Brand New Sony VPL-VW50 (Pearl) In Hand! - Page 18

Judging from the pics of your HS10, it is about as far away from properly calibrated as one can possibly get.

If you are willing to live with a bit of "Torch Mode" on the Pearl, and willing to crank open the IRIS, I would bet you could get it substantially brighter.

There are at least a couple of hundred more lumens at your disposal.

However, if you're watching in a room with ambient light, I think you'll want a light canon. And clearly, this projector does not fit that bill.

Is it possible for someone to take a picture of this light spill around the edges of the screen. I have never seen this and am wondering how big of an issue is this?

I thought about running it on "high" and the Iris off but part of the reason I got the pearl was for that great contract the Iris provides. Secondly, I have always run my HS10 in "cinema dark" (low) and notice the brightness getting too low around 700 hours for a lamp thats supposed to last 3000. So I figured that I'd be changing the lamp more frequently with the Pearl. I highly doubt that it would be bright enough after 500 hours since it seems so dim to begin with. I realize the HS10 is out of calibration probably due to the fact that I removed the filter. Once I get a new lamp I'll tweak it agian and have to 'deal' with the low contrast but I'm happy to do that for now. And if I can't live with the HS10, I can always shop again. If I find the time this week I may give the Peal one more try and get someone else's opinon before sending it back.

Toe, I think it would be difficult to take a pic of the light spill. On my unit it's very faint but extends a good 6" from the frame. It's really not an issue in my opinion.

JAMMAN,

Were you able to get any readings on your lumen output? I'm curious to see if your light output is similar to mine. We've heard some really different numbers for lumen output of the Pearl at maximum zoom. Everything from 700 down to 500. Maybe our settings for video are vastly different, who knows?

I get the impression that a lot of people are trying to see if the projector has the light output for them, so if you can get any measurements that may be helpful. BTW, thanks for all your posts and information you've shared. The screenshots and comaprisons have been very helpful.

movieguy2001, I didn't get any measurements since I don't have a light meter (can they be found cheap?) I'm curious what the difference between the pearl and HS10 would be.

djzelos, thanks for the screen change suggestion. I'll have to look into it but I'm not really looking to speed a few K more for a screen at this point. The projector blew my HT budget for a while. Doesn't the viewing angle start to get narrower with high powered screens?

Jim

I wanted to get your impression of the difference between iris auto and iris off.

From the cine4home review the Pearl in low lamp mode iris off/auto will be 390 to 470 lumens depending on throw distance. That is around the same as the HS10 in cinema mode! Iris off at 2,200:1 will still give a 4 x contrast over the HS10 at < 600:1 with the cinema filter!

Iris on will be 50% less light than off/auto and should be avoided in your situation!

Now that there a few more Pearl owners out there, can we get an update on the color uniformity problem? How many are expeririencing this problem and to what degree?

What would you buy now? What if the price for Ruby and Pearl would be the same?

Wow. I've actually been finding that I need to keep the lamp on LOW and the manual iris at minimum, in order to keep the brightness under control. Now, mind you, I'm using a 92inch da lite high power screen -- mostly because I want little room intereference so the narrow viewing cone really helps -- so that's a factor, but even on a "normal" gain screen, I'd guess it's plenty bright for me in a blacked out room.

In fact, if I find a used retractible Firehawk in my size, I'll probably go for that, since the ambient light rejection is good, the gain is lower, and I love the gray backing to even further lower the black floor. I'm near maximum throw, right now, which is good for a Firehawk, and should be giving me the dimmest picture possible (if I'm reading the results others have posted correctly) so my impressions are way at the other end of the scale in terms of how bright this projector is.

I would think the high power would be to bright on a 92" screen with the lumens this projector is throwing which it sounds like it is if you are wanting to go to a firehawk which would be a better match at 92" I would think.

Yep.

Two complications ensue:

1) Being a rental, ceiling mounting is problematic in my home. So I don't have an ideal Firehawk configuration, though the projector is essentially "shelf mounted" about a foot above viewers' heads, so it's not horrible geometry.

2) I overspent my budget by $500 getting the Pearl, so even a used Firehawk is a pricey proposition right now

So my ironic solution may be to get a ND filter! At least until the bulb's brightness falls off a bit.

