Sony VPL-VW85

[BadAss]

Panel 3HFR SXRD 1080p
Contrast Estimated 100000:1 with D.I.
Fan Noise 20 DB
Brightness 810 Lumens

Bravo engine 2
2 Triggers
Horizontal and vertical motorized lens shift

[ditch-digger]

and...?????????????????????????

[bhampton]

I have the VW60 and it's the cat's pajamas.

-Brian

[Oddiophile]

100,000:1 on/off is impressive, too bad it's with a DI.

To hit that number I'm assuming Sony figured out how to bump there native SXRD contrast to 10,000:1 on/off, then put a 10X multiplier Dynamic Iris on top of it to achieve there 100,000:1.

I would still go with the New JVC with it's rumored 80,000:1 native on/off contrast.

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

100,000:1 on/off is impressive, too bad it's with a DI.

To hit that number I'm assuming Sony figured out how to bump there native SXRD contrast to 10,000:1 on/off, then put a 10X multiplier Dynamic Iris on top of it to achieve there 100,000:1.

I would still go with the New JVC with it's rumored 80,000:1 native on/off contrast.

It's always with DI. Even today LCD aren't capable of doing they rated CR with some auto tweaking..

[Oddiophile]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

It's always with DI. Even today LCD aren't capable of doing they rated CR with some auto tweaking..

Ya, but were not talking about LCD were taking about SXRD aka LCOS aka DILA. JVC has been well over 10,000:1 native contrast with there version of LCOS for about three or four years now. Yet it's taken Sony far longer to get there version of LCOS to 10,000:1. JVC's new DILA projectors are close to 100,000:1 native. It's amazing nobody else has been able to achieve what JVC has.

It would be awesome to see LCD get higher native contrast numbers but being a Transmissive technology and having a poor pixel fill factor compared to DLP and LCOS, who knows if they could squeeze any more native contrast out of them.

[syncguy]

Improving contrast is good although it is dynamic. However, brightness of their home projectors seems to be moving downwards.

[gandley]

the current VW80 (VW70) already has a native of around 10K:1 so i would guess this either has a more aggressive dynamic iris or they have done some tweakes to both the iris and native contrast.

[Oddiophile]

Originally Posted by syncguy

Improving contrast is good although it is dynamic. However, brightness of their home projectors seems to be moving downwards.

Sony's projectors have never been very bright. Lots of people run them with silver screens like the Da-lite Hi Power to increase brightness.

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

Sony's projectors have never been very bright. Lots of people run them with silver screens like the Da-lite Hi Power to increase brightness.

This is true. I meant it is going downwards. vw60 is 1000 Lumens and vw75 is 850. Isn't vw70 something in-between.

[Swede]

Take a look at the new Epson 8500UB LCD, which is going to have a 200,000:1 CR, with dynamic iris of course but still, and 1600 Lumens... looks very impressive indeed! Unfortunately it does not seem to have any anamorphic zoom memory feature

The new JVC RS15 & 25 I believe will have 30,000:1 and 50,000:1 NATIVE CR and something like 60,000:1 and 100,000:1 respectively with DI...

I don't know what JVC IS doing with their LCoS (or Sony isn't), but Sony does not really seem to be able to get their SXRD native CR to the level that JVC does...

[Oddiophile]

Originally Posted by Swede

Take a look at the new Epson 8500UB LCD, which is going to have a 200,000:1 CR, with dynamic iris of course but still, and 1600 Lumens... looks very impressive indeed! Unfortunately it does not seem to have any anamorphic zoom memory feature

The 8500UB does look good on paper but in real life the 8500UB will probably fall way short of the quoted 200,000:1 contrast calibrated to the D65 standard. The Epson 6500UB tested at only 3,538:1 native contrast and 10,471:1 with the dynamic iris engaged, far less then it's quoted 75,000:1 from Epson.

The new JVC RS15 & 25 I believe will have 30,000:1 and 50,000:1 NATIVE CR and something like 60,000:1 and 100,000:1 respectively with DI...

JVC has the HD550/RS15, HD950/RS25 & HD990/RS35 coming out.

The RS15 is rated at 30,000:1, RS25 50,000:1 & RS35 70,000:1.

The JVC projectors do not have a dynamic Iris like there competition. There contrast is all native and rated @ the D65 standard (unlike there competition). The JVC's do have a manual iris that is user controllable. All the numbers above are rated with the iris fully closed limiting lumens but increasing on/off contrast.

I don't know what JVC IS doing with their LCoS (or Sony isn't), but Sony does not really seem to be able to get their SXRD native CR to the level that JVC does...

