Presentation

Hello Dear Readers,

Today we would like to present to you a very detailed review of the top selling home-theater projector Benq W1070 currently sold for under 700€.

The projector Benq W1070 came to the market about 3 years ago. It is a Full HD 3D projector using the DLP technology so familiar to Benq.

The projector’s weight is 2,65 kg and it measures 31,2 x 10,9 x 24,4 cm. It is very small, which makes it easy to find a place in the living room. The throw ratio varies between 1,15 – 1,5:1. That means that you can get a picture of width 2,60m from 3m between projector and screen only. It also has a mini lens shift, adjustable with a screw driver, which allows for a vertical projection offset between 110% and 130%. It means that the Benq W1070 projects upwards and is thus very adequate as ceiling mounted projector.

The menu of the projector is accessible with the remote control, but also with a top panel on the projector. This can be very helpful in order to use the projector if the remote control is not available or even lost.

The projector Benq W1070 has all connections needed in the back panel including 2 HDMI 1.4 inputs and also a mini USB connection which is very useful to perform the firmware updates at home.

Benq uses the 3D DLP link technology with rechargeable glasses, which allows for a user friendly 3D experience. The original Benq 3D glasses are sold for about 50€, but there are glasses made by other companies, some of which perform even better. The disadvantage of the DLP Link glasses is that you can lose the 3D signal when turning your head and there is sometimes a red tint in the picture due to the synchronisation red flash of the DLP Link technology.

The remote control allows for a quick access to all important functionalities like for example sharpness adjustment. There is also a button to activate the backlight of the remote which is helpful while watching a movie in a dark room. The buttons of the remote control are relatively small and as a consequence the remote is also small and light.

The projector in action

Movies in 2D

Out of the box the projector surprises for its price category with a punchy picture with high sharpness and nice colors. A lot of fun for a small price.

On bright content, it will almost match the performance of 4 times more expensive projectors like the Epson EH-TW9200. When the scene is darker, like most DLP entry level projector, the black turns to grey.

The lack of frame interpolation is visible on film scenes with travelling or a lot of movements where the motion is not really smooth. But in comparison to some even higher end others projectors, the performance without frame interpolation is already impressive.

Below you can see a few screenshots taken from the Blu-ray The Dark Knight and Baraka. You can click on each picture to open it in the original resolution.

Movies in 3D

The Benq W1070 performs well in 3D like almost all DLP projectors. The picture is very sharp and clear.

The ghosting is almost non existent like we can see on our 3d test patterns below.

The refresh rate of 144hz (3 times per frame per eye: 24hz*3*2) is a relieve for the eye fatigue that can occur on some higher end model like the JVC and Sony refreshing @96hz (2 times per frame per eye).

There are however 2 things which could be improved for 3D on the benq W1070.

First, the current DLP Link technology used by Benq uses a red flash to synchronise the 3D glasses with the projector which hurts the contrast on the screen and leaves some red in the picture even if the glasses try to correct this.

Second, for 3D we think here on projectiondream.com that the frame interpolation should be obligatory. It makes the 3D experience much smoother and clearer for the viewer and globally more enjoyable. However, the Benq w1070 does not have frame interpolation.

The “old” Optoma Hd33 and the new Optoma HD50 also DLP projectors have for example such a frame interpolation and it makes a positive difference.

Analysis of the Sharpness

Lens quality:

The single chip DLP projectors unlike the tri-LCD projectors do not have convergence problems. The sharpness is however like always dependent on the lens quality of the projector.

You can see on the pictures belows the DLP grid which shows nicely each pixel from close-up.

You can see on the cross pattern some chromatic aberration with the purple and the green which shows that we are using a low quality lens. It is however to be expected for such a price.

Overall sharpness is still great sitting at a 3,5m distance from the screen and the picture width being about 2,5m. The grid effect and chromatic aberration become invisible!

Sharpness VS Sharpness controls:

Here we make an analysis of the sharpness of the picture with different levels of the sharpness control, the numerical sharpness improvement system of Benq.

