When it comes to projectors, it’s hard to argue with Sony’s dominance in the custom electronics marketplace. Looking to reaffirm its status as a go-to projector manufacturer, the company has just announced its new BRAVIA Projector 9 (VPL-XW8100ES) and BRAVIA Projector 8 (VPL-XW6100ES) projectors.

Sony explains with the release of its two new projector models that it now offers integrators a choice of models to address a range of consumers. The existing VPL-XW5000ES 4K projector can be used as Sony’s entry level home theater solution through features such as the ability to deliver up to 2,000 lumens.

Stepping up to the 4K BRAVIA 8 Projector, which we’ll get more into shortly, the projector is designed for custom installation with features such the ability to produce up to 2,700 lumens of brightness. The new BRAVIA Projector 9 was developed to support luxury home theater installations through the ability to produce up to 3,400 lumens, and the existing VPL-GTZ380 remains as the company’s flagship laser projector through options such as the ability to produce up to 10,000 lumens of brightness.

Sending me a BRAVIA Projector 8 to try for a couple of weeks, I got to experience some of Sony’s design goals with its latest projectors, which include almost turnkey out-of-box high image quality.

Sony BRAVIA Projector 8 Features and Setup

Besides the technologies that Sony incorporates in its projectors, another one of the company’s engineering considerations is the fact that it wants to make the projectors home friendly. What I mean is that it could easily rebrand one of its large commercial products and call it a residential unit—but Sony doesn’t do that. With a physical footprint that is smaller than many of its competitors, the BRAVIA Projector 8 weighs just under 31 pounds.

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Underneath the familiar industrial design of the product are Sony technologies such as its native 4K SXRD chipset, along with its Z-Phosphor laser light engine, and Advanced Crisp Focus (ACF) lens. Sony stresses the BRAVIA Projector 8 incorporates its XR Processor for Projector image processing that powers amenities such as XR Dynamic Tone Mapping, XR Deep Black, XR Triluminos Pro, and the XR Clear Image processing options.

Some of the other features the projector provides include HDMI 2.1, which allows for the support of 4K at 120Hz and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) to help improve the gaming experience with the BRAVIA Projector 8 if it is connected to sources like a Sony PlayStation 5.

Moreover, despite the fact that Sony developed the projector to be almost turnkey in its installation it has improved the accessibility to calibration options such as color correction, color space and gamma correction, and it has improved the projector’s ability to match up with 2.35:1 and 2.40:1 aspect ratios.

Additional Features

• VPL-XW6100ES (BRAVIA Projector 8) is rated to produce up to 2,700 lumens of brightness
• The projector incorporates the company’s Z-Phosphor laser engine
• Sony states the BRAVIA Projector 8 employs its Advanced Crisp Focus Lens
• Internally, the projector features Sony’s proprietary XR Processor for Projector
• Options include HDMI 2.1 to support 4K at 120Hz and Auto Low Latency Mode
• The BRAVIA Projector 8 measures 18.1/8 inches (W) x 20.11/32 inches (D) x 8.9/32 inches (H)
• Sony specifies the projector to weigh just under 31 pounds

Setup was simple. Once I pulled the approximately 30-pound BRAVIA Projector 8 from its box I placed the unit on my projector shelf, which is roughly 12 feet from a Screen Innovations Zero Edge 16:9 screen that features SI’s Pure White 1.3-gain material. From there I connected a FIBBR HDMI 2.1 cable from my Integra DRX-3.4 AVR to the Sony’s HDMI 1 input, and I plugged in an AudioQuest NRG-Z3 power cable to the projector. I concluded the physical connections by plugging in the power cable into an AudioQuest PQ-707 power conditioner.

Moving onto the fine tuning of the projector’s setup, I grabbed the remote—I inserted a pair of “AA” batteries into the remote—and using the remote’s lens control buttons that control the motorized lens, I was able to size, shift and focus the projector to align with the SI screen.

Entering the BRAVIA Projector 8’s menu system I wanted to see how the projector would fare straight from the box, so I made a handful of adjustments to begin watching content with the unit. For picture mode I selected “reference,” I left NR (noise reduction I assume) to “off,” color correction “off,” HDR in auto mode, color space I set at “Rec. 709;” I set the input lag reduction to “off;” I turned off Reality Creation, and I set the Motion Flow processing to “smooth low.”

Later, I would spend about 10 minutes fine tuning basic functions such as black and contrast levels, and I would check for color accuracy.

My conclusion is that Sony has met its goal of producing what could be considered as a close-as-possible turnkey projector solution. For what it is worth, in my opinion there will never be a truly turnkey solution because of variables such as room environments with a TV or projector, and then with a projector you can add the variables of the distance to the screen, the screen size and screen material.

With all of that said, Sony’s BRAVIA Projector 8 is as simple as it gets to install. Additional steps like what I took will provide a few percentage points of improvement to make a difference, and a full calibration—especially from a Jason Dustal or Joel Silver level of calibrator—will produce even more improvements, but this is as good as it gets realistically with just pulling the projector from the box.

BRAVIA Projector 8 Performance and Final Thoughts

I was fortunate to still have a Kaleidescape Strato V in my house for about a week during the time I had the Sony projector. The combination of the Kaleidescape system with the Sony BRAVIA Projector 8 rivals Brady to Gronk.

With the Strato V feeding the projector uncompressed, 4K HDR content movie such as the Fall Guy and Gladiator looked pristine. I could nitpick the “out-of-box” look of the content and a slight loss of low-level detail, but I could easily live with the images the Kaleidescape Sony combination were producing.

Watching streaming content from apps such as the History Channel and Disney+ the BRAVIA Projector 8 also produced good-looking images. Focusing on Dr. Oakley Yukon Vet from Disney+ I thought the projector produced beautiful images of the natural scenery and wildlife in the Nat Geo series. Seeing how finely detailed images like the animals’ fur and the fineness of their coats without image noise highlighted the detail capabilities of the BRAVIA Projector 8. The same was also true for season two of House of the Dragon from Max. Seeing the highly detailed fabric color richness of the actors’ costumes, along with the fine ornate stitching and other adornments of the costumes all looked great with the projector.

After making a couple of adjustments to the brightness and contrast levels and checking the color accuracy, which I found to be really good, I watched the latest Rurouni Kenshin movies that were recently added to Netflix.  Those few minutes of simple contrast and black level adjustment increased the dynamic capabilities of the projector, which is capable of deep blacks and punchy whites to add to the projector’s overall image quality. The XR Processor for Projector processing really helped to keep pace with the Samurai fight scenes. I did not notice compression artifacts, judder or maybe just as important: The softening of images because of overly aggressive image processing.

Admittedly I don’ t know the price of the BRAVIA Projector 8 yet, but I think considering the its slotting in the projector lineup it will price competitively. Speaking of competitiveness, with the release of the latest Sony projectors I came away thinking that Sony has upped its game with the BRAVIA Projector 8, and after spending a few weeks with the unit I think not only will it become the company’s best value solution, but it may also end up becoming the entire home projector category’s best value proposition.

Through the projector’s nice image dynamics, fine smooth detail, rich colors and deep black levels, I highly recommended checking out the Sony BRAVIA Projector 8.

CE Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Straight from the box the BRAVIA Projector 8 produces fantastic looking images
• Supporting the previous “pro,” basic setup is straight ahead and easy
• Image processing is smooth, black levels are deep, high levels of color richness

Cons:

• This isn’t a “con” more than an observation—I can see the BRAVIA Projector 8 becoming the sweet spot of the Sony line.

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