Official Sony VPL-HW30(A)ES Owners Thread - Page 5

While not an owner I thought it important to pass along the following information on this thread. I went to the Best Buy MAGNOLIA store in Portsmouth, NH and sure enough they had the SONY 3D VPL-HW30AES Projector available for demo. BUT they had the projector connected with composite video cables and they were unable to demo anything in 3D because in this "high tech" AV room they didn't even have HDMI cables! Needless to say, I told the sales man what is the point of even having this latest/greatest 3D projector if you can't demonstrate it to potential customers? He said he had already told his manager this the day they set it up and the manager blew him off and told him to stick with composite and forget about HDMI and demoing 3D! Talk about short sighted. Anyway I told the sales man that I specifically came in order to demo the projector. Instead of saying "sorry we can't do this" he went out, got a new extended 1.4 HDMI cable, another long cable to hook up the extender for the 3D glasses and a SONY 3D bluray player. The salesman "Mike Campbell" did an OUTSTANDING job and if anyone wants to demo this projector in the NH or MA area, the Portsmouth Best Buy has it.

After we got everything set up he demoed AVATAR 3D, Voyage of the Dawn Treader 3D and he up converted WALL-E to 3D. The image was projected onto a 100" STEWART Firehawk SST tab tensioned electriscreen.

Observations regarding the projector in 2D: B R I G H T! I own the VPL-VW60 along with the exact same STEWART SCREEN and I was amazed at how BRIGHT the projector is in low lamp mode and it is brilliant in high lamp mode, granted the lamp only had 8 hours on it but my projector has never been as bright. As for the image; VERY, very sharp, excellent contrast and solid blacks. The colors right out of the box were also exceptionally acurate as opposed to my VW-60 right out of the box. The VW-60 didn't look as good/accurate until I had it professionally calibrated.

Observations regarding the projector in 3D: I have been very skeptical about 3D for home use but the SONY 3D VPL-HW30AES made a believer out of me. AVATAR 3D looked just as good if not better than it did when I saw it at a new multi-million dollar high def digital 3D theater in OK City. Great depth, the HUD displays blew me away just as they had when I saw it at the theater for the first time and the scenes where they take down Home Tree and the battle at the end were exceptional. One thing I also checked that made a BIG difference was using the Motion Flow setting on LOW as someone in the know strongly recommended. Boy did that make a BIG difference. There is a scene in the beginning of the film where doctors are floating in zero G on the transport ship. In one scene a doctor floats across the screen towards camera. Without Motion Flow LOW he is blurry but with Motion Flow on LOW the doctor remained sharp and in focus the entire time. Using Motion Flow in LOW was perfect.

Regarding the new glasses, while a little uncomfortable (I have to wear RX glasses) they did an excellent job, I did not notice any blinking or discomfort and my eyes did not feel fatigued at all after extended viewing of well over an hour.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3D also looked very good and crosstalk was virtually nonexistent in both 3D films. The SONY did a solid job up converting the image of WALL-E to 3D. The salesman said this projector did a better job of 2D to 3D up conversion than any other plasma or LCD TV or projector in their store.

There were just a few minor negatives but that was not the fault of the projector.

1) The brand new remote that had come with the projector was DOA so we were unable to make menu changes using the remote but on the projector itself (A new remote is being ordered). Since the pj is hanging from the 9 foot ceiling, changing the settings were cumbersome and we were unable to play with the 2D to 3D up conversion settings so the WALL-E 3D image was a bit flat, a problem that could have been easily addressed if the remote was working.

2) The 3D image using the SONY glasses was not as bright as the 2D image which is to be expected. That said, the picture was bright enough and would have been better still if we could have tweaked it using the remote. Also, because of the color of the 3D lenses on the SONY glasses the color of the 3D image was not as accurate as it was in 2D mode without the glasses. I believe a lot of this could have been easily solved by using different Gamma settings and tweaking the color on one of the USER settings to compensate but because of the limitations of not being able to use the remote we were unable to easily make the changes and compensate for the somewhat dimmer image and the colors being a little off.

