JVC RS 45 / Sony HW30 / BenQ W7000 / Epson 5010 mini-shootout - Page 8

Originally Posted by Mikes2cents

Well in an attempt to answer your question Art, I am not RBE sensitive but can make myself see it on certain units if I try. As far as ghosting goes, from the first time I saw Avatar on a 73" Mitsu DLP at HHGregg and compared that to their flagship Panny flatscreen I knew that I would never accept any level of ghosting. To this very day I spot it just about immediately on TVs at BB or wherever. They are getting much better though I must admit.

As far as the W7000, I am not averse to spending a bit more than the Acer but not at the expense of having to pay shipping back and forth to service the unit for the problems it has. Any idea when you will posting up about the W7000 and what you heard from Benq regarding the issues?

Originally Posted by Wizziwig

Did you notice any excessive noise in shadows and darker scenes on the Sony? It appears similar to film grain and was a deal breaker for me on all the previous SXRD projectors I've looked at (vw70, vw85, hw15). Normally this sort of thing can be hidden by tweaking gamma but I never had much luck fixing it. I think it was caused by some kind of dithering they do on dark colors. JVC also dithers colors for their PWM drive but theirs is not visible from normal viewing distance.

Sony's also tended to show more compression artifacts than other projectors I've looked at. Combined with the dither, they never produced the clean image that I'm used to from JVC and Epson units.

Originally Posted by Mikes2cents

Hello Art. I believe you somehow reposted a reply. No worries. I called Projector People today to see what they had to say. They have nothing except a couple are on their way back. They pretty much said the fastest way to find out how Benq was going to address any problems would probably be here on AVS, so that leaves you. I won't go into details about our conversation but suffice it to say that the bottom line is that some manufacturers are more responsive than others in this area. Let history be your guide is the basic gist of it.

Originally Posted by presenter

Hi again Mikey2Cent! (you have a rap career ahead of you with this minor variation on your avatar?)

I heard back from BenQ about an hour ago, basically a relay of some info from Taiwan. Good news one and all. I'll pass on what's useful:

The Cyan dip we reported: to be corrected with Jan firmware (well there goes the usefulness of our published settings - maybe)

Flicker issues (don't know if the ones that shipped had them, but mine did, - coming out of 3D. That too, fixed

The aspect ratio shift problem I mentioned is a non-problem. Turns out it's a DirecTV problem with their switch to HD res guides and menus. It's now happened on another projector and a year old Sony LCDTV that has never done it before.

Remote control freezing. They cant duplicate, and it only happened twice on my 0.22 firmware. Since no one else has reported, we can forget about that too, unless it resurfaces

I reported instances of saved settings in User 1 briefly going back to default, then reappearing as set. They acknowledged that one also with a Jan F/W fix!

Now, no surprises with that stuff. As I said, most of the headaches go away with production software, but figure even 1.x isn't perfect.

That brings us to the two most important items:::

1. Black level performance: Per Taiwan:
"We did the measurement of the latest unit of W7000 and W6000 we have, and the result shows that they are about the same".

If that's the case (and they only said "latest unit"), then future units or some in the pipeline must have improved blacks relative to what I'm seeing here, which were disappointing.

2. That brings us to Firmware, and how to get the latest, ie. user updatable?: That I didn't get an answer on at all, so I replied to the email, saying, that's what all you guys on the fence are waiting to hear. If there's an easy ability to update firmware, many people likely will "get off the fence."

That's it for now. Drop by my site, I do have to spend a lot more time posting there, than here, and therefore, it's usually more timely. -a

Originally Posted by presenter

Hi again Mikey2Cent! (you have a rap career ahead of you with this minor variation on your avatar?)