On the sharpness test pattern of the reference disc AVS HD 709, we have progressively increased the level of numerical sharpness from 0 to 7 to the maximum 15. We see clearly that the lines but also the numbers show more and more artifacts as we increase the numerical sharpness treatment. Indeed, on the lines we see more and more crosses and on the numbers some white ringing is appearing.

We advise to leave it on 7 which is the default level to get a small sharpness boost.

Uniformity

Our exemplar of the BENQ W10710 shows on a white pattern with 100 IRE a perfectly white and uniform picture.

On dark content however, as many forum users around the world have reported, you get some background noise in the picture. The BENQ W1070 is not the only projector with this problem. In fact, many DLP projectors show this behavior to different degree.

Here a picture we have taken on 4% APL level. You can see clearly some dots on the background which should NOT be there. It should be instead a smooth dark grey background.

Colors: Out of the box

Out of the box, the projector has 5 predefined modes. The mode cinema, dynamic, standard, user 1 and user 2. Every mode was analyzed with the colorimeter i1 Display Pro profiled to the spectrophotometer i1 Pro 2 with the software Chromapure. The measurements were taken off our screen: Elunevision Reference Studio 4K 100 (gain 1).

The mode that is closest to the norm REC 709 is the mode user 1 with a gamma value around 2.2 and an average CIE94 dE of 3.6 for the colors and 6.4 for the grayscale. That’s not a bad performance for the colors but on the grayscale measured off our screen, there is some work to be done. A calibration will be necessary to get the best out of the projector and correct a push of the blue color.

Ideally, you would like to have a flat gamma curve of 2.2 and a CIE94 DeltaE under 2 for all colors and the grayscale. With that, the black will not be crushed, the white levels will not be clipped and the color will be natural and as close to to the movie producer’s choice as possible.

Here are the Chromapure results for the grayscale and the CIE diagram for a saturation of 75% and brightness amplitude of 75%. The projector is positioned with zoom MAX. The lamp has 30 hours.

The picture width projected on the screen was 234cm for all these measurements.

Out of the box: predefined mode detailed analysis:

Cinema

Dynamic

Standard

User 1

User 2

Calibration of the projector

The measurements were taken off our screen: Elunevision Reference Studio 4K 100 (gain 1).

The calibration is based on the “User 1” mode with the lamp brightness put on LOW. Brillant color was activated since it does not produce additional background noise in the picture and DOES provide an additional contrast boost (see in the paragraph contrast later on).

For the color calibration, we used  patterns of 75% saturation and 75% brightness.

• Grayscale & RGB analysis:

The Grayscale after calibration of the mode User 1 shows an almost perfect behavior with a CIE94 DeltaE below 2 from 20% APL level to 90% ADL level. For 10%, this is probably our calibration sensors showing their limit for very low brightness level. However, the 100% APL level showed impossible to get calibrated/aligned with the rest of all others levels. The 100% has a dE of about 6 but this is a not a big problem in real life since you almost never encounter a FULL WHITE picture.

Grayscale (pre=User 1 & Post=calibrated):

• CIE and color management analysis:

The colors in the CIE after calibration of the mode User 1 shows an almost perfect behavior with a CIE94 DeltaE under 0.5 for 75% brightness and 75% saturations for all colors. This is an incredible achievement when looking at the results before calibration!

CIE chart at 75% saturation (pre=User 1 & Post=calibrated):

• Gamma analysis:

The gamma curve is pretty linear around 2.1 between 10% and 80%. For 90%, we have a small “accident” but that has not really an influence on the picture.

Gamma (pre=User 1 & Post=calibrated):

In-depth analysis of all saturation levels after calibration:

For 75% brightness, the Benq W1070 shows a very good tracking within the CIE diagramm, especially for its price class.

However, we see that the CMS of the benq is not as performant as the one of for example the Epson EH-TW9200 (4 times the price of the small Benq). Indeed, we achieved a calibration below a delta E of 0.5 for 75% saturation but we see that the calibration is not as good/valid for other saturation levels on the picture below.

