Sony VW590ES and VW790ES owner's thread

Yes. It seems so.
Okay so that likely discounts laser malfunction. Could you grab an image of the iris in its current state inside the lens at all? Just curious if it has over closed or suchlike.
The noise suggests it has 'gone too far' and is proper wedged.
 
Okay so that likely discounts laser malfunction. Could you grab an image of the iris in its current state inside the lens at all? Just curious if it has over closed or suchlike.
The noise suggests it has 'gone too far' and is proper wedged.
I'll snap one next time I'm in there.
 
My S&M test disc arrived and I've spent a little time working through the basic SDR then HDR adjustments. The disc is played on a Panasonic DP-UB9000 through an Arcam AVR550.

For basic brightness and contrast, the Cinema Film 1 preset wasn't too far out in SDR mode. I dropped contrast from Max to 88, and increased brightness from 50 to 51. Tiny adjustments, but a little more highlight detail to be had.

The sharpness adjustment was most surprising. The curved and diagonal lines on the test pattern were smoothest with sharpness around 30. Setting it much higher introduced jaggies, but so did setting it lower... it didn't just get a bit soft and blurry, there were definite artefacts that also looked like the sharpness was set too high. Unexpected, but not a problem.

I finished SDR adjustment with white balance - Custom 3 (D65) with a slight adjustment by eye towards blue.

The S&M manual advises not to change the contrast setting for HDR, so I left it on the default 60. Brightness went slightly up to 53, and sharpness to 39, with the same custom white balance.

That's about it for the easy adjustments, but the test patterns also revealed some things that can't just be made objectively 'correct'...

- some of the very fine b/w checkerboard patterns used to detect scaling and approximate the brightness of grey patches simply can't be displayed correctly. The S&M manual even mentions that LCOS (liquid crystal on semiconductor) panels can't show them. They look pink and blotchy, and are no use at all - shame.

- my system is clipping the Y' Cr Cb channels somewhere. No idea where, or whether indeed it's a problem with any real content. File under 'meh' for now, maybe re-check with my TV one day.

- I also see too many green boxes in the HDR "color space conversion" check, even though the PJ is definitely set to BT.2020. This might be worth investigating - though again, good quality real world content doesn't look as though the colours are 'wrong'.

- chroma upsampling looks pretty good, but isn't perfect. The BD player does have chroma adjustments which might be worth a play, but although I can see clear effects on a test pattern, the effect on real content is subtle.

The real kicker, though, was HDR tone mapping. It's all well and good getting the brightness and contrast just right, but both the BD player and the PJ have features designed to map the content on the disc to the capabilities of the display, and these modify the predictable relationship between the content on the disc and the brightness on screen.

The BD player - as far as I can tell - applies a consistent mapping with a gentle roll-off towards the top end of the display's capability. This "HDR optimiser" is a well reviewed feature that makes good sense, IMHO... don't mess with the picture, except near the highlights that would otherwise clip, in which case make them clip more softly in order to retain some more detail.

The PJ has its 'dynamic HDR enhancer', which "automatically adjusts the range of movement of the iris (aperture) and the signal level of bright and dark parts to optimize contrast according to a scene".

Don't you just love consumer equipment manuals? So much for any notion of the brightness of a given pixel being objectively "right", or even predictable, without knowing exactly what the Sony is doing. The picture may well look better with it on - and ultimately that's the only thing that matters - but the idea that the image from a projector that's been calibrated "is right" seems quaint and old fashioned.
 
All good observations. I will say that the pink, blotchy thing can be fixed in the service menu. I has something to do with 'auto' panel alignment if I remember correctly. My dealer fixed it on my 760, so no idea how to do it, but I saw it on my previous sony before the 760, not at all on the 760 which the dealer had changed the SM setting on, and then saw it again on my 790, which hadn't been altered by the dealer. May be worth investigating.
 
There's zone-by-zone panel alignment in the regular menu... is that not what you're referring to?
 
There's zone-by-zone panel alignment in the regular menu... is that not what you're referring to?

No. The unit has an AUTO panel alignment feature that runs in the background. This is what my dealer told me. And it should be turned off. All units arrive with it turned on, and no one can fathom why as it seems to do nothing but cause the pink blotching issue. I'm sorry I don't know 100% about it, but my dealer told me this was the case, turned it off for me before shipping the unit, and the pink/purple blotching was gone.

