Sony HW50 / BenQ W7000 / Epson 5020 / JVC RS55 / JVC RS 46 / JVC RS4810 / JVC RS56 Mini-shootout... - Page 33

The question is; one anyone be able to perceive the difference in black level between say the 55 and the HW50 if they didn't AB them simultaneously? Would these small differences only be visible in dedicated theater rooms (which I'm assuming most of us have ).

I'd like to see all the new features (brighter 2D/3D, RC, better 3D) in the V2.0 of the VW95 if it was actually released. That's the projector that would give the new JVC's a run for their $$ since it would have better (than the HW50) native contrast, better lens, full auto shift/focus, etc.


I have a smaller screen, 100 in. diag., 1.3 gain and the brightness would not seem to be as big a factor between the VW95 and HW50. What is your opinion of the VW95 with a Darbee compared to the HW50 since the VW95 has a better lens, contract and quality. How about 2D to 3D conversion between the two. And thanks for all the valauble information from you and other contributors, this is a great thread!

Still not able to decide for Sony or Epson.
I want one before Xmas... grrrr.... Help!

Some brief sum-up notes I took from what's been posted so far. Feel free to correct or complement...

HW50 pros and cons
- Better black levels and color accuracy (Zombie's comparison posted pictures look better to me with Sony)
- Much better lag time
- Better 3D motion
- Better White field uniformity
- Higher chance to get background noise (due to RC effect with not so clean sources) affecting both 2D and 3D
- Buzzing noise in 3D mode (can be avoided with external transmitter. Will probably be corrected in new releases)
- More expensive ($4k against $2,6K)
- Silent operation even when running in high lamp mode

5020 + darbee pros and cons
- Better brightness
- Better placement flexibility
- higher Vshift (relevant for ceiling mount)
- Better 3D glasses (comfort and RF based)
- Less 3D flicker
- Lowsy lag time (no go for some gamers)
- Less expensive even with darbee (around $3K against $4K)
- Noisier (32db in 5020 against vs 22db in Sony)

Similar
- Good image sharpness/clarity
- Good 3D performers although with some seldom ghosting

Considering a family living room environment, with a small screen (106"), both PJ present strong arguments.
But, what are the most relevant arguments to take into account?

It would be good to have further side-by-side comparisons with both units calibrated and in best modes, to take the maximum PQ of each PJ.
Zombie?

I am wondering if you agree with Art's statement from his RS45 review below (which I overlooked before):

If this is true any potential JVC owners could watch a dark scene on the RS45 in low lamp mode with the iris set to 0 and this would give an idea of the best blacks in a dark scene for the Sony/Epson for the current environment and screen assuming the overall projector's brightness on the Sony/Epson is on par with the JVC's brightness.

I'm in about the same situation. I appreciate this thread greatly. It has been a huge help, but I am still on the fence between these two options. My kids game, so if I go with the 5020, I'd need to get a gaming projector to go with it (maybe the 8350), so the cost of the two alternatives become about equal. I'd go with the HW 50 (and the kids could get the benefits of a better projector while gaming) if I thought it would adequately light a 120" screen with 3D in a room that is mostly light controlled (a few windows covered with opaque lining that cuts 90% of the light and also covered by blinds) but with medium colored surfaces.

kids gaming on a projector is a good way to burn cash

Get a Optoma GT720 or GT750. I put mines right on the table and it has good speakers. It's portable so it can go anymore and it projects on the wall good too with 2000+ in eco mode. Been using mines for 2 years. I also used an Acer H5360. Good alternatives for $400-700
Edited by blee0120 - 11/15/12 at 3:18am

+1 on Hobbits excellent summary (and for me... some learning as a bonus!). I too would love to learn more about the compatibility (and price!), of this "passive" system for the upcoming JVC's.

Mark - You and I just need to sit down and swap stories about room acoustic essentials some day (which if you couldn't tell is one of my long term loves).

