Official Sony VPL-HW15 Thread - Page 21

As a Rule - Sony Publishes that in the Owners Manual.

At least that is true for my other Sony PJs - I do not own this model.

Gave it a try. Could not find the option on either machine. Manual said it should have been under Expert Controls for the pj.

I almost did this by accident on the first day.

1) Go to the "Setup" menu (4th icon down in main menu).
2) Select the very last option, Lamp Setting.
3) It will ask you if the lamp has been replaced. Select "Yes."

Sony looks to be discontinuing this model. Any ideas what's to replace it...?

I think the new model is called VPL-VWPRO1 and has 85000:1 contrastratio and 1300 ANSI lumen if i remember corectly , It will cost around 3500 but will come with Ã* spare bulb.

Sure enough, good info. Thanks. Also didn't know about the $10k 3D model coming out (living under a rock, finishing basement...). Pretty sure that my finance committee isn't going to OK $10k for a projector tho.

I'm late to the party, but had the pleasure this weekend of installing my new VPL-HW15, projecting onto a Da-Lite 133" screen. All I can say is wow!

Being a recent convert from the CRT front projector world, I wasn't really sure what to expect, but my expectations were far exceeded by the image quality and color. But I think it's capable of more.

I didn't have sufficient time to really work with it and tweak it; I just roughed in the picture but now want to fine tune it.

Can anyone direct me to a post or link that really details a step by step process of dialing this projector in? I'm talking about optimally fitting the picture to the screen, setting blanking properly, adjusting grey scale, and tweaking the color. I'd like to do this myself rather than just hire someone to do a calibration. Again, I could absolutely live with my picture as is, but it's all about optimization. TIA.

Did you see anything that NEEDS TWEAKING?

Solid State PJs are much better than CRTs.

I'm not sure I've got my blanking adjusted properly, among other things. If nothing ever needed tweaking on the projector, then I assume it wouldn't have been necessary for Sony to offer all the adjustment possibilites - but they did include them. You're right though, it's very good out of the box.

I have not seen a PJ that needs blanking adjustment.

My Anthem AVR does that and other things for my Sony.

Is this projector better than Sony VPL-VW60??

Sonystyle.com outlet has refurbhished VPL-H15's for 1699.00 and are offering 24 month interest free financing. Here's the link.

WoW, nice deal!!

Deal no more, only lasted a week. I've received mine just before the weekend. Next day shipping included in price. I upgraded from a Runco CL-700 so this was a definite improvement for me. How much better is the Panasonic 4000 for those who have actually compared the HW15 vs that projector. I've been catching up on what's out there since ordering this projector and it seems that the Panasonic is the favored choice around here.

If anyone else purchased one of these refurbished Sony's, what was your lamp life at? Mine shows 256 hours. Don't know if this is normal for a refurbished projector.

I am replacing my 10 yr old Studio Experiece projector. It was awesome then, and is still has a great picture. I am considering the HW15. I have component cable hookup now. Any difference between using the component cables vs the HDMI?

Having had this projector for a few months now after moving over from CRT. I am bored, nothing to adjust, it always works amazing, looks stunning, quiet as a mouse etc etc.

I miss the 1 hour prep per movie with CRT, the noise, the heat the looks of awe on visitors at it's sheer magnificence on size.

Sigh, now all I do is watch movies, play awesome games, and generally have a good time with the family now. I miss the days of tweaking, multimeter s and gamma curve adjustments

Best PJ I ever bought!

Yes, I believe using component cables will limit your maximum resolution to only 720p. Definitely upgrade to HDMI if you can. For me it meant crawling around up in the attic and then having to drill a hole through the wall frame header in order to drop the HDMI cables down to the outlet hole in the wall. A major hassle, but the end result was absolutely stunning picture quality out of my HW-15.

Has anyone here compared the HW15 to HW20 (VWPRO1)?

Also, HW15 has manual Lens zoom-shift-focus, how hard is to set this manually set this compare to VW60 (Auto setting)?

Is this as good as a 8500UB ?

Max over component is 1080i, not 720p (component is fully capable of carrying a 1080p signal but HDCP is required, which is only possible over DVI and HDMI).

You will use these adjustments once... no sweat, no problem considering the PJ is mounted (essentially) just overhead (at the top edge of the image).

