Sony VPL-VW285ES 4K Home Theater Projector – Calibration Settings

Sony VPL-VW285ES 4K Home Theater Projector Review – Calibration Settings: Calibration Settings and Post Calibration Measurements for 1080p and 4K Content

Sony has included 9 calibration presets (Cinema Film 1, Cinema Film 2, Reference, TV, Photo, Game, Bright Cinema, Bright TV & User) on the VPL-VW285ES. By default, all of them have the lamp set to high. Thing is, they are all basically the same when you adjust their settings to the same values, except for a few subtle differences. Lumen output was also very similar with Reference actually measuring the highest, not Bright Cinema or Bright TV – go figure.

Eric provides a lot more information on the Advanced Calibration page along with all the color management system (CMS) calibration settings for our subscribers.

Note: The projector had over 103 Hours on the bulb before calibrated and measured.

I performed my dark room calibration, “Best Mode” (for non-HDR, non-BT.2020), using Reference mode with low lamp. Without calibration and all the adjustments set to their default settings, Reference looked and measured quite well with DeltaE measuring 1 to just over 3 in the mid/lower IRE range. White balance was close to D65 and with the gamma setting set to off, it tracked a decent 2.2 curve. The BT.709 color gamut was also tracking quite good with some of the colors oversaturated just a little.

Next up I did my bright room calibration using the Cinema Film 1 preset with the lamp set to bright. This combination did not yield quite as good as Reference mode did on low lamp. I had the biggest issue with my target gamma of 2.10 and after trying different setting combinations I ended up using Color Temp: custom color 3 & gamma 7. White balance was pretty good pre-calibration as well as BT.709 color gamut. Pre-calibration, DeltaE hovered in the 2-4 range.

My last calibration was for 4K/HDR. For this mode, I used Cinema Film 2 with lamp on high. While in any mode the projector will detect a 4K signal and set the contrast to 60, separate from wherever you had it set for HD/1080p. It also removes many of the adjustment settings you have with HD/1080p such as gamma. This allows you to use the same picture mode you used for 1080p content. I, however, chose to use a different mode (Cinema Film 2).