After slogging through 40 pages of comments, I had to post a few comments. The VPL-HW50ES is only my third projector in my home theater since I built it in 1997. I started with a Runco CRT, but since 2005 I have had a VPL-SW100ES centered on the ceiling of my 30x12 foot space. The 100 has worked flawlessly for seven years, but frankly, was never bright enough for me, even though the image was awesome.
I have auditioned projectors for the last year, and for a an under 4K investment--no I want to say for an under 8K investment--the 50 is the best projector you can buy, if you want to hang it and forget it instead of endlessly tweaking. It beats the 95 on brightness and 3D handily and has a better RC circuit and nearly as good blacks.I find the image brighter than I need and use the lamp mode on low all the time in 2D, and the iris set to auto-limited. I have no problem getting intense deep blacks that have detail but are nearly as black as the bezel; of my Stewart Studio-tec 1.3 gain 120 inch screen even though I have set the gamma in Reference mode to 1.8 to maximize shadow detail and the color temp to D75, which gives me the most neutral whites.
Like many posters, I have had problems with the emitter but I tried a kludge that seems to work pretty well: I taped a small 4x4 mirror to the bottom of the projector (it's hanging upside down from the ceiling) that sticks out over the emitter by 3 inches and I have had few synch problems since then. I am not a big 3D fan, but sitting 8 feet from the screen can be very exciting. Of course the 3D image is not awesome, but then it seldom is in the movie theater either. My projector is in the upper 300s and I hear no buzz at all.
I have tweaked every setting on the projector, and leaving most NR things off or very low works best with most material. The RC seems to work as well as the Darbee, and who needs more junk in the signal path? The dirty little secret (and oh how I am reminded of my audiophile obsession) most of the stuff you watch varies in color temperature, black setting, noise and sharpness. Unless you refuse to watch anything but Blu-rays (and many of them are awful too--check out the Adele concert disk) the projector is TOO revealing of source flaws. My goal has always been to set it and forget it, but there is just too much temptation to fiddle. I try to limit it to brightness and contrast, but the Motionflow is so weirdly fascinating on film material, it has become a guilty pleasure.
So, until a worthy 4K projector under 10 grand rears its ugly head (I am talking to YOU, RED) I think I will be pretty happy.
I have auditioned projectors for the last year, and for a an under 4K investment--no I want to say for an under 8K investment--the 50 is the best projector you can buy, if you want to hang it and forget it instead of endlessly tweaking. It beats the 95 on brightness and 3D handily and has a better RC circuit and nearly as good blacks.I find the image brighter than I need and use the lamp mode on low all the time in 2D, and the iris set to auto-limited. I have no problem getting intense deep blacks that have detail but are nearly as black as the bezel; of my Stewart Studio-tec 1.3 gain 120 inch screen even though I have set the gamma in Reference mode to 1.8 to maximize shadow detail and the color temp to D75, which gives me the most neutral whites.
Like many posters, I have had problems with the emitter but I tried a kludge that seems to work pretty well: I taped a small 4x4 mirror to the bottom of the projector (it's hanging upside down from the ceiling) that sticks out over the emitter by 3 inches and I have had few synch problems since then. I am not a big 3D fan, but sitting 8 feet from the screen can be very exciting. Of course the 3D image is not awesome, but then it seldom is in the movie theater either. My projector is in the upper 300s and I hear no buzz at all.
I have tweaked every setting on the projector, and leaving most NR things off or very low works best with most material. The RC seems to work as well as the Darbee, and who needs more junk in the signal path? The dirty little secret (and oh how I am reminded of my audiophile obsession) most of the stuff you watch varies in color temperature, black setting, noise and sharpness. Unless you refuse to watch anything but Blu-rays (and many of them are awful too--check out the Adele concert disk) the projector is TOO revealing of source flaws. My goal has always been to set it and forget it, but there is just too much temptation to fiddle. I try to limit it to brightness and contrast, but the Motionflow is so weirdly fascinating on film material, it has become a guilty pleasure.
So, until a worthy 4K projector under 10 grand rears its ugly head (I am talking to YOU, RED) I think I will be pretty happy.
