Sony HW50 / BenQ W7000 / Epson 5020 / JVC RS55 / JVC RS 46 / JVC RS4810 / JVC RS56 Mini-shootout... - Page 95

If you search the HW30ES threads, you will find that you can easily build an adapter plug, easier if you use a wall wart PS instead of running the power for the emitter off the Sony.

Ok, thanks.

I found this:

http://www.monsterproducts.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=5938&id=9132

The RF transmitter can be fed with 3D sync signal either through a VESA connector (if the display has a VESA port) or through a IR receiver (so obtaining a IR/RF converter). Good.

I just ordered the 3D - Bee (Diamond), Too late to change my mind I'll just have to trust Joe's endorsement and hope this thing actually works. Actually, I'm really looking forward to experimenting with it.

Regarding the recent posts on throw/zoom, can you not compensate for a short throw./long zoom set up by closing down the lens a few stops to reduce brightness and increase contrast, or am I missing something?

People sometimes wonder just how sharp a well-converged JVC really is compared to one of the sharper DLP's.

I did this comparison here:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1449695/comparison-of-4-projectors-viewsonic-pro8200-vs-benq-w7000-vs-jvc-rs-45-vs-mits-hc4000#post_22788009

Zombie,

Maybe you can help out here once again-- If one is only looking for superior 2D performance, does it make sense to go with a 4810 or an RS55? Because right now, I'm failing to see a good reason to go with the newer model over last years model.

Thanks

Beautiful Zombie! That protostar is great stuff. I have a sheet of it here from about 5-6 years ago that I am finally going to put to use below my screen to cover up the red flash from the 7000. It looks like it will be just dark enough from my tests to do the trick.

I am loving the 7000/45 combo! Got the lens nice and secure finally on the 7000 as it survived all 4 Underworld movies AND The Art of Flight without moving much over the last 3 nights. All 5 of these discs are big LFE titles with Underworld Awakening being a MASSIVE LFE title. If it can survive UA, it can survive anything........that disc is absolutely off the charts as far as LFE goes! All it took was 2 toothpicks lodged into the joystick mechanism and a piece of velcro between the lens and the housing. My Mini is being a bit finicky and I might have to swap it out, but not a big deal.......loving that otherwise as well.

I swear 3d just looks more impressive in general on this 7000. Maybe it is all in my head, but both depth and pop out seem more noticeable.

Sony HW50 vs JVC RS45 2D Impressions

So after spending time with my HW50 I thought I would post my thoughts in regards to 2D on the HW50 vs. the RS45 (which I believe is very similar to the new X35/RS46). I still need to evaluate 3D but what I've seen thus far the HW50 is a MUCH better 3D projector than the RS45 is.

My initial thoughts on the HW50 were that the contrast wasn't as good as the RS45 which for me is a big deal as I'm very picky about black levels. But I was coming to this conclusion because I was focusing on very dark scenes.

Up until I very recently I've been perfectly content with 2D on my RS45. It has very good contrast and more than sufficient brightness. The added FI, helped improve motion and for me all of these improvements were a big upgrade over my RS2 clone (Pioneer FPJ1). The only reason I was upgrading was because I was looking for better 3D than the RS45 has to offer.

Over the past few days I was able to watch 3 movies (3 hour movies at that!) including The Sound of Music and I finally got around to viewing The LOTR The Fellowship of the Ring EE, and LOTR The Two Towers EE. Ah it's a little disappointing to see a better transfer on an older film such as The Sound of Music over the first two LOTR movies as The Fellowship of the Ring is one of my favorite films:(. The Sound of Music was the first film on the list (starting off the new year right thinking of my wife first ) and very early on I was faced with a dark scene that while good was slightly lacking compared to the RS45. After that early scene I really started liking the Sony. With RC at its lower settings (20-25) I found the picture noticeably sharper than my JVC without looking too digital. Even my wife commented how sharp the picture was. Additionally, using the low FI setting on the HW50 made the motion very smooth. I also tested the high setting and I found motion very smooth on the Sony compared to the JVC. FI using JVC’s Mode 3 isn't as smooth as Sony's low mode. Also, JVC's Mode 4 seemed to show a bit more artifacts vs. the Sony's high mode.

Black levels and contrast were quite pleasing on The Fellowship of the Ring. I just finished watching The Two Towers just hours ago and it looked fantastic! I never found myself missing the JVC. Very impressive!

