Sony VPL-VW90ES Projector - Appearance
The new Sony VPL-VW90ES projector is physically identical to the VW85 it replaces. Like the older projector, the VPL-90ES is a larger home theater projector, finished in an almost black, piano type, shiny finish on the top, while most other surfaces are a flat black. If you are ceiling mounting, of course, the projector is inverted, with the piano finish facing down, where it is nicely attractive with lights on. The finish itself has a dark blue speckle to it, so, it's not quite mere black. When the case gets hit with some light, it makes for a classy finish.
Sony's manual zoom lens, with its 1.6:1 zoom ratio, is recessed.
This VPL-VW90ES projector, unlike the much lower cost Sony VWPro1, has a motorized lens system that controls zoom, focus and lens shift.
The control panel of the projector, rather small, and all the inputs, are located on the side of the projector (left side if facing the front of the Sony projector). The control panel hides behind a spring loaded door when you don't need it.
Venting is primarily on the front sides, with the warm air exiting from the left front
Sony VPL-VW90ES Control Panel
Sony relies on a very small, and basic, control panel located on the side of the projector, right above all the inputs and outputs (left side, if viewing from the front). This is unlike most projectors which tend to put the control panel on the top. It's not much of a control panel, with the minimum features. It's small, and the joystick (instead of arrow keys), is tiny. Pressing the joystick (joy button?) in, provides the Enter function.
Looking at the control panel from that side of the projector, you'll find a small power button, closest to the front (once for on, twice for off). Next to it, is a button for Input selection, then one to bring up the menus. The rest of the control panel consists the joystick behaving like four arrow keys, and with a center enter button. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of side mounted control panels and input areas. It may allow you to place the projector a couple inches closer to the back wall, if shelf mounting, but when ceiling mounting, if people enter your theater from that side, they will have the best look at all those cables. Not an issue for most of us, but, forewarned is forearmed, as they say.
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Click Image to EnlargeInput/Output
The Sony 90ES's connector panel is located on the left side (if looking from the front). Facing that side, from back of the projector to the front, you'll find the power receptacle, two HDMI 1.4a inputs, and a standard HD15 connector for the usual analog computer input (it can alternately be used as a second component video input). Next, comes the S-video (DIN connector), and composite video (RCA jack). Then comes the standard component video input (3 color coded RCA jacks). Then something new, a 3D sync input. That's followed by an IR In (to hardwire the remote), a 12 volt trigger (for screen or anamorphic sled), and finally an RS-232 serial port (strangely labeled "remote") for command and control by a room control system, or a computer, if so desired.
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Click Image to EnlargeSony VPL-VW90ES Menus
Although Sony seems to add a new feature or two with each generation, the menus have been fundamentally the same. Of minor note, Sony has changed the menu colors from a medium blue, to a very dark grey. The blue may have been prettier, but the Darker grey looks more professional. Either works.
Because the menu stucture hasn't changed since the first of the series, the VW50, way back in 2006, we often borrow from older reviews. It's time for a fresh start, so for the VW90ES review, we have all new menu photos and descriptions. Here goes.
As you can see from the picture menu above, all the main menu icons are on the left of the menu. That first one, is Picture.
In the picture menu, the first choice are your picture modes. Sony provides five standard modes and a User for you. The five standard ones are Dynamic, Standard, and Cinema 1, 2, and 3. Please note, Cinema 2 is the preset with the best starting color.
Next, is Reset, and I mention it only because I don't like seeing a Reset button in the middle of a bunch of controls, even if it makes you verify. Below that, Cinema Black Pro, which has an important sub-menu. From it, you can select any of 4 iris modes - two diynamic, a manual adjustment, or Off. Also important to a lot of folks - the other item on that sub-menu is lamp brightness. High or Low (Sony takes a pass on calling it "eco-mode" as so many do). MotionFlow is next on the Picture menu, and it has two items on its sub-menu, the more important of the two, being Motion Enhancer, which is the name for Sony's Creative Frame Interpolation ("smooth motion"), which is great for sports, but does cause serious change to a 24 fps movie - you get that live digital video, or "soap opera" look. On the low setting it's not too bad (I watched part of the movie Red, with it on low, and it was ok, but the film feel is long gone). Then come your basic Contrast, Brightness, Color and Hue controls. Color Temp comes next and it offers up four basic and 5 Custom color temp settings. The standard ones are High Middle, Low 1, and Low 2. Interestingly none of them, not even Low 1, and Low 2, could get the white color temp under 7000, let alone down to the desired 6500K. Calibration, fortunately, took care of that little miss.
Lastly, there are Sharpness, and the important Expert Setting sub-menu. That sub-menu takes you to your noise reduction controls (labeled just MPEG NR), which target mosquito noise and block noise. I played briefly with the 4 mosquito noise settings. You can see the reduction in the noise levels fairly easily from off to max (3). That expert menu also has the Gamma with 10 gamma settings and off. Interestingly, six of the gamma settings can be edited with Sony's software. 7-10 cannot. Those higher ones are all goal oriented, for example, gamma 7 and 8 are simply desribed as more contrasty. 9 is supposed to simulate film, so I presume a gamma up around 2.5 overall. And so on! Each gamma does come with an adjust for both white and black levels.
If you like controls to play with, you've just got to love this VPL-VW90ES!
The next main menu is labeled Advanced Picture and contains just one item: RCP - Real Color Processing. That folks is your color management system for adjusting each of the primary and secondary colors. Note that we do not normally calibrate the individual colors for our reviews.
Screen Menu is next, and it deals with aspect ratios, called Wide Mode. It offers a choice of Normal, Full, Wide Zoom, Zoom, and Anamorphic Zoom. The other setting on the Screen menu is Overscan. The Sony offers only Overscan off and on options, and no masking alternative which I prefer (as it maintains 1:1 pixel mapping).
The Setup menu's next with the Lamp reset control, all your standard setup stuff like menu position and language, Standby modes...
The Function Menu is an interesting one with a 3D settings item (offers auto select between 2D and 3D, or manual). HDMI settings and input search are also there.
The Installation menu is about projector positioning, the 12 volt trigger, setting the IR for the remote, and aligning Sony's LCoS panels. Finally, of course, there's an Information menu. These last two, are not shown, nor is the Screen menu.
