Sony Bravia Projector 7 VPL-XW5100ES Review

Highlights

The Sony Bravia 7 Projector VPL-VW5100ES was created as a projector that fits between Sony’s prior line models, the XW5000ES and XW6000ES, with all new features and performance that also set it apart from those models. Some key features include:

• True UHDA (Ultra High Definition Alliance) resolution of 3840 x 2160
• Still utilizes a Blue Laser Phosphor Light Source which provides up to 20,000 hours of near maintenance-free operation, providing more consistent brightness over time compared to older lamp based systems.
• Features 2,200 lumens of brightness, an increase of 200 lumens vs the prior model
• Supports HDR10 and HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) HDR Formats.
• Wide color gamut support with their TRILUMINOS Display panels for more rich and accurate colors on screen.
• Motionflow Technology to reduce motion blur without the Soap Opera Effect, if used judiciously.
• XR Deep Black Enhancement which improves contrast and shadow detail in dark scenes.
• Reality Creation processing with the XR Image Processor chip, the same one used in their award winning flat panels.
• Up to 85% vertical and 36% horizontal lens shift using the manual knobs on top of the chassis, for more flexible installation.
• Low 24db fan noise for a quiet movie watching experience.
• Compatibility with the latest equipment with HDMI 2.1 and HDCP 2.3 Content Protection over HDMI.
• 12ms Input Lag for better, more reactive and precise competitive gaming.
• Includes two HDMI Input ports and one USB for device connectivity.

Aesthetics

The Bravia 7 Projector is available in both black and white chassis, it maintains Sony’s sleek, modern chassis design and looks physically identical to the prior model. Both colors are offered to give the customer a choice, such as in a living room, the white chassis may be preferred, but in most dedicated home theaters you’d probably choose the black one. They both have a nice matte finish. Both choices offer a nice, sophisticated appearance which will complement your choice of rooms and environments precisely. The top edges are rounded and smooth, which gives it a less squared off appearance.

It still has a very streamlined shape. It is compact in size when it’s compared to its primary competition.  It appears more elegant and doesn’t intrude on your room decor and aesthetics. The ventilation grill across the front, along with the small ones on the sides function to cool the chassis and its internals, which also gives it a sleek, professional look.

The lens assembly is located in the front, center of the chassis: This gives it a balanced, symmetrical look to it. The control panel is located on the side. They feature the minimum controls which can be used in case your remote is not close by or is temporarily lost. Also on the same side, towards the rear of the chassis are the two HDMI 2.1 ports for your external video sources along with USB connections.

The integrated status indicator LEDs are discreetly placed into the fins of the cooling vents on the front. They aren’t very bright, so they shouldn’t be distracting when the projector is in use watching video content.

All in all, the minimalist design of the Sony VPL-XW5100ES maintains the prior look and feel and is pleasing to the eye. These Sony models do appear somewhat less luxurious with their light, plastic chassis.  When compared to its competition from Epson and JVC and even now the compact Lifestyle projectors from China which feature stylish and classy designs which are also functional such as the Valerions and their metal fin chassis designs.

Installation/Lens Info

Laser Light Source

Like the other Sony ES projectors, this new unit uses a blue laser phosphor light source which provides many advantages over older more traditional lamp based projectors. Laser light sourced projectors have a much longer lifespan. This one is rated up to 20,000 hours until half life. This reduces the need for frequent lamp replacements and general projector maintenance compared to lamp based projectors.

The VPL-XW5100ES projector provides a brightness boost of 200 lumens over its predecessor, from 2,000 to 2,200 lumens. This results in even more vibrant colors and brighter, easier to see images, even in rooms with some ambient light. A blue laser phosphor light source is more stable and maintains its brightness level more consistently over its lifespan. With traditional lamp based designs, they will go dim faster over time.  This results in more frequent lamp replacements to maintain brightness constancy.

Another big advantage is that the projector will power on and off almost instantly. It doesn’t need a long warm up or cool down period that you see with lamp projectors.

Laser technology is also much more energy efficient for the same light output vs a lamp based projector. The results are lower power consumption which makes it more environmentally friendly. This helps manage the internal heat more efficiently which improves long term reliability and lifespan of the projector.

