BenQ W2700 4K DLP Projector Review & Comments

ok great thx - must say it doesn't sound like an easy job working with 2 fixed points but I guess it will become clear when I start setting out the mount etc

PS. any good tips of the trade to aid setup?
 
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I've been running an Optoma hd141x for the past five years and still today produces a good picture.

Would you consider the W2700 a significant upgrade?
 
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I've been running an Optoma hd141x for the past five years and still today produces a good picture.

Would you consider the W2700 a significant upgrade?

The answer is 'it depends'. It will be an upgrade, but hard to say if it will be significant. Mostly depends on what you watch. If you want to go to 4K UHD either disc or streaming, and mostly watch movies, then yes, definitely. If you only want to watch standard Blu-ray, general TV or sports, then not so much. Pretty sure the colours from the W2700 will be much more vivid and accurate as it has an RGBRGB colour wheel where the 141x has a white segment which increases brightness at the expense of colour accuracy.

One thing you may notice for sure is the drop in brightness, the HD141 is 3000 lumens vs. the 2000 from the W2700. Benq and Optoma offer brighter models such as the Benq TK800, that would be a closer match but still with 4K support, and there is a high brightness version based on the W2700, TK850, just released in US and presumably coming soon to us soon. The W2700 is most suitable for a room you can black out completely or night-time viewing. It doesn't have to be full 'bat-cave', mine is in a normal living room, but I have heavy black-out curtains as it can't really handle any ambient light.

That said for dark room Blu-ray, and especially 4K movie watching, I am more than pleased with my W2700, it frequently produces images that are jaw dropping, and better than any previous projector I have owned. I was streaming the new series of The Expanse last night, and that looked incredible.
 
Hi
Finally hooked up the w2700 to my electric screen via the 12v trigger but when I turn on the projector the screen drops about 4in then goes back up then it drops fully after the w2700 had finished booting - is this correct?

Thx
 
Have run the BenQ for 3 weeks now and very happy with it. My only issue now is HDR.
It runs on Firestick and PS4 content, and all the menu options are available for it when running, but the colours go crazy. Very bright yellow and green. No colour accuracy until HDR Auto is turned off.
I read on another forum that someone else had exactly the same issue and had the shop swap out the unit. Which seemed to resolve it. I am suspicious of the 10 meter HDMI cable though.
Any thoughts anyone?
 
Have run the BenQ for 3 weeks now and very happy with it. My only issue now is HDR.
It runs on Firestick and PS4 content, and all the menu options are available for it when running, but the colours go crazy. Very bright yellow and green. No colour accuracy until HDR Auto is turned off.
I read on another forum that someone else had exactly the same issue and had the shop swap out the unit. Which seemed to resolve it. I am suspicious of the 10 meter HDMI cable though.
Any thoughts anyone?

Could be the unit, but I would try a few things first.

Try a factory reset of all settings (system setup - Advanced- Reset all settings). Might be worth also trying the latest firmware, 1.0.5, it seems to be OK for most people.

If you turn off HDR Auto, then basically you just turn off HDR compatibility completely, so it is in SDR mode all the time.

Try changing the HDMI format to YUV limited (System setup- Advanced- HDMI Settings - HDMI format), and make sure the PS4 is set to output YUV limited as well. And in same menu make sure HDMI EDID is set to Enhanced.

There is one other setting, HDMI Equalizer, that I never had to adjust, but it is supposed to adjust the gain on the HDMI signal so it might help to play around with it.

You could also try to plug the Fire stick direct to the projector to try to rule out the cable.
 
I tried 2 cables and plugging the Fire stick directly into the router, but no change. I then implemented a Firewall update and the issue was resolved. The notes with the update did say they had a fix for a HDR colour issue. So happy days, all working fine now. Thanks again for the advice! 👍
 
Hi,

3D on this projector it doesn't seem to want to display the 3D image via Plex anyone else had any issues?

also is there any advantages to having the 12v trigger off the projector or receiver?


Thx
 
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I tried 2 cables and plugging the Fire stick directly into the router, but no change. I then implemented a Firewall update and the issue was resolved. The notes with the update did say they had a fix for a HDR colour issue. So happy days, all working fine now. Thanks again for the advice! 👍
I received my W2700 on New Years Eve, had the same issue as you with a yellow display with HDR enabled. My initial thought was it was the HDMI cable, I had purchased a 10m Ruipro cable specifically for use with this projector. Loaded an HDR test file on a USB stick with proved the issue was with the projector. Just as you found a firmware update resolved the issue. It's pretty poor quality control from Benq that several projectors have been shipped with this issue. Wish I had seen your post sooner as it would have saved me some time.
Watched a couple of UHD movies and the football in UHD on BT Sport yesterday. Very pleased with the image quality.
 
