Sony VPL-VW85 Projector Calibration and Settings

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-VW85, are normally limited to a grayscale calibration, along with brightness, contrast, color saturation, etc.

1/4/2010 - Art Feierman

Sony VPL-VW85 Color Temperature

OK, first, below are our pre-calibration measurements for Cinema 2 mode:

Color Temp over IRE Range (Best Mode, Pre calibration):                                  

30 IRE            6649                                               
50 IRE            6606                                               
80 IRE            6453
100 IRE          6408           

Out of the box there's a slight cooling trend from the bright ranges to the darker ones, but slight is the operative term.

After calibration, the measurements are even closer to 6500K, and overall, an excellent set of results:

Color Temp over IRE Range (Post calibration):

20 IRE            6503 (Very dark gray)
30 IRE            6587
40 IRE            6561
50 IRE            6519 (Medium gray)
60 IRE            6480
70 IRE            6420
80 IRE            6520 (Light gray)
90 IRE            6560
100 IRE          6413 (White)

Gamma measured 2.19 using default 6 setting for Cinema 2. That's pretty much dead on the target 2.2. Overall I felt the picture generally had really good balance, in terms of gamma, although sometimes I felt it didn't quite delivery that nice, bright, warm, sunny day feeling, quite as well as some others.

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Sony VPL-VW85 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.

Here's a quick chart showing the default and dialed in settings. Defaults are in ().

 

Dynamic

Standard

Cinema 1

Cinema 2

Cinema 3

User

Contrast = (90)

86

86

87

(90)

(90)

(90)

Brightness = (50)

(50)

54

(50)

(50)

(50)

(50)

Color =

(60)

(55)

(50)

(50)

(50)

(50)

Tint = (50)

(50)

(50)

(50)

(50)

(50)

(50)

Color Temp =

(High)

(Middle)

(Low 1)

(Low 2)

(Low 1)

(Low 1)

Color Space =

(Wide 3)

(Wide 3)

(Wide 1)

(Wide 2)

(Normal)

(Wide 3)

Gamma =

(8)

(7)

(9)

(6)

(Off)

(Off)

Lamp Mode=High (unless noted otherwise)
Auto Iris = Off (unless noted otherwise)
All other settings at default (untouched)

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RGB Settings

Below are our adjustments to come up with the reported grayscale calibration. Shown are our settings for Cinema 2 , and for the User mode ("brightest")  
User 1 with Gamma of Custom 4 was used for Cinema 2, and Custom 5 was used for User. 

Cinema 2 Quick Cal: User
Gain R = -0 R= 25
G = 0 G= 0
B = 3 B= 0
Bias R = 0 R= 0
G = 0 G= 0
B = -1 B= 0

Measured Brightness:  598 lumens @ 6413K    725 lumens @ 7087K 


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