Black Pearl VW60 Calibration Thread

What size screen, what screen gain?

Doesn't look like anything was done to the colors via RCP or the gray scale?

Kemet I've used your settings and it looks very good! Here's a few others use Iris Auto 1 for maximum contrast. RCP user 1 with red down about 5. and I've read -7 for blue bias on the medium colour temp. But all of these likely vary projector to projector

The Image Director is for adjusting gamma. This projector really needs calibration and,yes, that requires instrumentation and some expertise.

You can hire it done. http://www.imagingscience.com

As Tom says, you do need instrumentation, otherwise you are going off of your relative perception, which has been "colored" (bad pun) by what you've been watching. One thought, though, I have heard that the Japanese standard is a 9300K white point, but I've never been able to find anything official on that (my Japanese is non-existent). If true, you will want to take some of that into account.

Bill

Hello, got my unit in the day before yesterday, I literally "stole" my local dealer's demo unit from him, hehehe. Poor guy never got to hang it up in his shop or open the box.

My VW60 is replacing my Runco CL-710 (720p DLP). I use a Vu-Tech Silver Star screen. I've forgotten the precise measurements since I got it four years ago, but I believe it's 90" wide on the horizontal and a 6 or 4 gain. The throw distance is about 12 feet. Right now I'm waiting for the tech to come hang it, and it's sitting on top of a table and two boxes right below my Runco.

I'm running in HDMI from a Denon 2930 outputting a 1080p upconverted signal. My Sammy 5000 will be in in about a week (drool), so no HD player yet. These calibrations were made using DVE, AVIA and (for Color/Hue only) the THX Optimizer. I've found it's much easier to use than the others and just as accurate. The only thing I miss from my Runco is the Blue overlay for calibrating Color and Tint. I hate standing there with the stupid little card to my face from DVE, but it's better than nothing I suppose.

Settings. I've spent several hours fiddling. Though I don't have any test equipment, I have several thousand hours clocked in watching a projector that was calibrated ruler flat, so I have a good idea what to look for, especially with my standard demo/calibration material.

I'm going to stir up the waters a bit with the second half of my calibration report...but on to the more conventional NTSC side, I have found I use the same calibrations whether the lamp is set to Low or High. Some may want to bring their Brightness up or down a notch or two depending on the lamp level, though.

I've found that Auto Iris 1 crushes whites. I noticed this in the Superbit edition of Spider-Man. Right after Peter beats up Flash in the school hallway, the camera turns to Harry and he says, "Peter that was fantastic" (paraphrasing here) and with the iris set to Auto 1, all the detail in his forehead is simply gone. He looks like an alien. Changing to any other iris mode alleviates this. I experimented with Auto 2 "recommend" (haven't tried fast or slow) and I could see the iris changing, and though it was a truer image than Auto 1 (which heavily pushes red and crushes white), I just don't like the look of it. It's not natural. What I found works VERY nicely is to use the manual iris setting (Iris Off I found by looking at the thing opens the iris to 100%) at 75%. This gives an extremely nice tight contrast without any defects of a moving lens.

Also, according to calibrating with both DVE and AVIA, a Max contrast works perfectly well. No crushing of whites beyond the three vertical dots in the contrast screen on DVE, no loss of the finer white bar in the contrast adjustment on AVIA.

CINEMA:
Lamp: High
Auto Iris: Manual @75%.
Color Space: Normal
Contrast: Max
Brightness: 48
Color: 50
Hue: 50
Color Temp: Warm
Sharpness: +5
Black Level Adjust: Off
Gamma Correction: Off

I fiddled a bit with RCP, but went back to turning it off in the end.

For Low lamp level I was ultimately able to use the same Brightness, though mileage may vary a +/-1 on this for others.

USER 1
Lamp: Low
Auto Iris: Manual @75%.
Color Space: Normal
Contrast: Max
Brightness: 48
Color: 50
Hue: 50
Color Temp: Warm
Sharpness: +5
Black Level Adjust: Off
Gamma Correction: Off

Now comes the controversial part. And before I say this, please understand I'm just as much of an obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive, "I want to preserve the filmmaker's original intentions", geek as the next A/V freak. But I gotta tell ya, if you want you movies to look like real life--like you're looking out your window at the real world, the Wide Color Space is where it's at. At first this color space looks like carnival colors and you say, "Aaahhhh! Take it away! Give me back Flatland!", but all that needs to be done is to turn down the color saturation a bit and watch something with nice, natural daylight colors for a little while until your brain adjusts and you won't be able to go back to "normal". The truth is, NTSC is just a sucky standard from the 50's and is not realistic. Wide color gives redder, more natural flesh tones WITHOUT screwing up basic white, and this is what makes it very, very nice. And very natural. Give it a try with T2 Extreme Edition. Go to the scene where the kids are outside the ATM. That blue jean jacket actually looks like a blue jean jacket, now. The kid's red hair looks REAL (I know, I have red hair), it never did to me with "correct" color calibration. And the flesh tones are perfect. The key to using this mode for me was to decrease color saturation a bit until the exaggeration of the added color space is taken away. I did it by eye and came out with very good results. Anyway, here's my settings as that goes:

USER 2:
Lamp: Low
Auto Iris: Manual @75%.
Color Space: Wide
Contrast: Max
Brightness: 48
Color: 47
Hue: 50
Color Temp: Warm
Sharpness: +5
Black Level Adjust: Off
Gamma Correction: Off

USER 3:
Lamp: High
Auto Iris: Manual @75%.
Color Space: Normal
Contrast: Max
Brightness: 48
Color: 47
Hue: 50
Color Temp: Warm
Sharpness: +5
Black Level Adjust: Off
Gamma Correction: Off

Cheers,
Omar

Great post Omar. Thanks for taking the time. I'm interested in seeing if you alter anything with an HD source. Let us know.