JVC's patented Wire-grid technology is what helps give them an edge over Sony and everyone else.

[fanaticfan]

From the specifications I think got just a very perfect thing for yourself.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

The 8500UB does look good on paper but in real life the 8500UB will probably fall way short of the quoted 200,000:1 contrast calibrated to the D65 standard. The Epson 6500UB tested at only 3,538:1 native contrast and 10,471:1 with the dynamic iris engaged, far less then it's quoted 75,000:1 from Epson.

Well, while you're probably right about the extremely pumped up CR of the 8500 (guess we'll have to wait and see) I'm not sure where you got the 6500ub numbers from, but I believe I read that most newer D7 panel projectors like the AE3000 and the 6500UB have a native contrast of 6,000-9,000:1 and that they can reach close to the spec'ed level of contrast ratio with the dynamic iris engaged, but depending on the speed of the iris it can sometimes take several seconds, so it obviously can't compare to projectors like the JVC RSxx series which can handle similar contrast levels without a dynamic iris.

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

The RS15 is rated at 30,000:1, RS25 50,000:1 & RS35 70,000:1.

The JVC projectors do not have a dynamic Iris like there competition. There contrast is all native and rated @ the D65 standard (unlike there competition). The JVC's do have a manual iris that is user controllable. All the numbers above are rated with the iris fully closed limiting lumens but increasing on/off contrast.

It looks like we were both slightly off. According to the recent first look by avsforum (I have just recently started to forgive them for their HD DVD fiasco ) the RS15 is rated at 32000:1 max contrast with a native contrast of 17000:1 and the RS25 is rated at 50000:1 max contrast (30000:1 native). That is what led me to believe that the new models incorporate some kind of DI, but apparently it is simply with iris open/closed.

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

JVC's patented Wire-grid technology is what helps give them an edge over Sony and everyone else.

Patents or not though, it is surprising that Sony or anyone else has not been able to come out with a similar technology of their own... It will be interesting to see when reviews of the VW85 start coming out, whether they will be able to compete with JVC this time around.

[Oddiophile]

Originally Posted by Swede

Well, while you're probably right about the extremely pumped up CR of the 8500 (guess we'll have to wait and see) I'm not sure where you got the 6500ub numbers from, but I believe I read that most newer D7 panel projectors like the AE3000 and the 6500UB have a native contrast of 6,000-9,000:1 and that they can reach close to the spec'ed level of contrast ratio with the dynamic iris engaged, but depending on the speed of the iris it can sometimes take several seconds, so it obviously can't compare to projectors like the JVC RSxx series which can handle similar contrast levels without a dynamic iris.

Native contrast is what the display can do on it's own without any optical tricks. Dynamic contrast is what the display can do with a dynamic iris opening on bright scenes to give you the full amount of light and closing down on dark scenes to give you blacker blacks at the sacrifice of lumens, aka brightness compression.

Both Sony & JVC have been very good at rating there projectors around the D65 standard so there quoted on/off contrast is achievable. LCD manufacturers have been rating there products not at the D65 standard as an ISF tech would calibrate your display to, but overall, best case scenario what it can do. This is why once the LCD's have been calibrated there numbers fall so bad. Only in there dynamic mode do you see the LCD manufacturers quoted numbers and the dynamic modes like the manufacturers quoted numbers are worthless.

It looks like we were both slightly off. According to the recent first look by avsforum (I have just recently started to forgive them for their HD DVD fiasco ) the RS15 is rated at 32000:1 max contrast with a native contrast of 17000:1 and the RS25 is rated at 50000:1 max contrast (30000:1 native). That is what led me to believe that the new models incorporate some kind of DI, but apparently it is simply with iris open/closed.

I wasn't off I was rounding down. If you look at Jason's numbers on AVS, at a long throw he got just under 30,000:1 contrast on the RS15. I own the RS10 the projector the RS15 will replace. On the RS10 you have three settings for the manual iris or "aperture" as JVC call's it. Mode 1, 2, 3, in mode 3 the iris is fulling open and you get around 17,000:1 and 800 to 900 Lumens. In mode 2 the iris is closed half way and you get around 22,000:1 with around 550-650 lumens. Set the iris to mode 1 and it close-es down to give you 30,000:1 at about 300-400 lumens

The aperture is a great tool that you can use to dial in the brightness and contrast you want. When I first setup my RS10 in December out of the box the picthure was so bright it was almost unwatchable so I set the iris to mode 1 which gave me incredible on/off contrast and plenty of lumens for my setup. As the lamp has aged I have opened the iris to give me back the lumens the lamp naturally looses. Now at 1300 hours on the lamp I have the iris all the way open and the lamp in high mode as I get ready to purchase a new lamp.