Brightness

The Sony VPL-XW5100ES projector has 2,200 lumens, up from 2000 lumens in the prior model. This can result in outstanding brightness on screen when used in a dedicated home theater room and even moderately lit environments. A high brightness level is very beneficial when displaying HDR (High Dynamic Range) content. It enhances perceived contrast and shadow detail in both low level, dark scenes and delivers great image punch and colorful images in the bright scenes.

I did my testing of the Sony VPL-XW5100ES on a white, 0.8 gain Seymour AT screen in my new, dedicated home theater. This Sony with the lights off in my dark environment projected a very sharp,  dynamic and clear, almost DLP-like image on screen. It is a great upgrade over Sony’s lower and prior model, the XW5000ES.

The additional brightness of 200 more lumens helps HDR content because the black floor remains stable according to my testing, but compared to prior generations the brightest parts of the image increase. This raises the overall dynamic range and contrast of the HDR content being viewed, giving it more pop and a more HDR-like appearance.

Another advantage of the added brightness is maintaining the color gamut coverage but increasing the color brightness so the colors will appear more vibrant and can trick your eye into believing the saturation and gamut coverage is higher than it actually is.

A big benefit that helps overall brightness is the fact that Sony doesn’t require a color filter like JVC DiLA projectors still employ.  The Sony achieves nearly 95% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, without a filter. These color filters that JVC uses cost a lot of light output with the filter in place. Of course, with this filter they get near 100% of the DCI-P3 gamut. So it is a choice to make. Sony decided not to have this filter option to save brightness and costs to keep this entry level product as affordable as possible.

A neutral gain, white screen is most likely your best choice if you’re installing the VPL-XW5100ES in a dedicated, light controlled theater. Below are brightness measurements of the various modes of this projector.

Colors

SDR Mode Measurements, Pre-Calibration (Out of the Box)

SDR USER Mode, Post-Calibration

HDR Mode Measurements, Pre-Calibration (Out of the Box)

HDR Measurements, Post-Calibration (Bright Cinema Mode, Dynamic HDR Enh., Tone Mapping & Dynamic Laser OFF)

XR Triluminous Pro

One of the strengths of the recent line of Sony projectors is in their color rendition, delivering incredibly realistic images. Sony’s blue laser phosphor light source with their new XR Triluminos Pro results in a wider color gamut, around 95% of the UHDA-P3 Color Space, giving the projector the ability to produce more saturated and accurate colors which are needed for today’s latest 4K HDR video sources such as the latest Hollywood Blockbusters.

According to Sony:

“XR Triluminos Pro is adapted from our acclaimed BRAVIA TVs, XR Triluminos Pro deeply scans color composition at the pixel level, remapping saturation and brightness from a palette of over a billion colors. Complemented by high brightness technology, it expands color volume and sharpens details, delivering breathtaking, true-to-life images that push the boundaries of projection technology.”

Triluminous Pro expands the color gamut, which allows the XW5000ES to produce a wider gamut of colors. It makes the colors appear closer to what is seen in real life, for a more realistic experience in your home theater or media room. The processing it uses features 10-bit precision to show over one billion colors on screen, which is said to reduce color gradients between shades of colors and the transitions between them. When done improperly, this can cause what is known as banding between these gradients. Unfortunately Sony has had some issues with banding in recent models. This model line seems better, but there is still some banding in certain scenarios, so it is something they should continue to work on and improve in future models, which according to rumors should be announced soon. I am sure if this rumor is true, it should be around the CEDIA timeframe which is early September, which very well could be announced and reported before this review is even published.

The VPL-XW5000ES also thankfully includes some advanced calibration tools for color, known as a CMS, or Color Management System. This allows end users and calibrators to adjust various color properties such as the balance of the three colors on screen, saturation, color brightness and hue to either industry specifications or their own personal preferences. This can be done and saved to attain a calibrated or particular look for varying types of video content or formats.

