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BenQ W7000 Projector Calibration and Settings

Posted on July 12, 2013 By Art Feierman

All of the measurements and calibration settings below, of the BenQ W7000 projector, were taken using an early engineering sample. Although color tables have been updated with the final W7000 firmware, our calibration settings seem to be working just fine. We did not recalibrate (our calibrator – Mike – is on vacation).

Color balance after dropping in the settings below, into the new W7000, looked really good, and while perhaps not a perfect as a fresh calibration, it’s close. Still, running the projector side by side next to an Epson that was calibrated, they look very close to each other, by comparison the new W7000 “out of the box” was no match for either, in color accuracy.

With that in mind, we strongly recommend – if you aren’t calibrating the projector yourself or paying someone – that you try putting our settings into one of the User modes. We’re confident you’ll agree – the W7000 looks great. No issues with skin tones etc.

That has been our goal, to help people who aren’t getting their projectors calibrated, into still managing to get better color out, than most projectors best default modes. This is one of those projectors that will benefit from the 5 minutes or so it will take you to put these settings in. Have fun -art

For your convenience we repeat the BenQ W7000‘s (click for specs) brightness and color temp measurements from the Performance page

Let’s take a look at the numbers:

BenQ W7000 Color Temperature

Header Content
Cinema 1028 @ 6113, 1142 with Brilliant Color On
Dynamic 1942 @ 8809
Standard 1059 @ 6309, 1143 with Brilliant Color On, 838 with Brilliant Color off and lamp on Eco (default)
User 1 1590 @ 7119
User 2 1590 @ 7169
User 3 1590 @ 7206

Before we provide our settings, let’s see what we started out with: Pre calibration, these are the color temperatures over the grayscale range:

Here’s a look at the preset modes, showing brightness and color temperature for white (100 IRE).

BenQ W7000 Basic Settings

Basic Settings
Cinema Dynamic Standard User 1 User 2 User 3
Contrast (50) -50 47 49 48 48 48
Brightness (50) 51 -50 52 51 51 51
Color (50) 48 48 48
Tint (50)
Gamma -2.4 BenQ -2.2 -2.2 -2.2 -2.2

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. In the case of the BenQ W7000 projector, most of these default settings were fairly close to ideal, with only contrast altered more than slightly in most modes.

Settings for measurements (default values are in parenthesis):

NOTE:  Default Color Temp is Normal for all but Dynamic, which is Lamp Native.  Brilliant Color is ON by default for all modes except Cinema and Standard.  Standard mode is in Eco lamp mode by default.

Lamp Mode=Normal (unless noted otherwise)
All other settings at default (untouched)
Auto Iris is Off for all measurements.
Zoom at mid range

BenQ W7000 Post Calibration Grayscale:

Color Temp over IRE Range (Post calibration): User

Calibrated color temps, 20 – 100 IRE

BenQ W7000 Greyscale Calibration

Calibrated Color Temp over IRE Range:
20 IRE 6742
30 IRE 6770
40 IRE 6697
50 IRE 6622
60 IRE 6480
70 IRE 6473
80 IRE 6518
90 IRE 6593
100 IRE 6832

Average gamma= 2.20

Here are Mike’s comments, regarding the gamma, calibration and CMS, remember, these were for the engineering sample:

Mike Notes:  The Quick Cal of Dynamic does not improve things much as Dynamic is high in Green and dropping it even a little drops the lumen output rapidly.  With over 1500 lumens calibrated in User 1, there’s almost no reason to use Dynamic.  Calibration is pretty good through most of the IRE range, except at the high end. 

If you look at the CIE chart, primary colors are pretty good, but Cyan is way too blue.  Adjusting Tint can correct Cyan but makes the other secondaries worse, so calibration using the CMS is necessary for proper Cyan.
(Art’s note:) Using these settings below, without the Cyan adjustment Mike discusses, and had implemented in the engineering sample, the production W7000 looks really good.

BenQ W7000 RGB Settings

BenQ W7000 Post Calibration settings:
Cinema (on User 1) Quick Cal of Dynamic (on User 2)
Offset (50) R = 57 R= 50
G = 50 G= 45
B = 49 B= 45
Gain (256) R = 252
G = 253
B = 253

Lumen Output: 1571 @ 6832             1761 @ 8617  

Below are Mike’s adjustments for his for the REC 709 and Dynamic modes. Again the goal of “best” is a great looking 6500K grayscale, and the goal of “brightest” is to improve a bright mode in terms of color accuracy, but without compromising brightness significantly.

Ok, that’s all we have for you. try our BenQ W7000 settings out. If any of you are doing your own measurements, and have calibrated a new full production version, we’ll be happy to post a set of those numbers as well.

BenQ W7000 Projector – Performance 2
BenQ W7000 – Projector Screens