thanks for your comments, but I have a last question:

I think I can stay with my W5000 for another year, but you wrote something about the less visible RBE on the W6000. How could this be? I thought both machines got the same colorwheel (CMYKRGB), and therefore the same amount of RBE (more when using RGB only, less with BC on (using all colorsegments and doubling the speed)

…and…how do you see the quality differ of fast moving objects on the screen (W5000/W6000/RS10)

Best regards and many thanks for your wonderful site! (..and apologize for my humbling english)

Armin

I think I’ve found the answer to my own question. I’ve looked back to the HD82 review and saw that it was compared to the W5000, with the W5000 was the better choice. I guess this also means the W6000 comes out on top.

Is it possible that you give comments or add the optoma HD82(00) to the competitors? It seems in Europe the optoma HD82(00) and benq W6000 are in the same price range and it seems that both models have problems (not perfect) with their dynamic iris implementation.

Nothing back yet as to whether there will be any changes to the iris action. I don’t see image noise per se, to be a problem. It converts 24 to 48, but I don’t believe it’s taking 60 to 120. I asked, got an answer, and may have posted it in the review, but will double check, as I sometimes get my projectors a bit confused when I’m in crunch mode…

Thank you.

I understand, your frustration. Forgive the long email, I’ll try to explain the whole thing of why things are, as they are, and why they aren’t the way some, including me, would like.

Since I use a recent review as a template for the “next” review, it does tend to lead to some mistakes. This is why every review posts at first with a warning that it has just been posted, and has not been fully edited yet, and that pictures and content will be added, etc.. In the case of the W6000 review, I also managed to miss uploading an entire block of photos, before publishing, leaving “blanks on the home page and image quality page..

Actually I’d love to have the site redesigned with all the images, and even the individual sections within the reviews all fully, and relationally databased. (YOu could call up all “starship” images from all 1080p projectors selling between $2000 and $3500, for comparison). Alas, I’ve priced out a full database driven site design. Let’s just say it’s a 6 figure job, and would also eat into enough time to cause me to have to cut back my frequency of new reviews by at least 25% for the better part of a year.

On that subject. I know a lot of folks study the photos. And again, I warn – there is so much loss by the time you are seeing them, that the images are not good indications of a whole lot. Certainly color accuracy is not well represented. (the difference between your monitor and the one on my MacBook, is probably enough different that the same image, in terms of skin tones, appears so much different, that there’s more difference between it on our two computers, than there is between that same image taken from different projectors, but seen on the same monitor. So, as always, take them with a “grain” no, a “pound of salt”.

I realize my reviews are somewhat casual – more like blogging, (especially the conversational writing style), than a formal review in, say Home Theater Magazine. That said, I have different priorities.

So, when I posted the W6000 review, I started with, I think the Sony VPL-HW15 review. At some point, I go through and replace all the “same” images, with the new ones, and rewrite the picture order – such as “on the left is the W6000, in the center, the XYZ, and the Panny on the right, second row has….”

In doing so, I don’t always take all the same pictures (though I try to do all the ones that I do a lot of comparisons, ie: Bond Train, Bond roof, Bond plane, 5th Element starship, etc.).

Sometimes I miss some. That means going back for another photo shoot, so I leave the older grouping temporarily the same.

But the main thing is, Lori does the primary proofing. This typically happens 2-4 days after initial publication. One of her jobs is to spot missing, or “mislabeled” orders of images. Lori usually catches the vast majority of such things, and it’s not uncommon to get a few emails from readers (some within an hour or two of first posting), pointing out those things that are wrong. Keep in mind Lori also has a regular job, besides helping me.

So, why do I allow things to work this way? Easy. From my readers, in general, I’ve learned one thing. You guys are always in a hurry. Most readers who respond want and expect to see reviews of new home theater projectors before the product even ships. Everyone seems to want to be able to read about every possible projector in their sights before making a decision. I could go to a much more formal process of reviewing, writing, and posting, but doing so, would slow down the overall review process by a minimum of two weeks. If I go that route, it has to be completely finished. That means no info on menus added the following week, and that the competitive section must be completely done (which means excluding maybe one or two competing projectors that are in house, until their reviews are completed…

In other words, I chose trying to get the most useful info up there on the site, as quickly as possible. it’s not the most professional way to do it, but it does seem to be what most of our readers prefer.

It would be truly wonderful to review like a print publication – spend 2-3 months with a unit. Often publish a review just weeks before the model is discontinued, have a full professional staff to do layout, proofing, etc. But, this is a true “family shop” with the exception of some webwork done under contract, I handle everything on the site, except for my wife, doing the proofing, maintaining the product database, and invoicing for the advertising. My daughter does some very basic webwork, and resizes, crops, and renames all the images I take and select.

Living off of ad revenues, isn’t bad, it’s a business model that supports us.

I consider the quality of my content, to be more important than the quality of the proofing, if given a choice. I”m sure if all my 100K to 150K readers each month would send me a $1 a year, I could afford some professional proofing and a professional to do layout, and check all the details, so I could focus on the reviews themselves.

That said, no one’s figured out a decent way to make a living online as a publisher, by charging the end user (with the possible exception of the Wall Street Journal, and some other biz publications.) If you try, then, it seems one guy grabs a bunch of what you charged for, and posts it all over the web so that others don’t have to pay for it. The forums are an excellent example of why that model doesn’t work. I and others, will, in certain circumstances, be quoted, our points debated, etc.

For example, my site’s “definitive work” each year, is the 1080p Projector Comparison Report. The combined pages will generate close to 300,000 (incredibly long) page views in 2009 (published back at the beginning of March). Our analytics indicate that over 40,000 people will visit at least 3 or more pages from the review.

Hey if I could get all 40,000 or even half that many, to pay $10 for the report, I could afford all kinds of things that would make for a more professional site. My guess though, is that at $10, I’d be lucky to get 500 or 1000 people to “cough it up”. and it’s too scary to test that. As I said, everything is demanded asap. I could “sell” the report for the first 4 weeks then publish it for free, but I think that would be a big disservices to my readers. The info is very timely for those ready to buy. And btw, while I answer thousands of emails and blog comments each year (for free, of course), I only do phone callers if they want to pay on a consulting basis. It’s almost amazing, that I can get 30+ emails a day, but not one person in 6 months is willing to pay $150 for 30 minutes of my time on the phone…

Oh well, you get the idea. Don’t know when you last looked, btw, but the W6000 review should be in pretty good shape. Haven’t received any tips of specific wrong images in the last 24+ hours.

-art

As a teaser – W6000 – definitely the sharper image, and brighter, HW15 smooth dynamic iris, still not sure about which one’s better at black levels… Most likely this will be a case of two roughly comparable projectors, but fairly different in certain ways, in other words, likely some will swear by one, some by the other. -art