Sony VPL-HW15 Projector - Performance

Posted on September 9, 2009 by Art Feierman

Sony VPL-HW15 Brightness

he Sony VPL-HW15 Brightness is better than the older HW10 it replaces, but this Sony still isn't a particularly bright projector. For your consideration, here are a number of measurements from different modes, pre-calibration:


Dynamic	664 @ 9793K
	Dynamic w/ color temp on Middle yields 617 lumens @ 7637
	Dynamic w/color temp on Custom 4 yields 837 lumens @ 10015
Standard	602 @ 7594K
Cinema	540 @ 6266K
	Cinema (Iris on Manual, fully open)= 493
	Cinema (Iris on Manual, fully closed)= 231
	Cinema (Iris on Manual, 50% open)= 395
	Cinema (Iris on Auto 1 or 2)= 536

Lumen Output (Low Lamp, Cinema, Iris open): 340 @ 6171K, which is down over 30%.

Basically, the key numbe for movie viewing is with the Auto Iris on, and that translates to 536 lumens (pre calibration), and is almost identical to the 538 lumens measured post calibration.

Click to Enlarge.So close

When it comes to brighest mode, the Dynamic, combined with Custom 4 gamma gets a still below average 837 lumens, and that's at 10K color temp which is, by any measure way, way, too blue. None of the other combinations we tested enabled the Sony to get over 664 lumens, making it one of the least bright projectors in "brightest mode", and an achilles heel for this projector, for those that are shopping for a projector that is a good mix between watching movies, and watching sports with some lights on.

Pre-calibration we measured these color temperatures (target is 6500K) over the grayscale range, for

Click Image to Enlarge

Color Temp over IRE Range (Pre calibration):


30 IRE	6574
50 IRE	6490
80 IRE	6382
100 IRE	6266

NOTE: Precal color temp numbers aren’t bad, but red is very high throughout the upper half of the IRE range, which among other things, indicates not enough green. (No worries, that's why we calibrate the projectors.)