I personally love the JVC's, they are the Kuro's of the front projector world. The LCD do throw an excellent image and represent a good value but after living with a achievable 30,000:1 there is no way in hell I am going about to a dynamic iris. It's not a solution to a problem it's crutch.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

Native contrast is what the display can do on it's own without any optical tricks. Dynamic contrast is what the display can do with a dynamic iris opening on bright scenes to give you the full amount of light and closing down on dark scenes to give you blacker blacks at the sacrifice of lumens, aka brightness compression.

Both Sony & JVC have been very good at rating there projectors around the D65 standard so there quoted on/off contrast is achievable. LCD manufacturers have been rating there products not at the D65 standard as an ISF tech would calibrate your display to, but overall, best case scenario what it can do. This is why once the LCD's have been calibrated there numbers fall so bad. Only in there dynamic mode do you see the LCD manufacturers quoted numbers and the dynamic modes like the manufacturers quoted numbers are worthless.

Yes that is basically correct, but in the end it all comes down to how anal you are about getting absolute perfect color accuracy, and how much you are willing to pay to get it. I believe a lot of new LCD projectors like the AE3000 and the 6500UB can be calibrated to pretty good color accuracy at 6500K even when using "dynamic" or similar modes, so it's more a question of what is most important to you: Color accuracy or contrast levels, brightness and black level... Few if any projectors can give you all of that

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

I wasn't off I was rounding down. If you look at Jason's numbers on AVS, at a long throw he got just under 30,000:1 contrast on the RS15. I own the RS10 the projector the RS15 will replace. On the RS10 you have three settings for the manual iris or "aperture" as JVC call's it. Mode 1, 2, 3, in mode 3 the iris is fulling open and you get around 17,000:1 and 800 to 900 Lumens. In mode 2 the iris is closed half way and you get around 22,000:1 with around 550-650 lumens. Set the iris to mode 1 and it close-es down to give you 30,000:1 at about 300-400 lumens

The aperture is a great tool that you can use to dial in the brightness and contrast you want. When I first setup my RS10 in December out of the box the picthure was so bright it was almost unwatchable so I set the iris to mode 1 which gave me incredible on/off contrast and plenty of lumens for my setup. As the lamp has aged I have opened the iris to give me back the lumens the lamp naturally looses. Now at 1300 hours on the lamp I have the iris all the way open and the lamp in high mode as I get ready to purchase a new lamp.

I personally love the JVC's, they are the Kuro's of the front projector world. The LCD do throw an excellent image and represent a good value but after living with a achievable 30,000:1 there is no way in hell I am going about to a dynamic iris. It's not a solution to a problem it's crutch.

Well, you were also off since you quoted the 30,000:1 and 50,000:1 as native contrast values, when that is actually with the iris closed down as much as possible. Like I wrote earlier, RS15 is rated at 32000:1 max contrast with a native contrast of 17000:1 and the RS25 is rated at 50000:1 max contrast (30000:1 native). Whether you call it Dynamic iris or simply manual iris as is the case with JVC, the methods and results are basically the same, contrast ratio is increased by closing down the iris, decreasing lumen and brightness output...

Don't get me wrong though, I'm basically in agreement with you that the JVC's are awesome projectors able to get incredible CR values without the use of a DI, and if I wasn't so cheap, I would probably buy one myself. Unfortunately the RSx0 pj's are still a little to pricey for my liking.

[Oddiophile]

Originally Posted by Swede

Yes that is basically correct, but in the end it all comes down to how anal you are about getting absolute perfect color accuracy, and how much you are willing to pay to get it. I believe a lot of new LCD projectors like the AE3000 and the 6500UB can be calibrated to pretty good color accuracy at 6500K even when using "dynamic" or similar modes, so it's more a question of what is most important to you: Color accuracy or contrast levels, brightness and black level... Few if any projectors can give you all of that

Sure you can calibrate the dynamic mode to D65, but why would you?

If you did you would be back to regular "cinema mode" which is already calibrated close to the D65 standard giving you around 10,000:1 dynamic contrast on the Epson 6500UB. Dynamic modes have no standard, they are set to deliver the full unrealistic potential of the display like Epsons 75,000:1.

Well, you were also off since you quoted the 30,000:1 and 50,000:1 as native contrast values, when that is actually with the iris closed down as much as possible. Like I wrote earlier, RS15 is rated at 32000:1 max contrast with a native contrast of 17000:1 and the RS25 is rated at 50000:1 max contrast (30000:1 native). Whether you call it Dynamic iris or simply manual iris as is the case with JVC, the methods and results are basically the same, contrast ratio is increased by closing down the iris, decreasing lumen and brightness output...

