New projector issues/ noise in picture/ Sony VPL VW 325es

My guess is that you are either not using some setting in the Sony projector that you SHOULD be using OR that your video has always looked like this, but the processing in the old projector and the old projector's high black level (hard to call DLP projectors as having a black level since it's more of a gray level than a black level). I can't remember the controls on the Sony projector that affect the reproduction of blacks, but read up and experiment. If you aren't using the high-speed auto-iris for example, you're missing most of the black level capabilities of the new projector. Also use a PLUGE pattern to set the black level properly. If this is a new projector, Sony may have changed the function of the Brightness control and the new Black Level control. Their newer use of Black Level means the brightness control has FINALLY been properly named after 80+ years of giving it the wrong name. In projectors, Brightness may no longer mean (black level) but I'm not sure what they are controlling with that adjustment for projectors... iris opening perhaps, but there might be a separate IRIS opening control. The cable you are using might reveal some problems with the Sony projector that were not visible with older projectors. You can experiment with a short HDMI cable between the projector and AVR to see if the images look different with a short cable. HDMI cables are still messing with home theater even though they are almost 20 years old now. There is no need to spend a ton of money on HDMI cables, but the least troublesome cables for long runs are newer optical HDMI cables that move data over fiber optic fibers, and power over copper wires. The newest ones on Amazon have no external power supply device that has to be connected since this new generation of fiber HDMI cable has all the electronics inside the headshell of the connector. These new fiber optic HDMI cables are much less expensive than previous generations that required external power supplies to run the electronics to convert the signal to light and then back to electrical again at the destination. Monoprice.com has a wide selection of HDMI cables that are all priced quite affordably. But you may have to shop Amazon if you decide to try a fiber optic cable as Monoprice didn't have one last time I looked.