Sony VPL-VW520ES Owners Thread

Tom thanks very much for comments. Could you share your Sony / Panasonic settings so we can take a look.

Is your HDR picture significantly darker overall than non HDR?

I watched The Revenant a couple of nights ago and ended up switching back to non HDR. Although the colours looked great the film is shot quiet dark and despite a blackout room too much detail was lost.

I also have a support call with Panasonic regarding online HDR content issue. I'll let you know what they come back with. In my view the player should use its UHD Bluray settings for disc AND Netflix/Amazon.
 
It seems we need to wait for the new major firmware release later this month which will introduce the new "HDR slider" apparently that will introduce some major improvements. In all honesty I am waiting for the 550 to arrive to see if that will properly support 60hz 10bit WCG HDR.

I've read about this but seems to be just rumour - Have you heard anything solid regarding HDR slider control?
 
Yes its been confirmed that the new 550 will get this treatment and at the same time Sony will release it for the 320/520 as well. Apparently some members have seen it in action on the 550 and it looked great.
 
This month apparently so hope for November:) I think it will coincide with the release of the 550.
 
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Is the 550 something to offer in 2016 to say it's a 2016 model because if we get the updates, it seems they'll be the same machines basically?
 
Tom thanks very much for comments. Could you share your Sony / Panasonic settings so we can take a look.

Is your HDR picture significantly darker overall than non HDR?

I watched The Revenant a couple of nights ago and ended up switching back to non HDR. Although the colours looked great the film is shot quiet dark and despite a blackout room too much detail was lost.

I also have a support call with Panasonic regarding online HDR content issue. I'll let you know what they come back with. In my view the player should use its UHD Bluray settings for disc AND Netflix/Amazon.

I am at my computer and not in my home theater so I am working from memory, but here goes. I adjust the contrast on the Panasonic to raise the APL and bring the darker areas of the image up to reveal detail without turning the blacks to grey. As I recall this required a brightness setting on the Panasonic close to, but not at the maximum brightness adjustment, about 8 as I recall. I adjust the brightness control to avoid clipping of the brightest whites in the scene. As I recall this is about 3. I do not need to adjust the color controls on the Panasonic on most UHD blu-ray discs other than ocassional minor adjusts to taste. With the contrast and brightness controls on the Panasonic set properly, I have a very slightly darker image (in low lamp mode) with UHD blu-ray discs than I have with standard blu-ray discs without HDR. I watched the Revenant with these adjustments and found it to be quite nice viewing experience with HDR contributing significantly to the bright areas and very good shadow detail in dark areas.

On my Sony 665ES projector, when watching UHD blu-ray with HDR and WCG, I make certain that HDR on the 665ES is set to Auto (I leave it there always) and all color and other settings on my 665ES are at their default levels that I use for all viewing all content. Thus on the 665ES the brightness is set at 50 and the contrast is set at 90, and no color correction is applied in the Sony 665ES menus.

This afternoon, I will check out the exact brightness, contrast, and color settings that I have made on my Panasonic UB900, and report them if they differ from what I have recalled from memory above.

Tom

P.S. I have now had time to review and write down my settings for using the Panasonic UB900 with my Sony 665ES. Here is what I did and what I observed. I put The Revenant UHD into the Panasonic player and switched to Set 1 in the Video Settings. Under Luminance/Color I had changed only two settings, I Contrast set to +7 and Brightness to +10. In the Menus for the 665ES I swtiched Color Space to Bt. 2020. I then watched about 15 minutes of the opening of The Revenant. Colors, especially flesh tones, looked excellent. The overall image, while relatively dark compared to other UHD movies, had very good detail in the shadows, and in no way did I feel the APL was too dim. My wife who was also viewing stated "this is a good picture and is not too dark". I then removed the UHD blu-ray and put in the standard blu-ray for this movie. I swtiched the color space on the 665ES to rec. 709 and I switched the Video settings on the Panasonic player to Set 2 which I had previously set up for standard blu-ray movies (Contrast +2 and brightness +3). I watched the same roughly 15 minutes of The Revenant. The onscreen image was slightly brighter than the UHD version, but not significantly so. Highlights such as fire were significantly brighter and had more "punch" on the UHD version. Detail in dark areas and scenes with the standard blu-ray version was comparable to, but not significantly greater, than dark areas and scenes on the UHD blu-ray movie. At one point my wife said" I think I prefer the standard blu-ray", but then a few moments later when the scene changed she said "no I like the UHD better."

