CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[letre]

is there a dedicated section for stacking in this forum? I was just wondering if two stack 8500 marquee stacked is better than one 9500 projector for 1080p?

[Nashou66]

How about Blending

https://www.curtpalme.com/forum_archived/viewtopic.php@t=15737.html


Nashou

[ecrabb]

[CRT_Ben]

Stacking cannot increase resolution, only brightness. On the other hand resolution loss is possible (and probable) due to slight mis-convergence between the two projectors.

[Nashou66]

From What i have seen so far from blending is its lots of work and you really only gain when blending 8 inch machines, blending 9 inch is overkill. But it be also equal to stack 9 inch machines over Blending them. I did stack two 8500's and it is brighter and i was doing 1080p@48 so it was sharp but go any higher in bandwidth and it drops, unless as crab says you set up the stack for mostly scope, and use 800p at 72 hz, this looked sweet! still a bit soft since i was running the higher refresh rate but i liked it.

Another factor is if your 8 inch marquees are ultras or not as doing a side by side stack you'll need the extra geometry functions ultras offer, if normal 8500's then it has to be a top bottom config and there you loose the middle seat in the theater. If you have two 8500's just try it.

Athanasios

[RogueChili]

What about the contrast? My first impression of stacking was the useable brightness didn’t increase significantly. I say useable because to maintain black level the brightness had to be turned down on each projector. The end result of the stack was an output maybe slightly brighter than with one projector.

[Mark_A_W]

Umm....do you know the difference between brightness and contrast?




And I'm in the stacking = blurry camp.

[RogueChili]

So are you saying the useable brightness does increases significantly?

[Nashou66]

Yes stacking is a bit more Blurry than Blending, unless you have G90's with HFQ lenses Like Cliffs, When I saw his stack i was amazed at how sharp it was, from a 1x seating distance and on that weaved SMS screen, it was amazingly sharp and no visible weave pattern, if I had the cash Id go with a SMS screen and move the speakers behind it. Just awesome, it still is the standard all CRT sets should be mesured by, I wish I could see williams Blend this weekend but its not in the cards.

letre, whats your location By the way?

Athanasios

[Mark_A_W]

[Nashou66]

Right Mark, Just ask anyone who went to Cliffs triple Stack meet, they said it was f*cking awesome! Scary Bright with deep blacks.

nashou

[Tim in Phoenix]

[Nashou66]

[SisterOfMercy]

That was also what I was thinking.. If you have to choose between two 8" AC projectors or one 9"LC projector I would surely go with the LC one. But it probably also matters if you are susceptible to halos.

[Kiev Savoie]

Interesting points you guys. I've been seriously considering stacking my G70's for about a month now. The thing that got me thinking about it was someone's comment about how it brings out the black detail and makes the picture really pop. I've been playing with a 1000 hour unit set up for rear projection on a 78" 3.5 gain Draper Diamondscreen and while it's way brighter than front projection, I still have a hard time picking out all the details of a black suit in a scene shot in broad daylight.
But this blurry issue has me concerned. I know it's a hard thing to quantify, but how much more blurry would a stack be and how much would a tight and thorough setup help to lessen it? Now this g70 is my first experience with an EM focusing set. I haven't even bothered to tweak the initial quick-and-dirty geometry and convergence setup and I have to say, I'm still thrilled with the sharpness of the picture. So maybe I wouldn't even notice if the picture were a little soft.

[Kiev Savoie]

Oh, the other thing I keep thinking about is how low you can set contrast and brightness with a stack. My setup right now runs at 40 contrast/50 brightness. With a stack i bet I could easily set them at around 30/30. Those tubes would last forever!

[Spanky Ham]

Kiev,
Are you using any gamma correction? It sounds like you have the classic black crush.

[Kiev Savoie]

Yeah, I have an RTC 2200 in the chain and it is adjusted to peak correction which did help a lot and allowed me to turn the contrast down from 50 to 40. the only thing I have not added to my system at this point is an Hdfury2 and calibration. I'm sure those things would make a big difference as well, but my hunch is you can't beat the raw power of two projectors. To be honest, the technical challenge of a stack appeals to me almost as much as the promise of better picture quality, however if I have reason to believe I would be disappointed or unimpressed with the results, I don't want to waste my effort.
It certainly would be fun to show off to company though, they might think i'm nuts but, what the hell!

[Mark_A_W]

I think we need to have a class about the difference between contrast and brightness....and how boosting the signal and turning down contrast cancel out...

[Kiev Savoie]

I want a setup that can resolve low level detail as well as possible without turning the contrast past mid point, and it seems like a stack can deliver. That is it in a nutshell.