W5000 Calibration and Bench Testing

As always we utilize datacolor's ColorFacts Professional software with a Spyder2 sensor (tristimulus colorimeter). Our opening measurements were not all that hot, but certainly watchable. Color temperature was around 7500K and there was a noticeably bluish tint to the bright areas of the picture. It's almost as if this ISFccc-certified projector was made to include a calibration from an installer. As you'll see below it dials in quite nicely and we were more than pleased with our final results.

Checking out the various picture modes, we found the following when engaging the Whisper mode of lamp operation and color temperature set to Warm:

• Cinema Mode - 7500K, 15 fL
• Dynamic Mode - 14000K, 17.5 fL
• Standard - 9000K, 21 fL

We found it odd that Standard mode actually provided more light output than Dynamic mode. When turning the lamp to Normal mode, we saw some further light output improvements:

• Dynamic Mode - 21 fL
• Standard - 24 fL

Crank the lamp to Lamp Native mode and you'll see even more output (but the color accuracy gets thrown out the window). To dial in the best initial picture we chose Cinema Mode, selected the Warm Color Temperature and set Black Level to 7.5 IRE. Brightness needed to be set to +61 and Contrast dropped to +43. The lamp, as expected, was placed in Whisper mode (BenQ's version of Eco mode).

We performed our calibration on a Carada Masquerade Screen Masking system. Their Brilliant White screen material has a gain of 1.4 but is clean and presents no hotspots that we can detect. The grayscale color controls are very sensitive and any changes could be seen immediately on the screen. We knew right away that Blue was a bit high and we'd need to do some work to get the system perfectly dialed in. Fortunately, the system was extremely responsive and the results are some of the best we've ever seen in a projector.

Final Gamma (right) was between 2.4-2.5, a slight but marked improvement over the original 2.6 (left)

 
The grayscale, initially dominated by blue (left), ended up nice and smooth after our calibration (right)

 
Color temperature dropped from its initial 7500K (left) to an almost spot-on 6500K across the board (right)

It's been a while since I experienced a projector this easy to calibrate and get to a really across-the-board result that I found to be near perfect. The menu system makes it easy to get around and the numerical controls aren't so ridiculously over-delineated that changes take forever to materialize on the screen. The W5000 is ergonomic and will make lots of home enthusiasts and custom installers very pleased.

Audioholics/HQV Bench Testing Summary of Test Results

Perfect Score is 130
BenQ W5000 Benchmark Score: 105 (Excellent performance - throw anything you want at it)

*Tested with 480i via HDMI from a Denon DVD-3930CI

Comments on Bench Testing

We encountered two really bizarre events as we calibrated the projector and explored its many features to find the optimal settings. The first we discovered while running the Jaggies #1 test. The rotating bar on the screen, while smooth, seemed to "judder" around rather than smoothly spin on its central axis. Changing the Overscan Adjustment setting to +2 (minimum is +1) fixed this and resulted in smooth spin. As near as we could tell the video processor had some issue with the +1 (lowest) setting.

The second event occurred when we attempted to experiment with the Dynamic Black setting. Once activated, the projector began making mechanical noises (not iris-related) that sounded like it was unable to control the black levels - and indeed the screen bore this out, with a constantly changing light output level. At first, disabling the Dynamic Black fixed it, however soon the noise came back and the Dynamic Black was once again out of control. After power cycling the projector this never again occurred.

In testing for rainbow effect we noticed two things. First, we could easily see RBE with any test pattern that showed a thin white line on black. Second, we couldn't see RBE in most of our real-world test material. This presents the scenario that if the on-screen image shows high contrast white on black you'll likely see it, but with 99% of viewing material this won't be an issue.

Recommendations

I like having Overscan essentially 'Off' so I'd like to see a firmware fix that addresses this particular video processing anomaly. I'd also leave it up to the user as to whether or not they engage Luma and Chroma Transmission in the Clarity Control settings section. My preference was to leave them off to avoid any edge artifacts, however you may prefer the increased color and luminance detail. I have to say, this is one of the most detail-rich, most naturally sharp projectors I've seen in a long time, so my preference for leaving these particular enhancements 'Off' didn't make me feel as if I was missing anything.

Noise Reduction seemed best when set to +2. It did an incredible job of reducing mosquito noise in the picture and I didn't encounter any disjointed "floating object" effects so often experienced when the noise reduction hits the edge of an object and unnaturally "floats" it over the background. There was no blurring on the Motion Adaptive tests we did, in either the HQV disc or real-world examples, so the noise reduction system is good for both static and moving images. Noise reduction does not, however, work for HD sources and it is grayed out when any progressive or 1080i signals are received. The Film Detail lock was as quick as anything I've seen, meaning that the HQV processor can recognize and grab onto an unflagged 2-3 pulldown scene with no difficulties.