Sony VPL-HW15 Projector Calibration and Settings

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Art Feierman

We calibrate each home theater that is reviewed. It is a pretty standard calibration, there's always more that can be done by some of the "hi-end" calibrators. Our calibrations, including the VPL-HW15, are normally limited to a grayscale calibration, along with brightness, contrast, color saturation, etc

Sony VPL-HW15 Color Temperature

OK, first, below are our pre-calibration measurements for Cinema mode:

Color Temp over IRE Range (Pre calibration):


30 IRE	6574K
50 IRE	6490K
80 IRE	6382K
100 IRE	6266K

NOTE: Precal color temp numbers aren’t bad, but red is very high throughout the upper half of the IRE range.

More importantly, however, are our Post Calibration measurements, which are really good!:


20 IRE	6426K
30 IRE	6521K
40 IRE	6548K
50 IRE	6571K
60 IRE	6525K
70 IRE	6464K
80 IRE	6534K
90 IRE	6502K
100 IRE	6444K

Now that's a really nice and tight set of numbers. Across the entire range, the average is extremly close to the ideal D65, and for that matter, all measured grayscale points are within 74K of ideal.

Gamma measured 2.1 (a little more mid-brightness than the ideal 2.2), in our best mode calibration. Using Gamma 4 for our "quick calibration" of Dynamic mode, yielded a low gamma of 1.8.

Sony VPL-HW15 Basic Settings

In addition to calibrating Red Green and Blue for a correct grayscale balance (6500K), there are a number of other settings that come into play. Typically Contrast and Brightness (white balance and black balance), need to be done first. Color saturation and gamma also need adjustment.


	Dynamic	Standard	Cinema
Contrast	(95) 89	(90) 89	(90) 89
Brightness	(50) 51	(50) 51	(50) 51
Color	(60) 50	(55)	(50) 42
Tint	(50)	(50)	(50)
Color Temp	High)	(Middle)	(Low)
Gamma	(5)	(4)	(4)
Color Space	Normal

Lamp Mode=High (unless noted otherwise)
Auto iris OFF
Zoom at mid range
All other settings at default (untouched) All other settings at default (untouched)

RGB Settings


	User 3 - Custom 3	Quick Cal: User 1 – Custom 4
Gain	R = -10	R= 0
	G = 0	G= -10
	B = -3	B= -15
Bias	R = 2	R= 0
	G = 0	G= 0
	B = 0	B= 0

User 3 below is where we saved our calibrated numbers for Cinema mode ("best")
User 1 with Gamma on Custom 4, are our "quick-calibration" settings for brightest mode (based on Dynamic).

Measured Brightness: 538 @ 6444K 771 @ 6675K