I've just got back from a business trip and brought back my new baby - the SONY HW50ES - many thanks to AVS, Mike in particular for his help!

Now I've been avidly following the tests and reveiws of both the Epson and Sony - and after a chat with Mike @ AVS, felt the SONY was the best 'all rounder' and thus my pick.
I have upgraded from a 5yo Infocus SP5700 as my 1st projector, so I knew I was in for a treat for both image quality (1080p vs 720p) and black/contrast levels. Boy I was not wrong. WOW WOW WOW!

I have learnt heaps thanks to Zombie and all of you for your feedback and views - but I've always felt that the debate on the best black and 3D being too dark may be a bit subjective from the 'connoisseurs' vs a 'laymans' perspective.

Coming from an 'average user' perspective I started to get concerned on how bad blacks and 3D brightness might be - but let me give my initial 'average' review after watching about 8 hour of 3d last night!

The brightness of the 3D through the Sony glasses I thought was plenty bright. Yes it is 'darker' than a non 3D image sans 3D glasses, but the picture was far from actually DULL and DARK that you would comment 'oh thats too dark to watch' sorta thing.
Plenty of vivid colour and pop I thought.

I also found the Sony glasses rather comfortable - and like the way the have a 'wrap around' on the sides which helps to block your peripheral vision and keep focus on image in front!

I watched most of Sammys Adventure and the 3D was crisp, bright and just stunning. So much sharper and detailed than I remember any 3D movie at the cinema! There was one scene where the sun was setting on the horizon, the foreground a massive expanse of the ocean, glistening and wet. Well I just felt like someone had cut out a giant hole in my wall and created a portal straight into the Pacific ocean!!! Next time I watch that movie its so gonna be with bathers and sunscreen on . I suppose you would say I was pretty 'immersed' in the experience!!

Black levels - to me they were inky black and 'true'. Obviously a HUGE improvement to my old SP5700 - and I thought they were good (they were 5 years ago!!). Are they equivalent to JVC blacks - possibly not, but am so impressed with them that I DONT CARE!!
As someone mentioned earlier, unless I go for a A/B comparision on the JVC or even the Epson, I dont think I would ever know - but as the blacks (to me) are rich and true, i dont need to be concered with further comparisons. If the blacks werent so good, then yes I prob would still be looking at the competitions' and beating myself up saying 'their black is better than my black' Thankfully that wont be necessary!

Regarding ambient light - my setting is a 120" screen (1.1 gain) sitting approx 12-13 ft from screen, setup in our multipurpose/family room which has pretty good controlled lighting at night - but certainly no bat cave. Today I watched a few bit and pieces and even had the curtains open on one side window - so sunlight was streaming in yet I STILL found the picture to be pretty watchable. But yes definitely am first to admit it was not 'prime' viewing setup! I even tried some 3D and found that was also still quite watchable. So again am pleny pleased with overall brightness the Sony can pump out. Most of our viewing is at night though, which is of course is still preference when room is at its darkest.

Sound wise, well it doesn't make any! On both low and bright settings I cannot hear the projector's fan - very impressed. Alas my unit does suffer from the buzzing noise when in 3D mode - its not as loud as I was expecting but it is annoying. But that should be fixed with Sony's/AVS offer of a external emitter - and shouldn't be an issue beyond the first batch of units....

I still have alot to play with regarding RC, FI, DI etc but slowly slowly.... I'm so happy with the image that I am in no rush to start making tweaks - and when I do I want to fully understand what I'm doing and doing it for a noticeable improvement!

In saying this - @Zombie or anyone, is there a summary of suggested settings for RC, DI etc in various modes. I know there are some tips scattered throughout the thread but would be great to have a summary of these, maybe in the first few posts of each unit in the comparison review?

I cant comment on gaming as whilst my son will prob do some PS3 gaming, it is not a big concern and I will trust Zombie and others that the SONY's latency will not be an issue in this regard.

