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I to headed into Sony Central in Adelaide and was blown away by the picture of A Knight's Tale on this projector. Considering I am about to commence building a dedicated HT - I know what I will seriously be considering!

The JBL speakers on the Sony AV werent mind blowing, but didnt sound too bad either!

I also saw an Epson (Epson TW3000 for similar $$) @ Harvey Normans and typically the cartoon Cars was playing, but still was missing in comparison to the Sony.

Truscotts had a JVC unit for $7,999 - Man - What is a nice word for sh!t? Was playing 2nd Fast n Furious... Very, very average in my opinion and the test tracks disk didnt help! The PSB speakers gave me a headache on the Yamaha AV as well!

My 2c!

I'd be interested to follow the 20% price increase up as of Feb 09... Any news on that?

Or is that Gorilla petrol tactics?

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I to headed into Sony Central in Adelaide and was blown away by the picture of A Knight's Tale on this projector. Considering I am about to commence building a dedicated HT - I know what I will seriously be considering!

The JBL speakers on the Sony AV werent mind blowing, but didnt sound too bad either!

I also saw an Epson (Epson TW3000 for similar $$) @ Harvey Normans and typically the cartoon Cars was playing, but still was missing in comparison to the Sony.

Truscotts had a JVC unit for $7,999 - Man - What is a nice word for sh!t? Was playing 2nd Fast n Furious... Very, very average in my opinion and the test tracks disk didnt help! The PSB speakers gave me a headache on the Yamaha AV as well!

My 2c!

I'd be interested to follow the 20% price increase up as of Feb 09... Any news on that?

Or is that Gorilla petrol tactics?

I was also there to take a peak on the 23rd of December. The demo at the time was MIB. I pulled the trigger that day and bought one.

I have just finished watching Casino Royale (BD) on it and in one word WOW. I still own the Hitachi PJTX100 with original 180 hours of use on it. Due to my heavy work commitments of the past I have not utilised the Hitachi as much as I should have and went to the Sony product because I was having to may hassles of getting the HDMI handshake from my splitter once i purchased my 1080p TV.

The Sony's razor picture sharpness , colour processing and black levels are the big winner for me.

Edited by Seismix
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I also had a squizzy in Sony Central Adelaide & watched Black Hawk Down on Poo Ray and some 1080i HD feed. To my eyes it had that nice DLP film look (without the rainbows :P ) however I was underwhelmed with the black levels, but there was some ambient light and I suspect my expectations may be unrealistic as most reviews are very complimentary about the Blacks.

I'm deliberating whether to pull the pin on one of these before the price rise on Feb 1 (estimated 10%) or purchase an Epson TW2000 now OR take a punt on prices actually falling in a few months due to the 'GFC' as the impending Epson TW4000 sounds like it ticks all boxes but my budget is 3.5K max so suspect I'm dreamin!!

My Epson TW700 sits on a shelf so the TW2000 would be a simple (ie free) swap over. For the much larger Sony I'd have to get a ceiling mount, buy some longer cables and get a sparky to put in power in the roof and go through the joys of dealing with Spider Webs etc in the roof space :unsure:

Has anyone used a non Sony mount and if so can you please divulge the details as the Sony One sells for over $800. Sony Central had some universal mounts for $200 but they were only rated for 10kgs which is exactly what the Sony Weighs but being an over engineered type of guy, I'd like something more substantial

Cheers with New Years Beers (my head still hurts)

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I bought a long roof mount from selby (this one). It has some crap-ass ball-in-cup swivel mechanism, where your meant to tighten it, then mount the pj onto the universal arms. I found it impossible to get the pj weighted centrally, so it used to creep upwards over time. In the end I modified the mount, kept the stem, and used checkerplate (bunnings), marked out the hole locations, and used M5 bolts, with wing-nuts to allow precise projector angle adjustment.

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Thanks for pointing this projector out, and judging by the reviews it stacks up against the Panasonic AE 3000, which leads to wonder whether I should now continue with my plan to purchase a Sanyo z3000 or save a $1000 and go with the Sony.