Brightness & Screen size recommendation

The projector is bright even after calibration on the low lamp mode: 907 Lumens with maximal zoom. This is perfect for a screen width between 2.6m and 3.5m.

The highest number of Lumens is achieved in the dynamic mode with 1655 Lumens! It could be usefull to watch football on a bright day.

Please click on the table below to get the brightness for all predefined mode and also for the calibration. A recommandation for the right screen size is also given.

Advanced contrast measurements

A great number of contrast measurements were made to deliver you results that are unique in the world. Actually, in the different tests of projectors around the world you can often find native contrast measurements (ON-OFF with one picture completely black and one completely white) and sometimes ANSI contrast measurements (checkerboard with 50% white and 50% black).

The problem is that these contrast values are two extremes, but most images from movies are in between.

Have a look at our article where we made a big brightness analysis of 53 movies:

http://projectiondream.com/en/movie-brightness-adl-contrast-measurements/

Therefore we have created appropriate patterns in order to give you contrast curves BETWEEN 0% and 50% white in the middle of the screen:

Also our optimized room has the advantage of being transformable into a room with white walls and ceiling. Thus it is easy to compare the contrast performance under very different conditions:

• with opened curtains (comparable to a living room with white walls, reality of home theater in many homes)
• with closed curtains (optimized room with black floor, ceiling and walls)
• measurement at the lens (highest contrast possible, but not reachable in any room)

Illustration of our reversible room:

Left: opened curtains / Right: closed curtains

In the following table are the calibrated contrast results measured in the middle of the screen for the Benq W1070:

To visualize these numbers, here the resulting 3 contrast curves.

The scale on the contrast axis is logarithmic to represent the perception of the human eye. For example your eyes will see the same difference between a contrast increase from 1000:1 to 2000:1 and a contrast increase from 10000:1 to 20000:1.

Remember our results from the ADL analysis (with a gamma of 2.2) of 53 famous movies:

• 90% of all movie pictures have a brightness below 20% (ADL=% of white)
• 80% of all movie pictures have a brightness below 13%
• 50% of all movie pictures have a brightness below 5%
• The average brightness/ADL of all analyzed movies is 8%

The contrast measurements of the Benq W1070 show that the projector has a typical DLP performance. Its contrast in dark scenes is not very high and the black looks grey but bright scenes above 20% ADL look as nice on the Benq W1070 as on the Epson EH-TW9200 for 4 times the price!

CONCLUSION

The projector Benq W1070, currently sold for 700€, gives a enjoyable start into the world of projection at home.

Sharpness and motion:

It delivers a sharp picture, but the lens quality could be better, however not for this price. The motion handling is good, but of course it would be better if the projector had a frame interpolation system.

Contrast:

The contrast behaviour is typical of low cost DLP projectors. With very bright scenes the picture is gorgeous. However, when the movie gets dark the projector shows its limit and what should be black looks grey.

Silence:

The Benq W1070 is not what can be called a silent projector, but it should not be too much of a problem while watching a movie and if it is mounted on the ceiling.

Out of the box colors & calibration:

Out of the box the mode closest to the norm is User 1. The gamma is good with an average of 2.2 and the colors are not bad. Only the greyscale is far from being good with a strong blue push. For the price class the projector can be calibrated very well with good controls. The picture looks very good after calibration.

Brightness & Recommended screen size

The projector is bright even after calibration on the low lamp mode: 907 Lumens with maximal zoom. This is perfect for a screen width between 2.6m and 3.5m.

Positive

– the price of 700€

– the sharpness

– the high brightness for projection in daylight

– the details in bright scenes

– the controls for calibration

– the small size

– the small vertical lens shift

Negative

– noisy

– low contrast in dark scenes

– no frame interpolation

– picture noise in dark scenes

 

• To learn more about us, have a look here at our presentation: The story to our blog

   

• If you like our work and would like to discuss with us, please join us on Facebook here!!