They've started a new thread for the VPL-VWPRO1 which seems to sell for ($34xx MSRP) a couple hundred more than the VPL-HW15 which is going away... and it seems Sony created a packaged kit for the US market calling it the VPL-VWPRO1 - it IS the VPL-HW20 and a spare bulb! So consider the value ($369.99 MSRP) of the spare (LMP-H201) bulb in the value/cost analyisis.

Personally I've not made the jump to 1080p as I'm still running my VPL-AW15 (1280 x 720p) I'd bought in July 2007 for $1,080.00 - it was a 'business decision' to buy it over replacing another bulb ($475.00) in my VPL-VW10HT. I haven't looked back but ponying up $3K isn't exactly a good deal for me today... OK, so I paid $4,500 for the 10HT back in 2002... as we all know now: electronics get better/cheaper with time, delay as long as you 'feel' you can!

Sonyoutlet has refurbished VPL-HW15s for 1699.00 again...

Quick question. What are the best control to reduce the halo/blocky effect I see in black scene's? Just to clarify in some dark scenes it looks like there is a halo effect on some of the less dark objects. I an totally dark picture it looks like there are small white spots in the black area.

Thanx!

I seem to have the focus drift issue with my HW-15, if I set it to be focused when "warm", when I turn it on again the next day "cold" it will be out of focus. It takes nearly 30 minutes or more to "drift" back into focus as the HW-15 warms up. Has anyone had any luck getting Sony to fix this if I sent it back or get another unit that maybe doesn't do it?

Is this simply a design flaw that can't be fixed and I'd just be wasting my time and shipping try to get it straightened out?

No issues like that with mine.

I just noticed this after the Sony serviceman came to my place to check the unit 1 more time before warranty expires in 10 days.

We found out that once u have calibrated the 'Panel alignment' , in which you have changed the figure of Vertical n Horizontal on Red or Blue panel, to anything other than ZERO, u have to leave the 'Panel alignment' in the ON position, n not 'OFF' as some people suggested here. Otherwise, if u leave it in the OFF position after calibration, the picture will be displayed at factory default position, which is V:0 n H:0 for both R n B panel.

This is real painful knowing that all along for the last 400 hours, I have been watching an un-aligned projector, thinking it is just a slight out-of-focus or sharpness situation.

Just wonder if anybody knew about this here ???????????????????????????????????

Reading up on this it seems to be a design flaw of the hw-10/15/20. My hw-20 suffers the same and the only solution I've found online consists of an elastic rubber band. You set the focus when cold and use a wide rubber band to cover both the zoom & focus rings, this way when the projector warms up the focus ring won't creep. It creeps only few 10ths of a mm but will make the picture go oof. The band has been confirmed to work but haven't tried it on mine yet. So far I have always been adjusting focus on start up and after half an hour or so.
Even when focused the picture on mine is very blurry, almost like looking at the screen without glasses. I know it's supposed to be a "cinematic" image but I'm not comparing this to my plasma/led tvs nor to a dlp projector. I'm comparing this to my ancient lcd projector.
I have shapness set to 30 (up from 10) and I've run the panel alignment (panel alignment is on). I'm not sure I have a defective unit or the image is supposed to be that soft. My lense calibration screen is also green, what's wrong with white?

Have paid some attention on the focus issue but cannot find any problem on my unit.

As for Panel alignment, did u left it ON since day one ? If yes, how did u learn that ?

Yes the first thing I did is set it to on. It never occurred to me to set it to off. On means panel alignment is active, off mean it's not. Once you set the alignment you can switch it off and on to see the difference. I can see now where the confusion came from, maybe people thought you set it to on and then you set it up, then turn it off and it is always active unless you return the values to zero.
I didn't open the manual but I guess it should clarify that.
If you don't have focus drift consider yourself very lucky. To test set your focus when the unit is first started. Go up to the screen and see the lense pattern. You should see the pixel grid clearly. After 45minutes (just to make sure) hit the lense button again and go up to your screen. Is the pixel grid as clear as before or blurry?

OK, will do that tonight n see there is any difference.

In your case, is it the focus is off when unit is cold n then right on when unit is warmup, or the other way around ?