I am wondering if the Sanyo's new 5.5 pull down interlacing is of any consequence given that Australia uses Pal.?

I am an avid AFL fan so fast action capabilty is important to me. So if Sony can handle this stuff effectively, then i'll put the extra do to the amp.

All comments appreciated.

e & e

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I also had a squizzy in Sony Central Adelaide & watched Black Hawk Down on Poo Ray and some 1080i HD feed. To my eyes it had that nice DLP film look (without the rainbows :P ) however I was underwhelmed with the black levels, but there was some ambient light and I suspect my expectations may be unrealistic as most reviews are very complimentary about the Blacks.

Cheers with New Years Beers (my head still hurts)

Yes the demo at Sony central undersold the PJ qualities. I grabbed the remote and tweaked it for my demo.

It was set to Normal and the room had a white ceiling plus light walls so I turned down contrast and brightness and it made a huge difference.

According to the discussion On AVS forums the Cinema setting out of the box is very close to "fully calibrated " however that is in a light controlled room with dark walls and ceilings.

Edited by Seismix
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This is an interesting projector for me but as I understand it the VPL-HW10 has pretty tight constraints when placed on a rear shelf. It seems vert lens shift when it sits right side up is pretty limited. Also horizontal shift is limited but even more so when its rear shelf mounted and using a fair amount of vert shift. Am i understanding this correctly?

The zoom is 1.5X ?

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This is an interesting projector for me but as I understand it the VPL-HW10 has pretty tight constraints when placed on a rear shelf. It seems vert lens shift when it sits right side up is pretty limited. Also horizontal shift is limited but even more so when its rear shelf mounted and using a fair amount of vert shift. Am i understanding this correctly?

The zoom is 1.5X ?

OK I have this unit on a shelf I made and it is about 5 metres from my screen. Diagnol can be varied from about 100 to 130 inches easily.

The projecter's lens is about 300 mm of centre and it is approx 2/3 of screen height.

The vertical shift gives you plenty of room to play with. Because of my relative short horizontal of centre distance.

so depending where you are going to mount it it does give you some tolerance.

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Just picked up my HW10. Purchased for $2,900 from a local B&M store - very happy with the price, considering this projector's already very competitive RRP$3699 compared to other parts of the world ($US3499; 1750 UK pounds). If youre having trouble finding a HW10 under $3K from your local store, keep trying. I rang 9 stores and two quoted me $2900 without any bargaining.

I didnt have the chance to view the HW10 before purchase, but after reading extensively on various forums i'm confident its one of the best bang for your buck 1080P projectors out there at the moment. I was originally looking at the Sanyo Z3000, but its $4999 RRP (originally thought to be $3999) was a disappointment, and I can do without frame interpolation. The three year warrantyon the Sanyo is definitely an advantage, but you can buy an extended warranty (extra 2 years) for $200 from Sony, so I'm going to do that.

I had a Pana AE900 720P projector before purchasing the HW10, so the comparison between the two will be interesting. I was always impressed with the colours and sharpness of the AE900, but black levels were always average.

Also just purchased a Yamaha Z7 and Paradigm DSP-3400 sub to complete the HT room upgrade, so can't wait to get things up and running!

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Just picked up my HW10. Purchased for $2,900 from a local B&M store - very happy with the price, considering this projector's already very competitive RRP$3699 compared to other parts of the world ($US3499; 1750 UK pounds). If youre having trouble finding a HW10 under $3K from your local store, keep trying. I rang 9 stores and two quoted me $2900 without any bargaining.

I didnt have the chance to view the HW10 before purchase, but after reading extensively on various forums i'm confident its one of the best bang for your buck 1080P projectors out there at the moment. I was originally looking at the Sanyo Z3000, but its $4999 RRP (originally thought to be $3999) was a disappointment, and I can do without frame interpolation. The three year warrantyon the Sanyo is definitely an advantage, but you can buy an extended warranty (extra 2 years) for $200 from Sony, so I'm going to do that.

