CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[stevecagle59]

Hello everyone..

I'm looking for a little feedback on some project ideas. We are interested in extending the life of the CRT projector in particular the Electrohome/VDC Marquee projectors for the home theater market.

Project 1: Alignment, convergence in particular seems to be a problem area. We are currently designing a new modern system similar to the original ACON. The new unit will setup the projector up from scratch after the mechanical installation is complete. There is even an intelligent assist mode to help maximize the mechanical setup.

Project 2: The rev 3 VIM board that supports blending, they are rare but allow two projectors to have a vertical blend making two projectors into one display. We are considering building the blend board and offering it as an upgrade.

Project 3: A Software application that allows remote control of the Marquee via the serial port for single or multiple projector configurations, that’s a starting point but the sky is the limit. It is kinda handy to have a single point of control with multiple projectors. But, I’ll let you folks come up with the ideas.

So if you ever wanted custom hardware or software to make your CRT projector(s) have better performance and display a better picture, this is the time.

Please send me your wish lists, comments and ideas.

Thanks,
Steve

[Nashou66]

The blending board would be great if it had HDMI input, Right now Moome HDMI cards and external blend units from Analog way and the TV-One units are what we are doing, TV-One actually just sold the entire two batches of their C2-2250/2255 units to mostly home theater enthusiests who have been saving up to blend(I have two of these)

For the blend VIM/softwear it should have 11 to 21 point global gamma adjustments and also possibly the same amount of point adjustment in the blendzone.
Better contrast modulation, maybe 12 zones instead of 9. Better lens' that focus better in the edges for blending.
Really only one Vim would be needed with an output to go to the other Vim, it have to be a package deal like the master vim and the secondary blending input Vim, this would keep cost down especially if it could be an add on to existing Vims to go into slot 2, and if more room is needed it could be added to the area where the quad decoder goes as this is not used in home theater anymore with A/V recivers doing the swithcing and out board scalers.
the new vime should have increased bandwidth to easily handle 1080p@72 HZ or higher.
Aslo a redesihgn of the focus coil, look at the design of the Kanto Denshi focus coil, it has a longer magnetic feild to focus the beam much better and the astig coils are right next to the tube for better spot control, maybe make a electronic contoled CPC magnet set?

Aslo get VDC to sell parts to us, they have refused to sell bellows and C-Elements for us who want to repair or convert our machines to LC units.

Ther eis more but i cant thinkl of it right now, i am sure more will chime in, Are you at VDC or another after market company?


Athanasios

[AnalogRocks]

[AnalogRocks]

[Nashou66]

Way to go analog, I was at work and replied hastily . I think you covered much of what we want, Also make one of those pulley mounts for the PJ out of aluminum or some high stregnth plastic/carbon fiber so its not as heavy as the PJ like the steel ones I have.

Athanasios

[Tim in Phoenix]

Hello

To be useful, the blend board would need to scale, and render left and right image segments and take in HDMI and component.


.

[Nashou66]

[draganm]

[stevecagle59]

Thanks for your great input so far. All ideas will be given significant consideration.

Anyone care to estimate how many Marquee's are out there in the home theater market?

We would be happy to support other CRT brands but we would need detailed technical documentation.

Thanks Again!

[stefuel]

"We would be happy to support other CRT brands but we would need detailed technical documentation. "

A......A........A......., oh I just can't bring myself to say it.

[Tim in Phoenix]

[Elaine Benes]

I'm just curious to know if the plan is to keep the Marquee in the same price range it currently occupies ? I ask because everyone here has a Marquee they bought used for hundreds of dollars, not thousands or, I guess more accurately, tens of thousands...

It would be great for crt projectors life to be extended with factory support, but the pool will inevitably get smaller and smaller if the price doesn't change to reflect the overall lowering of display technology pricing...

[draganm]

[AnalogRocks]

[AnalogRocks]

[Gino]

I'd like to see firmware improvements. From what I've heard, Sony Barco and NEC give more options.

Of particular interest to me would be more zones/point control for RGB focus and convergence.

Also if you could create electronic flare/astig/triangularity controls, that would be an awesome feature.

Also, to be able to adjust geometry for red and blue tubes.

And last on my wish list would be to have a marquee that didn't create banding!

[Curt Palme]

Simple request: A better method of holding the focus and HDM in place. H fails due to the H board lifting up a fraction of an inch are common, and when you've got the set on someone's ceiling with the back heatsink tied up with a wire, the HDM and focus boards fall out of place, shutting the set down.

Make the Ultra convergence yoke connector 'keepers' available to me as an aftermarket item. I'd like to put those white plastic clips on all MArquees that I sell, so that it's impossible to insert the convergence yoke connector off by one pin. That results in 3 hours of convergence board repairs when you accidentally blow them up. I've done it twice this year...

[Curt Palme]

Simple request: A better method of holding the focus and HDM in place. H fails due to the H board lifting up a fraction of an inch are common, and when you've got the set on someone's ceiling with the back heatsink tied up with a wire, the HDM and focus boards fall out of place, shutting the set down.

Make the Ultra convergence yoke connector 'keepers' available to me as an aftermarket item. I'd like to put those white plastic clips on all MArquees that I sell, so that it's impossible to insert the convergence yoke connector off by one pin. That results in 3 hours of convergence board repairs when you accidentally blow them up. I've done it twice this year...

[draganm]

[stefuel]

"nigth"
It also helps you spell.

[antorsae]

I think it should be possible to do a VIM-HD input card (such as moome) with HDMI input and blend capabilities.

I do not think rescaling is a MUST HAVE, having 1:1 pixel mapping (digital domain, obviously) would yield better quality and would make the card easier to implement (you don't need to hold the entire input frame, for one, etc...).

A while back I researched about this and found this:
http://www.microtronix.com/_dat/products/files/96/sendero_pds.pdf

Would would make a good test enviroment to do a blend with DVI in-out capabilities. In the real world, you'd only need the FPGA talking to the HDMI receiver which and then just a 10 or 12 bit DAC.

Conceptually, gamma ramps are easy to implement if done using look up tables, especially if you do 10-bit (or 12-bit) operations (and there is a 10 or 12 bit DAC so there is no posterization due to gamma processing).

The HDMI receiver card could take configuration parameters and store in unused areas of the EDID memory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDID) so even an external USB or RS232 cable would not be required. EDID memory can be extended up to 32 Kbytes so one could easily store 6 separate gamma LUTs (3 channels for the non-blend zone, 3 channels for the blend zone). If the LUTs are 8 bit->16 bit, this is just 3 Kbytes. The only two required parameters are the blend zone size in px (16-bits) and the total of left or right area of the incoming image to display (16 bits can do).

With all the above, one could do an HDMI input card with non-posterization gamma control independent for all 3 channels (RGB) with OPTIONAL blend processing.

[antorsae]

Or better yet, the settings of the in-blend and out-blend gammas could be controlled from the CLM (instead of from a computer retrofitting the communication using the EDID memory, as I previously suggested). I understand the aux VIM card can still send/receive I2C commands from the CLM.

[Nashou66]

Andres, I think you should on their team for doing this !!

Athanasios