I must admit, ...I was wrong about 3D being a fad and the possibility of getting an excellent 3D projected image at home from a projector without having to mortgage our first-born grandchild. The SONY 3D VPL-HW30AES projector is an exceptional projector at a very fair price-point and If I had the money I would own it tomorrow. SONY has a solid winner on it's hands. It should be interesting to read the review of SONY's flagship 95 3D projector, I can't wait.

I had the same experience at the Appleton, WI BB store! The projector was hooked up through component only, so we were unable to demo true digital transport and 3D BR. The sales guy was nice enough to set the wheels in motion to re-wire that demo room (1 of 2 enclosed demo rooms) for HDMI and said he would arrange for a private demo this coming week once the wiring is run. Who plans this stuff????

Also saw the Sharp in the other demo room, 3D was good on the Sharp but 2D was not as impressive as the Sony, even via component.

Good lord how stupid are these Best Buy supervisors or execs to go with component still now so many years later?? Why...it's harder to push an HDMI connector in than 3 separate components?

If the picture looks stunning like it can with good bluray then people want to buy. If they want 3D and it looks great same thing. With component not so effing much.

I remember I went to a BB last year to see a Mitsubishi 1080p projector and it was hooked up to composite cables. I asked what was wrong with the quality, the person there said it was how it supposed to look. Then, I asked to see the remote to press the info button so I can see what resolution it was in, and he refused to show me. I finally convinced someone else and I saw that it was composite cables. I walked out with my head down. That's why some people think they can't get good picture quality in a projector.

Aside from 3D, is there really any difference between component and HDMI for 2D?

component can't do 1080p.

Let me rephrase that, component isn't allowed to do 1080p. By that I mean, it could if the movie industry wasn't worried about piracy and effectively killed it. At least that is what I've heard before.

Just curious, are people setting the x.v.Color setting to ON or OFF. I noticed the gamma setting is not available when set to ON.

Setting this to on will not make any change to the image unless feeding the projector a x.v.color source such as a Sony camcorder.
As noted you may lose some features. No reason to engage this setting for general use.

FYI - there are x.v. capable blu ray players, but in general the discs are encoded at a lower bit depth.

imo, they should not have merged the threads. The main thread was filled will pre-lease info and OT discussions, the owners thread you started for the most part was on track with owner discussion.

I believe those are "deep color" 10 and 12 bit not x.v. which is different and not compatible. There may be a BD player that says x.v. output but I am not aware of one so you could be right if there is one.
There are still benefits to up scaling if it is done properly and as long as your display takes 10/12 bit it can minimize banding. Feeding deep color 12 bit to the Sony with x.v engaged will not yield any benefits.

William start another thread and I will see what can be done to move some posts over. We can rename this one. Thx.

Zombie I cant wait to hear your simple answer to this question. Is the Sony HW30 better than the JVC rs40? If you want you can pm me the answer. I know AVS cant comment since they sell both units but I need to buy a pj like now since my Theater is shut down.

Really just want too here about the stuff the rs40 does not handle well

The rs40 handles blu-ray 24hz 3d very well but side by side has horrible ghosting. Also gaming how is the video input lag. And the gaming 3d


It's a shame about the glasses. I hate that on the rs40 do to the liner polarization you reapply can only get there glasses if you have a screen that retains polarization

You guys must remember that BB sales people don't deal a lot with projectors and just don't have the experience with them that Alan and most of the AVS sales team has with projectors.

Most of the team would view component inputs on a digital projector as totally unnecessary.

My fear in answering this question is that I wouldn't want to be responsible for you making a decision that may not align with my particular likes of the Sony HW30.

With my disclaimer aside, I have a few more first impressions after some more viewing last night.

• I like the built in Color settings - Out of the box (either 2d or 3d) I don't feel a need to go running for the Chroma 5 Pro, laptop and an evening of 0-100% screens with Tom's excellent sofware. Unless someone is really picky, I think the majority of folks would be quite pleased with the stock settings for color. This is important to me because I had to make serious adjustments to my gray scale with my RS50 with 2 different lamps. Big grayscale adjustments = loss of lumens right from the start.
  
