BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Performance Posted on November 6, 2015 By Art Feierman 1. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review - BenQ HT4050 Projector Overview - BenQ HT4050 Highlights2. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Special Features - BenQ HT4050 Placement Flexibility - ISF Certification - REC 709 - HT4050 Projector - CFI - smooth motion aka - HT4050 3D - BenQ HT4050 - Optional Wireless HDMI, Streaming Stick - HT4050 Speaker3. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Hardware Tour 1 - BenQ HT4050 Hardware Overview - BenQ HT4050 Lens Throw - HT4050 Control Panel - HT4050 Inputs and Connectors4. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Hardware Tour 2 - BenQ HT4050 Remote Control - BenQ HT4050 Menus - HT4050 Venting and Light Leakage5. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Picture Quality - HT4050 Out of the Box Picture Quality - HT4050 Black Level Performance6. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Picture Quality 2 - Sports and General HDTV Viewing with the HT4050 Projector - Dark Shadow Detail - Overall Picture Quality7. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Performance - HT4050 Brightness Measurements - Color Temps of Different Modes - Affect of Zoom Lens on Brightness - HT4050 Eco Mode, Brilliant Color's Affect on Brightness - HT4050 Post Calibration Color Accuracy, Brightness8. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Performance 2 - HT4050 Sharpness - HT4050 Audible Noise - HT4050 Image Noise9. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Calibration - BenQ HT4050 Pre-calibration Settings - BenQ HT4050 Calibration - Mike's General Notes - Mike's Grayscale Calibration Notes10. BenQ HT4050 Projector – Advanced Calibration - About this Calibration Information - BenQ HT4050 CMS - Mike's CMS Calibration Notes - Calibration Charts (Before and After)11. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Summary - HT4050 Overall Picture Quality - Practical Usage: Is this a Home Entertainment or Home Theater Projector - HT4050 Value Proposition12. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review: Summary – 2 - BenQ HT4050: The Bottom Line - HT4050 Pros and Cons13. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Specifications BENQ HT4050 PROJECTOR – PERFORMANCE: Measured Brightness, Color Temp, Lens Positioning, Brilliant Color, Post Calibration Brightness HT4050 Brightness Measurements HT4050 Brightness by Color Mode: Default settings, lens at mid-zoom Mode Lumens Bright 2127 Vivid 1790 REC 709 1387 Game 1831 User 1, 2 1387 Relating to the first table. Bright mode, is easily the brightest, but as with almost all projectors, overly strong on greens. It’s not a very pretty mode, use only in emergencies – when overwhelmed with ambient light. Overall, the color temp is very cool, with reds almost absent. Vivid, on the other hand looks great, it’s vibrant, and colors are good. At mid zoom it still managed almost 1800 lumens, and more at full wide angle on the zoom. This is your go-to mode for dealing with ambient light. Brilliant Color defaults to on, in this mode. REC 709 is excellent, it’s your “best” mode, and almost dead on the money, while providing a still impressive almost 1400 lumens, which means about 1500 at full wide angle. Nice and bright. Great for movies, HDTV, everything, just switch to Vivid if you have that extra ambient light and need more. Brilliant Color is Off on REC 709. Game – very cool, but way better color than Bright. Didn’t really use much. Vivid preferred. While REC 709 was excellent, very close to the standard, we did calibrate the HT4050, based on REC 709, and put those changes into User 1, which was used for all but the football photos in this review. Color Temps of Different Modes Color Temp by Mode, “right out of the box” with no adjustments (100 IRE) Mode Color Temp Bright 7932K Vivid 6912K Game 8637K REC 709, User 1,2 6447K As you can see, the REC 709 and User modes are right there where they should be, with the target being 6500K. That’s about as close as any projector gets, “right out of the box.” Vivid is just a tad cooler, less red/more blue. I personally also prefer that slightly cooler look for my sports viewing. User 1 and 2 default to the same as REC 709, but you can turn them into whatever you want… Affect of Zoom Lens on Brightness HT4050 Lens Position vs Brightness in Lumens