Last night and tonight I went back and viewed key scenes of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Sound of Music on my RS45 to see how it faired against the Sony. NO surprise here that the JVC was favored in dark scenes and that there was a slight but noticeable contrast advantage with the JVC in other scenes but mainly in the darkest scenes. I used the Auto Full iris setting on the Sony to get the best contrast/black levels which does dim details in dark scenes. Besides this difference to my surprise for the first time since I've owned my RS45 it didn't look quite the same anymore. The picture looked sharp in some scenes but it just didn't have the clarity of the Sony. The Sharpness and Detail Enhancement controls could be increased to help with overall sharpness however created more of an artificial/digital look to the picture which I didn't like. Additionally motion on the JVC now didn't look all that smooth and I found it bothersome from time to time. Motion was just smoother on the Sony. The brightness of the JVC still looked good but the additional brightness of the Sony was a nice feature (but not a must). Lastly, colors on the JVC looked over saturated in comparison however neither projector is calibrated other than very basic controls.

For reference, both projectors were in low lamp mode with an 18' throw. The projector is a couple feet above eye level throwing onto a 119" Dalite HP 2.4 gain screen. My room is fairly dark with a black ceiling and black curtains on the front side walls but I do have light tan carpeting with a low ceiling.

In summary the JVC looked better in very dark scenes. The bridge scene in the Raimi version of Spider-Man is a good example. Mary Jane and the bridge are brighter than they are on the Sony while the night sky is a shade darker on the JVC as well. The difference is probably slight yet very noticeable to my eyes. In the end for the type of shows that I view these types of scenes are likely going to be minimal. Yes, it will probably bother me a little but I am somewhat of a perfectionist. Now that I've seen the Sony's strengths the motion, sharpness, and colors would bother me on the JVC and likely much more often that my complaints with the Sony. Even as a black level fanatic I believe that I now prefer the Sony over the JVC for 2D. I am now ready to let go of my JVC and send it off to a good home. It's been a good projector but I believe I've found a better one.

That is why I went out before buying the RS-45 to see various RS-40's and RS-45's to make sure I knew what to expect, as in what a better than average sample would look like. I agree some are off, but it is still far better than what Epson averages. Not sure about the Sony, the Sony's seem to have fairly consistent convergence (maybe even more consistent than JVC, not sure).

You can have a super sharp JVC, but in order to get one, you have to be overly picky and RMA it if your unit isn't super sharp.

I was kinda worried that when will you come here to bash the sony because it's black level is not on par with the jvc. After reading your impressions I'm really relieved to hear that you liked it more. Maybe that is because I jumped the gun and ordered sony few days back. But for me the sony was more obvious decision from the get go, when not having bat cave. Probably the white sealing alone would destroy the better contrast of jvc. So in that regard the contrast and black level should be on par in my setup(when living in a rental home and not possible to transform my living room to a bat cave). I guess some projector buyers don't even think about that when deciding on what pj to buy.

But from the start I was looking for all around best pj for me and coming from cheat 720p DLP pj, I only can get way more advanced pj in every front that I have now.

@xb1032 thank you cumpa, do you usee darbee dablet? Do we need darbee with sony hw50es?

I was slightly worried about the black level as well since I was able to see the HW50 in action in the Sony Building in Tokyo, I even got a chance to see the HW1000ES. The showing room is a bat cave. Even under these conditions to my surprise both PJs had slightly greyish blacks (the HW50 slightly more so), but my expectations were quite (too?) high. As long as you don't focus on the absolute black levels and watch the movie it's not that big of a deal.

Even if you live in a rental I'm sure you could get away with painting the ceiling dark as long as you repaint when moving out? I live in a rental as well and I painted my ceiling dark charcoal and drilled a few holes in the ceiling next to the walls and mounted curtain rails so I can pull a pair of dark curtains to cover the side walls up to 3 meters from the projector towards the couch. This also pleased my gf as the room walls stay light colored when the curtains are not drawn. Once I move out I'll just fill up the holes and repaint the ceiling.

I must say the curtains make a clear difference to the black level and contrast even when viewed on a piece of white bed sheet with the Sony HW50ES. Luckily I'm about to get my Da-Lite screen any day now.


