Official Sony VPL-HW30(A)ES Owners Thread - Page 76

How do you get lamp on low in 3D? I haven't played around much with the 3D, but whenever I've enabled it, it forces lamp in high mode.

You are right... Lamp is always High in 3D...

This weekend we watched Pirates, Kung Fu Panda 2, and How to Train Your Dragon in 3D. I also popped in my Avatar 3D disc in and watched 10 minutes of it.
Thoughts: I played around w/the 3D resolution and going 'positive' or 'negative' didn't make that much of a difference however the 3D brightness did.
Pirates is a very dark movie so keeping the 3D brightness at its max (the default) was nice a bright but made some scenes look like they were shot with an HD Cam: the grain of the original movie was gone (I even put in the 2D disc and watched the same scene to compare) so I lowered the 3D brightness for that movie to make it look more 'film-like'. I ended up doing the same for Kung-Fu Panda 2 since that movie is already bright so turning it down was a way to make it easier on the eyes. HTTYD (one of the best rated 3D movies for it's 3D quality) didn't fail - it looked fantastic in 3D. The only knock on the 3D movies w/the projector so far is when there are fast moving scenes you can see the images "stutter/strobe" which you wouldn't see watching the 2D version. I can live with that from time to time since the 3D is amazing.
Next weekend will be Avatar, Bolt, and maybe Alice in Wonderland and Puss in Boots. I still have many more 3D movies to watch on it than these too. Cheers!

That is by design.

To promote discovery, reference the Operating Instructions (manual) page 81.

I have a question about the best general recommendation for 3D display settings. At the top of this thread there are display setting recommendations for normal 2D viewing, but none for 3D.
My screen is a 110" 16:9 DaLite Cinema Vision at 15'3" throw distance. Projector temporarily mounted near dead center of the screen.

Here is what I'm using for 2D:

CINEMA1
-------
Contrast 90
Brightness 53
color temp Low 1 (6500k)
Sharpness 10
Film mode Auto1
Color space Normal
Gamma OFF


DYNAMIC (mostly unchanged from OOTB and only used for 3D viewing)
-------
Contrast 89
Brightness 55
color temp High (8500k) - OOTB
Sharpness 7
Film mode Auto2 - OOTB
Color space Wide3 - OOTB
Gamma 6 - OOTB

-------

For Dynamic mode, there are many settings still set from OOTB to maximum - Contrast, Color Temp, Color Space, Gamma 6. As you can see above, the brightness difference between my Cinema1 and this mostly default Dynamic are substantial. This is expected with the High (8500k) color temp. While I have tuned Contrast, Brightness and Sharpness, what should the 4 other settings be set to in the Dynamic mode for 3D viewing?

Then since there is no DI active in 3D, I assume any calibration intended for 3D should be setup using DI = Off. Correct?

Also, is there a good english cookbook/guide for calibrating the Sony's that use a similar menu format as the HW30? (Cine4home has some german videos, but those are obviously not going to help english users). This is just about the only source with suggestions that I could find: http://www.projectorreviews.com/sony...alibration.php, but it doesn't walk through calibrating gamma or RCP and they seem reluctant to use Gamma=Off for any mode. Of course, this was for a HW15 and not the newer HW or VW models.

PS: the "EST LUM/CLOSEST" is based on the lux to lumens calculator spreadsheet's estimate of lumens with the projector at the closest throw distance. In my case that would be somewhere near 11' 2.5".

This might be the wrong thread, but it does concern the HW30. I have it mounted about a foot off center, to the left and about a foot above my head, shooting onto a dalite HP (2.4). Throw is about 14 feet onto a 106" screen size.

My eyes may be playing tricks on me, but the left side of the screen looks slightly brighter than the right. I'm obviously using lens shift to reposition the image. Would the HP screen be that sensitive to that kind of projector placement? If not, I might be dealing with a uniformity issue.

If the projector is mounted to your left with the lens IN FRONT of your eyes, then the HP could make the left side look slightly brighter (though with a one foot difference it should be very close).

If the projector is mounted to your left and BEHIND you, then the RIGHT side would be slightly brighter. But again, with only a one foot shift, it should be very, very close.