Note too that I only watch movies, in the dark. People that watch TV, especially sports, in ambient light will have a totally different perspective.

Thanks for the thoughts Nathan as I was thinking of a HP at 92" for the Pearl in my fully light controlled room, but decided a ST130 would be a better fit and would still be plenty bright.

I am sure a filter would work great, and I understand the whole budget thing as I am trying to stretch mine to get the Pearl and screen into my house

Congrads on the Pearl though, I will probably be joining the club soon.

I'm not sure where to go with this. I'm guessing that in the end, the biggest complaint about the Pearl will be dimness, same as the Ruby which is not surprising. This is not to say it wil be a problem for everyone, or even most people, but it will probably be the biggest issue it has.

I also do not have a light-controlled room. At night it's dark, but the walls and ceiling are white-beige, and a bit of ambient street light comes in through the bay window. Of course, during the day forget it.

I currently have a 60" SXRD RP which I think is terrific, and is watchable even during the day. I want to overlay the screen where the TV is. I would definitely prefer to stay in the SXRD technology, but the constant issue of adequte lumens is something I will have a tough time coming to grips with in the Pearl.

Also, I don't want to be a slave to the setup, having to always pull down shades, sit in a "cone", etc. When I do serious viewing, I would, but for casual viewing, I don't want to be encumbered that way.

I'm going to wait another month or so to see more feedback and see how much the light issue becomes for the Pearl. FWIW, I don't think a light cannon is the only alternative. The Optoma HD81 has 1400 speced lumens, and caliibrated may be noticeably brighter than the Pearl. But then the HD81 has it's own set of issues.

Thanks everyone for posting your thoughts.

Jeff, I could certainly be wrong, but I think the 'viewing cone' of a Dalite HighPower is actually wider than that of a rptv. So if you find it adequate with your Sony RP, you might want to try a HP screen.

Although only in a temporary setup, I've noticed no objectionable light spill.

And I've had mine (#4 in the country) since last Thursday, and only about 2 hours on it. I don't want the bulb to get too settled before I invert the PJ for it's final home....

Be aware, however, that the Silverstar has issues of its own. This includes a sheen that is noticed in brighter scenes, which gives a gritty textured look. Some people are bothered by it (me) others are not. But it is definitely there.

No Carada for the Pearl???

Thanks for the info.

The SS is as bright (at least) as the HP, and has a wider viewing cone, but because of the latter property it is rather poor in dealing with any ambient light. I.e., the narrower viewing cone of the HP tends to exclude ambient light from the side. If you have a total light-controlled room, then the SS might be better (except for the surface sheen that Rob mentions). But if ambient light is an issue, the HP is probably a better candidate; and it is reported to have no surface texture or 'sheen' issues.

This seems to be an endemic problem with the Sony SXRD. Even the $30,000 Qualia had some white field uniformity issues.

For some reason JVC's LCoS PJs don't seem to suffer from this.

This is one of the main reasons I'm waiting for the JVC.

Although the Qualia is high priced, it's first-generation SXRD from Sony. The Pearl is thrid generation. I'd actually expect the Pearl's panels (and associated drive electronics) to be better in this regard, even though it's 6x less expensive...

The JVC wont be perfect either. There is not perfect unit.

In the JVC thread, Tsites (who I believe works for JVC) indicated that Sony went with thinner LCOS panels than JVC. This allows the Sony to have faster response times, but makes it more difficult to compensate for color continuity over a wide thermal range. JVC's panels have slower response times, but are more stable over a wider thermal range. That's how I understood it anyway.

Now, I admit that I am way outside of my comfort zone with what I'm about to say, but it seems to me that if Sony really wants to do away with these shading isues, they will need some sort of dynamic temperature adjustment, or else they'll need to increase thickness, or somehow make the panels more stable. I'm just guessing that if you calibrate the shading of the unit at the temperature that it will be at when fully warmed up in your environment, it will help. But I think that's about all that can be done for now.

Do you have any hard evidence to support those statements as far as FP are concerned? IIRC None of the the major reviews of the Q04 or Ruby came to those conclusions.

WM seems to do great job "optomizing" JVCs, with white field uniformity improvements the major improvement cited by owners!

To put things into perspective as far as "white field uniformaity issues":
DLP better than LCOS better than LCD better than CRT!