Official Sony VPL-VW95ES Owners Thread - Page 17

I don't think Sony will be stopping to make projectors anytime soon. From the looks of it, the projector business is doing well for Sony.

I've picked up the 95 (whoooohoooo) and next step is the screen for me.
a bit of rambling with some questions:

What size of image would you say is ideal to maintain good quality?
For sports, for gaming, for Blu ray, for regular HD content??

I plan on watching a lot of hockey, gaming, and then movies.
Room is light controlled and i can go to a 110" diag CIH @ 16:9 and 139" diag @ 2.35:1 as probably max size for a CIH setup.
or approx 120" diag as a stand alone 16:9 setup.

(seating will be 12.5' Row 1 (the most important row!), then approx 16' 2nd row)

Do any of those sizes threaten the ability to get the best possible quality image?
Throw will likely be at the shortest end (although i have to clarify what that means on the CIH setup. 11' for the 16:9 and 14' for the 2.35:1) i imagine it must be the 2.35:1 distance.

Another issue is that i have plenty of 2D FL in the 110" 16:9, ok ish for 3D but the 2.35:1 mode will have only 10 FL in 2D mode and a brutal 4 FL in 3D
So am i better off setting it up for a hp screen and run in Low mode/clamp down iris etc) instead of a Studiotek 130

lots of questions....thanks

AV Science to the rescue. Please email me from wherever you are located if you need a Monster MVI SHUT 3D Kit!

Received my 95 from AVS today.
Did a quick takedown of a Panny 7000 and hooked up the 95 in short order.
First thing I did was test out the lens memory control on it. As a former 4000 owner and current 7000 owner and user of a 2.37:1 AR screen, lens memory is a necessity for my setup. After taking a few minutes getting the zoom/lens shift/focus set up for normal 16:9 broadcast HD, I inserted a few various AR blu-rays. Did a setup for 1.85:1, 2.35:1 and 2.40:1.
Compared to the 7000, the lens memory adjustment takes noticeably more time to adjust between your set memories on the 95. I would say almost double. (6-7 seconds vs. 3-4 on the 7k) In addition, it's not as accurate. Each time I adjusted back to 16:9 from one of the other settings, the lens shift did not go back precisely to where I set it. I did not have any issues with this on either the 4k or the 7k. Not sure what to make of this.

The positive is that the lens memory CAN be adjusted in 3D mode. This is not capable on the Panny. You have to remember to set your lens memory before inserting a 3D blu-ray because you can't adjust it in 3D mode. On the Sony 95, you can adjust it in 3D so that's nice to see.

Black levels are a revelation. Whenever I watched non-scope programming on my Panny, I could always tell where the picture window ended and "dead space" started. I have to say that on the 95, I have to get right up on the screen to see the line where there is no light projection. And it certainly passes the "hand puppet" test.

3D brightness seems on par with the 7000 which I figured it would since I ran the numbers on coderguy's calculator. This is using the Sony glasses. I hope to see an improvement when I install the MV glasses which will probably happen tomorrow.

That's it for now.

Maestro J, in your opinion, does the VW95 worth almost 2x more than the 7000 ?

Wor.. Black level that good? Maestro J, did you turn DI=ON?
So, I probably will not be able to see "black bars" on my 16:9 screen projecting scope image??

Just for fun


Here som pic from Cars taken with a normal consumer camera ( DSC-T10 ) hold in the hand the 95ES on my 2.8 gain screen.

tomorrow I will put some 3D pic.


dj

wow...very nice !!

Got the MV3d kit and glasses working with minimal hassles, although for neatness I'm still interested in that custom cable.

Not done much 3d viewing yet, and was wondering what people are setting sharpness to? The default seemed very high at 60, so I've dropped it a bit, and am inclined to drop it further.

What are you guys using?

Cheers!

CDJay

Wow, that is bad. Maybe it is a defect. I will be zooming and this feature is a must for me. Maybe other owners can make some tests and verify if its a problem on Maestro's unit...

