Sony VPL-VW600ES 4K Projector: Performance

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Art Feierman

VPL-VW600ES 4K PROJECTOR - PERFORMANCE Page 1: Brightness and Color Temp, Reference mode, Post Calibration Color Temp and Brightness, Eco mode, Lens Position Affect on Brightness

VPL-VW1100ES - Modes Brightness and Color Temp - Pre Calibration

VPL-VW600ES MODES: BRIGHTNESS AND COLOR TEMP
PICTURE MODE	BRIGHTNESS	COLOR TEMP
Reference	1635	6399
TV	1482	7582
Cinema Film 1	1635	6416
Cinema Film 2	1601	6332
Game	1635	6402
Photo	1721	5502
Bright Cinema	1499	7310
Bright TV	1525	7465
User	1635	6402

As you can see in this chart, many of the modes are the same, at least in terms of brightness and color temp. Just think of modes for what they are - different looks for different purposes. Two modes could be identical but for the particular gamma setting, which might make one better, perhaps, for sports viewing with ambient light.

Photo, with it's low color temp may be a good choice for black and white movies as 5500K is about right, but I must admit I never looked at a black and white movie (or at least not yet!)

Mike used Reference as his basis for the calibration, one of the multiple modes that measured right around 1635 lumens, and with a color temp for white right around 6400K.

Color Temp Readings for Reference Mode

Reference Mode Color Temp in K (Kelvin)
100 IRE (white)	6399
80 IRE	6474
50 IRE	6355
30 IRE	6242

VPL-VW600ES Reference mode measured just a little warm, (below 6500K) across the entire range, pre calibration. It's not the tightest range, but more than making up for that is that things are in excellent balance, as the pre-calibration CIE chart shows. (CIE and other charts are on the VW600ES Advanced Calibration page, available to our subscribers.)

VPL-VW600ES Post Calibration Color Temp and Brightness

VPL-VW600ES Color Temp, Post Calibration
100 IRE	6467K
90 IRE	6463
80 IRE	6545
70 IRE	6539
60 IRE	6520
50 IRE	6492
40 IRE	6446
30 IRE	6481
20 IRE	6487

Wow! Post calibration the entire range from white down to the darkest grays we can measure (20 IRE) ends up with their color temperatures all in an incredibly tight 99K range. No wonder everything looks pretty much dead on the money. Of course every calibration is a bit different, as is every lamp, but this VW600ES projector nails it when it comes to color.

Post Calibration Brightness: Mike measured this Sony projector at 1584 lumens!

That's a ton of lumens for a projector in a home theater environment. Call it suitable for those large screening rooms with much bigger screens, such as 150" +. Certainly at my 124" diagonal (at 2.35:1) it's bright. Hey, it's bright in Eco mode.

That's all good, I definitely like, and prefer bright to dim.

As an added bonus, there's enough brightness to do a pretty nice job on 3D at the full 124" diagonal. You could describe 3D as actually being reasonably bright when projecting a 100" diagonal size, to a 1.1 to 1.3 gain screen.

Gamma measured at 2.27 just a touch high.

That was with Gamma turned off. Mike did not provide the actual measurement of the 2.2 gamma mode. Hey, if you don't need to engage a feature that changes the data, why add extra processing, Still, try 2.2. If it's just a touch lighter in in the brightness of the mid-bright areas, that would probably put it closer to the target 2.2.

Eco-Mode: Affect on Brightness, Power Consumption

VPL-VW600ES Full Power vs. Eco (Reference Mode)
	Lumens
Full Power	1635
Eco Mode	1209

That works out to a drop in brightness of roughly 26% when you switch to Eco mode, from full power. Most projectors drop between 25 and 35%. Sony does indicate in their manual how much that reduces power consumption from the 375 watts that Sony specs.

You can expect all picture modes to also have a similar drop in brightness when you switch to Eco.

You've got three good reasons you might want to use Eco mode: You don't need all of the Sony's brightness, you want the fan to run in its quieter mode, and you want to cut back a bit on the electric bill. BTW, that's about 12 KW a month if you run this projector 40 hours a week.

Sony VPL-VW600ES Lens Position - Affect on Brightness

VPL-VW600ES Lens Setting vs Brightness (lumens)
Wide Angle	1698
Mid-point	1635
Telephoto	1322

As is typical, wide angle - the closest you can place your projector to whatever sized screen you have, is the brightest. Measuring at the mid-point of the zoom lens results in a very modest drop of only 4% to 1635 lumens.

Placing the projector at its furthest back for your screen takes a bigger hit in terms of brightness. 1322 lumens measured, is a drop of 22% from wide angle, which is a surprisingly low drop for a 1.6:1 zoom lens. As a result, let's say that you should place the VW600ES projector wherever you should, that works best for you, and not worry about possible brightness loss, since it is pretty slight.