Sony shows three new 3D UHD projectors at CEDIA (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Sorry to say we will not see any 3D content in UHD.

However, new 3D films released on Blu-ray will have 2D UHD and include a 3D 1080p disc.

Robert,

Is that what you're hearing as there have been very few 3-D releases with a 2-D UHD disc with it? More specifically, mainly, Best Buy or Amazon UK releases.

 

[Robert_Zohn]

I was referring to future 3D Hollywood films that will come out later as a combo disc collection, one in UHD 2D and the second disc will be 3D 1080P. I don't know specific titles. Bob Harris might know more.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I see nothing in the literature about wide colour gamut on the two ‘cheaper’ models. What percentage of P3 are they achieving.

For the money I think they are not as good value as the Epson laser or bulb based models or some of the JVC models.

Have they fixed the contrast degradation issues, only time will tell, even Sony’s current range of projector which cost a lot of money cannot resolve 4K one to one pixel patterns ( on their expensive model ) suggesting their chipset has some sort of issue and I dislike the use of plastic on some of their cheaper bulb based units.

Sony has to offer more or charge less, their is stiff competition from rivals these days, I would add I am not against Sony, i have considered them for projection but the cheapest 4K model is lacking and the mid priced one is uncompetitive, when resolution alone is not so big a deal, especially when the brand is not achieving its full resolution and Pixel shifting rivals offer better value, better HDR and better wide colour, perhaps a price drop is in order for what they give you.

 

[DaveF]

Thankfully the VW260ES was very accurate after calibration and it also performed well in our HDR testing, with some measurements that were better than the VW550ES. We certainly found the VW260ES to be a great performer, delivering a lovely SDR image that was detailed and boasted natural colours and good motion handling. The black levels could have been better and appear to be a retrograde step compared to recent Sony projectors but overall the VW260ES impressed us. It also proved to be a good performer with HDR, at least as far as projectors go, with good tone mapping, saturated colours and reasonable brightness.

The problem is that as good as the VW260ES is, the HDR projector market is very competitive and there are other manufacturers who can deliver models that are not only better in some respects but also considerably cheaper. The fact that the Sony is a native 4K projector simply isn't enough when watching at any a sensible viewing distance and other factors like black levels, brightness, tone mapping and colour gamuts are equally as important. However, the Sony VPL-VW260ES does represent a significant step in the evolution of native 4K projection and for that reason, along with its overall performance, comes recommended.

https://www.avforums.com/review/sony-vpl-vw260es-4k-hdr-sxrd-projector-review.14020

(260 is the Euro number for the 285)

 

[DaveF]

Another review of the 285, highlighting the compromises still necessary in the sub-$10k projector class:

Price-wise I do think these were very appropriate things to take away from this projector to allow this unit to be priced at $4999. The only other area that might have been appropriate would have been a hit on lumen output, but at a maximum of 1200 calibrated lumens, I think Sony made the right move as HDR performance would have suffered greatly with less available light output. This is an area where the 675ES pulls ahead of both the 285ES and 385ES offering several hundred more lumens. This is due to the 280 watt lamp the 675ES gets over the 225 watt lamp found in both the 285ES and 385ES. If you’re looking into getting a better HDR experience and you have a big screen, say around 120” or larger, the 675ES (or a brighter JVC model) makes a lot more sense. As many will tell you, HDR and wide color gamut performance gives a far greater sense of improvement in image quality than the relatively small bump in fine detail you get on UHD blu-ray titles. Better performance in these areas is especially important for those looking to make a long term investment in their projector purchase in a world about the dominated by HDR. Unless you plan on upgrading every year or so, you may want to opt for a brighter projector as the future is going to be all about HDR. The 285ES is much more comfortable with it’s 1200 lumens of peak brightness with screens at 120” or smaller, or possibly a screen larger than this that has some positive gain.

The RS440 does offer several things the 285ES does not. Those things would include a lens iris that can be used like the 385ES’ (manual, dynamic or both), around 600 more calibrated lumens, roughly double the native contrast and about an order of magnitude more dynamic contrast. Brightness and contrast capabilities are the biggest differences between these two models and are the things that will stick out most if you were to compare the two images next to each other. The RS440 also has lens memories, creative frame interpolation that works with a 4K source (the 285ES is limited to 1080p sources) and an auto-calibration suite with the option to upload custom gamma curves and custom color profiles offering greater HDR flexibility. I've also found that the JVC has a slightly nicer lens that has better focus uniformity and can focus on pixels better. The RS440 has two full-spec HDMI 2.0 ports which includes 18Gbps throughput. The 285ES has two proprietary HDMI 2.0 ports that only support 13.5Gbps throughput. 13.5Gbps is enough bandwidth to fully support UHD blu-ray as the specification stands now. This means UHD resolution at 60 frames per second at 10bit 4:2:0. However, the 285ES does introduce very visible banding within the image when a UHD/60p 10bit 4:2:0 signal is sent to the projector. It seems this is a video processing issue. Hopefully Sony can address this problem with a future firmware update. There is very little video content on UHD bluray encoded this way. So this issue should be more of a concern for gamers who want to take advantage of 4K HDR gaming at 60p. The JVC does not have any banding issues with this type of content sent to the projector.

Native contrast is excellent on the 285ES, but is beat out by the RS440. But this should not come as a surprise, as it’s been this way for years. JVC has almost always had a lead with on/off contrast. Placing the lens at the telephoto end of it’s zoom range, with my Minolta CL200 measuring towards the lens at around 8 inches away, the 285ES achieved 17,826:1 on/off contrast. At maximum zoom, under the same measuring conditions, the 285ES achieves 12,989:1 on/off contrast. The JVC RS400 measures in at 23,432:1 at the telephoto end of it’s zoom range and 16,834:1 at maximum zoom. The JVC has a dynamic iris which increases contrast dynamically to about 10 times it's native performance. With the DI engaged, the JVC had an obvious advantage in contrast when A/B'ing the two images on the same screen.

https://discuss.avscience.com/?topic=1369.msg6414#msg6414

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Sorry to say we will not see any 3D content in UHD.

However, new 3D films released on Blu-ray will have 2D UHD and include a 3D 1080p disc.

Is this what you're hearing from Sony? So far, they've only released a couple of titles this way [Angry Birds and Ghostbusters (2016)].

 

[Robert_Zohn]

3D is not in the UHD BD spec.