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February 23rd, 2008 Art Feierman
Just when I’ve been convincing myself that DLP projectors have lost their historic advantage over 3LCD projectors, in the home theater projector space, along comes the BenQ W5000 1080p home theater projector.
Mind you, I have barely begun the W5000 review, having only viewed it in my theater room for perhaps 5 hours, a mix of movies (including parts of Casino Royale, one of the Harry Potter’s, and a fair assortment of HDTV content (including a little Blade: Trinity).
This evening, the W5000 moves to the testing room for calibration and measurements. Meantime, here are some preliminary thoughts:Sharpness: Outstanding. Not much of a surprise, as I owned the PE8720 before I bought the JVC RS1. Even back then, that huge lens on the BenQ was well regarded as producing as sharp an image as any other projector anywhere near the price.
In terms of sharpness, the W5000 is second to none, of all the 1080p projectors that I have reviewed. The Epson Home Cinema 1080 UB, and the Sony VW40, both recently reviewed, can’t match the W5000’s sharpness, and certainly my JVC RS1 falls short. Extremely impressive.
Out of the box performance and color handling: Not bad, not bad at all. Not perfect, but adjusting this guy is going to be a snap. The out of the box color accuracy seems very good, close to the RS1 and better than most other projectors - many of which desperately need calibration to reveal their true potential.
One comment relating to picture quality. The W5000 has Brilliant Color - which is found on a number of DLP projectors. In the case of the W5000 the choices are: Brilliant Color - off, or on. Some projectors provide a range of Brilliant Color settings, but not the W5000. With Brilliant Color engaged, the overall brightness (among other things) increases significantly. However, with Brilliant Color, the W5000 loses any claims to being “film-like.” With Brilliant Color on, the BenQ W5000 projector is going to function really well, when dealing with ambient light, but skin tones (and everything) appear oversaturated (that’s a simplistic assessment), and very hard. Some won’t mind, especially with ambient light situations, but to achieve “best” mode, it definitely looks to require Brilliant Color to be turned off (it defaults to on).Black level performance looks to be excellent. I’ll be doing some side by side comparisons including the Epson Home Cinema 1080 UB. At first glance the BenQ W5000 looks like it is at least very close to the Epson. We shall see!
Placement flexibility: The bad, as always, for DLP projectors, is limited zoom range. in this case, 1.2:1. That’s a little better than the older W10000’s 1.15:1, but still very limited. Like the other BenQ’s it does offer lens shift, with enough range that the lens can be anywhere from even with the bottom of the screen surface, to even with the top. Not quite as much range as some 3LCD projectors, but still a very acceptable amount.
Shelf mounting the W5000 projector, is doable, within the limits of the zoom lens. Overall the limited throw range would have to be considered medium to long, so a good number of people will be able to shelf mount. The important point to note, is that for those wanting to shelf mount, the limited zoom might require you to restrict your screen size to a narrow range. For example, you might discover that for your room, based on its depth, that if shelf mounting, you can only use a screen between 84″ and 100″ or 96″ and 115″, and so on.
That’s it for now. The W5000 projector review should post this coming Tuesday, Feb 25, or maybe Feb 26.