Hi Guys, I have a W1700 and would be interested to hear if the W2700 is much of an improvemnet on this. My main gripes with the W1700 is the hassle I have when trying to view 3D movies. Connected to a Windows 10 PC when I change resolution, it takes about 15 seconds for the desktop to display again, in which time the Windows accept prompt has disappeared and it reverts back, you can hear the projector whiring away. Does the W2700 work the same in that it 'patches' the image together to creat a 4k image?
 
I received my W2700 on New Years Eve, had the same issue as you with a yellow display with HDR enabled. My initial thought was it was the HDMI cable, I had purchased a 10m Ruipro cable specifically for use with this projector. Loaded an HDR test file on a USB stick with proved the issue was with the projector. Just as you found a firmware update resolved the issue. It's pretty poor quality control from Benq that several projectors have been shipped with this issue. Wish I had seen your post sooner as it would have saved me some time.
Watched a couple of UHD movies and the football in UHD on BT Sport yesterday. Very pleased with the image quality.
A further update on this.
The firmware upgrade improved it, but it is far from perfect. HDR is still wishy washy with very low contrast and strange colours. Mostly blue cyan. Using the Wide colour gamut filter makes it worse. Colour is even blue. I have contacted Benq and they advised on a reset of the picture mode when using HDR, but that made no difference. So I have sent them photos and a technician looking into it. Will update this once they get back to me.
 
A further update on this.
The firmware upgrade improved it, but it is far from perfect. HDR is still wishy washy with very low contrast and strange colours. Mostly blue cyan. Using the Wide colour gamut filter makes it worse. Colour is even blue. I have contacted Benq and they advised on a reset of the picture mode when using HDR, but that made no difference. So I have sent them photos and a technician looking into it. Will update this once they get back to me.
I hope you get yours sorted, thankfully the firmware update solved my issue.
 
Hi Guys, I have a W1700 and would be interested to hear if the W2700 is much of an improvemnet on this. My main gripes with the W1700 is the hassle I have when trying to view 3D movies. Connected to a Windows 10 PC when I change resolution, it takes about 15 seconds for the desktop to display again, in which time the Windows accept prompt has disappeared and it reverts back, you can hear the projector whiring away. Does the W2700 work the same in that it 'patches' the image together to creat a 4k image?
I upgraded from a Benq W1070 to the W2700 and when testing a 3D movie from my Sony UHD player I found this projector took longer to display the image than the W1070. Once displayed though the picture looked fantastic.
 
Guys anyone able to answer this although I think I know the answer.

Have the projector and a Denon AVR-X3100W AV Amp. Bought a Roku streaming stick+ today. Connected up to the amp and the roku says not HDCP 2.0 compliant so can only stream 1080p.

Next idea was to connect the Roku stick into HDMI 2 on the projector. All OK HDCP 2.2 compliant can do 4K at 60Hz. Great but I do not have audio. So it would appear I cannot put the Roku in HDMI 2 and for HDMI 1 to ARC audio back to the amp.

Now my thinking is maybe I can put it out by the SPDIF optical output?

Has anyone else done this? Not sure if I have a long enough optical cable so I will need to purchase one but if its not going to work it would be a waste of money.

Final point - anyone updated to version firmware 1.0.5 and see any differences?

Cheers
 
Just updated to 1.0.5 it adds ARC under the HDMI settings. Turned it on but nothing going to the amp. Tried 3 different HDMI cables and nothing. Should the amp simply pick it up as I do not see an input to select ARC from the projector.

Again just wondering if anyone has got this working especially under the 1.0.5 firmware update.
 
Silly question however is the projector plugged into the 'Monitor ARC' HDMI socket on the amp?
 
Hi Carl yes afraid so. Did check that myself a few times.
There is something very strange going on.

On the W2700 you turn on ARC under HDMI it immediately changes the SPDIF to on under the audio setting. Messed around with turning them off and on but no change.

Then changed settings within the roku and within plex and started to get a clipping noise on the amp and I could see the PCM light flashing off and on.