That's a tough one and it's certainly one I posed to myself when I decided to take the plunge with the 95.
There's no doubt that the SXRD picture is better than the Panny's LCD. Blacks are substantially better which increases contrast. Sharpness is better. I don't detect any discernible difference in color saturation.
Lens memory is a must-have for me so Panny was the only player in the game from my standpoint. Now Sony and JVC have added this feature so I decided to go with the 95.
The price difference vs. what you get with the 95 is just way to subjective to definitively answer that question.


DI set to Auto1.
Not sure what you mean that you won't see the black bars on your 16:9 screen.


Yes, this is definitely the one big negative so far for me. I would love to know if others can test out the lens memory with the different AR's and see if when they switch back and forth, the settings are saved exactly.

Question...

I'm just starting to play with some of the simple settings.

I'm watching blue bloods and if I set the picture mode to standard it look really fake. Almost like the people are moving to fast and it's all a little weird.

If I set it to Cinema 3 it looks better.

Anybody have recommendations?

Maestro J - thanks for the impressions. What is your throw, screen size (diag) and screen gain? Did you measure lumens by any chance?

How does your convergence look?

Any thoughts on shadow detail compared to the Panny or other pjs you are familiar with?

Thanks dj. I know its hard to tell a lot from pictures and they are mostly for fun, but I am encouraged by the dynamic range in these dark pictures, particularly the last one showing the 3 cars with the bright headlights against the dark night backdrop.

How well would you say this photo represents what you are really seeing in person? Are the blacks really this good or is their a certain amount of crush going on in the photo itself that is making the blacks darker than they really are? I am thinking so, because the blacks in the picture part of your photo are the same shade as the blacks in the non-picture part of the photo.

As it turns out, I had my motion enhancer on low and that was the issue.

Thanks for the update.

Rick - is that the same as this on the first page of this thread:

Or is the motion enhancer a different option than the Motionflow? I get confused between the DFI and whatever the other one is.

Received my projector today. Excited to get it mounted but may be a couple of days before I can use it still. Very productive thread so far. Keep the recommended settings coming guys. These baselines are great.

Ok, I've been crazy busy with a lot of personal and business things, so it's been really hard to do as much viewing as I'd like and certainly to spend the time to compose my thoughts.

Summary

The sum of the various performance features of the VPL-VW95 place it as the best projector I've owned. This is partly the nature of evolution, as there would be no way to compare an Epson 1080UB to the 95es, but also a testament to Sony addressing many deficiencies in the much more recent 90, and doing so with remarkable precision.

My initial hesitation purchasing the 95 (and indeed which led me down the path of trying the Panasonic 7000) was partly my disappointment with the 90, and partly my expectation that this would be only an incremental upgrade, and that next year's "105" for whatever they call it, would be the ticket

But following the same measured, rational thinking that led someone to decide to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, I took the plunge. I've avoided drowning or being crushed by boulders and have emerged exhilarated!

Some points to remember:

• I am not a movie only user, so I am looking at combined performance of 2D and 3D Blu Ray, lots of HD hockey, golf, and football, and other HD TV viewing.
• My screen is a 133" DaLite High Power 2.8, projector apps 15.5 feet from screen tabletop mounted a few feet behind my head.
• My room is not a complete bat cave, but I would say I have 90-96 percent light control in the evening.
• If some of these comments differ than my first post, it is either a refined view or senility.

Since many have asked about a review from a comparative perspective, I will try my best to position the 95 to my two other most recent projectors, starting with the chart below:




For Overall Performance, this is my judgement of combined positives and negatives of all the major characteristics of each projector. For the 95, it just feels by far to be the projector I would reach to turn on first for almost any viewing if I were to leave all three in my room

Color (Out Of Box) is fairly self explanatory - while you can squeeze out better performance with calibration, if you don't intend to go down that path, you will find the 95 is awfully good without having to do much at all

Calibrated Color is something to be careful of here in my evaluation - the RS50 was expertly calibrated by Jeff Meier about 8 months back - the Sony and Panasonic are (and were) works in progress with my recent purchase of Chromapure and the DVDO Duo (using the automated process, as I am a dope when it comes to understanding the nuances of manually calibrating) The 50 is approaching a year old, still going strong on the original bulb, and the 95 is of course brand new. Still, there is something more natural and pleasing about the color from the 95 than from the 50, though not earth-shatteringly so. JVC is no slouch in this area.