I had a Pana AE900 720P projector before purchasing the HW10, so the comparison between the two will be interesting. I was always impressed with the colours and sharpness of the AE900, but black levels were always average.

Also just purchased a Yamaha Z7 and Paradigm DSP-3400 sub to complete the HT room upgrade, so can't wait to get things up and running!

Enjoy you will be impressed. We just finished watching Pearl Harbour on BD and it looked spectacular.

Black levels on this unit are exceptional when compared to LCD projectors in the same price range

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Hey Seismix,

I'm very interested in your shelf set up as I assumed the Sony would just be too large to contemplate me making a shelf.

Can you divulge the details of it's construction or show us a piccy?

Cheers

Johnno

Edited by funkybits
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Wow...Great to see a few new buyers.

Has anyone tried my settings that I posted a few pages back???? I would be interested if you see the same results I saw.

I also found the demo at Sony Central underwhelming (Perth) but totally agree that the picture is amazing when properly calibrated.

Has anyone tried playing games on the PS3 on this thing. Bloody hilarious watching cars blow up on the new Motorstorm game.

Whitey - Haven't had a chance to view SDTV yet as it has been hot,hot,hot in Perth and I don't have my HT room air conditioned. :o (Soon to be fixed)

Dave.

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Anyone compared the Sony with the Epson tw3000?. Street price difference is only about $400 which makes the Sony the obvious choice in my opinion but then again the Epson has much higher potential brightness and supposedly better sharpness than the Sony. Having more lumens to play with would be useful in my situation. I haven't seen the Epson yet but I did spend some time with the Sony at videopro, watched a bit of MI3 and I was pretty underwhelmed aswell for some reason. It was doing about a 90" screen, it was bright, black levels were very good, colors looked fine but it was a bit soft looking, it didn't have any real clarity or sharpness about it, it made me question whether the movie might have been Sd dvd and not Bluray, it was definately Bluray though, maybe it was just that movie or scene.

Edited by gllp
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Hey Seismix,

I'm very interested in your shelf set up as I assumed the Sony would just be too large to contemplate me making a shelf.

Can you divulge the details of it's construction or show us a piccy?

Cheers

Johnno

Hi Johnno

I will post a pic soon. I purchased the brackets which are black and at right angles from Bunnings Woodville.

They are approx 300mm by 200mm at 90 degrees. The 300mmis attached to the shelve which is MDF and cut to 500mm square. The 200mm has two fixing points for securing to the wall.

There are two types. One is manufactured by Zenith and the other looks like the Zenith but is further reinforced

on the bend, I opted for the latter because of the extra reinforcing . Bunnings strangely keep the latter in a separate area from the main bracket section. You need to ask the sales assistant the locality of the other wall bracket section as it is in an obscure part of the store (at Woodville anyway).

Cost is approx $11 per bracket.

If you run in to trouble PM me your phone number and i'll give you a call.

Edited by Seismix
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Well I ordered pretty early and was warned it could be late November until I got one but one was delivered last Monday. Some thoughts:

It's huge compared to my old model, about 40cm wide and 50cm deep. The manual says you should leave 30cm clear in all directions which I can't really manage in one yet.

It's very quiet, haven't really noticed the noise at all. Heat hasn't been an issue either, and I was concerned about a 200w lamp in summer.

I optimistically first switched it on in daylight and could barely see anything. It's not that bright. I'm screening from a fair way away (5 metres) just onto the wall and the picture is 3m wide and about 1.8m high. I haven't adjusted the settings much but the picture quality from hi def sources is sensational. The incredible hulk has a series of helicopter fly bys over a south american city and the level of detail is extraordinary, it's a very sharpo picture and reminded me of watching Dark Knight at imax. Very smooth too which is impressive, it looks better than most movie theatres i've been to.

Black levels can be very black, it's difficult to tell where the edges of the projected image which surprises me and 2:35 movies don't have any gray bars above or below. Beats me how they do that. The only fault i'd say is with most settings that the picture can tend to be too dark, so I adjusted the settings a little and put the lamp on high and fixed that. It also benefits quite a bit from having all the lights off, which is pretty standard I guess.

