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Sony VPL-VW1000ES review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £16799
inc VAT

It’s ludicrously expensive, but a clear sign of things to come – all we need now is some 4K content

Specifications

4,096×2,160 resolution, 2 ANSI lumens, 520x200x640mm, 20.0kg

http://www.stoneaudio.co.uk

Most TV broadcasts are still in standard definition here in the UK, but Sony is already looking two steps ahead to the next evolution in home cinema. Its latest projector, the VW1000ES, is the first of its kind to have a native resolution of 4,096×2,160, or 4K. That’s higher than the Digital Cinema format currently showing in your local multiplex.

As a semi-professional projector, there’s no surprise that the VW1000ES is something of a beast, taking up a huge amount of floor space. A rough finish that feels a little like sandpaper might not sound particularly attractive, but the centrally-mounted lens and elliptical shape are very easy on the eye.

Sony VPL-VW1000ES

The lens assembly is entirely motorised, meaning you can shift, focus and zoom using the remote control. The lens cover also opens and closes automatically when you power on the projector, making it ideally suited to mounting on the ceiling.

All the inputs are slightly recessed below the lip of the main body, which hides them from sight. Two HDMI, component and VGA ports are available, as are Ethernet and remote control options for custom installations. A 3D emitter is built into the projector, although you can add an external booster if you need to cover a wider area. The internal emitter was fine for our test room, but larger theatres may need the extra coverage.

Sony VPL-VW1000ES ports

The projector uses SXRD technology, Sony’s own take on liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS). This means it has three 4,096×2,160 SXRD chips handling red, green and blue colour elements. In practice, this means colours are vibrant, no matter how bright the image. Brightness certainly wasn’t lacking, with a 2,000 ANSI lumens lamp illuminating even the darkest scenes effectively. Dynamic iris control kept blacks looking black, as opposed to washed out and grey.

For the purposes of this review, we had to use a high-end PC provided by Sony to feed the VW1000ES 4K content. As there’s currently no official standard for 4K video, and an uncompressed full-length film would require over 100 Blu-ray discs, we were limited to the few 4k files Sony sent us. With an AMD Radeon 7970 GPU on decoding duty, we could stream 4K content over HDMI to the projector (HDMI 1.4 supports 4K resolutions).

At its native resolution, projected images looked jaw-droppingly good. The level of detail has to be seen to be believed, as even the smallest rocks can be picked out of a cliff-side scene. We could read the headlines of each magazine in a newsstand during one scene, even as the view panned from left to right. We noticed some screen tear, although this was likely due to the PC’s graphics card failing to keep a steady frame rate.

Thankfully, the VW1000ES can also up-scale existing content to its 4K native resolution. Using its Reality Creation processor to increase pixel density and lower the obvious signs of pixelation, it can upscale any video source, regardless of its original resolution.

Naturally, Blu-ray films see the most improvement, but we were surprised how well the projector coped with standard definition sources. DVDs contain less than 5% of the information of a 4K video, and although we could spot noticeable noise artefacts, the results were still reasonable.

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Details

Price £16,799
Details www.sony.co.uk
Rating *****
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Specifications

Projector technology SXRD
Lamp brightness 2 ANSI lumens
Lamp life 2,000
Lamp life in economy mode 2,500
Contrast ratio 1,000,000:1

Picture

Native resolution 4,096×2,160
Aspect ratio 1.89:1
Other aspect ratios 16:9, 4:3, 5:4, 1.78:1
Max diagonal at 7ft 56in
Throw ratio 1.27:1 to 2.73:1
Optical zoom 2.1x
Projection distance 4.9-10.3m
Mirror image yes
Invert image yes
Lens shift horizontal 30%
Lens shift vertical 80%
HD Ready yes
Special view modes Film 1, Film 2, Digital, Reference, TV, Photo, Game, Cinema

Inputs/Outputs

VGA input yes
DVI input No
Sound inputs none
Composite input no
S-video input no
HDMI input yes
PAL support yes
SECAM support yes
NTSC support yes
Audio output none
Video output none
Others inputs/outputs second HDMI input, RS 232, trigger in, trigger out

Other

Noise (in normal use) 22dB(A)
Size 520x200x640mm
Weight 20.0kg
Internal speakers none
Extras 2x 3D glasses, remote control, cables (power)
Remote special features picture mode, colour temp, aspect ratio, lens shift, zoom, freeze
Power consumption standby 1W
Power consumption on 463W

Lamp

Lamp cost (inc VAT) £629
Lamp supplier www.chaseavlamps.co.uk
Lamp cost per hour of use £0.31
Lamp cost per hour of use (economy) £0.25

Buying Information

Price £16,799
Supplier http://www.stoneaudio.co.uk
Details www.sony.co.uk

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