In summary - I again thank all for their feedback in this and other related threads. I just wanted to outline my 'generic' review and first thoughts of the Sony. If there are other noobs like me without a batcave or cautious of making a 'wrong decision' between theses projectors I hope my mini rant (without reference to Lumens, Gammas, Gamuts an ANSI contrast ) may be of assistance to finalise your decision. Good Luck!


Edited by Projector Lad - 11/15/12 at 1:47pm

Thanks Zombie. We just finished watching it and yes had motion flow = Low. Looked good. Did see a bit of ghosting occaisionly, but think I saw it more than I might've as have been reading about it in the threads - so was looking for it!! .
Nothing bothersome though, no worse than the occasional artefact or glitch in a 2d movie.

Kids joined me this time, my 9yo son summed it up pretty well. "We'll be using this projector heaps dad - the 3D is awesome. Maybe we should buy some more glasses in case these ones wear out" !!

Zombie,
Have you tried the HW50 with RF Monster Vision glasses? How are the Monster Vision glasses regarding ghosting with the HW50 compared to the original Sony glasses?

If I remember correctly with the HW30 was a big difference in favor of the Monster Vision.

Best regards
Edited by fpr - 11/15/12 at 3:47am

Are the Monster Vision 3D glasses RF? If so, it should work with the new JVC projectors, right?

I watched Sammy's Adventure the other night on my 6010 -- I saw no ghosting at all. I have the projector in dynamic mode with saturation turned down six or seven clicks and the glasses on high brightness. I use a 120" screen (HP) and have the Oppo screen size set to 200". I had stuff coming way out of the screen to the point I was going cross-eyed. The image looked amazing, largely due to the incredible brightness of the 3D and the superlative negative and positive parallax. The first scene with Sammy on his raft talking to the other turtles on their floating device looked like they were all floating out into the room and was a little disconcerting. This is brighter than I watch in 2D and set up this way is the best 3D I've ever seen by far. If this year's projectors are even "better" then people here are in for a real treat.
Edited by Deja Vu - 11/15/12 at 6:47am

I know you commented in the other thread (or maybe it was this one?) about setting the screen size larger in the Oppo and getting more impressive 3d results. What differences are you noticing exactly between setting the actual screen size vs a much larger one? I am planning on trying this out with my Oppo 93 when I get up and running again with a 3d machine I am happy with, but very curious what you have found experimenting with this.

Thanks!

@rufilo - Looks like I kind of stole your question. Sorry about that. I home the responses helped you as much as they did me.

@Joepaii - Are you talking bulb costs or what?

@Projector Lad - excellent feedback. Sounds like a similar situation to mine and based on your feedback I am very much leaning toward the HW50.

@Zombie - I was planning on mounting the projector 15' back on the ceiling using most all of the 71 degrees shift the HW50 offers (the Epson could mount in the same place if I understand it's shift right). I will be sitting 13' back and could put the projector over my head if that would help significantly and if it is quite enough. Sounds like the HW50 would be ok here, but the Epson may need to go farther back. The screen I am looking at is the 1.2 gain center stage XD. Would love to hear your feedback.

I really do appreciate this thread. This is my first step into projector land. I'm replacing a 12 year old Pioneer CRT (Pro HD 710) that is quickly loosing its brightness. I'm getting all kinds of push back from my Wife and my 18 year old son (who is off to college next year so his opinion does not matter much). They are used to watching our Panasonic GT65 plasma and keep telling me there is no way a projector can compare. I'm after the big screen experience, but they are killing me with "it wont be sharp and won't have pop".

