OFFICIAL Sony HS50(51) thread

Huh?

I think I may need to upgrade. How do I explain this one to my wife?

"An IRIS alone cpable of generating 6000:1? "

The math is pretty easy. If it can do 1200:1 w/o iris, and the iris can reduce the brightness 5X, you've got 6000:1.

Whether that's "cheating" and whether it will look the same to our eyes is another matter.

Good point. If true, I would pretty dissappointed in Sony's marketing ploy.
Greg

If that's true, then Sony strikes again. And people wonder why there is Sony bashing going on.

ARGH!!!! Why is it a marketing ploy?

If the iris is dynamic and the projector changes it on the fly and you can't see any side effects from it (other than a much better image) how is it a ploy?

They use an iris to modulate the light-output per frame, comparable to the Panasonic. The traditional on/off CR at the smallest iris setting is estimated around ~1500 which is remarkable at any standards for a LCD PJ.

They claim to reach 6000:1 on/off in cinema black pro mode, i.e. with the iris adjusting automatically, so smallest setting for 'off' and largest for 'on'. I assume it works well enough that they launch this baby and I would be confident that most people will not care unless there are severe side effects by this technique. In any case they may need to process the image somewhat just like Panasonic does (gamma correction) to avoid overly dim pictures for pictures with low APL and still get very good black level.

--Peter

It doesn't matter what "method" is used to achieve the "perceived" CR or any other effect as long as your brain interprets it correctly. If my brain "sees" 6000:1 contrast, I really don't give a damn if it is "true" 6000:1 or not.

I just don't get the criticism.

I don't get it.

I'm baffled.

I am not fooled by Sony because I am know enoght to understand what to expect. In scenes that are bright and of mid APL there is not much to complain about with on/off just ANSI cr but still good enough for the majority of us here. When the projector is going to show a dark forest with very little light then a projector needs to dim down. With an auto-iris this can be done. That is a good thing. Imagine how difficult it would be for Sony to get this across in advertising. Saying 6000:1 is easier and it will sell more projectors.

Look at it like this... it the iris can block out ALL the light from the PJ then you will have absolute black but no image. j/k

I guess what some people are wondering is... if this is achieved by reducing the brightness... how dim will the image be? What will it REALLY look like.

Time will tell.

All this skepticism about variable iris technology advances kind of reminds me of all the hooey that went (or is it still going) on with the XHD3 "wobulation" technology and wether or not you could really call it 1080 because it only looked like 1080. I say who cares how they do it, as long as it looks good! Isn't that the whole point?

It only dims the image some of the time, not all of the time, so it's not the traditional tradeoff.

Was the HS51 on display at Cedia and did anyone have a chance to see it in operation? It would be nice to get some impressions in addition to the theoretical opinions.

Buy the HS51 and have it all setup so when she confronts you, just plead temporary insanity...that worked for me...just once of course :-)

On some level the iris modulation to improve contrast strikes me as not completely unlike the temporal modulation of DLP mirrors to achieve different brightness levels. You're taking advantage of the physiology of human vision to make it see things that aren't really quite so, because of limitation in technology. As long as you are indeed "fooled", what does it matter? Besides, as the DLP false contours show, these approaches are just compromises anyway. As long as each new approach adds some incremental improvement to visual perception, why beat yourself up over how it's accomplished? Don't forget that you're just watching 24-odd pictures a second and not true motion anyway.

Incidentally, has any manufacturer tried to improve the fill factor of LCDs by stacking two panels for each color? Each panel would only contain every other pixel row, relegating pixel circuitry into the vacant rows. This way vertically they could achieve a 100% fill factor by overlapping the panels just right, and even horizontally they could push pixels much closer together, since no circuit traces would have to squeeze through vertically. You'd lose some brightness, and parallax could be an issue, but I'm just wondering.

To continue a question from one of the closed threads (man, isn't that annoying):



Yes, I know I'm not screwed in terms of the HS20 (that's why I set everything up that way). What I meant was, am I screwed in terms of changing my mind and getting the HS51 instead, without relocating where the projector will go?





Stew

"They use an iris to modulate the light-output per frame, comparable to the Panasonic."

There's been lots of speculating that that's what they do, but has Sony or Panasonic specifically said so, i.e., per frame? Not that it's necessary, as our eyes don't respond that quickly. At 60 f/s I'd expect every ten frames to be fine.

Yes, Panasonic at least said so. In their japanese announcement a couple of days ago and in the actual US. Press-release:


"The Dynamic Iris constantly adjusts the light volume and gamma curve in real time, so the picture is always optimal and transitions between scenes are amazingly smooth and natural"



That would be every 0,16 sec. In my opinion too slow.

Regards,
Ekkehart, www.cine4home.de

In Canada, the replacement for the HS-20 IS the HS-50 and IS the same retail price as the HS-20. Delivery is estimated for the end of October which probably means middle of December

I see there are HS20 owners looking at this thread and so the question I have applies to the HS51 and HS20. It looks like both units have DVI & HDMI inputs that are seperate. Is that correct? I was going to connect a STB to the DVI and the new Sony DVD with HDMI to the HDMI inputs but was concerned that you might only be able to use one or the other. Can anyone confirm both inputs are infact seperate?

Jim

Per someone at CEDIA Sony said it responded within 50ms.

Does anyone think that Sony will continue making the HS-20, because the resolution is higher 1386 x 788 vs. 1280x720 for the HS-51?

""The Dynamic Iris constantly adjusts the light volume and gamma curve in real time, so the picture is always optimal and transitions between scenes are amazingly smooth and natural""

That sure spells it out, thanks.

Yes, I understand this. My only question is... "How dim will it look?" I don't care how often it happens. I just want to know if you get that... "Hey.... did my bulb just lose half its brightness" kind of feeling.

How will a very dark scene with one small spot of brightness look with this PJ?
I can't wait to check it out myself.
Still, if it has VB or SDE issues I don't care how good the CR is.

is there a difference between the HS50 and HS51 ?

I wouldn't worry about the loss in resolution, based on my comparisons using the HD Net test patterns, output by the HD TIVO connected by DVI to both a Samsung 720p DLP RP and the Sony HS-20, at both 720p and 1080i.
Horizontal resolution is basically the same on both systems at either 720p or 1080i. Vertical resolution actually worsens using 1080i!

Fill factor may be another issue, though. By defocussing my HS-20, I can't detect SDE at 1.5 screen width, and I have confirmed no loss of resolution using the HD Net test pattern.

Paul

Yes Jim there is both an hdmi and dvi input.

Any thoughts on the utility of the Ethernet connector?

"HS51 is equipped with an Ethernet connector for complete AV system integration via IP Control Protocol."