本文章最後由 精研編輯部 於 2011-12-25 23:33 編輯
原始文章出處:http://www.trustedreviews.com/sony-vpl-vw1000es_Projector_review
Technical background
Smart TV? Old hat. 3D? Yesterday's news. So far as we're concerned, the future of home cinema technology is 4k. And we've just had our most in-depth look yet at just what a 4K future might look like, courtesy of Sony's startlingly ahead-of-its-time VPL-VW1000ES projector.
The European launch event for this exciting machine was The Century Club on Shaftesbury Avenue - one of those places that's so cool that you can't find its door unless you already know where to look. Inside, after some very pleasant nibbles - is it possible not to love mini burgers? - we were lead into a comfortable room only a bit bigger than the sort of dedicated home cinema room likely to be used by the relatively wealthy types able to afford the VW1000ES's £18,000 asking price.
At one end of this room was a massive, wall-filling screen, while at the other was 'the beast'. For the VW1000ES is unquestionably a hefty bit of kit. With its huge centrally mounted lens and extravagantly expansive lens 'cowl' sitting at the front of an elongated, wide and high chassis, the VW1000ES leaves you in no doubt that you're looking at a fundamentally serious, high-end product that's come down through Sony's professional projection division rather than 'up' from Sony's normal consumer electronics division.
Tucked inside the VW1000ES's large form is the key development that's made the projector possible: a brand new Sony projection chipset that almost miraculously manages to squeeze the necessary 4096x2160 pixels onto an SXRD panel just 0.74in across. This is less than half the size of the SXRD panels found inside the enormous 4k Digital Cinema projectors Sony makes for the commercial theatre market, and requires the pixels to be positioned with a pitch of just 4um.
Sony's innovations for the optics of the VW1000ES don't end there, either. It's also had to develop a new lens with sufficient uniformity to handle the extremely high resolution of 4K images right up to the picture's edges. Plus, in the course of working out how to construct the smaller 4k SXRD panel, Sony improved the flatness of the pixel surface, which improves light efficiency and thus boosts black level response. So much so that the VW1000ES claims a remarkable 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
Having been lucky enough to be amazed by the quality of a couple of 4k commercial cinema presentations over the past year, our 'geekometer' was in overdrive as Sony's 'people' dimmed the lights and fired the VW1000ES up. But we were quickly deflated when it was suddenly announced that we wouldn't actually be watching any native 4k material...At first glance this might seem a pretty crazy situation when you're demoing the world's first true 4k home cinema projector. But really the simple fact is that currently not only are native 4k video sources excruciatingly hard to find, they're also very difficult to get into devices via standard HDMI ports. This situation should change, given that HDMI v1.4 alrady supports the 4K video format. But for now, if Sony had wanted to run a 4K video source into the VW1000ES, it would have had to use a large and expensive adaptor to output the 4K source in an HDMI v1.4-friendly format.
Another slight concern about the demo was that we noticed Sony was using a 'humble' PS3 as the source Blu-ray player for its 18 grand projector, as opposed to a really high-end player. But actually, the console might well become a key partner for the VW1000ES thanks to an upcoming firmware upgrade (currently rumoured to be happening in January) that will allow the console to ship out still photos at native 4k resolutions. This would make the PS3 effectively become the first domestic true 4k source in the world, albeit only with stills, not video.
With no native 4k sources on hand for the demo, the event effectively turned immediately into an examination of the VW1000ES's upscaling capabilities. As in, how well it converts Full HD Blu-rays into 4K output pictures.
The first bit of footage to be shown was actually a still image of a lit news-stand against a dark background. The Sony engineers toggled between the '2k' and upscaled 4k image, and the results were... noticeable rather than amazing. But there was definitely more clarity over the magazine covers and less sign of jaggedness over edges.
Also, promisingly, this extra refinement was delivered without making the image look noisier.
Next up was the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie on Blu-ray - and with this, the VW1000ES's impact was seriously impressive. The amount of detail and clarity the upscaling system adds to the native HD image is abundantly obvious, to the point where at times it's almost a revelation.
The system is at its best, understandably, with relatively static footage, such as an extreme close-up of Captain Jack's face that was paused so that the Sony engineers could toggle the upscaling on and off. The extra crispness and detail the 4k image contained really was spectacular.
We were impressed, too, by how accurate in colour terms the upscaling processing was, as it delivered seemingly immaculate colour blends, free of inconsistent tonal shifts, 'striping' or 'blocking'. With dark and/or motion-packed sequences, though, we found it a little tougher to forget that we were watching an upscaled rather than a native 4k image. With dark scenes you tend to see more dot noise, making you more aware of this common side effect of upscaling, while with motion you can make out some slight blurring over motion.
These sort of issues became apparent too while watching some night-time scenes from The Dark Knight and, especially, a low-lit dance hall sequence from The Tourist.Though it must be stressed that dark scenes also revealed a pretty amazing contrast ratio from the VW1000ES, with gorgeous black colours combining superbly well with high levels of shadow detail and seemingly immaculate levels of brightness stability.
Watching the opening scenes from The Dark Knight revealed that the 4k image is pretty unforgiving of artifacts that might be in a Blu-ray master, such as forced edging. But this, to be fair, isn't the VW1000ES's fault; it's just what can happen when you subject stuff designed for standard or normal HD resolution to higher definition scrutiny.
Not content with not showing us any true 4k video on the VW1000ES, Sony had a further unexpected surprise up its sleeve: no 3D playback. The VW1000ES can actually play back active 3D images in 4k, yet no 3D was available during the demo because the projector we were watching was an engineering sample only delivering 1500 Lumens of brightness rather than the 2000 Lumens promised for the final production models. So Sony was worried we wouldn't think the VW1000ES's 3D performance was bright enough based on the current model.
As we left the demo of the VW1000ES, we have to admit to feeling a touch dissatisfied. Not because we had much doubt about the VW1000ES's potential; on the contrary, it displayed more than enough quality and promise to make it a potent threat to the high-end projector space usually dominated by Sim2. No, rather our frustrations came from the fact that we didn't feel we'd really seen what the VW1000ES was capable of, on account of there not being any true 4K sources.
As noted earlier, our expectations that we would see a true 4K image during our hands-on with the VW1000E aren't entirely fair. But we can still imagine enthusiasts - who tend to be suspicious of upscaling processing, however clever it is - feeling a little let down that initially, at least, they're not going to be able to reproduce the stunning true 4k experience they've had in a commercial cinema at home, despite spending 18 grand.
But then, we guess, the key point here is that true 4K sources for the home will come eventually. Even agreeably honest product manager Tak Nakane wouldn't be drawn on exactly when he thought this might be - “three to four years” was about as accurate a figure as we could get out of him. But they will come, making the VW1000ES a uniquely well-qualified option for people who want an 18 grand projector spend to be future proof.
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狗仔卡
發表於 2011-12-25 23:02:09
ソニーは2003年に0.78型フルHDプロジェクター用デバイス「SXRD」を開発し商品化しました。さらに、2004年にデジタルシネマ用1.55型「4K“SXRD”」、2005年には0.61型「フルHD“SXRD”」を世に送りだして以来、高精細・高コントラストな映像を提供してきました。
ソニーが十数年培ってきた超解像技術開発に伴うノウハウに新規技術を加えた、新開発「4K映像表示デバイス向けデータベース型超解像処理LSI」を搭載しています。
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樓主
發表於 2011-12-25 23:40:14
發表於 2012-2-26 14:50:25
