flow. There is a little bit of warm air coming from the front vents, but along the back vent it is barely noticeable. I can't say for sure about this issue since mine is mounted several feet from any wall, but frankly it would shock me if there was a problem with your setup. Given that most of the heat seems to be exhausting more from the front, with minimal air even noticed from the rear vent, I would think that as long as the front and sides are clear with at least a few inches clear in the back, it should be fine.

I suspect it comes down to price, in general. Then there may be some specific attributes that make the AE-4000 or HC8500 more suited for a particular buyer's wants. The extra available brightness in the 8500 can be very nice, or as LoneAspen noted, the AE-4000's plethora of options and features might hit something that matters for someone. I didn't get to compare the HW15 to either of those directly unfortunately, maybe if I'd grabbed an 8500 instead of an 8100 my choice would have ended up different, but I just wasn't as happy with the LCD "look" overall. (I realize that's not a fair comparison based on price, it's just the one I had available to me.)

I would agree about price: a 40% premium to the 2K price point(2.8K vs 2K) of the other more popular PJs is likely the largest detractor.

Deficient in features like motorized lens shift/focus; support for anamorphic lens; no FI don't help.

For most, except for the most discerning, the PQ difference is marginal at best.

As a first PJ, most will pass. I am looking to get my third. DLP was my first; LCD is my current. Both technologies leave something to be desired.

Thanks pheroy. It sounds like the projector does not require much space for the air vents. Has anyone else had any experience mounting theirs close to a back wall, or maybe in a bookshelf?

I don't remember seeing such when I was in the service menu (of the VPL-HW15) however most projectors have entries for current temperature, overheating, etc. Typically they log these occurrences. They might not tell you it's running on the hot side (without comparing your readings to someone else's) but it should alert you to any issues. Then again I'm presuming if it over heats it will automatically power itself off.

By the way my current sample has much better pixel alignment than the second and probably the first as well. It's better than one could hope for or expect. I use the pixel alignment pattern for comparison. I'm guessing Sony uses this utility to align the three colors across the screen as good as possible to start with? I have yet been able to improve upon the default settings when you take the entire image into consideration. Of course I can clean-up one area but the price you pay elsewhere is always too high.

Regarding sells I think price is a big factor. But even if it was at 2k I think it wouldn't compete successfully with the LCD and DLP units. For starters Sony so far has only made their fancy features available on their high-end projectors. Add in SXRD's lack of pixel structure which for many equal a soft image and there aren't any real reasons to purchase one and there are one or more reasons not to purchase one.

I have recently tried the Epson 8500UB and BenQ W6000 along with the VPL-HW15. The Epson convergence was way worse than the Sony and color uniformity across the image was really bad. The BenQ's menu text looked super sharp but when I looked at one pixel wide white lines across the image the chromatic aberration caused the image to be out of focus rather badly. However even the out of focus image appeared sharp. Now I am using a little vertical and a decent amount of horizontal lens shift which might foster these issues to some degree and I have tried at least two samples of each.

For me the first stop was the Epson and then the BenQ and only when I gave up on them did I consider the Sony. So far it appears not to have issues I can't live with which I can't say about the others. Also I was looking for a projector with less audible noise and a pixel free (smooth) image if I went with a slightly larger screen and it serves both of these rather nicely.

I want to use a projector in my living room with a pull down Dalite high power screen. I was going to get an Epson 8500UB, but I am having second thoughts with all their problems. Do you thing the HW15 would be bright enough on a high power in a non dedicated living room?

According to projectorreviews.com

Sony VPL-HW15

Brightest mode: 771 lumens
Best mode: 538 lumens

Epson 8500UB

Brightest mode: 1319 lumens (or brighter with even worse color)
Best mode: 498 lumens

If you aren't too concerned about accurate color the 8500UB is easily twice as bright. Now if you are looking to view with any amount of ambient light the Sony will probably struggle.

What size screen? And just as importantly for a retroreflective screen like the HP, where is your projector going to be mounted? If you're shelf mounting so that it's near eye level that would help, otherwise you lose a fair bit of the HP's advantage.

I use a 100" pull down Firehawk with the HW15. During the day time I can close curtains but I don't have real blackout type stuff. If I use Dynamic mode, it's watchable, and for sports or other brightly colored content it's actually fine. Anything with dark scenes is fairly washed out of course, but that would still be the case with the 8500.

If you are looking for brightness regardless of color accuracy, you should take a look at Benq W6000. Since it is ultra bright(even much more than Epson) when I did the demo before decided on HW15 for better picture quality.

How would you describe the PQ differences between the W6K and the Sony? Besides the BenQ being brighter of course.

it's gonna be 106" or 110". The projector will be shelf mounted just behind the seating area. Can't do dlp (rainbows).