Sony has a feature in their recent models known as Enhanced HDR: This feature is available for HDR10 and HLG input formats. They say it makes the incoming colors appear to be more vibrant and dynamic. With Enhanced HDR enabled, they report brighter whites, deeper blacks, with an expanded color depth to give the viewer more dynamic and realistic images. I say, upon testing, to use this feature sparingly on most good HDR content, but more so with not so good, low nit HDR sources. Unfortunately “good HDR content” isn’t always the norm, so turning this feature on certainly helped the perceived image on screen to appear more dynamic and “HDR-Like” than some low nit, flat almost SDR titles would if shown in their native state. It helped the darks appear darker, without black crush that I saw, and also seemed to give the specular highlights a bit more pop. This is probably one part of Sony’s processing that I like which helps give their SXRD projector lineup a more DLP-like feel and look to them. This feature is the one to have on if you want to engage their tone mapping algorithms, said to be frame-by-frame, which they very well may be, but the level of tone mapping they chose to use more follows the strict PQ curve, including some of the clipping of highlights if called for, unlike solutions which are built in as on the JVC DiLA projectors, or ultra expensive external video processor solutions like the Lumagen Radiance Pro or madVR Envy line. Lucky for us budget restricted home theater aficionados, madVR has just announced a new, lower cost Envy known as the Core, for about half the cost of the next model in the lineup, the Envy Pro, and ? the cost of the top model the Envy Extreme Mk2. Hopefully Lumagen follows suit, or they will end up being left behind.

The XW5000ES has many customizable picture modes as listed earlier in our pre-calibration section. Every mode was designed for varying types of content, coming from the factory supposedly tuned for the best color and video performance for that particular content type. Thankfully, all of these Sony Picture Modes are able to be calibrated and saved separately and individually so you can have separate calibrations saved for different source inputs and content such as video games, Episodic TV or your favorite movies on disc or streaming. For most SDR sources, the mode I chose and that is the closest to ISF specs is the Reference Mode. This allows for the least amount of work and adjustments to get the best color accuracy from the XW5000ES.

Sony is known for great color rendition and the VPL-XW5000ES is no exception. Its color reproduction capabilities work very well with a wide range of viewing scenarios, from watching your favorite movies or sports to playing the latest video games. Sony is still providing a great visual experience after all this time in your home, be it in a dedicated theater, your living room or a fun media and gaming room.

The only next logical step Sony can take to move closer to home theater bliss for on screen colors would be to incorporate at least a dual laser design as they do in their much higher end projector, the incredible GTZ380, but preferably something even further along to get you to full BT2020 color gamut by using an RGB laser light engine. These have been used in very cheap UST and LifeStyle type projectors now for years, so it is far past time for these high end companies to incorporate this design into their so called top mid-tier lineup of home theater centric projectors. I know I say this a lot now in my reviews, but after experiencing these light engines in many USTs and LifeStyle projectors it is hard to go back to below DCI-P3 color gamuts, I must say.

Contrast

The Sony VPL-XW5000ES outputs a decent amount of peak light, which combined with its complementary decent black floor, offers one of the best projectors for contrast outside of the contrast kings known as JVC in the projection realm. The laser power is adjustable in steps from 0 - 100. This isn’t linear though, as zero does not equate to being completely shut off. These steps work out to zero being 5,077 cdm2 (nits) and 100 being 7,334 cdm2 (nits) when measured facing the lens from a meter away with the diffuser on the great SpectraCal HDR2000 C6 color meter. The same results will be achieved whether in SDR or HDR modes. Even when set to zero, if you have a good light controlled room, you can get great brightness on screen. Why would you do this, you ask? Well, when you lower the light engine’s output, be it a lamp or laser, you generally get better contrast overall as the black level decreases and so does the peak light output to the same extent, but what you gain is less light scatter and reflections within the optical path. This can result in a higher native contrast when measured, but with a dimmer overall image. This ends up being a personal choice. There is a fine balance between brightness and contrast where projectors are concerned. You just have to find your sweet spot and nobody else’s.

Measurements were done using CalMAN calibration software with a SpectraCal C6 HDR2000 colorimeter and a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro test pattern generator, taken 1 meter from the lens using the Diffuser on the color meter.

There is a dynamic contrast enhancement feature on the XW5000. It is called HDR Enhancer and is accessed using the Contrast Enhancer button on the remote. These menu settings work for HDR of course, but do with SDR content as well, so we aren’t sure why they went with the HDR Enhancer nomenclature in this instance? Changing settings (OFF/LOW/MIDDLE/HIGH) from OFF to one of the other settings boosted blacks in the brighter images while providing a more dynamic image overall. On darker material, it seemed to crush some of the black details while having a similar outcome on the brighter areas within the dark scene, which gave it more depth and dimensionality overall in those dark scenes. My thoughts are to use this sparingly, as you should all these “special features” usually given to consumer displays and projectors. Maybe go with using LOW or MIDDLE so as to not affect the blacks too much if at all, while giving your image on screen a better dynamic visual.