Black Level performance still goes to JVC, but it's very , very close, and for me, immaterially different.

Both the JVC and Sony are just razor sharp. I've not bothered to play with the convergence feature on the Sony, as it was quite crisp OOB, and with the 90, I noticed that color was affected when it was used - haven't tested this yet with the 95 (to see this, I put of a solid 50% grey screen and turned on the software convergence feature on the 90 - you would suddenly see a pinkish or magenta haze appear over large swathes of the screen, though to be fair, it didn't seem to really present itself with normal material)

Native motion handling was great with the Sony, and the Panny was a close second. I never liked the motion handling on the JVC's, native or otherwise. As a side note, the smoothest 24p rendition seemed to be the Sony as well.

The Sony bests the 7000 with FI as well, which surprised me a bit - but in the critical viewing of hockey games, names on jersey's held up best with the Sony. JVC's FI is similar to watching cottage cheese vibrate.

The JVC showed the best color uniformity when viewing a grey or white screen. The Panny appear to be an LSD trip. The Sony had faint broad areas of red or green tint in test patters, but never in actual material (online the Panny which was touch to watch hockey on as you could see the uniformity issues)

Brightness uniformity was almost equally great between the Sony and the JVC, and my initial comments of subtle bright corners may have been from an ambient source. Still, I "feel" the JVC is a tad more uniform. The Panny continues its LSD trip in this category

Apparent Contrast is the phrase I use for how it looks/feels, as getting into the details of this kind of measurement is beyond me. But the 95 and 50 both seem to have equal punch and range to the overall rendition of the image. The Panny begins to detox...

The Panny has recovered! and feels to be the brightest projector of the bunch, though the 95 is close. The 50 sits this dance out.

For Fan Noise, my feeling is the Sony could be a bit quieter. It seems to be more the particular tone or pitch of the fan noise - the JVC and Panny are more even/flatter - the 95 seems tuned to a particular pitch which is a bit more noticeable, but again, if you are ceiling mounted I doubt either would be an issue. But I can hear the Sony in 3d (high lamp mode) during quieter passages.

3D performance is superb with the 95 - maybe a smidge of an edge to the Panny on the ghosting department, but the Panny was less comfortable, with more of a jitter to the image. The Sony is the smoothest. Unsurprisingly, the JVC found the Panny's LSD tab and is unavailable to participate cogently in this category.

The ghosting in the Sony is minimal - one of the worst titles I've experienced with the JVC is Despicable Me, and the amount of ghosting with this title on the 95 is extremely small using the Sony glasses. The Monster glasses do help dial out a bit more, though I need to spend more time this weekend playing with all the tuning options.

If I were to characterize it, I would say at it's worst, a title might be 99% ghost free, 1% some ghosting on the 95. Of the 1%, the severity is 1 to 5 on a scale of 10, and the Monster's can cut that severity number in half.

I hope this is helpful to some, and as I have the time to view more, my comments may evolve. I know this may not be technical enough for some, but my previous and future calibration efforts and posting of the results is about as technical I can get and remained married.

Apologies for any continuity or spelling errors I haven't caught - have to break away for a bit now...

I truly enjoyed your review. I have preordered the RS45, and up until your post, I had no doubt I would be happy with the JVC for the next year or two. Now I'm going to check the price on the Sony.
Thanks for taking the time.
Gary

Awesome review Thrang! Wish I had the time and skill to put together such a detailed eval of the 95. Also very good to see it compared the other 2 projectors the way you have. Kudos!

Great review, Thrang! It's too bad, of course, that the RS55 is not yet out for you compare the 95 to it, for the RS50 is last year's JVC model. And the AVS price for the RS55 and 95ES are very similar.

