Sony VPL-HS2

The Sony VPL-HS2 was excellent value for money. Really impressed with the picture quality. Blacks seem to be a bit washed out but other than that I could not ask for more. Another great product from Sony

I took delivery of my Sony VPL-HS2 home cinema projector yesterday and have had a great laugh since. It's easy to set up, the manual being one of the most useful I've seen, and you'll have a PASSABLE picture in no time. In my case, this was on the free 70" 16:9 screen.

Don't expect to be able to put this projector way off to the side (as described in all the marketing blurb). Realistically, imagine a 30 degree horizontal arc out from the centre of the screen and that'll be your limit - it's surprising how small an arc that is in reality!

Going back to picture quality - the colours are pretty strong and can be adjusted quite radically to suit and contrast is good especially if you use the optional cinema filter to improve blacks. There's slight evidence of lines but it's better than I expected for the price. I dusted down my DVDs of the Matrix and Attack of the Clones and was rewarded with a lush, pretty sharp picture with plenty of detail and little noticeable blurring. Blacks are a little washed out compared to my decent Sony TV but this pales in significance once you get drawn into the film. A worthwhile exercise is to go through the THX optimiser on AOTC to get the picture adjustments just so, it made a huge difference and lifted my opinion of the projecter ability by about 50%.

Overall, great for the cash and perfect for a first dip into big screen entertainment!