CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[gcom007]

So I've got some ghosting issues on this new NEC 10PG I picked up. Using the S-Video input with standard DVD, no ghosting. No ghosting on the internal test patterns either. However, a plethora of ghosting from the HTPC via RGB no matter the resolution, scan rate, polarity, etc...any ideas?

[jask]

bad cable?

[kschmit2]

most likely source or cable related.

[rtart]

[gcom007]

A guy over a few towns was getting rid of it because he wasn't being used and didn't really have the know how to keep up with it. It's from a clean home installation with minty tubes so I'm pretty happy.

I'll check some of the cable issues, but we'll see. There didn't seem to be any problems with the Barco.

Also though, to do the "plus" upgrades people talk about, what boards do I need to get ahold of? Anything else critical you'd suggest doing right off the bat? I hear great things about this projector but don't know a ton about it so any guidance would be appreciated. Despite all the NEC setup horror stories I've heard, I was able to get it up and running fairly easily sans this ghosting issue. I'm missing scheimpflug and generally more focus control but I'm loving more geometry control. And even with 480i DVD over S-Video (setup just to check the ghosting and for "practice") the colors and general image on the thing seemed great. I can't wait to really see what this thing can do.

[rtart]

There are some threads on this forum about TinMan converting his 10PG to an xtra. Seems that mostly he swapped out some boards. He is a pretty consistent participant on this forum, so he may chime in.

I bought my 10pg about six months ago, and had the same initial questions you expressed. Basically, I did a complete and careful setup and install, and have been very pleased. I upgraded from a 9PGXtra which gave me great service, but the 10pg's additional brightnesss and contrast were a significant improvement. The 9 did give me better control over edge focus and convergence, but the tradeoff in brightness and contrast was worth it. However, I can see why Tinman would take the time to "xtra-ize" his 10pg. I don't have his level of expertise, obviously, so I'm not comfortable going there on mine. As I'm sure you know, tubes for this machine are non-existent, but many of the boards can be used from the other PG series machines. I was lucky enough to find a low-time machine with perfect tubes, and bought it cheap enough to accept the fact that it would be trash if the tubes went. I run the brightness and contrast at conservative levels, and hope for the best.

I looked up info on fan mods, etc., and decided that the noise reduction vs. the risk of heat damage was not a good tradeoff. Some folks were inserting resistors to slow and quiet the fans, but it seemed to me that airflow was calculated to keep the innards cool, and less air equals more heat. These boxes are at least a decade old, so I decided not to push it. The 10pg is no louder than my 9pgxtra, and I lived with that for years. I've considered a hushbox, but haven't gotten that far yet.

I feed mine with a DVDO VP30 via component. I have a HDA35, PS3, HR21 DVR, and a Panny RP82 with SDI mod as sources. I actually bought an HDFury to allow me to use the HDMI outputs of theses source devices, but have not yet taken the time to install it. I use a 120" Stewart M1300 screen, which has a 1.3 gain.

One of the biggest improvements I made in PQ was to calibrate the color using an eye-one colorimeter and the guide and free software available on this website. Amazing difference, and well worth the time. I needed to make gamma adjustments using the VP30 to get my curves acceptably close, but could not be happier with the results. This was, without a doubt, the best tweak I've ever done on a PJ.

If you like, I can record my machine's settings and share them with you as you progress. Might help get you close.

BTW, do you have the H and V connected properly? Seems like I had the ghosting problem when I had them reversed.

[macgyver655]

Kind of a long shot but check your blanking for your ghosting problem. I'm assuming your properly converged for the RGBHV input and memory slot.

[gcom007]

Definitely not blanking or HV sync reverse. I checked and double checked both. What's weird though is that it appears it may be a bit inconsistent, as in, it was on green and red for certain last night but now green is fine and red is still a bit flaky. I'm going to swap out RGBHV cables tonight once I'm home again to see if it's that.

Something else I'm wondering is if the Transcanner's. It came with one and I put the computer input through it b/c apparently it's just pass through but it did say something about c-sync conversion I believe. Maybe I should get that out of the way too to check.

[rtart]

Makes sense. I'd take anything possible out of the signal path and see if that solves the problem.

I'm assuming you have a Dwin Transcanner? Not very familiar with it, but a scaler can cause some wacky things, if not set up properly. Do you have the manual?

[rtart]

Just had another thought... by "ghosting" do you mean bands of colors on the screen, or multiple images? I had some banding (green in my case) when the PJ had too much point correction or lots of position correction dialed in. I had to zero out all of the adjustments and start from scratch to solve the problem. The 10PG was much more sensitive to this than my 9PGXtra. Maybe you could post a screenshot of what it is doing?

[Tinman]

You absolutely MUST use an RGBHV cable that has ferrite slugs built into BOTH ends. Cheap cables ghost or ring like crazy.

As to turning a PG10 into a PG10"plus"....

You need to swap the Video and System card cages themselves. Keep the original PG10 video and gain control boards and use them in the now swapped cage. The system cage gets all the "plus" boards.

Next you swap the deflection board and the F-drive. The F-Drive for the plus has one extra pin, so also swap the signal cable between it and the system cage.

Everything else stays the same.

The upside of this is the enhanced convergence control. Makes setup a breeze, no point needed.

You will NOT be able to use the Astig board for electronic Astig unless you can modify the focus coil assemblies, however, the PG10's tubes are so sharp that it's a non-issue.

So there... I chimed in.

Marc

[gcom007]

Definitely the scaler. I pull that out of the mix and suddenly things are, errr, singular? I've barely gotten into serious adjustments of this thing and I'm very, very happy with it thus far. There's just a certain punch to the picture that my Barco 1208s/E can't quite compete with. Even with minimal calibration, there's just a very obvious difference.

[Mark_A_W]

[rtart]

[rtart]

[quote="Mark_A_W"]

[Tinman]

[Tinman]

[quote="rtart"]

[gcom007]

[rtart]

gcom,

I too had the same issue (I thought) with edge focus on my 10PG. Just couldn't seem to get it as close as I wanted during setup, but on actual video material, the difference was not noticable. Once I thought about it, the vast majority of the picture info is in the middle of the screen, where focus is fine. Parts of the background not being in perfect focus don't seem to be distracting.

If you look at the history of this forum, you can see I agonized over upgrading to the 10 from my 9. I sought advice about whether the difference was actually worth the incremental money, hassle, etc. The advice I got was to do it. In retrospect, ANYONE should upgrade to a 9" LC machine, especially at today's CRT prices. I actually priced new G90's, and they can be bought for around $15,000, as I recall. A Marantz VP-11S2 retails for more than that with a short throw lens, and does not have on-board color management, so add in a scaler. I wouldn't expect it to last 10 years, either.

Now, if there was just an internet forum where people who like CRT PJ's could talk....

[gcom007]

Yeah, it's definitely not as noticeable on video material, but it's pretty rough on the computer, and again, I haven't put a ton of time into it, but thus far, I miss scheimpflug.......