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Anyone wanting to take their home cinema setup to the next level should seriously consider a 3D projector – these have the power to transform your viewing experience, and Sony’s latest offering is no exception. The VPL-HW30ES has a massive three times the brightness of last year’s model, making it ideally suited to 3D as well as 2D content.
At almost half a meter long and weighing 10kg, you’ll struggle to fit the HW30ES on a bookshelf – it’s much more suited to a ceiling mount. With a bright enough lamp to project an image up to 14m, the projector is suitable for even the largest of living rooms. Only the biggest of walls will be large enough for its maximum 300in (25-foot) image, but you’ll still get a 58in picture from seven feet away.
Unlike other projectors we’ve seen, fan noise was almost non-existent – even after several hours’ use, it didn’t spin up to a level that became irritating, so it won’t matter if you’re sat directly underneath or in front of it when watching a film.
You should have no problems adding the HW30ES to an existing home cinema system – input options include two HDMI ports, a single VGA and component video. There aren’t any speakers, so you’ll need an AV amplifier for audio, but considering the price of the projector you’re unlikely to want to settle for anything less than a full surround sound system to accompany it.
At 1,300 lumens, a respectable brightness rating for a dedicated home cinema projector, the lamp is just bright enough that we could use it in a lit room and still make out plenty of detail. However, for the best experience, you’ll want to close the curtains and shut off the lights – in darkness, image quality is absolutely breathtaking, in both 2D and 3D.
High definition video playback was crisp and colourful, with Avatar’s blue Naa’vi warriors looking incredibly vivid. Darker images looked very accurate thanks to deep, if not entirely black, black levels and plenty of contrast, letting us pick out plenty of detail in Casino Royale’s monochrome opening scenes. Sony’s MotionFlow image-smoothing system did an excellent job of eliminating any visible stutter from our 24p Blu-ray movies.
There was very little to complain about at the projector’s default settings, but there was still a little room for improvement using the comprehensive menu options. The sensibly laid out remote control provides complete control over all the important functions, so you won’t have to reach for the controls on the projector itself. The controller also lights up, so you’ll be able to find the right button even when the lights are off.
As we expected, the HW30ES shone when it came to 3D playback. Every scene we tried popped out of the screen – the effect was almost cinema-quality, with hardly any noticeable cross-talk, but we did spot a few issues. Because you have to wear active shutter glasses, you’ll need to turn off all the lights in the room before watching, as the glasses can be particularly sensitive to ambient lighting at their standard refresh rate, leading to flicker. Interestingly, the all-important 3D transmitter dongle connects to the projector with an Ethernet cable rather than wirelessly – this could get messy if you don’t have a way of channelling cables around your room, particularly if you want to ceiling-mount the projector.
You can buy the HW30ES without the 3D kit bundled with the package we reviewed, but this will work out as more expensive once you’ve bought the 3D accessories. The kit comes with two pairs of USB-rechargeable active-shutter glasses, a mains adaptor to juice them up after a film session, and the 3D transmitter – you’ll just need an inexpensive network cable and you’re good to go.
Unless you take your movies very seriously, it’s difficult to justify spending over £3,000 on Sony calls an ‘entry-level’ home cinema product – the HW30ES certainly isn’t aimed at the casual viewer, and you should really only consider it if you have a large room and dedicated sound system to make the most of the experience. However, if that sounds like you, there’s little doubt that this is one of the best projectors we’ve seen all year.
