Sony VPL-VW70 - Performance-4

Posted on May 21, 2009 by Art Feierman

Light Leakage

The VW70 does leak some light through the lens. In my testing room, I can spot a small amount of light hitting my wall, outside of the projected image area. To do so, though I need an almost perfectly dark scene, and then I have to go looking for it. Because of the VPL-VW70's excellent black levels, the brightness of the stray light is very, very dim, and should not be an issue. Note, however, if you have a white wall around your screen, then you may be able to spot the light leakage, but again, its minor.

Image Noise

The Sony VPL-VW70 really has very good image processing. No jaggie issues, 3:2 pull-down is good when used (most of my movie content is from Blu-ray at 24fps, which doesn't need 3:2 pull-down). Mosquito noise is very good, better than most projectors (notably better than most DLP projectors). The Sony outputs 24fps content at 48fps (2:2).

Audible Noise

Sony has reduced the audible noise levels in both this projector and the less expensive HW10. While the older Sony LCoS projectors were reasonable in audible noise levels, this VW70 is one of the quiest projectors around in low power, and is still very good at full power. Sony does not seem to provide specs, however, I would have to guess that the VW70 is close to 20db in low power and probably 25-27 db at full power, and while there are quieter projectors out there, those are pretty good numbers, and a good 5-6 db lower than the noisier home theater projectors out there. Most of the most audible noise adverse folks will be able to live with the full power noise levels, and no one should have a problem in low power.