BenQ W10000 1080p Projector Review - Image Quality 4

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Art Feierman

BenQ W10000 General Color Handling

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Overall color handling is excellent! Of course, as mentioned the out of the box color is good, but minor user calibration improves them. Below are a number of images to give you a good idea of the BenQ W10000's capabilities. As I am moving more and more to Hi-def content in my reviews, I'll start this section off with images from movies on HD-DVD. (Don't worry, those of you who haven't bought an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player yet, I'll keep providing images from standard DVD on future reviews for probably at least a year.)

The combination of good color handling, and respectable brightness even in the Cinema mode, provides a dynamic looking image - one that "pops" off the screen. Some projectors by comparison, appear "flat". For example, I found that the BenQ W10000 definitely provided a bit more dynamic viewing than Panasonic's PT-AE1000U, even when I used the manual iris on the BenQ to adjust the BenQ's brightness to match that of the Panasonic. (I did not have the Mitsubishi in-house when the W10000 arrived to do any side by sides, however, I have the Optoma HD81 arriving soon and will have an overlap for doing comparative images.)

The term I would use to describe the BenQ's overall color handling would be "vibrant".

Let's start with HD-DVD images, repeating the Phantom image of Carlota:

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Of course there are a number of other images scattered about this review, to give you more samples.

Time to consider non-movie content from HDTV. As usual, I have only done a grayscale adjustment (and brightness/contrast) on the Cinema mode. The images below, show the W10000 home theater projector's output in the significantly brighter (and different color temperature) Family Room mode, which most will choose for TV/sports viewing. Colors are off a bit, and this mode is "pushed" to fight ambient light. A quick user calibration of this setting will definitely improve the colors slightly.

All of these images, unless noted are with moderate room lighting, from 4 halogen ceiling lights. In a couple, you can light hitting the top of my speakers and painting, just below the screen. As usual, the walls, speakers, etc., appear much darker than in real life, as the camera is set to expose the brighter image on the screen.

The first two images are from Discovery-HD channel (hope you like birds), followed by an image from a college football game.