Sony VPL-AW15 BRAVIA Home Theater LCD Front Projector Mfg Part #: VPLAW15/U1

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Product Feature

• 24p True Cinema
• Advanced Iris2 Function
• Native Resolution - 720p / Contrast Ratio - Up to 12,000 - 1 (with Advanced Iris Auto ON) / Display Resolution - 1280 x 720
• Multiple Language Display - 15 languages (including English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese)
• Brightness - 1100 ANSI Lumen / Input Video Signals - 480i/480p/1080i/720p

Product Description

Sony VPL-AW15 BRAVIA Home Theater LCD Front Projector Mfg Part #: VPLAW15/U1

Sony VPL-AW15 BRAVIA Home Theater LCD Front Projector Mfg Part #: VPLAW15/U1 Review

NOTE: THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE SONY VPL-AW10 (NOT 15) BUT IT'S BASICALLY THE SAME MODEL (THIS 15 MODEL HAS SOME EXTRA FEATURES NOT MENTIONED BELOW). IN ANY CASE, ALL THE COMPARISONS BELOW ARE STILL VALID.

I originally purchased the Mitsubishi HC1500 DLP projector, but had some problems with it. Ordered this one from amazon and put them side by side. This isn't a review so much as a comparison between 3 Chip LCD and SINGLE CHIP DLP (which tend to be in the same price range). I actually liked the HC1500 a lot, but ended up keeping tue SONY VLPAW10 for a number of reasons. It's not perfect, and in some areas underperforms the DLP. Here's the comparison.

Single chip DLP projectors create images by having a "chip" filled with thousands of tiny mirrors (1 per pixel on the screen) that can tilt up and down. When they tilt, they send light to the screen, when they don't tilt, the light stays in the projector. This ends up creating wonderfully bright and brilliant images. The only problem with this setup is that there's no color (just the white light is being directed) so the color needs to be introduced by spinning a color wheel in front of the chip. (in this case it's a 7 segment red-green-blue-white-red-green-blue wheel. The problem is that the colors are therefore being created via an optical illusion, which for some people creates a "rainbow" effect where they see color rainbows in the white areas of the image. It's very pronounced when there are credit rolls at the end of movies, or any other times there are high contrast black/white (or light/dark) areas. In a certain percentage of cases, the rainbow effect causes headaches and eyestrain It did so for me. (google "DLP rainbow effect" if you don't believe me. There are such things as 3 chip DLP projectors that don't need the color wheels and don't create this effect, but they aren't even close to being in the sub $1000 price range (they start at SEVERAL thousand dollars)

Three chip LCD screens actually have 3 panels (red green and blue) so they don't need the spinning color wheel, they just project the light through the panels, and the colors line up on the screen if calibrated properly. They are not as bright and brilliant as the DLP images because the light is going through the panels, and not being reflected by mirrors which create more direct light. The LCD projectors also need more space between the pixels than DLP, and this ends up giving you a more visible "screen door"effect where you can actually see the faint black lines of the pixel grid if you sit close enough to the screen (as if you were looking through a door or window with an insect screen on it, hence the term "screen door".

So that's the background, here are the results of my side by side tests (accompanied by the media manager for a major lecture hall at an Ivy League university) who is a specialist in these kinds of things (I myself teach video production, so have some expertise here as well).

The Mitsubishi HC-1500 (1 chip DLP)

Advantages

+ about half the physical size of the SONY.
+ Image is brighter
+ colors are more saturated
+ no need for air filter
+ less screen door effect

Disadvantages

- potential for rainbow effect
- noisy (the spinning wheel makes a high pitched whine which is louder and more annoying than the fan)
- If you have a small room, you may not be able to fill a large projector screen with an image because this projector cannot throw a large image from as short a distance as the sony

The SONY VLPAW-10 (3 chip LCD)

Advantages

+ no rainbow effect
+ quieter
+ can throw larger image from shorter distance

Disadvantages

- Much larger than the mitsubishi
- Bulb not as bright, need darker room
- colors are less saturated
- has an air filter than needs to be changed periodically
- more screen door effect
- HDMI input on the rear has a bezel around it that will make it impossible for some of the cables with thicker ends to fit in. I had to change cables to get this to work

CONCLUSION

I went with the SONY. It's not perfect, but for my needs it beats the Mitsubishi. I know there are a lot of die hard fans of the HC1500 and I'm sorry - but this is a fair assessment of my needs.

Some ways to mitigate the SONY's disadvantages:

Neither tv will perform great in a bright room, so both of these are really best suited for rooms where you can control the light.

In terms of the saturation, if you're watching DVD movies, then I think you'll prefer the LCD since it creates more natural colors. The DLP is better for watching HDTV shows where the colors really pop (like CSI Miami). I use it mostly to watch movies, so don't mind the less saturated and brilliant colors.

In terms of the "screen door" effect, I find this is minimized by defocusing the image just a hair. Yes the image is more soft, but this looks more like a projected image in a movie theater, and this is the effect I'm going for when watching movies on my projector, so it works great. It does not work as well to watch sports or news or other material that has lots of CG text up on the screen.

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