Stay tuned! -art
Posted in New Projector Reviews, Opinion, Products | 10 Comments »
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February 19th, 2008 Art Feierman
Greetings all!Well, as no surprise to my “regular” readers, I’m behind the curve again, with reviews, and therefore, the big 1080p projector comparison report. This time it’s a couple of things causing the delay, but mostly the decision to slide in two more reviews, before starting the report.Next to publish is the Optoma HD803 1080p projector, a variation on the previously reviewed HD8000 and HD80. This will be a relatively short review in that this projector is so similar to the HD80, that much of the info can be taken from the HD80 review.The HD803 review should post tomorrow (Wed.) night. I hope to “rush” the BenQ W5000 (still in its box, but here), out by next Monday or Tuesday evening, and then on to the big comparison report.The structure of the 1080p report will be similar to last year’s. This time we’ll be giving out Best in Class awards in three categories: $2000 and under street price, $2000 to $4000 street price, and $4000 to $10,000 street price.Just for clarity, I don’t have the some 15+ projectors that are compared, here at one time. Rather this is put together from the many 1080p projector reviews done over the last year, including projectors such as the Panasonic PT-AE2000U, Epson Pro and Home Cinema 1080UB, Sony VW40 and VW60, JVC RS1 and RS2, some Optomas, the BenQ W5000, the Sanyo PLV-Z2000, and the Sharp XV-Z20000.The 1080p Comparison Report will feature a number of pages, that directly compare one projector to another, as was done last year.With a little luck, the Comparison report will initially publish around March 6 or 7th.Hang in there! -art
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February 19th, 2008 Art Feierman
In my last commentary shortly after the CES show last month, I (like many) declared Blu-ray the winner in the battle with HD-DVD. It now looks pretty official, thanks to Toshiba’s new announcement.According to articles appearing all over the internet, Toshiba announced yesterday (Feb. 18), that they would stop making and marketing HD-DVD players.This announcement followed another major blow to HD-DVD, when Wal-Mart announced last week that they would no longer offer HD-DVD players AND HD-DVD movies, by June of this year.Toshiba announced they would continue to provide support and service to existing HD-DVD player owners. Hmm, I do believe I can hear the “fat lady singing”. OK, all you home theater people without hi-def players, it’s time. While the difference between standard DVD’s and Blu-ray, in overall picture quality isn’t as great as between standard TV and HDTV, it’s still a rather dramatic. It’s time to bite the bullet, get a Blu-ray player and really enjoy the potential of true hi-def. -art
Posted in Blu-ray, Industry, News, Opinion, Products | 1 Comment »
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February 6th, 2008 Art Feierman
Yep, boys and girls, I am working now, on reviewing two more 1080p home theater projectors, the last two before I publish our 2nd Annual 1080p projector comparison report. Sony’s new VPL-VW40, a lower cost - $2999 - alternative to their VPL-VW60 (reviewed in December), and Optoma’s HD803.The Sony, is, of course, another SXRD (LCoS) based projector, while the Optoma HD803 is apparently the third in a family of almost identical Optoma DLP home theater projectors, including the HD80 and HD8000.
The Optoma is coming out of its box in a few minutes, so I still don’t know what differences (if any) between it, and its siblings.
The Sony VW40, however, has already been measured and calibrated, and I’ve done some watching, side by side, with Epson’s Home Cinema 1080UB.
As Sergeant Schultz (of Hogan’s Heros fame - for those of you with limited life experience), would say…. “verrrrry interesting”.
So, here’s a couple of initial impressions of the Sony. I’ll do another blog in a couple of days, with some thoughts on the Optoma.The VW40, in best mode, measured 460 lumens, after some tuning. That put it about dead even with Epson’s 1080UB. It sure doesn’t have a great deal in reserve though, if you need to fight ambient light, measuring just under 900 lumens in a retuned and pushed Dynamic mode (that’s roughly 40% less than the Epson).
Surprisingly, the Sony VW40 produces a slightly sharper image. It almost looks like they’ve got some edge sharpening algorithm going, I’ll take a closer look. Based on initial impression it seems sharper than the VW60, which would be equally surprising.Black levels, were the most interesting - I had both projectors - Epson and Sony - side by side, and found black levels to be near identical. It seems at it’s very best, the Sony can get a slightly blacker black than the Epson. Remember they both use dynamic irises. Most of the time, however, the black levels of the Epson has a slight advantage. These two home theater projectors are in the same league! The Epson also has a slight advantage in shadow detail - slight - being the operative term. The Sony though does suffer from some uneven illumination, and Sony’s usual slight blue tint on blacks. LCD vs LCoS is going to be personal preference for many, I think.
It will be interesting to see how the Optoma HD803 fits into this. I’m tuning it as soon as I finish this posting, and this evening, I’ll be shooting some side by side images with the Optoma HD803 and the Sony VW40, and also the Optoma HD803 vs. the Epson Home Cinema 1080UB. Last night I shot the Epson vs Sony VW40. This should all make for some interesting results and commentary, as we get comparisons between three relatively low cost 1080p projectors - one LCD, one DLP, and one LCoS.
Once I get these two reviews posted, I’ll be immediately staring on the 1080p Home Theater Projectors: Comparison Report, which will cover about a dozen and a half 1080p projectors, although several will be variations of the same projector - such as Epson Home and Pro Cinema 1080UB, and the Optoma HD80, HD803, HD8000.Stay tuned! -art
Posted in New Projector Reviews, Opinion, Products | 8 Comments »
