Sony VPL-HW30ES Projector Calibration and Settings

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Art Feierman

Virtually every home projector we review gets calibrated. Note we do not calibrate many all-in-one, and gaming projectors. This Sony VPL-HW30ES is no exception. Mike got to calibrate it before I really started watching the VPL-HW30ES.

Our calibrations, including this Sony VPL-HW30ES, are normally limited to a grayscale calibration, along with brightness, contrast, color saturation, tint (where applicable), etc. Only in very special circumstances will we calibrate the individual colors, in which case we discuss why

Here are some pre-calibration numbers for the Sony VPL-HW30, our calibration settings, and the final results.

Sony VPL-HW30ES Color Temperature

Color Temp over IRE Range (Best Mode, Pre calibration):
Cinema 1(best)	Cinema 3
30 IRE	7018	7632
50 IRE	6779	7261
80 IRE	6796	7007
100 IRE	6715	6712

Before we provide our settings, lets see what we started out with: Pre calibration, these are the color temperatures over the grayscale range:

Very slightly cool (shift towards blue), while Cinema 3 was much cooler

Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE (mid zoom):
Dynamic	1016 @ 9608, Custom Color Temp 5 yields 1224 lumens, but more green in image
Standard	961 @ 8343
Cinema 1	867 @ 6715
Cinema 2	787 @ 5637
Cinema 3	863 @ 6712
Game	855 @ 6722
Photo	553 @ 5545, Using Auto iris 1 increases to 775 lumens
User 1	863 @ 6726
User 2	855 @ 6736

According to Mike, the variation in brightness is tied to the different color temperature settings. In other words, changing the color temp of a mode, will cause the brightness to change to pretty much follow these numbers.

Sony VPL-HW30ES Basic Settings

In addition to calibrating the HW30's Red Green and Blue for a correct grayscale balance (6500K), there are a number of other settings that come into play. Typically Contrast and Brightness (white balance and black balance), need to be done first. Color saturation and gamma also need adjustment.

Settings for measurements (default values are in parenthesis):
	Dynamic	Standard	C1	C2	C3
Contrast (90)	(Max=100) 89	89	89	90	90
Brightness (50)	52	52	52	50	50
Color	-55	-55	-50	-50	-50
Color Temp	(High)	(Middle)	(L1)	(L2)	(L1)
Gamma	-6	-5	-7	-4	(Off)
Color Space	(W3)	(N)	(W1)	(W2)	(N)
Iris	(A1)	(A1)	(A1)	(Off)	(Off)