BenQ W6000 Projector - Image Quality 1

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Art Feierman

BenQ W6000 Projector - Image Quality

The BenQ W6000 photos below are from either Blu-ray or HDTV, with the one exception being Lord of the Rings (on standard DVD). Please note, by the time these BenQ W6000 projector images get to your eyeball, through digital SLR, software, browsers, and even your monitor, there are definite color shifts, saturation differences, etc. The images are to support the commentary, but keep in mind the limitations when trying to compare images from the BenQ W6000 with other home theater projectors. Take them all, "with a grain of salt".

Of course, all these home theater projectors, including the BenQ W6000, definitely look much better live, than in even the best images shown in our review.

9/21/2009 - Art Feierman

BenQ W6000 Out of the Box Picture Quality

Pretty good, the BenQ W6000 projector, right out of the box is very watchable, perhaps a touch thin on green, if you have Brilliant Color turned off.

Brilliant Color turned on, though is another matter. With it on, color temp is well off the mark, and very strong on reds, and still thin on greens. No matter, it's very fixable. This is a projector that takes extremely well to a calibration (it's ISF certified, in case I haven't mentioned that previously.)

Click Image to Enlarge

Out of the box, the W6000 does crush the dark shadow detail, which is fixable with a slight increase in the brightness setting (covered later). Check out our recommended settings for items like Brightness, Color, etc. on the Calibration page of this review.

BenQ W6000 Projector - Flesh Tones

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I slightly preferred the skin tones, post calibration, with Brilliant Color off. Overall skin tones really were impressive. Rich without being over the top, and very natural looking. With Brilliant Color on, the skin tone color wasn't quite as right, but minor tweaking can probably solve that problem. Brilliant Color gives the image some more kick, and with it just a tad less natural looking skin tones, perhaps due to the slightly more dynamic look. Certainly, skin tones look great in the W6000 images below, better than from most photo shoots.

Images from above slider, from the standard DVD release of Lord of the Rings, and skin tones of both Gandalf and Arwen appear very natural.

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Moving to movies on Blu-ray, below are three images of Daniel Craig, as Bond, in Casino Royale. These were taken under different lighting conditions (on the set, not my theater). As I always point out, skin tones should look different under different lighting conditions. You can expect significantly different looking skin tones, when switching from bright sunlight, to nighttime, fluorescent lighting, incandescent lighting, or even lighting in the shade, or a cloudy day. Consider these three images, the first, in direct sunlight, the second is a scene with fluorescent lighting, and the third, a sunny day, but Bond is sitting in the shade - indirect lighting.

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Images in above slider are a number of additional images we typically use in reviews, that should give you a good feel for overall skin tone handling.

I particularly like the second image (usually a tough one because the background is so bright), and the night shot of Aeon, right below it.