3D Projector Reviews

During my evaluation, I kept the Sony’s, lamp power on Low, and even then, I got a staggering 21 foot-lamberts! That’s considerably higher than what I’m used to in my room or able to achieve with my reference projector. With the lamp on High, I was able to push it even further, with a peak white output of 29 ft-L calibrated. Using the Auto Limited iris in Low lamp mode resulted in a peak white output of 14 ft-L, which is exactly what I shoot for when I’m setting my peak white level. Both of the Auto Iris modes delivered the same measured black level, so I left the projector in Auto Limited for the majority of my reviewing.

Motionflow is Sony’s frame interpolation solution, used to smooth image motion and make up for the inherent loss of resolution in material shot at lower frame rates, such as movies. This is achieved by creating artificial images that are placed between the original frames to smooth the motion between them. Of course, this causes the soap opera effect that some viewers love to hate. Sony offers Low and High modes along with a dark-frame insertion option that somewhat emulates what you’d find in theatrical film presentations. I wasn’t a fan of the film projection mode (it creates noticeable flicker), but it did do a convincing job improving motion resolution. The Low mode of the motion enhancer wasn’t overly objectionable, but I still find that I prefer no frame interpolation with movie playback. It does make quite a bit of difference with sports, though, and I’d recommend that you experiment with the settings to see if it helps with broadcast sports that have a lot of panning, such as football and hockey.

In the Expert Setting menu, you’ll find most of the display enhancements that Sony offers. As per usual, I set most of them to off. But you’ll find the gamma presets here, along with which color space you want to use. The Reference preset automatically selected BT. 709, also known as Rec. 709, which is the reference for HD images. I selected a preset of 2.4 for the gamma.

A Picture Worth Every Penny
Once I got the VPL-VW1100ES all dialed in, I was excited to spend some quality time with it. Tom’s glowing review of its predecessor made me curious to see just how good Sony’s flagship is. Well, I gotta say, Tom’s review nailed it.

The VPL-VW1100ES produced by far one of the best images I’ve ever seen in my setup or anywhere else. As most people know, I’ve been using JVC projectors for quite a few years now, and I’ve become completely enamored with their industry-leading contrast performance. While the VPL-VW1100ES didn’t quite live up to that level of contrast, it came closer than I expected. Sony’s dynamic iris is one of the most transparent I’ve seen in everyday use, but it does an exceptional job with the black floor during those fade-to-black transitions encountered during most movies. I was impressed to see the black floor go truly black.

Still, the native contrast of Sony’s SXRD panels compared with that of the latest JVC D-ILA panels isn’t quite there yet, despite both being based on LCOS technology. While the VPL-VW1100ES did a fantastic job with complete blackouts, the black floor would raise up pretty noticeably once the slightest bit of light was added to the image. This is likely due to the algorithm Sony uses to determine when the iris should start clamping down. While the blacks were still quite good, they fell pretty short of what I can achieve with my reference projector. Given the Sony’s extraordinary light output (levels that my JVC can’t even touch), it may be impossible to improve the black levels much more without sacrificing some brightness. But I hope they keep on striving.

I was amazed at just how bright the Sony could make my 120-inch image. You want the look of a giant plasma in your home theater? You got it. And even though the Sony couldn’t quite match my JVC with really dark content, I rarely found its contrast disappointing. The iris did a great job with mixed material, and I never saw any annoying clipping, even on the most demanding test sources. Gamma seemed stable, with none of the intra-scene shifting I see with JVC’s new system on similarly challenging scenes. I did noticed some image pumping of the iris with the darkest scenes, but it wasn’t nearly as obvious as what I’ve found with flat-panel TVs that use dynamic contrast modes to try to eke out deeper blacks. In short, unless you’re a black-level fanatic accustomed to the type of blacks found in the JVC line, you’ll have nothing to complain about here. Other than the JVCs, I have yet to find any projector its equal in this regard.

Sony’s ARC-F lens is truly one of the best I’ve seen. Pixel sharpness on this projector was second to none, and I didn’t see any chromatic aberration when I went through my normal set of evaluation patterns. For this review, I used the latest 4K testpattern generator from DVDO. This let me test out the Sony’s native 4K performance without having to worry about artifacts introduced due to scaling. The DVDO AVLab 4K pattern generator has patterns for just about everything, but I was mostly intrigued by the frequency bursts and the single-pixel-on/-off patterns. No matter how I set up the Sony, there was always a bit of interference in the frequency bursts and some minor artifacts in the single-pixel patterns. This was with both full native 4K (4096 x 2160, which the Sony accepts and displays) and UHD (3840 x 2160). The artifacts were pretty minor, but they led me to believe that some display enhancements were always on, regardless of their menu position. These patterns also confirmed my thoughts on the Reality Creation settings; with any value past minimum, I’d see some obvious artifacts creep in with frequency bursts and singlepixel patterns.