I have to admit I am with him in having the color mode in WIDE. As long as you tweak it a bit it looks terrific!

Hey thanks Rob, will let you know.

Glad the wide color's working out for you Joe!

Omar

*I've also started using a Gamma of 1, instead of no Gamma correction.

There were a few things I found objectionable to the Wide Color mode:

1) Flesh Tones were way too pink

Try turning down the saturation (Color control) until they look normal but more natural than NTSC standard.

2) The green fields on Lord of the Rings were closer to a flourescent green

The above should fix this too.

Since I bumped up color and hue a nudge on Normal Color space, instead of reducing color on Wide Color mode, maybe similiar. But I will check out reducing color with Wide mode.

Not the same. Wide color space actually allows you to display colors that are outside the display ability of Normal mode. The reds, greens, etc. you can achieve in Wide simply do not exist to be displayed in the Normal color parameters/boundaries. You can increase the intensity of the existing colors in Normal mode by increasing Color, but though this somewhat simulates Wide mode, it's really not the same thing.

Gamma 1 I found it washed out the image, as it makes it overall brighter, and Gamma 3 makes it too dark in some dark content, so I went back to no Gamma correction.

Gamma Off is very good, but I like Gamma 1 better because it shows me more detail and I have somewhat weak eyes. Gamma 1 combined with a Manual Iris setting of 75% gives me good solid blacks and contrast, along with fine detail. Gamma 1 with the Auto or Iris Off (IE, wide open) modes is indeed a bit washed out.

Did you try making a custom color mode, as I found I could get blacker blacks with Blue Bias -5, Green Bias -1? When you say Warm Color you mean the Low Color setting?

Sorry, yes. Warm means Low. I tried a bit of RCP to remove a bit of excess green in Normal mode, but not White correction. I find the white in Wide mode to be fine without correction.

In the end it is all about finding the image you like the best.

Indeed.

Omar

Anyone have any good settings for PAL?

I've tried your settings O and they look better even on my PAL unit.

I've just got this as a replacement to my VW50 from Sony, after I kicked up a fusss they sent me the VW60 to replace it! Which I'm happy with.

Keep the posts coming fellas

T

I am very close to you but I think I have gamma 3 on. I do use WIDE color mode for sports and NORMAL for movies...

Last night while watching Superbad (hilarious by the way), on BR using my PS3, I paused on the night scene where there is a combination of black skies and a bit of street light on the two kids. I noticed that when comparing the black level of the Auto 1 iris setting to choking down on the fixed iris there was a significant change in richness of the blacks. I'm sure my using a High Power screen elevates the blacks. My question is, has anyone, with a High Power of Silverstar tested out using a fixed iris with Auto 1 while watching multiple films?

I think that is why we were really liking using the Manual Iris setting at 37. It gave a very nice, rich black level. Experimenting is always the best option...

You're right Joe. I have my projector at a short throw from the HP screen and I'm liking the black level at a setting in the low 30 range.

Can anybody tell me how to acces de service menu?

thanks

Just received a VW60 very nice projector,
great convergence, middle range and bright scenes on HD-DVDs just make your jaw drop.

Darker scenes need some tuning. When I put a greyscale pattern up or watch b/w movies, the low end looks like it needs adjustment. I've used AVIA and 1080P patterns to set up contrast, brightness, color and hue.

I've read Greg Rogers great report on the projector, and he suggests using RCP is not best to calibrate, so I assume the greyscale is calibrated using the user menu custom color temps gains and bias
or do you need to get into the service menu?

If anyone has measured and calibrated greyscale, could you share your user settings and gain/bias adjustments?

Hi Guys,

A couple of questions for you, particularly if you have upgraded from a VW50:

1. Is the VW60 any quieter than the VW50? I hope so as this is one of my main reasons for buying one!

2. I am getting my black pearl from japan - will I be able to set it to PAL (sorry if this seems like a daft question but I am having a 'blonde moment'!

3. What are the definite tweaks to use, notwithstanding the individual colour changes that will vary from projector to projector?

Thanks!

It is the same.

I know its decibel output is listed as the same - 22db - but here in the UK people (dealers) are saying it is way quieter?

Is it the same fan mechanism as in the VW50?

I thought it was my ears playing tricks, but my first thought when I set up the VW60 was that it was quieter than the VW50. I also realize both projectors are listed as 22 dB, but I swear the 60 is quieter, at least in low lamp mode.

[quote][I am getting my black pearl from japan - will I be able to set it to PAL (sorry if this seems like a daft question but I am having a 'blonde moment'!/QUOTE]

The projector will sync a PAL signal without doing anything.

This thread is running short of calibration settings,
and the VW60 surely needs help in that area out of the box.

Lets give it some new life!

These are from:
http://www.projectorreviews.com/sony...mance.php#lens

Corrected Cinema Mode: Color Temp set to Custom 3. Custom 3 settings:

Gain: Red=5, Green=-1, Blue=-5
Bias: Red=9, Green=-12, Blue=-4

Other settings: Contrast: 79 (default is 80), Brightness: 48 or 49 (default is 50)

Whats your settings or how they look on your VW60...

The review seemed pretty fair. Seems like he feels the VW60 throws a better, though dimmer (?), pic than his RS1. The only thing I can't figure out is the description of the VW60 being soft. Compared to my VW50, and AE2000u it is incredibly sharp. Maybe a unit to unit variance? I'm going to try these settings.

He recommends Iris 2. I thought Auto 1 yields the highest CR. He also uses wide instead of normal. Maybe he is accustomed to the RS1's oversaturation.