ANSI Contrast Patterns used:

Sharpness, Detail, Clarity

As with the Sony VPL-XW5000ES projector, the XW5100ES also uses a 54mm lens. It’s the same glass lens of great quality. It’s designed to produce sharp, clear and detailed images.  Sony has had better lenses on prior models though. The final stage of their lenses use Sony’s ACF (Advanced Crisp Focus) lenses.  They are a spherical polymer which they say is much easier and cheaper to produce to get the quality they desire. The same decisions came around with this new model, that If they used an all glass exit element the cost of the projector would have gone up by a good amount, but they didn’t want to raise the cost any more than they already have at $9,995 MSRP. This is a doubling of the cost for this new model vs the 5000ES, so I am sure they didn’t want to increase it any further.

I stated previously in my VPL-XW5000ES review that I thought the ACF lens being a polymer final lens element, is at fault for the image not being quite as sharp as I think it could have been when compared to other projector brands and the higher end Sony XW7000ES that I previously owned that are larger lenses, but this new 5100 has alleviated my thoughts on this!  The image on this new model is very sharp, clear and detailed, giving it a near single chip DLP-like image (no need to converge 3 imaging panels) on screen, without the rainbows of course.  I was able to dial in the image sharpness from corner to corner using the internal test pattern.  This no longer feels like Sony is just using undefeatable Reality Creation or a feature they termed “Digital Focus Optimizer (DFO).  If that is what this is, then they greatly improved it in a single generation.  This projector was every bit as sharp and detailed as the JVC NZ800 I reviewed and lauded for the same feat, if not more so.  I was very pleasantly surprised to be sure.  No more is the image too digital and harsh.  It now has a natural sharpness and clarity to it that looks incredible.

After initial setup, I checked and did a panel alignment but it didn’t need much adjustment.

Motion handling

The Sony VPL-XW5100ES distinguishes itself through its motion handling. This is achieved via a combination of its native 4K SXRD panel technology, the new and proprietary XR Processor, and Sony's Motionflow algorithms.

The new XR Processor is the engine that drives the projector's motion handling capabilities. It dissects and analyzes thousands of discrete elements within each video frame, integrating them to produce images with exceptional clarity and detail. Complementing this is Motionflow, Sony's sophisticated frame interpolation technology. Motionflow is engineered to minimize motion blur, thereby preserving image clarity during fast moving scenes. The projector's support for 4K content at a 120Hz refresh rate, coupled with a low input lag of approximately 12ms, further enhances its suitability for gaming and viewing intense action. This combination of features ensures that the VPL-XW5100ES can handle demanding video content with minimal distortion.

The VPL-XW5100ES generally delivers superior motion handling compared to earlier models like the VPL-XW5000ES. It has the capacity to render smooth, clear image motion, even with 4K UHD content, which makes it particularly well-suited for gaming and action oriented movies or TV shows. User experiences, however, are not uniformly positive. While I like the projector's motion clarity and fluidity, I’ve read that some have reported having issues with specific types of content, mainly streamed media at 24p (not the normal 23.976) coming from sources such as the AppleTV 4K. These issues often come from inconsistencies or differences in the source's frame rate or encoding.

With the VPL-XW5100ES, many praise its motion clarity and smoothness, although some users, including me, report a preference for disabling motion interpolation to reduce or eliminate the SDE (Soap Opera Effect). The soap opera effect comes into play when frame interpolation, in this case MotionFlow, is set too high, creating an artificial smoothness that takes away from the cinematic feeling of the film, making it seem as if they were shot on video, as daytime soap operas are.

All movies and content that I enjoyed on the XW5100 was either on my Kaleidescape Strato E or an Apple TV 4K streaming box using iTunes or Infuse UHD BD rips. I always turn off any special “features” on these projectors because they almost always do more harm than good, except things like dynamic tone mapping, which thankfully we now have on the new Sonys, unless you have an external processor such as a madVR Envy or Lumagen Radiance Pro. But when I used Motionflow, it didn’t introduce much of the soap opera effect. This mode kept the motion smooth, clear and without lots of judder. My suggestion is using the mode called Smooth Low for sports watching. It does a good job of smoothing out horizontal motion. If you turn Motionflow off, frame interpolation and light modulation are disabled.

