ViewSonic PX727-4K Projector Review – Picture Quality

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Art Feierman

Out-of-the-Box Picture Quality

Out of the box: Without adjustment, this Viewsonic PX727-4K has three very nice modes (out of five counting two User modes). Not highly accurate, but good looking modes . If you check out the performance and calibration pages, we go into detail about how accurate, settings and more. Right out of the box, you can put up a picture with some really good color, that will please your friends and family, and you too, unless you are a "fanatic" demanding seriously accurate color - not just good looking color. Standard mode for example, does great for most TV watching, even if on the cool (stronger on blues, vs reds) side. I prefer (as most do, a warmer image for most movie viewing, but then there's also Movie mode...and the two User modes that we did calibrate, one for 1080p movies, the other for 4K with HDR...

About the images you are looking at: Most of the time my Canon 60D dSLR (a semi-pro camera) produces reasonably accurate results when photographing a projected image, however, the images are never right on the money. Comparing them on my MacBook screen (which is well known for good color), they are usually off a little. Sometimes, I have to report a slight or moderate shift in color. All photos are taken with the color set to 6500K. The images captured from the Viewsonic color overall look pretty close to what I saw on the screen. I had reported a tendency of the images of the similar BenQ HT2550 to have a bit of dull yellowish caste. That was less apparent here. Ultimately if you think these photos look good, wait until you see this projector in action in your theater...

Skin Tones

The PX727-4K projector produces some really fine skin tones, post calibration. That is, other than my comments about HDR color and brightness, which I’ll discuss soon enough. I think Eric's calibration results in slightly better skin tones than the equivalent BenQ, but they are certainly similar enough, so that it's probably a "calibrator thing."

Many of the images in the photo player above have captions. The last four, however, do not. That is the usual Bond sequence I shoot of Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. The purpose is to demonstrate that there is no one fixed right skin tone. Different scenes are differently, and attention is given to make sure the skin tones come out "as directed."

In the past, I've often found Viewsonic home entertainment projectors, etc., to offer less ideal skin tones than some other projectors without adjustment.

This time around, however, that hasn't been the case. The User modes in particular, but also Movie (and to a lesser extent, the "cooler" Standard mode), are impressively good on skin tones, pre calibration. That doesn't mean they are near as accurate as say Sony, who consistently, these past 2-3 years has being providing near calibrated skin tone quality, right out of the box, in multiple modes.

When you look at the skin tones from Passengers and other 4K, as with the BenQ, the PX727-4K almost seems to be a little muted in color saturation, so that while the overall color balance is really good I get the feeling that they are sort of a little grey when there should be a little more pop and saturation. I've started playing with some of the minor color controls, increasing the Color Enhancement setting (found in the MoviePro sub-menu), from 0 to 3, which helped! BTW for my own viewing, and to more closely match sharpness with the BenQ, I changed Super Resolution back to its default of 4 (Eric dialed it down to 0, but then he works with color, not sharpness.

I think you'll be particularly impressed with the skin tone rendering of the Victoria Secret swimsuit models, including comparing the same frame, shot in each different picture mode (the exception being the very greenish "Bright" mode which is typical of most brightest modes on projectors).

After all the HDTV images, are a couple from The Hunger Games (1080p version). Then a serious of 4K images taken with the projector in calibrated User 2 (re-named 4K-HDR). Then finally the four Bond images (1080p).

HDTV and Sports

Tastefully done! HDTV, including sports, looked really good in the "quick-cal" adjusted Standard mode. Movie more, or even better, the calibrated User 1 mode is more accurate if you need dead on the money color, but, this is fine. Without calibration, Standard is definitely on the cool side. after Mike's adjustment, its very close to neutral. I certainly like a least bit more "cool" to my sports viewing than movie watching. Oh Standard should do great on animation movies but not the best choice for a movie with near flawless production qualities.

All the sports images in the player were taken using Standard mode, post "quick-cal." For the other images above, User 1 (post calibration) was used (and relabeled Dark Room.). That's our "best" mode for non-4K content. This is the same mode used for all (non-4K) movie images.