If your projector is off-center, you want to be off center to the SAME side for the HP or other retro-refletive screen materials. Sitting on the opposite side would worsen the effect.

Low gain screens (assuming angular-reflective) suffer a similar (but opposite) effect. The screen looks less bright on the far side if your projector is mounted off-center, and the effect is more pronounced if you sit off-center on the same side as the projector is offset. The effect is less pronounced than on the HP because the gain fall-off is much less severe for lower gain screens. For an angular-reflective screen you would want to sit opposite the projector offset, because this will centralize the hot-spot, which looks the most natural.

I thoght the lamp would be same mode with 2D if I did not change the setting in 3D mode? I might be wrong then

Just an update to this, I called Sony and I'm sending the unit to their Texas facility for repair. I brought up the fact that I think my fan has been louder than it should be since day one, and they agreed something might not be right if the lamp only has 900 hours, still comes on, and couldn't possibly have enough time to overheat in the less than a minute it now takes before it shuts down.

So no projector for me, probably for at least 3 weeks. Though, I did hook up my trusty old Sanyo PLV-Z4 (the most under-appreciated projector ever made).

That is what I thought, though I didn't think a foot would make a difference. So basically, in a perfect world, you want to be directly under the projector. However, I notice that when I sit up off the couch, the image does get slightly brighter, so I guess it is pretty sensitive to placement.

Thanks!

Unless you are extremely sensitive to brightness differences, it's unusual to notice that sort of change from the projector being only one foot off axis. It is possible something else is at play. The difference from the left side to the right side would be notably less than the difference betweeen either side and the center of the screen, for instance.

It's being projected onto a dalite model B pull down, non tensioned screen - far from a reference viewing situation. I should probably expect some variation in my situation. Oh well, I still love the projector.

I had a similar experience with an Optoma Greywolf screen a few years ago. The brightest area of the screen seemed to fluctuate depending on where I was seated in my theater room. It seemed pretty uniform seated in the primary center seats in both rows. In the second row, though, as soon as I was seated off the center axis it was evident the opposing upper corner of the screen would appear brighter. My solution was upgrading to a matte white low gain screen since I really didnt need the gain properties in my light controlled basement with dark walls and ceiling.

Anyone got a perfect panel alignment on the HW30?

I can get perfect white line in the center (almost 70% of the screen) but the left and right side of the screen is not perfect, shed of bleeding of either green or blue off the line, just a tiny bit but it's annoying.

But in fact, I can't see the different during a movie

The newer DaLite HP 2.4 gain is reported to have a wider viewing cone and less hotspot (ie: fairly uniform). Even when sitting off angle, the typical resulting gain is usually still higher than most angular-reflective screens regardless of where the projector is mounted.

Unfortunately for me, I have a relatively new screen and I needed a motorized/rollup (which also meant I required tab-tensioned) and they don't make the HP in that config. Otherwise I would opt for the 2.4 HP as a blindingly bright fixed screen.

I couldn't find any ways to adjust white balance from the setup menu.

Is it burried inside the service menu?

There's 6 or 8 (I forget) "custom" color temps. Each one has a right arrow next to it. Press right on the control pad while highlighting one of these and it brings you to the RGB gain/cut for each of those setting.

I just did a "rough official" white balance tonight (only 60 hours on bulb). I also ran a quick RGB only cie measure, and all were pretty dead on. This thing calibrates REALLY well. Used eye one pro and hcfr with the avshd disc for measuring. Also - gamma 8 seems to be the same as "off", but I turned the black adj. down to -1. It gave a pleasing curve hovering around 2.2. I have yet to dive into image director, but I want to try to get a 2.4 curve goin' on!!

Most projectors I've seen have some sort of ability to change the hdmi "input level" (normal, enhanced,etc.). My old epson 6500ub had choice for normal, enhanced, even super white, though I just left everything off/normal.

Source devices also usually have this setting, like the PS3 and Xbox 360. Does the HW30 have anything like this? I haven't seen anything in the menu that alludes to this. I can only assume it's locked into what one would call the "normal" setting?