It is in the service menu, which you do not have access to.
 
How strange.

(For the benefit of anyone reading who doesn't have one of these projectors already: no, the picture doesn't suffer from pink blotchy patches with any kind of normal content!)
 
How strange.

(For the benefit of anyone reading who doesn't have one of these projectors already: no, the picture doesn't suffer from pink blotchy patches with any kind of normal content!)
Correct. But you will see it if you play games and there is a grey sky, and sometimes appears in shadows (in games).
 
All good observations. I will say that the pink, blotchy thing can be fixed in the service menu. I has something to do with 'auto' panel alignment if I remember correctly. My dealer fixed it on my 760, so no idea how to do it, but I saw it on my previous sony before the 760, not at all on the 760 which the dealer had changed the SM setting on, and then saw it again on my 790, which hadn't been altered by the dealer. May be worth investigating.

It is not an 'auto' panel alignment as such, it is a factory preset panel alignment.

The problem with doing panel alignment is that unless it is single whole pixel adjustments (across the whole screen), it is a digital process and that can create artifacts (just like keystone), which are worse tan the convergence you are trying to improve.

Sony appear to be running a panel alignment in the factory (on all their VW projectors), which appears to be a zonal adjustment, and thus this creates the artifacts, some worse than others. By accessing the service menu it is possible to turn this factory adjustment off, and this can help to reduce or eliminate these artifacts. We do this on all the VW projectors we supply and/or calibrate.
 
It is not an 'auto' panel alignment as such, it is a factory preset panel alignment.

The problem with doing panel alignment is that unless it is single whole pixel adjustments (across the whole screen), it is a digital process and that can create artifacts (just like keystone), which are worse tan the convergence you are trying to improve.

Sony appear to be running a panel alignment in the factory (on all their VW projectors), which appears to be a zonal adjustment, and thus this creates the artifacts, some worse than others. By accessing the service menu it is possible to turn this factory adjustment off, and this can help to reduce or eliminate these artifacts. We do this on all the VW projectors we supply and/or calibrate.
And there it is. Thanks Ricky. I was a bit out of my depth there.
 
No. The unit has an AUTO panel alignment feature that runs in the background. This is what my dealer told me. And it should be turned off. All units arrive with it turned on, and no one can fathom why as it seems to do nothing but cause the pink blotching issue. I'm sorry I don't know 100% about it, but my dealer told me this was the case, turned it off for me before shipping the unit, and the pink/purple blotching was gone.

It is in the service menu, which you do not have access to.
Not should be turned off, but can be.
Not all units benefit so much from switching it off. It is certainly something that should be done on a unit by unit basis.
It only shows really shows in test patterns too. So nothing much to worry about and one has to ask why it is enabled from the factory and hidden in the service menu if they didn't think it was of benefit to have it switched on.
 
Not should be turned off, but can be.
Not all units benefit so much from switching it off. It is certainly something that should be done on a unit by unit basis.
It only shows really shows in test patterns too. So nothing much to worry about and one has to ask why it is enabled from the factory and hidden in the service menu if they didn't think it was of benefit to have it switched on.
I can only disagree from personal experience. On my 270 it was a big problem with gaming content. Frequently seeing the pink blob artefacts in grey skies and in many shadows. My 760 didn’t have the issue at all, either in gaming or in test patterns, but my 790, there is was again. So from my experience at least, it is more problematic when enabled, though my experience is exactly that: my experience.
 
Not should be turned off, but can be.
Not all units benefit so much from switching it off. It is certainly something that should be done on a unit by unit basis.
It only shows really shows in test patterns too. So nothing much to worry about and one has to ask why it is enabled from the factory and hidden in the service menu if they didn't think it was of benefit to have it switched on.
I can only disagree from personal experience. On my 270 it was a big problem with gaming content. Frequently seeing the pink blob artefacts in grey skies and in many shadows. My 760 didn’t have the issue at all, either in gaming or in test patterns, but my 790, there is was again. So from my experience at least, it is more problematic when enabled, though my experience is exactly that: my experience.

