BenQ & accuracy
In this business — writing and thinking about home entertainment equipment — there are two basic philosophies. Two philosophies that affect what we hear in our listening rooms, and what we see on our viewing screens. Two philosophies that can sometimes reach the same end result, but often diverge.
One of those philosophies is that equipment should create the best subjective experience for the music listener, for the movie viewer. The other is that equipment should deliver the signal with utmost fidelity. That is, of course, why we even use the term ‘high fidelity’.
In the real world, equipment usually instantiates both of those philosophies to some degree. Many TVs include motion smoothing features. Clearly, that’s all about subjective experience. It actually reduces accuracy, in papering over production weaknesses which result in picture judder in the first place. But I have yet to see such a TV in which that feature cannot be switched off. One might do so because most times such ‘improvements’ also do physical picture damage. Or one might do so simply to see precisely how the picture was shot.
I’m firmly in the fidelity camp, so when I visited BenQ headquarters in Taipei in May this year, I was instantly positively disposed towards its message: ‘accuracy’.
I would have liked to bring you photos of BenQ’s research laboratories and testing facilities and, even, production lines.
But BenQ HQ has none of the latter, while the former are completely off-limits to visitors. Instead, a group of five BenQ staff greeted me and led me through the company’s development philosophy for its home theatre projectors. Unbidden by me, the focus was on accuracy. In particular, colour accuracy.
The head of the BenQ Color Lab, Eric HC Tsai, was one of the BenQ group. He works closely with industry professionals — cinematographers in particular — to ensure colour accuracy. As BenQ says, accurate colours are required to “Deliver the atmosphere and emotion from the director precisely.”
BenQ shared remarks from film producer Jake Pollock about the importance of colour, and how astonished he was to see the colour in his movies presented in just the manner he intended. The device producing it? A BenQ home theatre projector. As it happened, I hadn’t heard of Pollock. A quick check of IMDB revealed that he has been cinematographer or director of photography on nearly 30 movies over twenty years. Most recently he’s been working on lush Chinese and Hong Kong productions.
BenQ’s two latest UltraHD projectors — the entry level W2700 and the premium W5700 — both feature this commitment to colour accuracy. Talk is cheap, but actual tests mean something. Each individual projector is run through a calibration test after it is produced. The printed calibration report is provided with the projector. This specifies the serial number, so you know it’s for the physical unit you have installed in your home. It also states the measurement conditions, including the instrument used to conduct the test. Finally, two graphs are shown. One shows the colour gamut produced by the projector in three different modes, including DCI-P3. The other shows how closely the projector tracks the 2.2 reference colour gamma curve.
BenQ says that the each individual unit of the new projectors will only be sold if it meets specification. For the W5700, that’s one hundred per cent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. For the BenQ W2700, that’s one hundred per cent of the REC.709 gamut and 95% of the DCI-P3.
A reminder: DCI-P3 is the industry standard colour gamut used for digital cinema film production and exhibition. If you nail that, you’ve achieved real accuracy.
BenQ also pointed out that the formal HDR standards don’t actually apply to projectors. Nonetheless, it has aimed to provide a HDR experience with them. The projector which so astonished Jake Pollock was a new version of the now-venerable W11000, called the W11000H. That one has HDR-like enhancements.
The W5700 and W2700 both feature dynamic irises to deepen black levels during dark scenes.
As is BenQ’s practice in its lower cost projectors, the W2700 incorporates audio capabilities in the form of two five-watt speakers. As is ‘my’ practice, I was quite dismissive of this. I’m of the view that scale matters: a big picture demands big sound.
But after the presentation, we toddled along to BenQ’s impressive screening room/ lecture theatre where both the W5700 and W2700 were set up. There they played some Avengers on a 100-inch screen, with the sound produced using the W2700’s speakers. I was impressed. I most certainly still believe in scale. But the small speakers were loud enough and clean enough to produce listenable sound for someone sitting three metres away in what was a very large room.
Stephen Dawson