I currently have all sources set to the same hdmi level (normal), and have calibrated the projector with avshd and video essentials blu ray version. It still seems that the black level is to high on blue rays. I'll be watching a movie, and for some reason it looks a little washed out, but when I turn down the brightness from 49 to 40ish, it looks like what I'm used to. Yet 49 is the "correct" setting according to the pluge pattern on VE. AVSHD actually wants the brightness to be up at 52 to see the 17 bar flashing, which seems too high.

All this is with gamma 8, which I measured with an eye one and hcfr, and it tracked pretty darn close to 2.2, so I don't think there are any erroneous black level errors in the near black realm. It just seems I'm constantly fiddling with the black level for some reason. I've also tried the 0 IRE trick to where you adjust the brightness until the screen doesn't get any darker. This puts me at a level around 49 also, once again suggesting this is correct, but it still seems all the program material I watch for some reason has a native raised black level in general that I keep having to manually fix by clicking down brightness a few notches to an "incorrect setting".

This behavior makes me think the hdmi input level on the hw30 maybe a little wacky, or I'm just missing something....

#@~*!! I stood on my 3D glasses last night and one of the lens is cracked. I suppose there's no way to replace a single lens?

Is there anyone who's read throught the 75 pages so far who could give me a overall impression of the Xpand glasses vs Sony's? Advantages and disadvantages. Thnx!

... and Monster Vision too!

After spending so much on the projector, I'm not interested in the build quality, ease of use or value of the glasses. Just which gives the best picture!

I too am doing the "brightness control dance", but a lot of time in the opposite direction to you (TV material in particular). I just put it down to differences in source material and adjust at the start of playback.

One thing I miss from my old PJ is being able to save the standard settings, then adjust on the fly but being able to easily reset to the saved ones/have it default to those on power on. It's all to easy to make an adjustment for something, shut down and then wonder why things look really off the next time and have to go fiddling again.

Is it possible to edit the default settings for the modes in the service menu I wonder? Then you could set it to preference and select the reset option to get back to your standard settings, maybe even do a macro on the remote for it.

You could just duplicate your setting into each of the user modes, then switch between those, I think.

I've kind of been doing that too, but it's still much less flexible.

My previous machine used to also state what mode it was in on startup which helps with this stuff too (mind you these were about the only good points that could be said for it!).

Well I just wanted to give a word of advise to everyone here that is able to afford cool stuff like this. Be sure to have some form of security system (Alarm, Cameras, etc...) or make sure you have insurance coverage that actually covers the personal contents of your home in case of theft, whatever because I JUST finished my theater room with one of these nice Sony hw30's and my house got hit by worthless pieces of Sh*t thieves recently and now I'm finding out NONE of my personal contents that was stolen is covered under my policy!!

Take pictures of your contents and write down your serial numbers because it's not on the box or the receipt...

I've learned a very expensive lesson here and just wanted to pass it on to others so yall don't have to go through what I just did. My hw30 will be greatly missed

Sorry I had to vent that here, carry on with your discussion...

Sorry for your loss. You need to find a new insurance company. Every house I've owned/insured the policies cover the contents.

Sorry to hear that.

I have All-State insurance with a default of 10% of the house value for a single loss, and the only thing I can find that would not be fully covered is dvd/bd discs... which is a pathetic $250 and $500 for theft of tools.

Which insurance company do (or did) you have that required a special rider?
What property guidelines did they use to exclude your specific AV losses?

The insurance company I had I found out never sent the declaration papers to my mortgage company like they were supposed to. Also found out the person that was handling my account was let go because she also did that to several other clients. So my mortgage company placed a lender based policy on my home the end of last year because they never received the proper paperwork and after going back and forth for a few months I dropped them and figured I was covered under the policy my mortgage company gave me since it was twice as much.

Anyways to make a long story short lender based policies only protect the assets of the lender which is the house only and doesn't have any coveraage for personal items or belongings.

I forgot the name of the company Bank of America used but they are no longer on my insurance provider

I don't have insurance - why? When I enquired, they wanted €1200 when I mentioned the ~10k of HT gear. While I do not relish being burgled, I've had equivalent value gear for about 12 years now so have saved more than the replacement cost in not paying the insurance. The more sensible thing IMO if (like with my case) the cost is so high, is to put the money you would spend on insurance into an interest bearing account.