Official Sony VPL-HW30(A)ES Owners Thread - Page 75

Thanks for the kind words regarding my site. I've played the Elvis pin a few times and enjoyed it. And a tourney? Excellent!

Ok... back to projectors...

Great info. Thanks

I am close to pulling the trigger on a VPL-VW30.
Coming from an old Pearl VW50, what improvements (besides 3D obviously) can I expect ?

And is anyone playing PC games in 3D with Nvidia 3D Vision on it and can tell me if it is good ?

another question...only have component cables presently, and no interest in
3d, ocassionly movie,95% of the time live sports , in a bat cave, onto a 115'' 0.95gain screen. .. is this the best bet in this price range??

I have read that most point the 3D emitter straight back to the viewer (above screen). I have also heard that some suggest "close to seating position". I've been told that placing the emitter on top of the projector works just fine. Honestly, I'm confused. I can do all 3, but I would prefer on top of projector (easier).

What is the best experience folks have had? I'm in the planning stages of my HT so this decision matters. I'm putting in a 110" Da-Lite Progressive 1.1 screen roughtly 12' of throw. The room is light controlled (perfectly dark).

Thanks!
Rob

I've put mine on top of the screen, sitting 13' from a 106" screen. no sync issue at all.

^^^^ I put mine on the projector which is directly above seating position and fired it towards the front of the screen for bounce back and also fired it straight towards the seating position. I could not keep a sync until I placed the emitter at the front of the room under the screen or above the screen firing back at the glasses. It seems very strong when firing straight back so I am wondering if it is the IR receiver in the glasses that is so directionally challenged. I also tried in all configurations to change the IR Emitter strength in the service menu to 1 without success, all it really did is make my incandescent bulbs on a dimmer pulsate.

If you want to be sure I would run a Cat 5e, 6 or 7 cable from your projector area to the front of the room in the walls if possible.

I ended up not using the Sony glasses and went to an RF solutions the Monster 3D Visions.

Hey guys,

Been enjoying my 30ES for five months now and absolutely love it. I am just now, however, getting to the point of being motivated to get the 3D all setup and going.

From everything I have read, the Monster 3D glasses seem to be the preferred glasses to use. However, since my projector did not come with the Sony 3D Emitter, is it possible to just buy the Monster kit and hook it up.....or do I need to buy the Sony Emitter as well?

Thanks!

check the last post in the VW95 thread, John created a custom cable that allows directly connecting the RF receiver to the Sony (works for the 30 or 95)

otherwise, the sony IR transmitter is relatively inexpensive. 5 months and haven't seen 3D yet? what are you waiting for?

Sent him a PM, thanks! I don't know why I waited this long....I guess the fact that Avatar 3D being unavailable except for Panasonic bundles was a big turn off for me (didn't feel like paying $100 for a copy from Amazon).


Another question:
My standard picture was calibrated (posted before and after graphs a few months ago).....but I never had Chad B do anything with the 3D settings. Does the calibrated picture carry over when I watch 3D movies or does it need a whole new calibration for 3D?

Thanks.

Short answer is ... No, it probably will not carry over.

Longer answer... The HW30 has a very cool feature where each variation on input mode has its own settings. This means the PJ has far more "user settings" than just the the 2 obvious ones. (at least it's cool once you understand it... until then, it might be a pain in the a$$)

This means that 1080p/24 frame packing is different than 1080p/24 or 1080i or whatever. If your guy never displayed 3D content, he hasn't changed these from their presets.

But... it's probably just an issue of entering the same settings. For example, when the 1080p/24 frame packing source you should match the contrast, brightness, gamma, color space, color temp of your calibrated mode.

The above is assuming you want the same calibration for 3D as 2D. If you don't, the HW30 will happily let you have a different configuration.

Last weekend I created and tested the simple "Mark Halflich" cable. It was far easier to mockup this cable than the one suggested by John. Check out posts 1525 and 1528 of this thread for those discussions.

For the simple cable, get an ethernet patch cable and snip off one connector/end. Take rj45 pins 3,7,8 together and solder to the ground pin on the vesa connector. rj45 pin 4 (emitter sync sig) goes to the vesa sync pin. Then connect a usb cable to the MV RF emitter port - use any usb port as a power supply for the 5VDC.

Has anyone noticed there's a little three position notch on the emitter itself? It's on the right side when looking at it straight on (sony label facing back). It's probably in the manual somewhere, but does anyone know what that does off hand?

Adjusts the angle of the row of LEDs inside. You can twist the end to change the angle up/down somewhat.

Uh oh...

Have 980 hours on my HW30. Tonight it shut down on me in the middle of watching a movie. I turned it back on and it shut down again in about 10 minutes. After that, I noticed the Lamp/Cover light flashing 3 times, which according to the manual means either the lamp has reached the end of it's useful lifespan or the lamp has reached a high temperature. I don't think I like either of those scenarios. The projector had been on for about 4 hours, which is not even close to the longest I've had it on in one sitting. Has anyone else experienced this?

What's the best way to determine optimal throw distance and screen size for this Pj? I tried one of the online calculators but I'm not sure if I was doing it right because it said at my proposed distance of 18', I'd only get 6 FLs. Is that right?

I wonder what would happen if the next time you use it, try turning the high altitude mode/high fan mode on for a few "rounds" of viewing. To me, this makes the fan a little too loud - BUT, if you are successfully able to get through a few days/nights in this mode and not have the projector shut down, it'll at least tell you if the lamp is getting too hot for some reason.