  
• Gamma Settings - with 8 or so different built in Gamma settings, there is guaranteed to be one you like. There's about 3 that I am going back and forth between. There are further adjustments you can make for black and white levels.
  
  
• Contrast / Shadow Detail / Black Floor - Surprisingly good. In tough mixed contrast scenes, it was on par with the RS50. The iris is undetectable which is great (something I was nervous about) and works well. There are only certain scenes where you can see the black floor is better on the RS50, but not by as much as I thought. The JVC is dimmer than my Sony so it may not even be a fair comparison.
  
  
• 3D Glasses - I am not winning here. Xpand 103's don't work consistantly, and my favorite 3D glasses, the Monster Vision 3D's aren't working anywhere near as well as Sony's glasses. I don't mind the Sony glasses and I wear prescription glasses, but the MV3D's are very comfortable and light. There are times I forgot they are on.
  
  
• Ghosting - There may be some voodoo going on with the Glasses, but whatever it is, it's working well. The HW30 is very close to the ghost-free image folks have been bragging about on the $500 Acer 5360. Of course the Sony has better color, sharper and better contrast. The question is, will it hold up as the lamp ages?
  
  
• 3D flicker- . Some people don't see it. I am hyper sensitive to refresh rates. The Acer 5360 with the 60hz per eye refresh was nice. I was always able to notice it on the JVC. Not a dealbreaker, but still conscious of the slight flicker, especially noticeable on light backgrounds. The Sony with the MF low 1 setting is nice and solid. No detection of flicker and it's a relief on the eyes.
  
  
• Motion handling - I can see why Kraine was so excited about this. There are rare instances where I would try CMD1 on the JVC, but felt it was too obvious and didn't use it much. Motion Flow @ low level in contrast adds 'just enough' to smooth out the 24P video, but not so much that it's annoying. Keep in mind that opinions will vary widely on this subjective topic.
  

btw, I am not saying it's completely ghost free, but in the toughest of scenes, it's quite subtle (and can be further adjusted with the settings), that for me it's a non issue with 3D blurays. I did watch some SBS (Toy Story 3 and Nightmare before Xmas 720p SBS) and it looks ok. There is some mild ghosting. Personally, I don't bother with these SBS, I think the IQ is too soft when your used to 3D frame packed blurays.

@Space 2001 - I am not much of a console gamer but I played Crysis 2 in 3D on the Sony last night. I am too old for these Xbox controllers, I need a mouse and keyboard with the Quake 2 engine running on my Voodoo 2 passthru 3D card. The image reminds of SBS MKV's.... tooo soft. The 3D effect is cool, but it would be a heck of lot better if it was 1080P full frame 3D. Ghosting stands outs, but not as much as it does on my RS50. It can be tuned with the 3D setting to almost eliminate it, but the softness would bother me too much. I also can't sense any noticeable lag that would prevent me from playing. I was in 2D mode for a while and the action was fast, no sense of the lag. Someone i'm sure will do the correct measurements to show the exact lag.

imo, the projector to beat for console gaming is going to be the upcoming Optoma 750GT. HMDI 1.4, 720P native res AND the most important addition, a 3Pin 3D VESA port for 'bring your own IR or RF emitter and Glasses'. This opens many options. I think this projector is going to be bright, handle SBS with near perfection, ghost free and run any glasses you want. For the price, I would buy it for the only purpose of 3D console games. Plus the lamps for those lower end DLP's are always dirt cheap, so let 'em burn all night long.

After a few nights, I think the Sony HW30 is a nice projector. I do miss the auto focus, zoom and lens shift, but the positives in the 'out of the box IQ' & quality 3D more than make up for these luxuries.

I don't recall Sony owners complaining about the dimming lamp syndrome of 2011, so I am hoping this Sony lamp lives a nice, long life with a decent dimming rate. I felt like I had to give Sony a chance given my dealings with JVC recently. Competition is always a good thing and keeps companies on their toes when there are other choices.