Out-of-the-Box Picture Quality

Out of the box: Without adjustment, this Viewsonic PX727-4K has three very nice modes (out of five counting two User modes). Not highly accurate, but good looking modes . If you check out the performance and calibration pages, we go into detail about how accurate, settings and more. Right out of the box, you can put up a picture with some really good color, that will please your friends and family, and you too, unless you are a "fanatic" demanding seriously accurate color - not just good looking color. Standard mode for example, does great for most TV watching, even if on the cool (stronger on blues, vs reds) side. I prefer (as most do, a warmer image for most movie viewing, but then there's also Movie mode...and the two User modes that we did calibrate, one for 1080p movies, the other for 4K with HDR...

About the images you are looking at: Most of the time my Canon 60D dSLR (a semi-pro camera) produces reasonably accurate results when photographing a projected image, however, the images are never right on the money. Comparing them on my MacBook screen (which is well known for good color), they are usually off a little. Sometimes, I have to report a slight or moderate shift in color. All photos are taken with the color set to 6500K. The images captured from the Viewsonic color overall look pretty close to what I saw on the screen. I had reported a tendency of the images of the similar BenQ HT2550 to have a bit of dull yellowish caste. That was less apparent here. Ultimately if you think these photos look good, wait until you see this projector in action in your theater...

Skin Tones

The PX727-4K projector produces some really fine skin tones, post calibration. That is, other than my comments about HDR color and brightness, which I’ll discuss soon enough. I think Eric's calibration results in slightly better skin tones than the equivalent BenQ, but they are certainly similar enough, so that it's probably a "calibrator thing."

Many of the images in the photo player above have captions. The last four, however, do not. That is the usual Bond sequence I shoot of Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. The purpose is to demonstrate that there is no one fixed right skin tone. Different scenes are differently, and attention is given to make sure the skin tones come out "as directed."

In the past, I've often found Viewsonic home entertainment projectors, etc., to offer less ideal skin tones than some other projectors without adjustment.

This time around, however, that hasn't been the case. The User modes in particular, but also Movie (and to a lesser extent, the "cooler" Standard mode), are impressively good on skin tones, pre calibration. That doesn't mean they are near as accurate as say Sony, who consistently, these past 2-3 years has being providing near calibrated skin tone quality, right out of the box, in multiple modes.

When you look at the skin tones from Passengers and other 4K, as with the BenQ, the PX727-4K almost seems to be a little muted in color saturation, so that while the overall color balance is really good I get the feeling that they are sort of a little grey when there should be a little more pop and saturation. I've started playing with some of the minor color controls, increasing the Color Enhancement setting (found in the MoviePro sub-menu), from 0 to 3, which helped! BTW for my own viewing, and to more closely match sharpness with the BenQ, I changed Super Resolution back to its default of 4 (Eric dialed it down to 0, but then he works with color, not sharpness.

I think you'll be particularly impressed with the skin tone rendering of the Victoria Secret swimsuit models, including comparing the same frame, shot in each different picture mode (the exception being the very greenish "Bright" mode which is typical of most brightest modes on projectors).

After all the HDTV images, are a couple from The Hunger Games (1080p version). Then a serious of 4K images taken with the projector in calibrated User 2 (re-named 4K-HDR). Then finally the four Bond images (1080p).

HDTV and Sports

Tastefully done! HDTV, including sports, looked really good in the "quick-cal" adjusted Standard mode. Movie more, or even better, the calibrated User 1 mode is more accurate if you need dead on the money color, but, this is fine. Without calibration, Standard is definitely on the cool side. after Mike's adjustment, its very close to neutral. I certainly like a least bit more "cool" to my sports viewing than movie watching. Oh Standard should do great on animation movies but not the best choice for a movie with near flawless production qualities.

All the sports images in the player were taken using Standard mode, post "quick-cal." For the other images above, User 1 (post calibration) was used (and relabeled Dark Room.). That's our "best" mode for non-4K content. This is the same mode used for all (non-4K) movie images.