Some initial observations on the Sony HW50 (note: The PJ is still uncalibrated and just viewed on a bed sheet)

2D: I think 2D looks very pleasing, even if the blacks aren't quite as black as I had hoped. On the other hand my room isn't completely light controlled, only the first 3 meters of the ceiling is dark charcoal paint and the walls are covered with black curtains. When the iris clamps down in a completely black screen, the black level is very good. The iris of the PJ seems to work quite invisibly while viewing regular content (Exception: You can see the iris closing down very clearly when the screen goes to complete black), which is a requirement for me if I am to use it. During most content (over 90% of any scenes) blacks are good enough even if I'm somewhat of a black level fanatic. I will have to see how much the HP raises the perceived black level. Contrast is way better than on any display I've owned before. Motion flow seems to work very nicely, but still any FI in 2D looks somewhat strange to me, I'm very sensitive to the soap opera effect so I've mostly had it turned off.

3D: Initial impressions on 3D are rather good but even without the brightness of a HP the opening scene in Sammy's Adventure has some clearly visible flicker on the bright blue sky. After that initial scene flicker wasn't that visible, maybe due to less bright scenes or just that my eyes got used to it. Even my GF could clearly point out the flicker so it's rather apparent I'd say. I have to test out the same scene after I get my HP to see if the increased brightness makes it worse. FI improves the viewing experience of 3D especially in animations, I have to watch a few more movies to see if I prefer it in anything else. I haven't had any IR sync issues even without a proper white screen so I expect it's not going to be an issue for me. Regarding the brightness in 3D it seems that even on a bed sheet the brightness through 3D glasses seems better than at my local cinema.

3D IR Buzz: Setting the signal strength to 1 in the service menu clearly reduces the buzz but it's still in my opinion too annoying, so it's not a solution for me. I've talked to Sony and their PrimeSupport service in the EU is shipping me a new projector due to arrive in a few days. I get to keep both PJs until I can check if the new projector has no issues. After I let Sony know I'm happy with the new one Sony will arrange a pickup for the buzzing PJ.
Edited by Gagorian - 1/6/13 at 3:47am

I've been fretting a little bit about convergence on my RS4810 (mainly because it's an easy thing to obsess about). Without the fine pixel adjustment on, I'd say my convergence error approaches 1/2 red pixel at the extreme edges of the screen; in the center blue appears pretty spot-on and red's about 1/3 pixel high. There seems to be a little CA on the right side of the screen as well that might be compounding the issue a tad.

Anyway, I went through the motions of doing the full 121-point fine convergence adjustment last night and am very happy with the results. I was able to get the convergence spot-on across the whole screen. I've read numerous opinions on the plusses and minuses of fine convergence adjustments so I went into the process with my eyes wide open (so to speak). However, after viewing numerous resolution patterns and actual program material up close with both the convergence adjustment turned on and off I'm just not seeing amy drawbacks of using the multi-point convergence -- especially when combined with eshift2. I notice no loss of sharpness or detail up close at all (perhaps since my focus is so crisp), and while single pixel resolution patterns show color shifts when the convergence adjustment is activated, this does not carry over at all into actual program material, where there is no noticeable color shift. I'll admit, it's possible that eshift helps mitigate any loss of detail that the convergence adjustments impart, but my experience is that accurate convergence is preferable to the (insignificant IMHO) loss of detail that might come along with it.

Having said all this, I suspect my unit's out-of-box convergence would probably be graded a solid B. It's by no means perfect, and some color fringing is fairly easy to see up close on test patterns, but it's primarily confined to the edges of the viewing areas, and at my viewing position the misconvergence is practically invisible. When I try to show the misconvergence to my wife, she tells me, even when standing close to the screen, "I'd never have noticed that if you hadn't pointed it out," so it's likely the fine convergence adjustments that are correcting the fringing aren't really gaining me anything except for a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

I know Mark Haflich is staunchly anti-fine convergence, and I've read comments from Doug Blackburn where he implies that it doesn't significantly affect the image, so I guess the jury is still out. It just seems to me that JVC's implementation of multi-point convergence, especially combined with eshift, is pretty solid because I'm not seeing any loss in resolution like I did with my Sony.

That said, it was definitely a pain in the rear to dial in the convergence at 121 points. It reminded me of converging my old CRT RPTV. Hopefully it won't drift as much as that TV did.

I do not have a Darblet. Maybe I'll look into that later.