The preliminary reports are that the RS55 is brighter than the 95, and Phil Hinton commented that its motion handling in much improved. It certainly looks like these are going to be the top pj's in this price class. Very hard to be patient, though, for the 95 is available and the RS55 may not be out for another month or so.

I promise - you buy me one and I'll compare them!

That's great if jvc has made those improvements - it only helps to have more good choices...I think part of my decision not to wait was jvc's very poor response to so many issues - while I didn't have the bulb dimming issue, I certainly could have, so I felt for those that did. Their cmd and motion handling in general was jadrool for several iterations in a row too...

To be fair, I wasn't feeling too warm and fuzzy about Sony after the 90, but I did have such a good experience with the 85, and had much better customer service experience with Sony over the years, that I felt this was the direction to go.

A most excellent review thrang. Thank you! And to think you hesitated to buy this awesome machine

I only have a 1.0 gain screen (Seymour AT), wondering if anyone that got this PJ had similar screen and what's their opinion on 3D brightness? I saw very good result in high-gain screen.. but wondering if this is a more a requirement or nice to have....

Its interesting to note that another AVS member here who saw both the RS55 and VW95 in Germany said that the motion was still better on the Sony. He also noticed no difference in motion between the RS45 and 55 as well. As for brightness, the 55 may be brighter but if those lamp dimming problems come up again, the brightness improvement will be moot. We'll see though. I like the JVCs, but the Sony 95 overall wins in my book (and other people's books ).

Thrang - terrific job with your review! Seems to be very fair and objective.

I am a bit surprised to hear about the color uniformity issue you noted, even if very minor. Can you elaborate a bit more on this? For example, what test patterns does this show up on? Does the color appear as bands or splotches etc and approximately what % of the screen?

Has any VW85, VW90 or VW95 owner seen or hear of this? I haven't followed this Sony line of projectors previously so I am not sure if that is a bit par for the course.

I was also a bit surprised to hear that the RS50 is equally as sharp. I was under the impression that the Sony was the sharpness leader for LcOS/SXRD, but at any rate seems they are both super sharp to the point where its hard to imagine them being much sharper (technically I guess there is a point where it can be no sharper without introducing errors).

I really enjoyed reading the review, and especially like the visual ratings. I look forward to comparing notes with you when my VW95 arrives.

If you put up a 50 or 60% grey field, you can see a faint broad area of green on one side, red on the other. This was the same I noticed with my 85.

But it is very faint. It is not splotchy, but a subtle fade in/fade out of the tint across the center 60/70% of the screen. But I cannot notice it on ANY real world material, it is that subtle.

My 50 is razor sharp, so it may be the luck of the draw - but the JVC's do use excellent optics is my understanding...

I will try to take an over saturated picture of a grey screen to see if I can get it to show up in an image. But I would not worry about it. At all.

Not great, from DirecTV only so far. I did tweak in iPhoto a little to try and get them closer to what I actually see since I cannot find a mode on my Sony digital camera to be more accurate. Did not have a chance to break out the Canon 5D yet, so maybe later this week...

If you want to make sure, here's a quick test you can do. Put on one of the snowy mountain scenes from the first LOTR movie. Can you notice any color uniformity issues in the snowy mountain backdrop in those scenes? I have found snowy mountain scenes like this and from other movies to do a very good job revealing any color uniformity issues. Another type of scene which is very good is a bright, clear blue sky, or even a very cloudy one, that fills up most of the screen.

If you cannot see it in such scenes even if gawking for it, that truly is good to hear. In some cases projectors can produce odd issues specifically with a test pattern which does not reveal itself with real material. Just have to hope there is not a movie one day about test patterns.


Please don't bother on my account especially if you have to make it over saturated to see it - I don't think I'd want to see it.

I don't like screenshots either, but that is a pretty nice looking skin tone shot, very realistic looking, looks well calibrated (I am using a D65 calibrated monitor). Maybe a tiny bit on the pink side on my monitor or from your camera, but not much...