Sony VPL-HW50ES review

We’re big fans of Sony’s Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) technology, so couldn’t wait to get our hands on its high-end 3D projector, the VPL-HW50ES.

Rather than having to shine light through LCD panels inside the projector, SXRD projectors use reflective LCD panels. These are more akin with DLP technology, helping to increase contrast and colour vibrancy. With three SXRD panels (one each for red, green and blue) inside the HW50ES, we were keen to find out what this projector was capable of.

Retaining the same large case of Sony’s previous high-end projectors, including a centre-mounted lens and side-facing inputs, the HW50ES is a fantastic looking piece of kit. It’s available in black, but we think the glossy white model Sony sent us for this review looks superb – even if it won’t necessarily fit with a blacked-out cinema room. It’s certainly large and may struggle to fit on the average coffee table, but at the same time isn’t excessively bulky and can still be ceiling mounted with the appropriate bracket.

The HW50ES uses the same case as previous models, with a central lens

All the ports are hidden underneath the outer lip of the projector, it’s fairly easy to keep cables under control; you get two HDMI inputs as well as VGA and component video, plus ports for the optional 3D sync (for the glasses) and Infrared remote control receiver. These are useful additions for serious home cinema setups, where the projector is boxed in blocking the onboard ports, but aren’t needed for most setups.

Ports are all located under the projector’s lip

When it comes to setup, you’ll need to be able to reach the projector because lens control is completely manual – slightly disappointing for a high-end projector. Optical zoom is also limited to 1.6x, which fares badly compared to Panasonic’s range-topping projectors which have greater levels of zoom, as well as mechanical zoom and focus controls. Horizontal lens adjustment is limited to +/-25% but vertical adjustment is a much more forgiving +/-71%.

Once you’ve focussed the lens, you can control everything from the comfort of your sofa thanks to the comprehensive remote control, which is backlit to make it easier to operate in the dark. It has all the major features you would expect, including input select, picture pre-sets, aspect ratios, colour, gamma, brightness, sharpness and contrast controls.

After initial setup, you can control everything using the comprehensive remote

The on-screen interface is equally straightforward to use, with the all-important image quality settings kept in one main menu and the more advanced features hidden in sub menus. It doesn’t obscure the whole screen, making it much easier to fine tune picture quality with live previews as you enable or disable each setting. There are plenty of pre-sets to use as a starting point, including two Cinema modes, TV, Reference, Photo, Game and a fully customisable user mode. There are also Bright Cinema and Bright TV modes for when you can’t draw the blinds or dim the lights – they both work, but even though the 1,700 lumen lamp is much brighter than the outgoing model, you undoubtedly get better results in a dark room.

Picture quality in general was superb, thanks in part to Sony’s proprietary Reality Creation image processing engine. It works wonders, even with Full HD content, adding extra sharpness and detail to scenes. It does so without generating any extra noise or unwanted side effects, and we couldn’t find any reason to switch it off throughout our testing.

Darker scenes in particular benefit greatly from Reality Creation, bringing out shadow detail that would otherwise go missed on similarly priced projectors from other manufacturers. It does this without raising the brightness, keeping colours and contrast accurate and avoiding unwanted grey washouts. The Auto Iris function helps out here, working quickly and without becoming obtrusive, but there’s also an option to disable it if you prefer. Colours in general were bold yet still appeared natural, aided by the extra brightness from the 1,700 lumen lamp.

Fast motion looks just as good, whether you’re watching 24p Blu-rays or playing 60 frames-per-second games. We couldn’t spot any signs of ghosting, even during the most intense action sequences, and the film grain was always preserved even when we changed the motion enhancement features. We could spot a few small halo-type artefacts around the edges of some objects, but they were only visible up close and you certainly wouldn’t spot them on a 70in or bigger screen from six feet away.

Previous Sony projectors suffered from crosstalk when playing 3D content, but thankfully the HW50ES shows no sign of any similar issues. 3D films looked fantastic, with no visible ghosting, no flicker from the active 3D glasses and very bright colours. We preferred the Cinema 2 image pre-set for watching 3D video, as pictures looked a little brighter and colours were more vibrant, cancelling out the dimming effects of the 3D glasses.

There’s an external emitter input for the active shutter glasses, in case you manage to block the internal one during installation, but we had no problems in an average-sized living room. There isn’t an external emitter included in the box, so if you need one it will cost you £27 (141025701 from www.houseoffraser.co.uk) on top of the projector itself, plus £28 (TDGBR250B from www.amazon.co.uk) each per extra pair of glasses.

You get one pair of glasses, and additional sets cost £28 each

Sony has decided not to add speakers to the HW50ES – as the projector is designed for high-end home cinema systems, it’s unlikely they would have seen much use anyway. This means sound quality will depend on your existing speaker system, and the boost in picture quality you get from switching to a projector could be undone unless you have a set of speakers to match.

The HW50ES is certainly quiet, rarely becoming louder than a mild whisper when watching films. It also stayed relatively cool, even after several hours, but we would still recommend sitting a few feet away from it for the most comfortable viewing experience.

Excellent image quality makes the HW50ES perfect for films

The HW50ES certainly didn’t disappoint, producing some superb images when playing our test footage. It would have been nice to see mechanical lens adjustment, but otherwise it was incredibly user-friendly and it looks great too. Its size and price might put off anyone looking to have the occasional movie night at home, but it’s a fantastic system for a full-time setup.