So changed to decode DTS/Dolby only and no PCM, no noise but appears the audio signal is steadier. Was then told to turn it all off as I was keeping my son up whose room was next door!!

Will try again tomorrow to see if I can work out what is happening. Think the more stable option may be a long fiber optic SPDIF output to the AV Amp as I did notice some projector issues going between the HDMI roku source and HDMI amp input, such as hanging screen/ split screen etc. Hope thats it just getting confused and not a problem with the latest firmware.

So far found this projector to be a bit flaky and unstable compared with my old W1070, which just worked !
 
ok getting closer. Turned all the audio settings to dolby and DTS and I am getting audio from the roku for apps such as iplayer, sky news, 4on demand etc. but not from Plex!! So its something to do with the plex coding. Anyway half way there but its the plex audio I want working, the rest I really do not care about!
 
Found this elsewhere:

"Make sure you do not have volume mode active. It must be OFF or everything becomes 2 channel stereo PCM. The Roku will change its reported audio capabilities the app reads and this will effectively disable everything except stereo. The same thing will occur when using "private listening" and that is because private listening is also stereo only. We purposely do this to avoid crashing the Roku. We must adapt our capabilities on-the-fly to match these audio changes users make on their Roku. We do not rely on any XML to tell what the Roku can play. All capabilities are read from your Roku device right before playback begins and given to the server at that moment. No exceptions. This provides you with the best playback possible on your Roku at any time. This is how we are different.

To find volume mode simply play an item to the video player. Press the * star button. On that left menu find volume mode. Make sure it is set to OFF."
 
interesting I did wonder what that menu was all about. I have finally given up after around 10 hours of trial and error.

Final conclusions - Roku stick in HDMI 2 of the W2700 - works for video, audio via ARC to AV Amp unreliable, when using PLEX, OK for all other Apps, no matter what settings and I think at least 1 of my HDMI cables is rubbish (the one buried in the wall of course) Also with both HDMI's in use on the W2700 there appears to be issues moving from one source to the other, a possible firmware issue or maybe feedback from the amp? often I would get a flickering screen with just static all over the bottom of it and the rest of the screen green. I have tried turning off all the auto source this and that but no joy.

I have moved the Roku stick to the back of the AV Amp, told it to force 4K 60Hz through Roku setup and that works for Plex, audio and video and all other apps EXCEPT netflix which must be smart enough to see that HDCP 2.2 is not present.

So I can either just use Plex only (which is the main use of the projector) for stored media, buy a UHD Player (but as the AV AMp is not HDCP 2.2 compliant may hit this issue again even using pass through) or replace the Amp, which is about 4 years old I think.

Also option again is to put the Roku back to teh W2700, try with an optical SPDIF cable for audio out to the amp and also replace the HDMI cable. May be worth a cheap punt to see what happens. If I did this and would Plex work? (who knows) but I would get netflix UHD back.

OR buy 2 Roku streaming sticks?

Oh the joys!
 
Hi just come to get the firmware update from the benq website software part and nothing is loading anyone else having this problem thanks
 
Do you mean it's not downloading or you can't get it to update on the projector? I downloaded it a few days ago and it worked fine.
Place the zipped file on the flash drive then extract it as I think it puts hidden boot files on the drive.
 
yep just checked no firmware there anymore. I wonder if they realised its not very stable as I have found out. I have ordered up a new HDMI cable anyway, which is definitely HDCP 2.2 complaint and 4K/60hz checked and definitely has ARC. I was checking again today and 2 out of 3 HDMI's I have do very strange things. Also checked them on the PS4 Pro to OLED TV and they don't appear to work everytime on that either so its worth the upgrade for the price. Went for the Amazonbasics braided one


My other 2 were 10m long with a fair bit of slack so I hope the 7.6m is long enough but will only know once I pull that through under the floor and down the slope of a roof space to where the projector is mounted on the ceiling.

Then will try the Roku back in HDMI 2 slot with ARC back to the amp.

Do you get full audio through ARC? all the appropriate dolby HD or digital an DTS etc.?
OR do you get it through the SPDIF optical output?

or neither?

Will google it tonight but was just asking in case anyone know off the top of their head
 
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Hi ye just a blank page, glad its not just me then, I haven't updated it since i first got it and that was on pretty much day of release lol, long story of getting house sorted after first test of it, it all works fine just need the update as still get flicker when dynamic Iris is on which ive read the update sorted
 

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