With the Mitsubishi HC7800 and new 1080p DLP Optoma w/ lens shift coming out soon, this price range is going to be filled with quality projectors at a great price. I can't wait to see what comes out in the late fall.

Ghosting... I am wondering if the voodoo has to do with the new PJ1 3D emitter and 3D glasses? By extension, I am wondering of using the new PJ1 emitter and glasses on the vw90 might offer any enhancement. Hmmmm.... given how some other 3D glasses resolve the 3D image differently, it makes me wonder.

Sony UHP lamp decline has been very predictable through several generation of projectors. The lamp model number on the hw30 should be compared to earlier projectors to see if Sony made a change to accommodate the next "surge" design of the hw30.

It would be nice to get some insider info if there is something unique going on here with the glasses / emitter. I had the MV3D and the Sony on my face at the same time going back and forth. There is a noticeable difference (same as expand 103) in favor of the Sony glasses.

The Sony glasses seem well built, but not the most comfortable. I still prefer the tint of the MV3D, but I am not going to trade that for ghosting.

Now I need some more Sony glasses.. are they available yet?

So bottom line...2D only...how does the HW30 compare to the RS40/50?

my initial opinion is that it's on par with the 40/50. The iris is impressive, it seems to work great and I can't see it working. The colors are so good out of the box compared to my RS50 (my RS40 was pretty good out of the box) that it's a treat to just plug it in and start watching my favorites.

It's brighter than RS50, so I have to be careful judging the black floor. Right now the brightness on my 2.8HP is nirvana for a brightness fanatic. I like retina searing brightness and watching 3D right now where I sometimes squint during bright scenes is awesome.

I will run through my dark favorites in the next few days for a more honest answer since I like dark sci-fi. Aliens, T2, Matrix, Underworld to see if the difference in black floor is that noticeable in primarily dark scenes.

also, Motion Flow is a major point worth mentioning. Some people who might not otherwise have considered using FI might want to check this out.

I was told by a Sony contact the PJ1 emitter was just more powerful. However, what you have reported makes we wonder if that info was correct.

I am using the Monster Vision 3D's via it's IR receiver. This didn't work on the JVC, but did work on the Sony IR emitter. I would have prefered a direct connection to the projector. Perhaps something isn't right with the IR tranmission between the two devices. The Xpand 103 was using the Sony emitter, just cutting out a second or 2 every 15 seconds. Ghosting was the same as the MV3D's.

Where did these glasses come from? Were they also used with the VW90?


Edit: It looks like one of my posts got lost in the thread split. For reference:

The vw90 used the BT100/50 glasses, is compatible with the BT250 glasses, and supposedly compatible with the PJ1 glasses.

The main difference with the PJ1 glasses was supposed to be just the built in polarizer filters, and that they would not need to use the filters needed on the BT100/50/250/Xpands/etc.

But again... your ghosting observations have me wondering. Hopefully by the time I am ready to put my vw90 back online in the new HT, I can test drive several 3D glasses & emitters setups.

i spent about 20 minutes on phone with sony trying to find out if they sell any extra glasses, but 3 people i spoke to/got transferred to couldnt find them. they also couldn't locate a projector mount on their system. if anyone has ideas about how to order extras and order a mount for this, that would be great.

also have to agree with everything you said about this projector zombie. i didn't have to change anything out of the box for colors. it was really nice color from the start. you should check out that cirque due soleil 3d disc thats out now as colors on that was awesome.

Alan I'm not able to rename this thread, I can only modify the text inside the topic.

22Emmittfan. Sony will with 2 to 6 weeks start selling the glasses without the projector. AV Science will be stocking them.

As for mounts, almost every major mount company has mounts with plates designed to fit this and other Sony projectors.

The Chief RPA020 is an excellent choice that is not very expensive. You will need a flange plate or other method for attaching a pole or pipe socket to the ceiling and a pole or pipe as well. Please see you pms.