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Black levels with Sony VPL-VW295ES

3661 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by Dominic Chan, Aug 17, 2019

Ryan Tremblay

Discussion Starter · Aug 16, 2019

Not sure if this question belongs here or in one of the projector forums, so I'll start here since at a high level, I think it is a calibration question. I recently got a Sony VPL-VW295ES. The picture quality is fantastic - great colors and clarity. My only qualm is black levels, which are underwhelming. I can't seem to get deep blacks, and dark scenes often appear somewhat washed out. I'm assuming the factors contributing to this are one of (or some combination of) these:

1. The projector
2. The screen
3. The source device
4. The content source
5. The settings (of projector and/or source device)

Based on my research so far, I'm guessing my (9 year old) screen is the biggest factor, but before biting the bullet and buying a new screen, I was hoping for some advice from more experience folks. Here is some more info about my setup:

- Projector: Sony VPL-VW295ES
- Screen: 126" Carada Precision Series Brilliant White (1.4 gain)
- Source device: Xbox One X
- Content source: UHD blu-ray (in the Xbox), Netflix, Microsoft Store + Movies & TV for movie rentals
- Throw distance: ~17 feet
- Ambient light: none (blackout blinds covered by blackout curtains)
- Wall/ceiling color: very dark gray (almost black)

The Xbox settings includes display calibration, and there is one part where it shows a dark gray shape on top of a black background, but no matter how I adjust my settings, I can only see the black background. I'm not sure if this is a settings problem, or just that you can't get the same black levels on a projector that you can get on a TV.

As mentioned above, my main gripe is just that the black levels during normal use seem not very deep and somewhat washed out. There is a fair bit of reflected ambient light in the room in some situations (e.g. scenes with both bright and dark parts). The default settings on the projector were *way* too bright. It made my room really light up, and caused some eye discomfort. I switched the projector settings to eco mode and additionally had to reduce the contrast from 100 to 50 (otherwise the whites were still so bright that they caused some eye strain). Even with this reduced brightness, the black levels just aren't very good. Any suggestions?

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Dominic Chan

· #2 · Aug 16, 2019 (Edited)

Ryan Tremblay said:
Based on my research so far, I'm guessing my (9 year old) screen is the biggest factor, but before biting the bullet and buying a new screen, I was hoping for some advice from more experience folks.

If the screen looks greyish when there is no reflected light or stray light in the room, then the culprit is the projector, not the screen. This assumes you have already adjusted the Brightness control to set the black level, and that there is no range setting mismatch (limited vs full).

I switched the projector settings to eco mode and additionally had to reduce the contrast from 100 to 50 (otherwise the whites were still so bright that they caused some eye strain). Even with this reduced brightness, the black levels just aren't very good. Any suggestions?

Reducing the Contrast control reduces the white but has negligible effect on the black, so you’re degrading the contrast ratio which was not great to start with. This is where a manual iris would have helped - reduce the overall level (actually black even more than white), but the 295 doesn’t have one.

To reduce the overall brightness while preserving (not improving) the projector’s native contrast, you can
- use a neutral density filter in front of the projector lens, or
- use a very low gain (~.5 gain) screen

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Ryan Tremblay

Discussion Starter · #3 · Aug 17, 2019

Thanks for these insights!

If the screen looks greyish when there is no reflected light

There is no light coming from outside of the room, but in brighter scenes, there is quite a bit of reflected light. Even though I have dark walls and ceiling (lighter carpet), the room can really light up in scenes with bright areas.

and that there is no range setting mismatch (limited vs full).

I read some things on this, but I'm honestly still not sure I have things configured correctly. From what I can tell, there are many different terms used to mean limited/full. On Xbox, I think Standard=Limited and PC RGB=Full. I couldn't find any settings in my projector that seemed to map to this though, so not 100% sure it is correctly configured.

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Dominic Chan

· #4 · Aug 17, 2019

Ryan Tremblay said:
There is no light coming from outside of the room, but in brighter scenes, there is quite a bit of reflected light. Even though I have dark walls and ceiling (lighter carpet), the room can really light up in scenes with bright areas.

Greyness due to reflected light is quite different from grayness in “fade to black” scenes. The former can be improved with a low gain screen.

I read some things on this, but I'm honestly still not sure I have things configured correctly. From what I can tell, there are many different terms used to mean limited/full. On Xbox, I think Standard=Limited and PC RGB=Full. I couldn't find any settings in my projector that seemed to map to this though, so not 100% sure it is correctly configured.

The Sony Dynamic Range function has 3 settings: Limited, Full, or Auto.

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