Even I can get tired of watching test patterns, so I spent the bulk of my review time watching some of the latest Blu-rays with my Oppo BDP-103D player. I bounced between the Oppo’s 1080p and 4K resolution settings, the latter technically 3840 x 2160 UHD. Either way looked fantastic, but I felt the DVDO-powered scaling in the Oppo was just a tad better than the internal scaling of the VPL-VW1100ES. This was mainly nitpicking in the smallest details, but the Oppo didn’t show any signs of ringing at all.

Of course, since this was a review of the projector and not the Blu-ray player, I concentrated mainly on Sony’s processing. I spent a couple of weeks combing through my Blu-ray collection, and it always came up in spades. Detail and depth of image were second to none with the VPL-VW1100ES, and the combination of the added resolution of the panels and the spectacular lens quality resulted in fine object details that I’ve rarely seen before. The image had a crispness that I’d compare with what you’d see from a perfectly set-up digital cinema-grade machine. The added brightness capability was also a nice plus in my room. I don’t typically like an image as bright as 20 ft-L, but with animation and other bright movies, it really did make the picture more compelling. It was a bit fatiguing with movies that transition a lot between bright and dark, but for those, I would just keep the iris in Auto Limited.

Some of the biggest highlights came from recent Blu-ray releases like Pacific Rim, Frozen, and Star Trek Into Darkness. Pacific Rim is eye candy galore, with some of the most contrasty imagery ever. The impossibly neon colors of downtown Tokyo contrasted perfectly with the inky blacks, and the pop of the image was nothing short of staggering during the downtown fights. Star Trek Into Darkness is one of the best transfers I’ve seen lately for fine detail, and the IMAX camera footage made for a compelling showcase of this projector’s capabilities. Depth of image was incredible, but it was the smallest of details that kept shining through and separating the Sony from reference-level projectors I’ve seen in the past.

The same can largely be said about 3D playback. The VPL-VW1100ES comes with two pair of active 3D glasses that work with the internal IR transmitter (an external RF transmitter is available separately). I wasn’t the biggest fan of the bulky glasses. They were a bit uncomfortable compared with other designs I’ve tried, but overall operation was easy enough. Using a couple of 3D test patterns to check for crosstalk did result in a bit of bleedover between the left and the right eye, but overall viewing was excellent. I saw some ghosting sneak in on occasion, but it was rarely if ever intrusive. The Sony automatically kicks into High lamp for 3D playback, and the iris is disabled, so while I did get a slightly brighter 3D image than I typically see from my JVC, the contrast of those images wasn’t the best. This isn’t really an issue with most 3D content I have on hand, but it was noticeable with titles like Pacific Rim and Coraline, which still demand impressive contrast to show their full potential. I’m surprised Sony decided to gray out the iris controls for 3D playback, given the projector’s light-output potential.

Last but certainly not least was some viewing time with native 4K content. Unfortunately, three years after Sony released the VPL-VW1000ES, we still have what I’d call a dearth of such content. Sony does offer its 4K media player with downloadable movies from their studio (Columbia Pictures), but I didn’t have access to it during the review. (Besides, this content, while delivering improved resolution compared with Blu-ray, still offers nothing better in chroma resolution or compression.) So, for native 4K content, I used a Sony dealer demo player that had a mix of content shot in 4K. This was largely either nature clips (with stunning photography of locales and animals) or promotional material in various settings. Despite the slim pickings, the content looked fantastic, with breathtaking resolution and clarity.

One of the biggest takeaways from my viewing session came via two segments of movie-related content included on the Sony demo player: a short clip from the remake of Total Recall and a trailer for After Earth. While the nature clips and the native 4K video material looked great, the movie content didn’t look very different from what I typically see on Blu-ray transfers. I have the Blu-ray of Total Recall, and bouncing between the two showed little to no difference. There was a bit of a bump in fine detail in the farthest backgrounds of the image with the native 4K versus the scaled 1080p Blu-ray, but I had to pause the picture and switch back and forth to really notice. This is another concern I have for consumer adoption of 4K in the home: If it doesn’t look much different on my 10-foot screen from only a few feet away, it will be a pretty hard sell for people with standard flat panels in their living rooms.

Go Ask Your Boss for a Raise—This One’s Worth It!
The Sony VPL-VW1100ES is a flagship projector in every sense. From its second-to-none lens to its phenomenal accuracy with both HD and DCI material, there is very little to leave you wanting. I was absolutely taken aback by its ease of operation, bright and punchy image, and stunning clarity. While I think Sony could stand to make some improvements to their overall contrast performance, I would still give them high marks in every regard. If you want the best of what is offered in front projection today and are fortunate enough to be able to afford the price of entry, this one should definitely be on your shopping list. Highly recommended.