Sony VPL-HW30ES

The Sony VPL-HW30ES ($3,700 street), is one of several recently announced models that, as a group, are about to ratchet up once again the features you should expect in a home theater projector. About two years ago, the price for 1080p resolution fell dramatically. That was followed by 1080p models with 3D. However, the 3D worked only at 720p and needed a video converter to work with most sources. The VPL-HW30ES and other new generation models offer 1080p in 2D and 3D, and they work directly with Blu-ray players, FIOS, and the like. Most important, the Sony projector in particular offers high enough image quality and enough capability to more than justify the price.

The VPL-HW30ES is much cheaper than Sony's previous lowest-cost 1080p 3D projector, which was about $10,000. However, it's more expensive than some other current choices. In particular, it costs more than twice as much as the Optoma HD33 ($1,500 street, 4 stars) that I recently reviewed. And note that the VPL-HW30ES?s price doesn't even include the cost of the external 3D emitter ($80 street) or 3D glasses ($130 street each).

Sony also sells the projector as the Sony VPL-HW30AES with the emitter and two sets of glasses, but at $3,999 (street), it doesn't save much over buying the pieces separately. Either way the projector represents a fairly serious investment by most people's standards.

What makes the VPL-HW30ES potentially worth the extra cost compared with the Optoma HD33 is a combination of features. Most significant is that it's built around SXRD panels, Sony's version of LCOS. The technology avoids both the screen-door effect of LCD projectors and the rainbow artifacts that single-chip DLP projectors like the HD33 can show. (The screen door effect refers to a visible grid defining the pixels, which you can see if you sit close to the screen. The rainbow effect consists of light areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows when you shift your gaze or an object moves on screen.)

The VPL-HW30ES also offers conveniences like vertical and horizontal lens shift that the HD33 leaves out, a 1.6x zoom lens, 2D to 3D conversion, excellent image quality for both 2D and 3D, and enough flexibility in brightness to make it appropriate both for a traditional home theater with theater dark lighting and for rooms with some ambient light.

Setup
The VPL-HW30ES is a relatively large beast, at 7.1 by 16.1 by 18.4 inches (HWD), and it weighs 22.1 pounds. However, that's not unusual for a home theater projector. Two strictly 2D Editors' Choices, for example, the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8700 UB ($2,199 direct, 4 stars) and the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350 ($1,299 direct, 4 stars), are both only a little smaller.

Basic setup, meaning connecting cables and getting the projector working, is easy. The 1.6x manual zoom gives you lots of flexibility in how far you can put it from the screen for a given size image, and the horizontal and vertical lens shift gives you flexibility in positioning it left, right, up, or down relative to the screen. The vertical lens shift can move the image by roughly 65% of a screen height up or down from the midpoint. The horizontal shift can move it by about 25% left or right.

Connectors on the side of the projector include two HDMI ports, one VGA port, a set of three RCA phono plugs for component video, an RS-232 serial port for controlling the projector from a computer or control box, and an RJ-45 for the external 3D IR emitter.

Setting up the emitter can be a challenge, because you need a clear line of sight from the emitter to the proprietary 3D glasses. Pointing it so the signal will bounce off the screen can work, but it also leads to the glasses losing sync occasionally, which can be disconcerting. An additional complication is that the manual specifies that you have to use a category 7 network cable, which isn't included, to connect the emitter, and it can't be more than 15 meters long. I used a category 6 cable successfully, but it was only 3 feet long.

More Setup
Once you have the basic setup finished, you're ready for the hard part. First, you'll want to make sure that the brightness is appropriate for the screen size and lighting conditions. With the 78-inch wide (92-inch diagonal) image we normally use for testing, for example, the default settings for the projector were about right for a moderate level of ambient light, but way too bright for comfortable viewing in theater dark lighting.

You can lower the brightness by setting the lamp to low, which also increases rated lamp life from 2,000 to 3,000 hours. You can also set the iris control to manual and then adjust it to lower the brightness further. Between the two settings, I had no trouble getting the brightness low enough to be suitable for theater dark conditions.

You'll also need to experiment with some of the more advanced options to decide which settings you prefer. In particular, you'll want to play with the MotionFlow setting, which adds interpolated frames to reduce judder, the slightly jerky motion that's inherent in the standard 24 frame per second film speed.

As with Optoma's equivalent PureMotion feature, MotionFlow works to smooth the image, but the highest setting also introduces artifacts that I found distracting. The low setting was the best compromise for my tastes, but you may feel differently.

You may even prefer to turn the feature off entirely. Adding interpolated frames to remove judder also gives movies the look and feel of live video, which you may or may not consider desirable. You may also decide that you like the feature for watching, say, sports, but not for watching movies. The only way to find out is to experiment with the settings.

Finally, for setup, you should adjust the color to give you the best possible image. In theory, you can say the same for any home theater projector. If you're going to pay this much for one, however, you'd be foolish not to set it up just so. Getting the color right requires a fair level of knowledge, and some equipment that most people don't own, which means that you may want to pay someone to do it for you.

2D and 3D Image Quality
For judging 2D image quality in my tests, I used both DVDs upscaled to 1080p and Blu-ray discs. In both cases, the image lived up to Sony's reputation for great high-quality images. The VPL-HW30ES did a good job with all of our toughest test clips, maintaining shadow detail (detail based on shading in dark areas), doing a good job with skin tones, and generally avoiding problems that the clips are meant to bring out. For less demanding?and more typical?scenes, the image was excellent. I saw subtle levels of noise in large solid areas, like a blank wall, but much less than I saw with, for example, the HD33.

The 3D image quality earns much the same praise overall. I saw a touch of crosstalk (the ghost image that shows when the frame meant for one eye shows through to the other eye as well). However, I didn't see it often enough to find it bothersome. And note that you can reduce crosstalk by adjusting the 3D Glasses Brightness and 3D depth effect settings?still more options you'll need to experiment with to find the right settings for you. The projector also offers 2D to 3D conversion that works as promised.

By any measure the Sony VPL-HW30ES qualifies as an impressive projector. Keep in mind that as of this writing there a number of other 1080p 3D projectors that have been announced, including models from Epson and Panasonic that I'm waiting to get my hands on to review. But regardless of what else is waiting in the wings or is actually available by the time you read this, if you want excellent quality 2D and 3D without any risk of seeing a rainbow effect, the Sony VPL-HW30ES stands ready to deliver the image quality you're looking for.

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