Chipset/Imaging Panel Technology

The VPL-XW5100ES uses the same sized 0.61” UHD 4K SXRD (Silicon Crystal Reflective Device, Sony’s version of LCoS) as on the prior 5000ES and the higher end 6100 and 8100ES models. There is one panel for each of the primary colors Red, Green and Blue. Each panel has a 3840 x 2160 UHDA pixel resolution. Prior Sony models and current JVC models used the DCI 4K format of 4096 x 2160, but Sony made the decision to change the resolution of their SXRD panels to match the consumer UHD standard which most if not all home devices and video source files are using. So if you have an older model Sony or a JVC that you are coming from and are using an anamorphic lens, you’ll need a new lens with a 1.33:1 expansion factor instead of the style you were previously using with a 1.25:1 stretch factor, such as the Panamorph Paladin DCR. Now you’ll need something such as the standard Paladin lens to get the correct aspect ratio on screen.

Video gaming

The VPL-XW5100ES, also known as the Bravia Projector 7, features two HDMI 2.1 inputs.  Each one supports gaming at 4K/120 frames/second. This new projector also has ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode), when turned on or activated, the projector disables the XR video processor which results in very reduced lag times with your gaming experience. It is reported to be around 21ms for games at 4K/60Hz and about 12ms at 1080p/120Hz. I don’t have the required Leo Bodnar test equipment currently,  but it is reported to be measured at around 23ms for 4K60 and 14ms for 1080p/120. This response time should make seriously competitive gamers very happy.

I’m not a gamer at all, but I’m very glad to see that Sony now has built in support for 4K/120Hz gaming. I am sure that makes many gamers and Sony fanboys happy! This is said to really help with lag and make the game appear to have very smooth motion and puts it more into the realm of more gaming centric projectors and even closer to flat panel performance. The input lag has been reported to be about 12ms in 1080p120 and around 20ms in 4K60. I really do wish I could get into gaming. I see that it keeps getting better with every generation.

Built in sound

This new Sony, as with most other higher end home theater projectors, does not have any built-in speakers or sound capabilities, so you’ll have to mate this up with a home theater surround sound system or a sound bar if you want decent quality audio to go along with your outstanding video performance!

Remote

The remote that’s included in the box with the Sony VPL-XW5100ES Bravia Projector 7 is identical to the one used in the VPL-XW5000ES projector. It provides comprehensive control of the various features and settings provided to the user. It has a classic, ergonomic design featuring a comfortable hold and is quite user friendly and easy to operate. It has a good layout that is intuitive with all the buttons nicely positioned for easy reach and access for pressing. It has backlit buttons to ensure that the user can find the controls without needing ambient room lighting in a room like a darkened home theater. To me this is a must have for any high end projector or any other theater centric piece of equipment if you ask me.

The remote has all the buttons to control all of the essential functions of the projector, including such functions as power, input selection, menu navigation, volume, and picture adjustments. There are quick access buttons available to access the most frequently used features and menus and to quickly switch between the different picture modes to choose which viewing settings to activate for the various types of content being presented.

The remote allows you to easily navigate all of the projector's menu system. There are direct buttons for brightness, contrast, and sharpness, plus many more options when using the directional and the ENTER buttons for various menu selections.

The remote for the Bravia Projector 7 transmits its control signals using IR (infrared) signal protocols, so as we know it needs to be pointed at the front or rear of the projector to operate, so you must have a direct line of sight to either of the sensors located on the front and back. Most times the projector is located in the theater or media room, so using IR isn’t usually an issue, but in this day and age and at the cost of these high end projectors you’d think they would start using RF (Radio Frequency) remotes that don’t require line of sight for those installations that place the projector in a projection room or Hush Box.

Overall, the remote is relatively small and light which makes it easy to hold and operate. It seems to be built with high quality and sturdy plastic and materials, so it should withstand regular use and maintain functionality and its nice appearance over its lifetime.

Connectivity and ports

The Sony VPL-XW5000ES has the same connections and input ports/jacks as previous Sony SXRD projectors, but now with upgraded HDMI 2.1capabilities.

The various ports on the side of the projector include, from left to right:

The onboard control buttons that are used if the remote isn’t available are located on the same side as the input ports. The Standard grounded IEC AC power input port is located on the rear of the chassis. 

Picture Modes (SDR & HDR/HLG)

Cinema (Film 1,2)

What is it for?

These modes are optimized for watching movies. 

What does it do?

