Facing the front panel of the projector, the lens is mounted in the center, flanked by manual turning knobs for vertical and horizontal lens shift. There is a ring around the lens for focus and a tabbed lever on one side of the lens for zoom. Height adjustment can be made via two screw feet in each of the front corners. There is an IR receiving eye for the remote to the left of the lens and indicators for power and lamp status on the top front edge. All connections to the FH30 are made to a variety of jacks along the bottom of the front panel. These connections are, from left to right: the power cord jack, LAN port, S-video and composite video inputs, RS-232 serial control port, wired remote connector and audio inputs that separately match up with the various video inputs. There is a break in the panel as the bottom half of the lens separates the two sides of the panel. Starting just right of the lens, we have: 5-BNC video input jacks, an RGB computer input, a DVI-D input, an HDMI input and an RGB monitor output. Having all the connections along the bottom front edge is inconvenient for table mounting, but the FH30 is most likely to be ceiling mounted, where cables could easily run up into the ceiling and out of the way.
On the left side of the projector, we have a small control panel near the front and a large hot air exhaust port toward the rear. The control panel includes a Power On/Off switch, an Input selector button, Menu and menu navigation buttons, Enter and a button to drop the lamp into Eco mode. On the right side of the projector is a Kensington lock port, an antitheft lock bar and a large intake vent.
The rear of the projector is dedicated to easy access to the dust filter and lamp. There are three screws along the bottom of the rear panel that, when removed, allow access to the filter on the left and the lamp on the right. The filter pulls straight out from and can then be cleaned by vacuuming or replaced. The dust filter can capture particles has a maximum 15000 hour life, but it’s recommended that the filter be replaced with the lamp. There is also a second IR receiving eye for the remote on the rear panel.
The placement of the lamp and dust filter cover on the rear panel allows for easy access when the projector is ceiling mounted, without having to unmount it.
Sony VPL-FH30 Setup and Menus
Thanks to its two front adjustable feet and horizontal and vertical lens shift, the VPL-FH30 is easy to setup up in either table or ceiling mounting installations. Although its design is geared toward ceiling installation, its relatively light weight and adjustment flexibility make it a candidate for a movable cart as well. The multiple adjustment capability of the VPL-FH30 will usually make keystone correction unnecessary, but the VPL-FH30 offers keystone correction to electronically correct a misaligned image. Ideally, you would not want to any keystone correction at all, as it can have a detrimental effect on the image quality, a real killer when you’re buying a WUXGA projector exactly for its sharp image.
Once you used the lens shift to line up the image with your screen (there’s a test pattern that can be displayed to assist in that), you can bring up the menu to select the desired Picture mode, as well as more advanced picture adjustments. Choose one of the three available Picture modes, fine tune it with the usual Brightness, Contrast, Color, Hue and Sharpness adjustments and you’re ready to go.
For the advanced user, Sony has also added three custom color temperature modes in addition to three preset modes (Low, Middle and High). The three custom modes start with each of the presets and allow adjustments to each.
Sony VPL-FH30 Menu Slideshow