I am going to look into this more by going back and forth between screen sizes on the Oppo; however, increasing the screen size seems to increase the parallax -- maybe my imagination, but I'm noticing more pop out. If it's a placebo effect then it's definitely worth trying since it is all in your head anyway. A lot of people on the 3D section of this forum complain about the lack of pop out in most movies. I'm certainly seeing some dramatic effects when they do occur. The new Madagascar animated film has plenty and enhances the movie IMO. Personally I think some of the manufactures are tweaking their TVs and projectors to give a little more "pop out" and some aren't. There may be a fine line where all TV's will show the famous potato cod coming out into the room, but anything less of an extreme effect won't be very noticeable on most sets, while others will show more of a "pop out", with these other scenes. That's the only explanation I can think of as to why there are so many complaints about the lack of "pop out". Some refer to movies I own and claim there is no "pop out" when I know there is. Why the different impression of these movies as far as effects go?

All great questions and I have wondered the same thing reading various comments about scenes some have found to really pop out while I did not on my setup, and on the contrary some scenes I have found to pop others did not. Who knows.

Report back after you do more experimenting and let us know what you find out. Hell, even if it is just placebo, I am up for it!

Hi,
concerning the screen size setting with the Oppo: As I got my 93 in March 2012 I wondered what it does and tried it out, but I saw no difference on screen with different settings. The only thing it could possibly do is change the parallax, but that does not make any sense.

I then contacted the Oppo-Support and here's my conversation with them:
I got no further reply then, and I didn't ask again since then.

Maybe I'll check this out again, maybe there had been a change with a newer firmware.
In principle it would be very simple to make a comparison: Take a scene with reasonable parallax so that you can clearly see the parallax w/o the glasses in 2D on the screen. Put a camera on a tripod, take a photo of the paused scene, change the setting in the Oppo menu and take the same photo again of the scene. Then compare the two photos.

I use the MV glasses. With factory setting of the emitter, ghosting seems comparable to the Sony glasses. I can't see a big difference. I'll have to connect the emitter to the PC to try different settings of duty cycle/delay.

AFAIK the MV-glasses don't work with the new JVC RF emitter.
But that's no problem. I had a JVC X30 and were using the MV/Optoma-set with it. You can directly connect the emitter to the JVC since connector (3-pin so called VESA 3D) is the same. The only "problem" is that the driving voltage is different: The JVC outputs 12V and the MV/Optoma emitter needs only 5 V. But it worked anyways because the emitter seems to have a DC/DC converter at the input.
Many JVC users here in Germany are using the Optoma RF set instead of the original JVC glasses with the X30/70/90 because you can reduce crosstalk (but not that much..), the glasses don't have a greenish/yellowish tint and the FOV is larger.

With the new JVCs X35/55/75/95 and the JVC proprietary RF system and glasses maybe the Optoma-set is no longer needed because all people who have seen them yet report much less ghosting and the new glasses seem also to have a larger FOV.

Do you know if anyone has tried the new JVC RF System with the projectors X30/70/90?
It would be nice to know if the new RF system reduces the ghosting in these models.

thanks.

Ghosting in the JVC panels is due to the inability of the LCoS panels to refresh fast enough to get a "clean" image on the screen when the shutter glasses open for the right and left eyes. RF technology won't change that - only faster panels.

I have some thoughts on the issue of "pop-out." It's a bit off-topic perhaps, but I'd be happy to share if people are interested. It's relevant no matter which projector you choose.

I'd certainly be interested.

Here's an article on parallax and screen size for those interested:

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/the-perils-of-parallax

One other thing -- if you're in a completely darkened room and can't tell where your screen plane actually is then putting a depth cue where your screen is ( plug in a night light or something) so you will have the cue you need to judge just how far in or out of the screen the object appears to be should be helpful.

I used a screen depth cue the other night while watching an underwater 3D film and the lead diver actually appeared to be swimming out in the room while those following him were various distances behind him. This was a great example of both negative and positive parallax.
Edited by Deja Vu - 11/15/12 at 9:29am

No worries, responses are helping me as well. I'm still looking on whether Sony pros vs epson worth the extra price and is a best option for non cave environment.