In a darkened room black levels are going to have a grayish tint in very dark scenes with just about any display until black levels are near perfect (at least so long as your eyes are focused and have adjusted to the darkened room you are viewing in). The JVCs only have slightly darker blacks than the Sony. Very noticeable to the picky, but to most only slightly better I believe.

I'm about to place an order for the Sony HW50, and was wondering how much of an improvement with regards to the black floor levels compared to the HD350? If the Sony is not far off the RS45 will it then be on par or better than the HD350, which I would be more than happy with.

Wow! This one looks like a winner of those wanting 3D and don't want to spend a lot. Its been mentioned here so I thought it could go here rather than exclusively in the under $3,000 section.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/benq/w1070/index.php

W1070 = W7000 - FI - DI - PlacementFlexibility + DC3

From what little I've gathered from reading TIs DLP tech docs, the W1070 design (offset, limited zoom), coupled with the DMD spec bump to DC3, should mean a noticeable improvement in contrast vs the W7000. Good value if it works for your setup.

Its a shame it does not have the placement range of the 7000. Looks like a great option though if it will work for your setup.
No FI in 3d is a significant negative as well which I would not be willing to go without after now having it on my 7000. Watching Flying Swords of Dragonsgate last night on the 7000 for example looked a bit choppy in the opening scene flying over the ships, but putting FI on low smoothed it right out.
Edited by Toe - 1/7/13 at 10:23am

Certainly not ideal for HP, but not bad for a living room projector and HP... probably get about 1.9 gain in the sweet spot and most of the stray light directed at the floor rather than the ceiling (better WAF for a dark color) and can get a pretty decent image size with the shortish throw... think of it as a short-throw, poor man's HC8000D with exceptional brightness (what you lose in capability, you gain in brightness). Completely agree on the 3D lumens measurement... really annoying.

Definitely worth checking out. The 3d is excellent IMO with strong depth throughout and some decent pop outs here and there as well. The movie......I will let you be the judge! I enjoyed it, but it was a bit out there. Curious what you think of the 3d and otherwise after you watch it though. I kept thinking what a torture test this movie would probably be for my 45 with all the ropes, poles, etc....set against a sky backdrop! The 7000 passed with flying colors of course with zero ghosting.

The7000 has been awesome! I got the lens all stable now as it passed the Underworld Awakening test which is one of the strongest LFE titles on blu, so it should be able to hang with anything. I am using the ZD201s simply for the reason that they show much less lens reflection vs the TrueDepth in my room, but if not for that I would just stick with the TD.

I am having to send my Mini in for repair though, so calibration is on hold. Still need to get a laptop as well.
Edited by Toe - 1/7/13 at 10:41am

Here's the Grayscale after calibrating the 5020/LPE with a borrowed iscan Duo video proccessor. No hit in lumen output to get this. 100 IRE green was not dropped, rather Blue and Red were bumped up. So, if anything a slight bump in lumen output. The bump in Gamma at the higher IREs and the drop in Gamma at the lower IREs was intentional. Also, I could have easily tightened this up, but I saw no need. I'll get better numbers when I get my next--and hopefully final--replacement PJ from Epson. Right now looking at around 1700 lumens in Normal and 1200 - 1300 in ECO.



Zombie, I have a filter in hand to loan to you for testing...

Anyone know what the HW50 measures, after calibration, at the shortest throw? Art Projector Reviews offers this info at mid point. Obviously it would be brighter, but I'm just curious how much.

Think I read a review that said that it measured 1300 lumens in best mode at shortest throw on another review, but want to know if anyone has direct experience with this being accurate.

I would be ceiling mounting the projector and I'm looking into options for screen type. Would prefer a 1.0-1.3 gain screen to try and maintain good black levels and viewing angles on a screen at 100 or maybe 106 inches in size. Front of the lens would be in the range of 10-11ft from the screen.

No way to avoid the short throw as the side of the Living room where the projector will go has a max distance of about 12-13ft. Taking into account room for venting and the depth of the pj, and... there you have it.

Not a lot of ambient light no, but it's definitely no cave as it's a living room. Light Gray walls. Light Gray ceiling. Brown hard wood floors. Opaque dark brown shades that remain closed most of the time and even when open, never more than a half way.

That being said, I don't watch TV with the lights out at night unless watching a movie. Not talking bright overhead fluorescent lighting, but some light to keep the wife happy.

Figure that the extra lumens in my environment, and definitely in 3D, would be greatly appreciated. If it's too bright, I could always use eco, but I doubt it.