I heard back from BenQ about an hour ago, basically a relay of some info from Taiwan. Good news one and all. I'll pass on what's useful:

The Cyan dip we reported: to be corrected with Jan firmware (well there goes the usefulness of our published settings - maybe)

Flicker issues (don't know if the ones that shipped had them, but mine did, - coming out of 3D. That too, fixed

The aspect ratio shift problem I mentioned is a non-problem. Turns out it's a DirecTV problem with their switch to HD res guides and menus. It's now happened on another projector and a year old Sony LCDTV that has never done it before.

Remote control freezing. They cant duplicate, and it only happened twice on my 0.22 firmware. Since no one else has reported, we can forget about that too, unless it resurfaces

I reported instances of saved settings in User 1 briefly going back to default, then reappearing as set. They acknowledged that one also with a Jan F/W fix!

Now, no surprises with that stuff. As I said, most of the headaches go away with production software, but figure even 1.x isn't perfect.

That brings us to the two most important items:::

1. Black level performance: Per Taiwan:
"We did the measurement of the latest unit of W7000 and W6000 we have, and the result shows that they are about the same".

If that's the case (and they only said "latest unit"), then future units or some in the pipeline must have improved blacks relative to what I'm seeing here, which were disappointing.

2. That brings us to Firmware, and how to get the latest, ie. user updatable?: That I didn't get an answer on at all, so I replied to the email, saying, that's what all you guys on the fence are waiting to hear. If there's an easy ability to update firmware, many people likely will "get off the fence."

That's it for now. Drop by my site, I do have to spend a lot more time posting there, than here, and therefore, it's usually more timely. -a

Originally Posted by zombie10k

Thanks to WhiteTrash66 for recommending the 'Gaming' Mode. I've often skipped over this preset and don't think about it much.

I went back and did 10 samples. The average is now about 30ms in 'Gaming' mode. When you change this mode, the screen flashes for a second, almost like the processing is changing. Colors on my HTPC still look fine, I don't see any real difference in the image.

There were some 20's and some 40's, but on average, it looks to be about 30ms in this mode.


...

Originally Posted by zombie10k

Thanks to WhiteTrash66 for recommending the 'Gaming' Mode. I've often skipped over this preset and don't think about it much.

I went back and did 10 samples. The average is now about 30ms in 'Gaming' mode. When you change this mode, the screen flashes for a second, almost like the processing is changing. Colors on my HTPC still look fine, I don't see any real difference in the image.

There were some 20's and some 40's, but on average, it looks to be about 30ms in this mode.

Originally Posted by AV Science Sales 4

The BenQ, at least on my screen, was brighter than the Sony HW30 and the BenQ was sharper. Contrast was significantly better on the HW30 but I need to do some more tests and settings to see if I can optimize the contrast more on the BenQ.

Originally Posted by zombie10k

Thanks to WhiteTrash66 for recommending the 'Gaming' Mode. I've often skipped over this preset and don't think about it much.

I went back and did 10 samples. The average is now about 30ms in 'Gaming' mode. When you change this mode, the screen flashes for a second, almost like the processing is changing. Colors on my HTPC still look fine, I don't see any real difference in the image.

There were some 20's and some 40's, but on average, it looks to be about 30ms in this mode.

Originally Posted by HiFiFun

This is the understatement of the year. It was difficult if not impossible to see the pixel structure with either of two HW30 samples. With the focus being adjustment on one. This confirms Tom Huffman was exactly correct and immediately discarded the Sony 30ES from consideration.

** I think we need a big pause here. Who cares about excellent 3D when the resolving power of the projector is inferior? We need to get the basics done right first. **

Then there is the issue of reviewers reporting their sample as very sharp (no doubt it was).

Everyone here needs to realize that we have a natural bias toward front projectors. This is the danger and limits our thinking to inside the box, while the world is setting up to pass us by (well not me actually).

The Threat from Large Flat Panels
Projector reviews should provide a close-up view of the pixel structure to reveal the resolving power of the optical system. This would document the major weakness of front projectors in competition from the new bright, CLEAR 3D 70-80 flat panels. That is the <1 panel is magnified to about 100 so flaws in the optical system can (finally) be evaluated.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post21406828