Wide Angle (closest) 2373 Mid Zoom 2127 Telephoto (furthest) 1888 As you can see there’s about a 10% drop off in brightness from full wide angle on the zoom – which places the projector as close as is possible to your screen, and the mid-point setting on the zoom. Overall, from full wide angle to full telephoto, the drop is just over 20%, so that positioning won’t have a huge difference on brightness. Still, if your room is challenging in terms of ambient light, closer positioning is a bit better. HT4050 Eco Mode, Brilliant Color's Affect on Brightness First there’s Eco mode. This is easy. Switch to Eco mode, and you get a drop off of about 31% in brightness. There’s also the usual slight shift in color temp. (our measurements, and calibration are with the lamp at full power). Brilliant Color Affects the picture via a number of methods giving a punchier look to things, but, in terms of it’s affect on brightness, that varies a lot from one model of projector to another. With the HT4050, engaging Brilliant Color increases brightness by approximately 26%. That explains almost all of the difference between the brightness of the REC 709 mode and Vivid, with probably the slightly cooler image in Vivid, responsible for the remaining 50 or so lumens. HT4050 Post Calibration Color Accuracy, Brightness HT4050 Post Calibration Color (IRE) IRE Color Temp 100 (white) 6343 90 6516 80 6526 70 6515 60 6506 50 6507 40 6557 30 6517 20 (very dark gray) 6580 Wow, with the exception of full white (100 IRE) all of the brightness range we can measure: a) vary only by 74 degrees Kelvin, and b) are all within 80 of 6500K. Full white is a touch warm, at 6343, but that still translates into less than a 250K range. No wonder the HT4050 picture looks very accurate and natural! Pre, and Post Calibration CIE charts are found in this review’s calibration pages. Once calibrated the HT4050 measured 1360 lumens, only a drop of 27 lumens – roughly 2%. That’s a minimal drop, one that small because the color “right out of the box” of the HT4050 is so close to being on the money. Again, that’s mid-zoom, so very close to 1500 lumens at full wide angle placement! 1. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review - BenQ HT4050 Projector Overview - BenQ HT4050 Highlights2. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Special Features - BenQ HT4050 Placement Flexibility - ISF Certification - REC 709 - HT4050 Projector - CFI - smooth motion aka - HT4050 3D - BenQ HT4050 - Optional Wireless HDMI, Streaming Stick - HT4050 Speaker3. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Hardware Tour 1 - BenQ HT4050 Hardware Overview - BenQ HT4050 Lens Throw - HT4050 Control Panel - HT4050 Inputs and Connectors4. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Hardware Tour 2 - BenQ HT4050 Remote Control - BenQ HT4050 Menus - HT4050 Venting and Light Leakage5. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Picture Quality - HT4050 Out of the Box Picture Quality - HT4050 Black Level Performance6. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Picture Quality 2 - Sports and General HDTV Viewing with the HT4050 Projector - Dark Shadow Detail - Overall Picture Quality7. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Performance - HT4050 Brightness Measurements - Color Temps of Different Modes - Affect of Zoom Lens on Brightness - HT4050 Eco Mode, Brilliant Color's Affect on Brightness - HT4050 Post Calibration Color Accuracy, Brightness8. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Performance 2 - HT4050 Sharpness - HT4050 Audible Noise - HT4050 Image Noise9. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Calibration - BenQ HT4050 Pre-calibration Settings - BenQ HT4050 Calibration - Mike's General Notes - Mike's Grayscale Calibration Notes10. BenQ HT4050 Projector – Advanced Calibration - About this Calibration Information - BenQ HT4050 CMS - Mike's CMS Calibration Notes - Calibration Charts (Before and After)11. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Summary - HT4050 Overall Picture Quality - Practical Usage: Is this a Home Entertainment or Home Theater Projector - HT4050 Value Proposition12. BenQ HT4050 Projector Review: Summary – 2 - BenQ HT4050: The Bottom Line - HT4050 Pros and Cons13. BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Specifications BenQ HT4050 Home Theater Projector Review – Picture Quality 2 BenQ HT4050 Projector Review – Performance 2