They give the image a balanced color gamut with deeper, more cinematic blacks and contrast. 

How does it look?

It is great for reproducing the cinematic look and experience in your home.

Reference

What is it for?

Best for reference movie viewing. It is closest to a calibrated reference specification from standards organizations such as the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF), Professional Video Alliance (PVA) and THX.

What does it do?

This mode sets all parameters and options to replicate a reference color and white balance on screen.

How do these modes look?

This mode will look as close to reference as you can get out of the box without paying for a certified calibrator to come to your home to perform a professional video calibration using professional tools and software.

Standard

What is it for?

Best suited for all around, general purpose TV, sports and movie viewing.

What does it do?

This mode makes the projector ideal present content well for a variety of picture content types without having to change modes often based on the content being watched.

How do these modes look?

Standard Mode offers a well-balanced combination of brightness, contrast, and color that is suitable for presenting many different video sources from TV, movies, games, YouTube, etc.

Bright Cinema

What is it for?

Designed for cinematic content like your favorite movies in brighter environments, such as living rooms, media rooms, dens, etc.

What does it do?

The Bright Cinema Mode increases overall brightness. It’s useful for rooms where higher ambient light is present.

How does it look?

The Bright Cinema Mode maintains the accurate colors of the Cinema Mode along with keeping its good contrast, to overcome any ambient light in the room.

Bright TV

What is it for?

This mode is similar to Bright Cinema, but instead is used for TV and video type content.

What does it do?

Like Bright Cinema Mode, Bright TV Mode increases the brightness but for TV type content instead of movies.

How does it look?

When used in higher ambient light scenarios, it provides a brighter, more vibrant and colorful viewing experience in the face of stray light hitting the screen from overhead and sconce lighting for example. It tries to replicate and look like the normal TV mode when viewed in these types of conditions.

Game

What is it for?

The Game mode minimizes input lag for more responsive first person gaming.

What does it do?

It provides a smoother and more responsive gaming experience than the other picture modes designed for movies and TV where lag and response times aren’t as relevant.

How does it look?

By optimizing the picture settings for reduced lag, it brings out more detail, optimizing the look for color accuracy designed for video gaming. 

Photo

What is it for?

As expected, this mode is for viewing photos and content with deep, rich colors with fine details.

What does it do?

Photo Mode enhances details, sharpness and color gamut. 

How does it look?

This mode changes its settings applicable to making images more realistic and lifelike, trying to replicate what you’d see in your photo album.

User

What is it for?

This projector mode allows the user to create customized settings for your own personal viewing experience tailored to what you prefer or to a calibrated standard using professional meters and software.

What does it do?

Allows you to adjust and save image settings such as brightness, contrast, color temperature, gamma, etc., that can be tailored to your personal preferences.

How does it look?

This mode can be made to look however you wish it to, because it is based on your individual settings.

3D Performance

The Sony VPL-XW5100ES Bravia Projector 7 does not support 3D.  This functionality has been removed on this new model.

HDR (High Dynamic Range)

Out of the box: Bright Cinema Mode

When you measure the Out of the Box settings of User Mode, it has the blue-green, cool push that we normally see from most manufacturers who choose to set it cool to get the maximum brightness from the projector which gives an initially pleasing to the eye image. The colors are balanced to only about 20% and then they slowly go in the opposite directions as the colors move higher up the “IRE” range towards 100. The blue jumps high after 20% until 60% and then drops again, staying level until the end of the scale. Green is at a near perfect reference as it should be. Red drops steadily after 30% and then flattens from 70-100%. 

The HDR EOTF starts well but then lowers and tracks slightly below the PQ reference line for the entirety of the curve. This may cause a slightly dimmer appearance of the image compared to reference PQ HDR.  This could lead to a lack of brightness and image “pop” that you’d normally see with good flat panel HDR displays.

As is the norm with Sony, their Color gamut tracking measures near perfect at 50% with the exception of a slight blue and red oversaturation which can be seen in the Pre-Cal chart below.  This is mostly correctable though, as you will see in the Post-Cal section.

After Calibration (Bright Cinema Mode, HDR)

After completing my manual calibration, the resultant image appears to be more accurate and of reference quality. It is now a more pleasing, calm image that has a more natural look to it. The greyscale flattens to reference and the colors fall together in line on the saturation sweeps, with any deficiencies below visual thresholds of the human eye. 