The lamp of course should not be "overheating" at less than 1000 hours, but there's always a lamp here and there that isn't perfect. If it survives a few high mode rounds, switch back to normal fan. If the problem comes back, at least you know it's probably just the lamp (unfortunately). Luckily they are reasonably priced compared to every other lamp out there.

I just tried turning the projector on and immediately put it in high fan mode, and it still shuts down. It actually shuts down within a couple minutes now. What gets me is when the unit comes on, the bulb seems fine. I haven't noticed much if any dimming over the 900 hours I've used it.

I just called Sony and they said I should replace the bulb. They won't work with me on the 90 day bulb warranty either as I'm about 60 days over it. I bought it from AV Science...should I try calling them? Since day one I've felt my unit is louder than it should be, so perhaps this is the chance for me to take advantage of the warranty for that?

This is really frustrating because I was hesitant to buy a Sony product for this very reason...I guess it serves me right.

scoho - I know it's frustrating, but any UHP lamp can pop at any time. You might try escalating the call to support manager to see if you can push the issue.

The lamps are so cheap on the Sony, I keep a spare for my HW30.

please let us know how you make out.

What I don't understand is if the bulb obviously still works, why won't the unit stay on? Is there something about the bulb that is telling the unit it's not safe to run right now?

Where do you buy your bulbs from? You can PM me if it's now allowed on the forum.

#1 - AVS has good pricing on the Sony bulb.

#2 - If you purchased your HW30 with a credit card, check if your card has automatic mfr warranty doubling. If it does, then you are under 90 days X 2 and your cc should reimburse you or hook you up directly (call them first to verify the process).

There could be a weird anomaly with the bulb causing it to (now) run hotter than it should. It still works, yes, but once it comes on the projector could be sensing a problem. I'm still surprised at all the computing that goes on with a projector and how "smart" it actually is. Buying a new bulb might not be fun, but if it completely solves all your problems then it might be worth it, IMO. A bulb should certainly work past 1000 hours, but now and then someone is unfortunately bound to get one that's not up to specs.

Sss

Watched Hugo tonight. Amazing 3D on the HW30. This was my first full feature length 3D movie. Some comments...

1) There was noticeable ghosting/crosstalk when the 3D brightness was set to max in, perhaps, 10 or 15% of the scenes. Hugo has lots of high contrast scenes (dark backgrounds, lighted foregrounds). However, changing the 3D brightness from max to one less click made a tremendous improvement.

2) At 3D brightness Max-1 there was no ghosting/crosstalk in 99% of the film. Ok, I went back and watched perhaps 30% of the firm so I'm interpolating for there (I did go hunting for scenes that I recalled having ghosting). However, even where there was some ghosting/crosstalk it was exceptionally (EXCEPTIONALLY) minimal. I had to really look for it... to the degree that it's a non-issue. Example: Bright ceiling lamp on dark background.

3) The difference in 3D brightness from Max to Max-1 is noticeable, but slight. It's great to know I could eek out some more brightness for content that doesn't have high contrast transitions.

4) The HW30 allows you to use any gamma you want during 3D. I watched it with my regular 2D gamma (gamma 3). However, using gamma 1 would significantly brighten the image. Also, using ID3 you could create a gamma for even more brightness, if desired. There is a lot of power/flexibility here.

5) As for the glasses, they were not too bad. I thought they would be really uncomfortable after 2 hours. I definitely adjusted them a few times while watching, but never thought they were uncomfortable. But I do believe a different design could be more "transparent" to the wearer.

Bottom line: I'm super impressed with the HW30's 3D. Because of the contrast in the film, I believe it's not just a cake walk for a projector to handle this film well.

Some questions

1) What is an optimal seating distance for 3D? I'm wondering if I'd get more 3D "in front of the screen" pop if I sat back a little further.

2) Anyone played around with the "3D Depth Adjust"? I moved it to -2 and there was noticeable additional "in front of the screen" pop. However, the HW30 manual recommends leaving it 0.

... Altan

I just wish I could get Avatar in 3D for a non-insane price!

Hey Mad, I saw a few posts back that you weren't able to get ID3/wine working on your mac with the usb thing...bummer!! From your web page it looks as if you do have a working setup for it though. What configuration/computer setup is working for you?


update: Finally got ID3 running on my windows 7 64bit home laptop. I tried every compatilblity mode, and finally 'windows 2000' worked (and all the os's that where supposed to be supported didn't work?????) ANYWAYS....that took a while! Now onto the heartache of seeing if a keyspan usb/232 thingy will work. All this for "perfection"!!!!lol

Old Windows XP laptop...

Altan - these are great observations of the HW30. Do you also have the MV3D glasses?

Thanks!

As for the MV3D... Nope... only the 2 Sony ones supplied with the HW30...

... Altan

Watched Cars 2 3D last night, standing 7' in front of a 106" screen watching 3D is FANTASTIC!!!

when the british agent climbing up the post at the oil platform, I am like watching him from the edge of the platform, the depth is incredible.

I think I am going to get me a director chair to put at 6-7' away from screen when watching 3D.

btw, I am using cinema 1, auto iris 1, lamp on low, gamma 2 and the glasses at MAX-1.

cbaseuser, what versin of win7 64 are you using?