Don't get me wrong though, I'm basically in agreement with you that the JVC's are awesome projectors able to get incredible CR values without the use of a DI, and if I wasn't so cheap, I would probably buy one myself. Unfortunately the RSx0 pj's are still a little to pricey for my liking.

Your still getting dynamic contrast and native confused.


Dynamic contrast ratio

A notable recent development in the LCD technology is the so-called "dynamic contrast" (DC). When there is a need to display a dark image, the display would underpower the backlight lamp (or decrease the aperture of the projector's lens using an iris), but will proportionately amplify the transmission through the LCD panel. This gives the benefit of realizing the potential static contrast ratio of the LCD panel in dark scenes when the image is watched in a dark room. The drawback is that if a dark scene does contain small areas of superbright light, image quality may be over exposed.

The trick for the display is to determine how much of the highlights may be unnoticeably blown out in a given image under the given ambient lighting conditions.

Brightness, as it is most often used in marketing literature, refers to the emitted luminous intensity on screen measured in candela per square metre (cd/m2). The higher the number, the brighter the screen.

It is also common to market only the dynamic contrast ratio capability of a display (when it is better than its static contrast ratio), which should not be directly compared to the static contrast ratio. A plasma display with a static 5000:1 contrast ratio will show superior contrast to an LCD with 5000:1 dynamic and 1000:1 static contrast ratio when the input signal contains a full range of brightnesses from 0 to 100% simultaneously. They will, however, be on-par when input signal ranges only from 0 to 20% brightness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrast_ratio




It doesn't mater where you set the iris on the JVC's, if it's open or closed it's always native contrast. As the back light in any displays ages and dims you will always see an increase in on/off contrast from the decrease in light. JVC is just limiting that light before it getting to the optical block, but the aperture doesn't move, it's not dynamic, it's fixed. There is nothing dynamic to JVC's contrast.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

Sure you can calibrate the dynamic mode to D65, but why would you?

If you did you would be back to regular "cinema mode" which is already calibrated close to the D65 standard giving you around 10,000:1 dynamic contrast on the Epson 6500UB. Dynamic modes have no standard, they are set to deliver the full unrealistic potential of the display like Epsons 75,000:1.

No, you're missing the point. What I'm saying is that it's a question of priority and preference. A lot of people may prefer an overall better looking, brighter and more contrasty picture to getting "perfect" color accuracy, which is why some would prefer to use dynamic mode instead of one of the cinema modes, you may not be able to calibrate as accuratetely, but you will be able to use more of that bulb and contrast ratio that the projector is spec'ed to.

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

Your still getting dynamic contrast and native confused.

It doesn't mater where you set the iris on the JVC's, if it's open or closed it's always native contrast. As the back light in any displays ages and dims you will always see an increase in on/off contrast from the decrease in light. JVC is just limiting that light before it getting to the optical block, but the aperture doesn't move, it's not dynamic, it's fixed. There is nothing dynamic to JVC's contrast.

No Oddiophile, I don't want to be rude, but I'm not the one who is missing something here. The numbers I have posted here are merely QUOTED from Jason Turk's first look of these projectors at avsforum, so if you have a problem with his definition of native contrast, I suggest you take it up with him

Here is the exact quote from his first look:
TIME FOR SOME MEASUREMENTS:

Next, while my test pattern generator was still hooked up I took some measurements. The RS15 is rated at 1000 lumens (best mode), and 32000:1 max contrast. In order to achieve that contrast, certain parameters need to be met (such as long throw, and iris closed), but it is a true rating unlike much of the competition. Even the native contrast on the RS15 is quite impressive at 17000:1. The RS25 is rated at a slightly lower 900 lumens (best mode), and 50000:1 max contrast (30000:1 native). These are actually the same as the RS10/RS20 as a reference. I did the measurements on my particular RS15 and RS25, and here is a chart of my results (remember all specific projectors vary to some degree so take these for what they are worth-only what these actual projectors did):


I know that the JVC does not use dynamic contrast, like I just wrote in my previous post however, the method JVC uses to achieve improved contrast values by closing down the iris, whether dynamically or not is why I agree that you can't really call the 50,000:1 contrast ratio that JVC RS25 is able to produce with the iris fully closed "native", as that is basically the same technique that a dynamic iris uses to achieve higher contrast, with the major difference being that a projector with a dynamic iris can constantly change the position of the iris depending on the content, which of course is why a lower-end projector like the 6500UB can boast CR values of 75,000:1.