The first thing I did was adjust the grayscale using the Color temp controls. The Bright Cinema mode was used where the individual R,G and B controls were adjusted until a near perfect linear white balance was achieved. 

The HDR PQ EOTF nearly follows the curve perfectly now, with a hard roll off at the upper range to give great pop and brightness in the midrange without peak white highlights being clipped. This results in a crisp, sharp and punchy HDR image. It tracked ever so slightly high at the beginning of the curve, but this can actually help with shadow details below about 10 “IRE”, but this appeared to rectify itself anyway once the XR processor features like Deep Black Enhancement were re-engaged for normal viewing.

The colors tracked the gamut points pretty well at 50% on the BT2020 gamut chart. As usual, the first color to sputter and give up some gamut saturation is Green, which is what typically happens with these blue laser phosphor light engines without color filters, but this is a design choice because they can rob a lot of light output.  The red is also a tad oversaturated at 50%, but at the 20 and 40% points on the saturation sweeps it tracks spot on, and this is where it’ll be noticed the most.  I just wish these big manufacturers would just go with RGB lasers already!  They are in those cheap Chinese Lifestyle projectors at affordable prices, so I see no reason why Sony, JVC and Epson can’t do the same at the prices they’re charging.  I just saw that Optoma is releasing an RGB laser single chip DLP in a standard home theater style chassis, so it certainly can be done.

SDR (Standard Dynamic Range)

Out of the box: USER Mode

The XW5100ES’ SDR Pre-Cal results performed similarly to the 5000ES out of the box with the blue being very high as compared to red and green, which is what’s normally seen with a bright, cool image.

After doing my normal, quick run through of all modes pre-calibration, the best of them from this new Sony is a mode called USER. This mode is the one I ended up using for my SDR Calibration.

As you can see in the CalMAN SDR Calibration Workflow Chart below, the colors run within +/- 2% of each other across the entire RGB range. The RGB colors track very consistently in this mode, so much so that a new user, even without experience setting up projectors or displays, can get an extremely usable image on screen, right out of the box.  Bravo Sony!

You can also see that the luminance tracks the reference yellow curve very well and the colors and its gamut are near spot on to their respective target points. They’re not oversaturated as you usually see with other brands and models by trying to impress viewers with bright, cartoony and garish colors. All the pre-cal measurements are very close to reference right out of the box.

After Calibration: USER Mode

I knew after the SDR pre-calibration that this was the mode to use for this review of this new, upgraded model. With the results of the Pre-Cal showing the aspects such as grayscale, gamma, color gamut, etc. being very close to reference out of the box, the calibration process was again very easy in the SDR USER Picture Mode. Features such as color gamut, gamma and grayscale easily moved to their respective reference points gracefully. You can see this fact in the Post-Calibration Chart image below. The end result is a nicely rendered SDR image that follows the 2.4 gamma curve near flawlessly.  This curve works very well in darkened home theater rooms that have good control over ambient light sources.

Summing it up

This new entry into the projector lineup for Sony is a great option for customers who want native 4K projection, great contrast and a very sharp and detailed image that appeals to many DLP lovers. It is marketed towards the home theater lover who has a good space with light control and a small to mid sized budget.  

Sony’s new XR Video Processing with Reality Creation results in a sharp, detailed image with accurate colors that Sony sets the standard for. It further comes close to what good DLPs with great lenses offer, with even more razor sharp images than its predecessor along with great levels of contrast. 

Its HDR performance is taken to the next level and is now on equal footing as its JVC competition now that it offers very good Dynamic Tone Mapping (DTM), just as its big brothers do further up the line.  HDR content really pops off the screen with great specular highlight performance and without crushing peak white detail as was seen previously on the old Sony models without DTM, where you had to set your HDR curve manually using a slider control….yuck!

As I have said many times, the only thing Sony needs to do now would be to increase the native contrast of their already great SXRD panels and also add Auto Aspect Ratio functionality for us anamorphic lens users.

If you’re looking to purchase a great native 4K projector that’s bright, with accurate colors, intense image pop with a sharp, detailed picture, I urge you to take a long hard look at this new Sony SXRD projector offering that gives you a new and greatly improved XR Video Processor with numerous new and enhanced features over the XW5000ES and most other brands. It does have a few flaws and features removed, but the new Sony VPL-XW5100ES Bravia Projector 7 is definitely a wonderful choice for you to consider and put on your short list of projector possibilities!