I’ve played with it on and off, but have decided on leaving it on and adding some panel alignment into the mix as well. I can’t notice any negatives doing this, only positives having better panel alignment for my zappiti menu, which shows up convergence issues if I don’t use this.

If you use the panel alignment setting from the main menu, it makes no difference if the service menu one is switched off anyway.
 
I definitely think I'd take accurate convergence over the ability to display certain specific test patterns correctly. It's a shame it's not 100% optically perfect as it leaves the production line, but this is still a consumer product built for entertainment, not a one-off scientific instrument that's going to the moon.

It's very normal for a product that requires calibration to have multiple tables - a factory one, which corrects for any imperfections inherent in the unit as assembled, and a 'user' one which starts off at all zeroes but which can be used to adjust for any drift over the unit's service life. The factory adjustment may be unique to that particular product (if the cost and volume make this viable), or it may be a standard table derived from average results across a sample of prototypes.

It may well be in this case that the 'user' adjustment is simply added to the 'factory' adjustment to give a total, which is what's then applied to the image. If the factory adjustment is causing a problem with some of the content you want to watch, then you might be able to compensate for it, though it'll take time. Generate a 1x1 checkerboard pattern with a PC, display it at exactly 100%, then go zone by zone and adjust the alignment until your correction exactly cancels the factory value and the image appears correct.

IIRC the green alignment is fixed, so you'd probably want to make adjustments first with a red/black or yellow/black test pattern, then repeat with blue or cyan.

[edit]: the fact that it's the red and blue images which get modified to match the green probably explains why the blotchiness appears purple. I'm definitely interested to see what a 1x1 checkerboard pattern, or maybe single pixel vertical and horizontal lines, looks like in red or blue.
 
If you use the panel alignment setting from the main menu, it makes no difference if the service menu one is switched off anyway.
That was not my experience. Could tweak panel alignment manually to perfection with it turned off on my 760.
 
That was not my experience. Could tweak panel alignment manually to perfection with it turned off on my 760.

if you use a test pattern, the one that goes pinky / purple. As soon as you engage any sort of panel alignment, you get this. Switch it off and it shows a true test pattern as it should.
 
if you use a test pattern, the one that goes pinky / purple. As soon as you engage any sort of panel alignment, you get this. Switch it off and it shows a true test pattern as it should.
Oh, okay, I see what you mean. Funny though, as the setting off, for me, eradicated the purple artefacting.
 
No surprise there. If you start with a 1x1 checkerboard and then shift it digitally by half a pixel in any direction, you end up with flat 50% grey. Do that in the red and blue channels, leave the green untouched, and superimpose the three - the end result is a purple splotch.
 
This still doesn’t make sense as far as my experience goes. Have the setting OFF in the service menu, then manually, by zone, perfecting the panel alignment equalled no artefacts for me. What you guys are implying is if everythignis off and the convergence is just left as is out of the box, that will eliminate the purple blotching, but that is the exact opposite of my experience.

With the service menu option OFF, the alignment was some way out. An hour of tweaking later and it was sorted, and there were zero purple artefacts before or after this process. Maybe your experience is different to mine, but this is how it was.
 
Okay so that likely discounts laser malfunction. Could you grab an image of the iris in its current state inside the lens at all? Just curious if it has over closed or suchlike.
The noise suggests it has 'gone too far' and is proper wedged.
Here you go. Not sure what it's supposed to look like when fully open, but whatever position it's in here in the image, that's where it is stuck.

20210118_092230.jpg
 
I can only disagree from personal experience. On my 270 it was a big problem with gaming content. Frequently seeing the pink blob artefacts in grey skies and in many shadows. My 760 didn’t have the issue at all, either in gaming or in test patterns, but my 790, there is was again. So from my experience at least, it is more problematic when enabled, though my experience is exactly that: my experience.
You sure that isn't DFO? It adds a lot of that ringing and red/pink contouring.
 
Here you go. Not sure what it's supposed to look like when fully open, but whatever position it's in here in the image, that's where it is stuck.

View attachment 1443410
Well, that shows that is it stuck almost completely closed.
That is indeed then why it is so dim.

Here is what it looks like fully open:

Iris open.jpg


Yours is like this:
760 IRIS.jpg


Worst case, lens swap. Best case, a third unit?
 
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