Alignment issues with Sony HW50ES

How far off is it on the bottom? My Benq7000 is fine along the top but the bottom far right is off by 1/4". I'm probably just going to overscan a little bit to hide it. I also use making which helps. My JVC is perfect in this regard.

Tom

Your logic only works if the projector rays are perpendicular to the screen surface both vertically and horizontally at image center. I suspect they are not, despite what intuition might say. And yes, we have all squirmed and then had it click into place. If it slopes downward to the right, that corner is farther away.

Dumb question. I did see that you had the same problem with just the wall but is your Elite screen hung properly or is it the screen itself?

I have the exact same issue with my Sony 95ES. I can make it level on top (or bottom) and perfect on the sides but the bottom (or top) is out. I asked when I first purchased (in the 95 forum) and did not get anyone else responding they had the same issue.

I am living with it. I think I was out the same amount as you - maybe a little less. The amount it is out is impossible to notice when watching movies but it still bothers me.

Vlubbers is right. This isn't a projector issue, you're just not properly lined up yet (assuming your screen is plumb and perpendicular to the projector).

You need to aim the projector (physically) further left, and start lens shifting and adjusting accordingly. It'll start moving into place.

cdiddy,

Don't sweat it, you've got to just roll with it! And by that I don't mean what you think I mean...

I concur with Vlubbers and Fat Dave that this is most likely a positioning issue that can be solved. I had the same problem with my brand new PT-AE8000U, which is a much less expensive projector, and it drove me nuts for a while, until I figured it out.

In my explanation I'm going to use the aircraft flight terminology of yaw, pitch, and roll because that will make it easier. If you're not familiar, check out the Wikipedia page.

The root of your problem I believe is that your projector is rolled, or banked, to the right (as you face the screen). Meaning the picture is spun a few degrees clockwise. Now you might be thinking, no, that's not the problem, because if it were, wouldn't the upper left hand corner poke up, and wouldn't the upper edge slope down left to right just like the lower edge? Well yes, you'd be right assuming that roll were the only issue. However, my bet is that you're also yawed to the right, meaning your projector is pointed rightwards a little bit, generating a horizontal keystone effect.

Now here's the kicker. If you geometrically combine image rotation plus horizontal keystone, you can end up with an image that appears level on the top edge but sloped on the bottom edge, with no appreciable distortions in the left and right edges, which is exactly what your photograph shows.

In order to correct this, you need to straighten up and fly right. That means first rolling to the left. You do that by tilting the right side of your projector up a bit. Tilt it up until the right side of the image pokes up above the upper right corner of the screen by an equal amount to how much it pokes below the bottom right corner. What you should end up with is a sideways trapezoid where the left side of the image is shorter than the right side. Then, yaw your projector to the left, which will shrink the right-hand side of the picture relative to the left-hand side. Do this until the picture is square, lens shift it back into the center of your screen (a move that conventional aircraft cannot make!), and...voila, problem solved!

In my case, my projector is table mounted, so this meant extending the right adjustable foot to tilt up the right side, and then turning the projector to the left. I had to do this because my floor slopes down to the right ever so slightly.

The non-intuitive part here, which stymied me for the longest time, is that I was only thinking about, and making adjustments to, yaw and pitch. But that alone can't fix this. You have to roll as well. My guess as to how you got into this mess is that you started with a rightward roll but didn't realize it. You tried to correct it by yawing right in order to level off the top edge of the screen, but in so doing turned a one-axis error into a two-axis error, which behaves a lot less intuitively, and is quite confusing. I did the same thing.

I hope this works for you!

See above. It is not a projector problem. It is inept set up. And please don't take offfense to that characterization. it is not intuitive. You can not twist the projector to center the image, if you do not have the lens exactly parallel to the screen it will look like this. If the screen is a plane and doesn't have a bend in it, suppose it is closer to the projector in one corner etc you must move the projector so that the lens surface mimicks that plane. You can not see it, just keep moving things until you get the perfect rectangle and then use lens shift to center left right or move it as you go. I know you are frustrated. We all have had to learn how to do this and unfortunately a few could never learn. Don't join that losers club.

Xank,

Thanks for the excellent explanation. Have exactly the same issue, except that the tilt is towards the left lower corner, on a friend's PT-AE7000. The mount is very flexible and should be an easy fix now.

Maybe someone already said this, but just to add to this, don't forget to project a test pattern (runway lights?) to make it easier to see where the geometric distortion is. Hence, I usually use the tic tac toe / grid patterns that are built into the projectors to do this.
The first time I tried this, i ended up with too much pitch, went into a stall, and my PJ came crashing at the ground (only kidding)
Make sure when doing this, all the screws are tight enough to actually hold the PJ onto the mount...

Good suggestion. Grid pattern makes it much easier to make these adjustments.

Ha ha. One time my projector flew through another projector's exhaust, ended up in a unrecoverable flat spin, and the green LCD panel was fatally damaged while punching out. The red panel was devastated and quit working shortly thereafter.

The biggest set up problem is withrotation around the vertical access to get the projector lens horizontally parallel to the plane of the screen. This will often result in the image not being horizontaly centered on the screen which should not be then centered by left right rotation.
the simplest and least overall important adjustment is left right tilt. just match the top grid line to the top edge of the screen tilt wise. the second easiest adjustment is the up down tilt which should be adjusted so the top and bottom horizontal grid lines are of equal length. The hardest is the left right adjustment rotational wise Its a bitch to get it right and due to mounting error, getting the projector lens mount in the left right center of the screen The one must use lefft right horizontal lens shift to center the image or remount or add a horizontal lens shift bracket to the mount and adjust that, the easiest and best solution.

If any grid line is not straight, but curved or cosisting or a line that breaks in another direction, the screen is not in one plane and must be fixed by shimming the frame.