Bottom line is that a very nice onscreen image is displayed with even a dark movie like The Revenant on UHD with the Panasonic and 665ES. I did notice that I used higher settings for both Contrast and brightness with the UHD of The Revenant than I use with the UHD of other discs such as The Amazing Spiderman. This did not surpirse me because The Revenant is overall a rather dark movie (both in content and image). My wife's vacillation is an indication that any individual viewer may find relatively little difference between the UHD and the standard blu-ray version of this movie. For me, the clearly added resolution of the UHD along with its wider color gamut and punch added to highlight made for a more enjoyable viewing experience.
 
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Thanks Tom, really appreciate the info. I'll give it a go and report back!
 
Something's just twigged with me and that is the fact that the Panasonic UB900 has a HDR on/off feature. I've it set to ON and things are good picture wise and HDR is displayed as ON every time I play a 4K UHD movie. I've just noticed a HDR on/off feature on the Sony 520 and it's at OFF. When I switch it on it messes things up. Have I the HDR feature activated properly, ie. ON on the UB900 and OFF on the Sony 520?
 
Something's just twigged with me and that is the fact that the Panasonic UB900 has a HDR on/off feature. I've it set to ON and things are good picture wise and HDR is displayed as ON every time I play a 4K UHD movie. I've just noticed a HDR on/off feature on the Sony 520 and it's at OFF. When I switch it on it messes things up. Have I the HDR feature activated properly, ie. ON on the UB900 and OFF on the Sony 520?
They both should be on. If turning on HDR on the PJ messes it up something else isn't on in the chain.
 
Hi, I must need to turn it on and adjust the picture settings on the Panasonic and Projector if needed. Thanks m8!
 
Yes you need to adjust brightness and contrast a little but the picture should not be messed up. In fact HDR on the PJ should be left n Auto. Are you running the latest firmware?
 
Hi seem to have sorted it out. Will leave it on Auto. Yes I' running the latest Firmware. I'm eagerly waiting on this month's firmware however, if it comes out in October.:smashin: Thanks for your advice!
 
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Hi guys,
just came back from the local audio show in Belgrade, Serbia.

I had an opportunity to check vw550 (675), and have to say that I do not see any difference between it and my 520.

You can see that it has Contrast HDR setting, so we should receive that as well. Other than that, same thing. Since my friend is a local Sony man, he asked me to bring my Pana 900, so everything was run through it.

I will go tomorrow as well, so if you have any questions, or want me to take a picture of anything, shoot
smile.gif
.IMG_0242.JPG IMG_0243.JPG
 
Thanks for the info. How effective was the slider to the picture?
 
Well I upgraded my software to the 2.205 US version and then adjusted the contrast and brightness settings on the Panasonic player as described above. HDR etc on Auto on both the player and the PJ. I now get an acceptable HDR picture! Its actually watchable. Not perfect but watchable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you :clap:
 
Why did Europe never get the 2.205 fw update that Asia and US did?
 
Not sure but the US version works perfectly enough.

Just watched Lucy in 4k HDR and it was a very good picture. HDR does add quite a bit of pop.
 
Hi guys,
just came back from the local audio show in Belgrade, Serbia.

I had an opportunity to check vw550 (675), and have to say that I do not see any difference between it and my 520.

You can see that it has Contrast HDR setting, so we should receive that as well. Other than that, same thing. Since my friend is a local Sony man, he asked me to bring my Pana 900, so everything was run through it.

I will go tomorrow as well, so if you have any questions, or want me to take a picture of anything, shoot
smile.gif
.View attachment 778949 View attachment 778950
Thanks for the info, it jut makes me feel good with my decision not to wait for it:)
 
Just a quick update.

Slider does not help that much with HDR, I still had to increase brightness and contrast on Pany. Overall, really no need to change from previous series, I did not observe any difference what so ever.
 
Just updated to FW 2.301 via US website... HDR contrast slider and auto 2020 colour space selection now functional. Will have to do more detailed testing this evening

Generally very positive feedback over on AVS
 
Hi with this coming from the U.S. website will it change the model no.?

Also I worry about my warranty. Hopefully Sony will get their finger out for the European 520.:lease:
 
It's been shown that all previous firmware release were byte for byte identical, but would never criticise someone for wanting to do it properly. Just having mine calibrated soon, and wanted to get the latest firmware on before then.

Europe never got the 2.205 firmware, so had visions of having to wait ages. I notice they've pulled 2.203 from UK website, so maybe that's a good sign.
 

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