Sorry about the scratches sa mount nya. Gotta clean that up.
After more than 3 years, I finally upgraded my pj from a Sony VPL-VW100 to a VPL-VW85.
Since the VW100 was introduced, several new Sony models have appeared – the VW200, 50, 60, 70 and 80. Of these, only the VW200 seemed to have a significantly better performance than the VW100 but its SRP was $15k. The VW85 has only recently come into the market and is reputed to have an even better performance than the VW200, at a much lower price.
The VW85 uses the same LCOS technology used by the VW100. This is likewise the technology used by JVC in its RS series of projectors. I prefer this to LCD or DLP because it seems to provide a smoother, more natural-looking image. It is very difficult to see the pixels (screen door effect) of these projectors. You need to be extremely close to the screen before you notice them.
What will immediately strike you with the VW85 are the following:
1) Really deep blacks. It’s quite hard to get any better than this. They are inky blacks. You can see this in really dark films such as Blade Runner and The Dark Knight. Yet, black shadow detail is not lost. There is no crushing of the blacks.
2) Very high contrast ratio. Together with the deep blacks, the whites jump out at you. The VW85 is supposed to have a contrast ratio of 120,000:1. You can especially note this in star fields – a black sky with bright stars.
3) Stronger light output. With a new lamp, the VW100 measured 22 foot-lamberts but went down to about 12 fl after 1000 hours. The VW85 currently measures 28 fl and its lamp is reputed to deteriorate at a much lower rate than the VW100. One thing that I also noticed is that after gray-scale calibration, the light output of the VW100 may go down by 25% whereas there is very little change for the VW85.
4) Motion flow. This is frame interpolation technology, which increases the number of frames per second and “guesses” what the intermediate frames should be. It provides smoother motion and is ideal for sports. Together with my dad, I re-watched the Pacquiao fights with de la Hoya, Hatton and Cotto. Pacquiao punches so fast that his fists and arms are normally just a blur but with the new pj, that blur is reduced and you can see his punches more clearly.
5) 24 frames per second. The VW100 could do 1080p/24 only through its DVI input, not the HDMI and the use of the DVI input somehow restricted the adjustment of other picture controls. The VW85 has a nice implementation of 1080p/24, which results in naturally smoother motion, something which can be seen in slow camera pans.
The VW85 is much more flexible and you can more easily fine-tune the picture:
1) Out of the box, the gray scale and gamma are already very close to ideal.
2) It has 10 gamma presets while the VW100 had only 3. I was able to achieve an almost perfect gamma scale, which was very difficult to do with the VW100.
3) It has the capability of doing a convergence of more than 150 points, similar to a CRT pj. This assures a perfect convergence of the red, green and blue LCOS panels.
4) It can do both a vertical and horizontal shift. Along with blanking of each side of the image, it’s much easier to perfectly align the picture with the screen.
The weakness of the VW85 is that it does not have a good color management system, which should allow the user to dial-in an accurate red, green and blue. However, reviewers have noted that the colors of the VW85 are already pretty accurate out of the box. I noticed this with the Baraka film, particularly the scenes in Bali which show coconut trees and fields. I swear that the coconut leaves were the most realistic I have ever seen.
Bottom-line is that the images are incredibly life-like and 3D. It’s the best pq I’ve seen of any projector, though I still need to see the Anthem pj of Alvinthx, which is supposed to be based on the JVC RS25.
Sulit!