I took some photos but they came out really blurry, i'll have to read my camera manual for some help there. I thought the screenshots in this review looked a little dark to me: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1062546 but the detail is extremely good.

For less than $3k i'm very happy with it.

Just read your review above and I could have easily written the same.

I like you was amazed how big this thing is coming from a Hitachi PJTX100. It is also weighty and made in Japan.

I have not found the black levels "too dark" at all infact I had to turn down the contrast to 65 and brightness to 45 Iris to auto 2 and lamp to Low and I get a great PQ on the screen.

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Just read your review above and I could have easily written the same.

I like you was amazed how big this thing is coming from a Hitachi PJTX100. It is also weighty and made in Japan.

I have not found the black levels "too dark" at all infact I had to turn down the contrast to 65 and brightness to 45 Iris to auto 2 and lamp to Low and I get a great PQ on the screen.

What size screen are you using?

I have a 105" screen and find that I need the contrast on 90 and the lamp on high to get a decent "pop" factor. I am thinking that I may need a higher gain. Really not an issue at night.

Try the settings that Mark H posted for his VW60. I found them to make a big difference in getting accurate colours.

Dave.

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HW10 - First Impressions

I finally had the chance to set up my HW10 last night - my HT has been a mess the last couple of weeks as I've been upgrading various parts. The unit is set up in a light controlled room and projects onto a Oz Theatre Screens 16:9 100" screen w/ evolution 3d fabric and velour surround.

I didnt realise just how big this projector is - I read the dimensions in the specs when researching various projectors, but kinda forgot about it until i opened the box. It makes my old Pana AE900 look tiny. It is set up on a shelf behind my listening/viewing position.

This is a very quiet machine. I have it running in low lamp mode and can barely hear it. It does put out a fair bit of heat - more than the AE900 - but this is to be expected as it has a higher wattage lamp.

Its hooked to a Pana BD35 BR player running through a Yammie Z7 amp. Picture mode was set to Cinema on the HW10 and it was being fed a 1080P/24 signal from the BD35. I didnt have the chance to do a panel alignment. First impressions straight out of the box are very positive. I watched parts of Prince Caspian and 3:10 to Yuma and they looked magnificent, so knowing that the picture can be improved even more is exciting stuff! Black levels and shadow detail leaves the AE900 for dead which was expected, but what i was most surprised about was the increased picture sharpness. I was expecting maybe a little better but not this much improvement, which was a pleasant surprise. While being more detailed, the image also seems to have a more smooth and film-like look. I know its a 'flowery', non-technical description but thats the only way i can describe it.

One little niggle is the lens cap - would be handy if it had a string attaching it to the projector so it cant get lost, and it looks like it will be impossible to put the lens cap back on without slightly moving the focus ring.

In the next couple of days i'll be able to spend more time with the unit and play with the settings (i'll try the settings that people have posted both here and on other forums), but first impressions are definitely positive and performance is above expectations. I havent tested it with SD sources (DVD, Foxtel etc) yet, but will in the near future. I'll report back later when Ive finished tweaking the settings and set up the rest of my HT.

I debated for a long time whether it was worth upgrading my old Pana AE900 720P projector. Im very glad I have now, and those of you who are thinking of replacing their 2 or 3 year old 720P projector will not regret the purchase of a HW10. Im sure the same applies if buying a TW3000 or Z3000 as well. Just make sure you have the shelf space for the HW10!

I'll be watching all my blu-raysand hd dvds again now :)

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What size screen are you using?

I have a 105" screen and find that I need the contrast on 90 and the lamp on high to get a decent "pop" factor. I am thinking that I may need a higher gain. Really not an issue at night.

Try the settings that Mark H posted for his VW60. I found them to make a big difference in getting accurate colours.

Dave.

I'm using a 120 inch screen but utilizing about 90" as I sit about 5m away and find full 120? is a tad overwhelming for me.

I agree that the lamp on high does give a great image however I am happy with the compromise of setting the lamp to lo and so is my hip pocket. :D

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