As far as the new Sony GTZ380 is concerned, IMO there will be better options for the price range. To be frank the Sony GTZ380 is both disappointing and underwhelming. It is essentially a SONY 5000ES which has be modified to replace the light engine with one which has double the light output and uses blue laser diodes of two differing wavelength plus a red laser diode of single wavelength in order to achieve 100% of DCI-P3 color gamut without the need for a BT.2020 color filter, plus a few tweaks, and that's about it... with a $90K price tag.
Very disappointingly there is not a significant improvement regarding contrast (and hence black level) performance as compared with the SONY 5000ES. And when you double the light output without significantly improving the contrast you double the black floor.
Furthermore, this new flagship Sony projector does not have either a manually adjustable iris or a dynamic iris, the both of which would be able to be used to significantly increase contrast performance. The fabulous Sony 1100ES had such a thing and when new (prior to SXRD panel degradation) it measured circa 300,000:1 peak contrast performance. I was very disappointed when Sony dropped the ball by not carrying this forward from the 1100ES to the 5000ES, however it was understandable given the 5000ES was/is a rebadged professional AV industry / business projector. But with respect to the GTZ380 there is no excuse. Sony has seriously missed an opportunity in this regard. It's pure laziness.
And whilst dual red and blue laser is a welcome step forward from singular blue laser IMO it's too little too late. If this projector had dropped 2 years ago then I would have been more excited. However, as of today you can purchase for the same money as this (and in fact significantly less money) projectors which are full RGB laser. Hence, at this price point and as of today it is disappointing that it is not.
Check this out:
[MEDIA=vimeo]421222465[/MEDIA]
This is the new CHRISTIE GRIFFYN. This has an MSRP of $109,000 and delivers 30,000 lumens light output with a full RGB laser light engine with laser diodes of multiple different wavelengths for each of the red, green, and blue, yielding >96% coverage of the full BT.2020 color gamut (versus only 100% of DCI-P3), that's 3-chip DLP (so has all the advantages of DLP as compared with LCoS, including better sharpness, higher MTF, superior uniformity etc. etc.), similarly silent operation, and is also all-in-one and similar dimensions as compared with the Sony VPL-GTZ380.
The only aspect wherein the Sony VPL-GTZ380 wins is with respect to the ON/OFF contrast. However, I have been so impressed by the CHRISTIE GRIFFYN that we are in process of developing a modified higher-contrast iteration which I expect to measure higher contrast as compared with the SONY VPL-GTZ380 with respect to over 90% of video content. Obviously this won't produce anything like the video performance of the CHRISTIE ECLIPSE however you will be getting superior video performance as compared with the SONY VPL-GTZ380. Consequently I cannot foresee any reason why anyone would want to purchase a SONY VPL-GTZ380 instead of one of these.
As some point in the not too distant future I will do a writeup and post the measurements for both projectors. But for now I would suggest that those considering purchasing a SONY VPL-GTZ380 might want to wait and see the comparative video performance measurements and analysis data.
Very disappointingly there is not a significant improvement regarding contrast (and hence black level) performance as compared with the SONY 5000ES. And when you double the light output without significantly improving the contrast you double the black floor.
Furthermore, this new flagship Sony projector does not have either a manually adjustable iris or a dynamic iris, the both of which would be able to be used to significantly increase contrast performance. The fabulous Sony 1100ES had such a thing and when new (prior to SXRD panel degradation) it measured circa 300,000:1 peak contrast performance. I was very disappointed when Sony dropped the ball by not carrying this forward from the 1100ES to the 5000ES, however it was understandable given the 5000ES was/is a rebadged professional AV industry / business projector. But with respect to the GTZ380 there is no excuse. Sony has seriously missed an opportunity in this regard. It's pure laziness.
And whilst dual red and blue laser is a welcome step forward from singular blue laser IMO it's too little too late. If this projector had dropped 2 years ago then I would have been more excited. However, as of today you can purchase for the same money as this (and in fact significantly less money) projectors which are full RGB laser. Hence, at this price point and as of today it is disappointing that it is not.
Check this out:
[MEDIA=vimeo]421222465[/MEDIA]
This is the new CHRISTIE GRIFFYN. This has an MSRP of $109,000 and delivers 30,000 lumens light output with a full RGB laser light engine with laser diodes of multiple different wavelengths for each of the red, green, and blue, yielding >96% coverage of the full BT.2020 color gamut (versus only 100% of DCI-P3), that's 3-chip DLP (so has all the advantages of DLP as compared with LCoS, including better sharpness, higher MTF, superior uniformity etc. etc.), similarly silent operation, and is also all-in-one and similar dimensions as compared with the Sony VPL-GTZ380.
The only aspect wherein the Sony VPL-GTZ380 wins is with respect to the ON/OFF contrast. However, I have been so impressed by the CHRISTIE GRIFFYN that we are in process of developing a modified higher-contrast iteration which I expect to measure higher contrast as compared with the SONY VPL-GTZ380 with respect to over 90% of video content. Obviously this won't produce anything like the video performance of the CHRISTIE ECLIPSE however you will be getting superior video performance as compared with the SONY VPL-GTZ380. Consequently I cannot foresee any reason why anyone would want to purchase a SONY VPL-GTZ380 instead of one of these.
As some point in the not too distant future I will do a writeup and post the measurements for both projectors. But for now I would suggest that those considering purchasing a SONY VPL-GTZ380 might want to wait and see the comparative video performance measurements and analysis data.