Viewsonic PJD6531w

Peak Brightness (11.47)

The PJD6531w includes a range of different image modes, but we found the brightest to be the appropriately named Brightest mode, which we measured as outputting an impressive 3177 lumens, almost spot on to the rated 3200 lumens. The movie mode decreased the brightness somewhat, with the output dropping to just over 2000 lumens. Running the projector in the ECO mode also dropped the light level (down to about 2300 lumens in the Brightest mode), but did significantly reduce the fan noise and the power usage.

In our calibrated mode (which is our recommended settings for movie watching), we found that the brightness was reduced significantly, with the lumens falling to 1074. The main reason for this significant drop was that we turned off the BrilliantColor setting, as this adversely affects the color accuracy of the projector. While that is not an issue for business use, it is a problem for watching TV and movies.

On our test screen, this 3177 lumens translated into a screen brightness of 513 Cd/m² (Candelas per square meter), which is as bright as a decent HDTV. The brightness in our calibrated mode for watching movies was significantly reduced, though: we measured that at 172 Candelas per square meter.

Peak Brightness

Tunnel Contrast (5.15)

The brightest whites that a projector can produce tell only part of the story: you also need deep blacks on the screen. In this test, we look at how deep the blacks are, and how well they hold up when they are on-screen with a lot of white. To do this, we measure the level of an area of black in the middle of the screen, and surround it with an increasing amount of white. With a perfect projector, the black level would remain constant. In practice (and with this projector), it doesn’t; the level of the blacks climbs slightly as the amount of white on screen increases because light bounces around inside the projectors optics. That seems to be an issue with this projector: although the blacks are nice and deep when the screen is mostly black, they get significantly lighter when there is a lot of white on the screen.

Tunnel Contrast

Uniformity (7.75)

A good projector produces a clean, uniform picture without splotches of light or darker areas. We didn’t see any issues with the PJD6531w’s uniformity. Although the light level varies across the screen (see our measurements below, with the projector in Brightest mode), it does so in a smooth, uniform fashion that produces a clean, attractive look. The chart below shows the measured lux values on our test screen (an 80-inch model), and the photos below show how a white and black screen look. Note that these have been enhanced to show the differences: the images you would see on the screen would look a lot more uniform than these.

Uniformity

We found that the PJD6531w produced clean, smooth images with only minor uniformity issues. White screens get a little dim in the far corners, but this was only really noticeable on an all-white display.

White Screen	Black Screen

Greyscale Gamma (10.00)

We measured the greyscale gamma (the slope of the curve which determines how quickly black transforms into white) at 2.19, right inside the ideal of 2.1 to 2.2 that we look for.

Greyscale Gamma

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