CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

I went yesterday to Cedia to check out what is new. I am going back today and tomorrow, so I really do check out much yet.

Let me start by saying getting in was easy. I arrived at around 4 and I was the only one in line for registration. I know it is Thu, but it didn't look good for a start. When I got down on the floor, I didn't think the place looked to busy. It seemed like there were a lot more blue badges (exhibitors) than red badges (attendees). I am not sure if this is the economy, the location or both.

Anyway, yesterday is going to be thin for a report. I tried to meet up with Crabb, but I didn't get a chance. He seemed hell bent on going to the $100 dinner, so I did not interfere. Smile

Like I said, I didn't check out much. Most of the pj demos are in closed booths and I didn't feel like waiting in line. The new Epsons look pretty neat and I hear the cheaper LCOS model should street for around $2500 to $2800. That will probably be the first place I go to today.

After I walked the floor for half a hour, I met up with Darinp and his friends. One of his friends is Steve Smith, who is a former G70 owner. I bring that up, so he can give another perspective as he knows CRT. We got together at the JVC demo. JVC isn't on the floor of Cedia and had their displays set up over at a hotel. They have I believe five models of pjs. The biggest and most expensive is the 4k for $150k or thereabouts. They had it running on I would say a 20 foot wide screen. Last year I didn't think it looked to good with movie content, bit this year I thought it looked real good. I am not sure what is new, but I will try to ask today. The other models are three new RS60, RS50 and RS40 pjs. They are all 3d capable and supposedly have better on/off cr and ANSI cr. The demos looked real good, but it is hard to tell their true performance in that environment with light spill. The 3d demo was pretty good. This was the first time that I thought this isn't to bad. I am not sure if it was the clip or the pj that made me feel that way. There are still issues, as you could still see flicker. Steve says he is sensitive to it and could easily see that and the ghosting. I didn't think the ghosting was to bad. I am not into nor care for 3d, but for those that are this isn't to bad. The final model is a low end model based on last years tech. The demo was not in a booth, so I couldn't get a good feel for its performance. It is supposed to street for around $2500 or so. The RS40 is supposed to street for between $3500 to $3800. To me, these are the ones that most CRTers would be happy with if they switched.

One final thing, I met Michael Chen(?) of THX and TLV. I asked him about ChromaPure and Spectracal. They are program agnostic, but he did say that ChromaPure follows the same workflow as they use in their THX classes.

More to come later. Hopefully Crabb will have some good pics and his thoughts.

Oh, we decided to stay at JVC as they were catering a dinner after the show. It was nice of them to have us, but the food wasn't that great. Lets just say I spent half the night in the bathroom.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 4:02 pm Post subject: Re: Cedia 2010

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

I wish. Unfortunately, all of the pjs are engineering samples. I don't think the JVCs will be shipping till Dec.

**kal** · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 11:30 pm Post subject: Re: Cedia 2010

Thanks for posting! Always interestd in hearing what JVC has in the works with their latest LCoS models...

**kal** · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 11:36 pm Post subject:

100,000:1 native contrast rating? Wow.

**kal** · Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 12:58 am Post subject:

You're got to be joking. Stewart film screen just lost all credibility in my book. *sigh*
The short story: They've got a new line of screens called 'Stewart Couture Collection' in which they're putting cut SWAROVSKI crystals all around the screen for that 'glam' look.

It isn't April 1st, is it?

Press release:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:51 am Post subject:

Nice screen now wrap the border in black velvet already!

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

I think Stewart is feeling the pains of competition. They must now cater to the folks not really looking for PQ, but ornateness. I'm sure they have a 24-30" gold-plated border screen for those pimping their SUVs.

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:14 pm Post subject:

Still at CEDIA... Trying to get my ass moving and get back to the show... I'll post a bunch of photos tomorrow. Lots of kick-ass stuff to see. Big show, but doesn't seem quite as big as a few years ago when I went in Denver. Lines definitely seems shorter to demos and such, I'd venture to say the economy is probably putting a bit of hurt on attendance by both exhibitors and attendees.

Here's a photo of me standing next to Panasonic's 152" 4x1080p plasma...

SC

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:21 pm Post subject:

This for Kal - Anthem Statement.

Sony LCD w/area-lit LED w/local dimming. You can see the difference in black level even in the iPhone photo. Looked really, really nice.

Sony 3D photos demo...

Sony 3D gaming demo...

My buddy Chad watching some guy playing a 3D PS3 game. Very cool. Might be the 3d "killer app".

Avielo scope projector... They use a TI DLP chip, but only use a 2.40 area of the chip. Single-chip, LED light source. Looked REALLY nice... Smoked every single single-chip DLP machine I've ever seen. Decent black level, but ANSI contrast to die for.

Lexus LFA at the Harman trailer. Never seen one in person before.

More later!

SC

**kal** · Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:39 pm Post subject:

Mmmmmm...... Anthem!

See if you can sneak a peak at the JVC RS60 if it's being demo'ed. Curious to hear your thoughts!

Kal

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

I just talked to Crabb. Will probably meet up with him in about a hour. Kal, I just told him where the JVC set up is. I guess I wasn't clear in my first post, but it was one of the four being shown (the others where the 40 in 3d, the 4k and the low end 250). The 60 looked good, but light spill from outside killed any sort of good evaluation. Plus, I am not sure if these were calibrated even though I saw Michael there.

Kal,
I asked Tom in multiple threads about where he would be and I got no reply. I have no idea what he looks like, so it would have been difficult to run up on him.

A couple of quick thoughts. The new Epsons look really good for the price. There will be some heated competition between the Epsons and JVCs for the low end at $2500 through the mid range of $5k to $10k. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would buy a LCD for over $1500 with these new models coming out.

Cineramax had a huge demo with Cinepro and SMX. The 3d was pretty amazing. Let me just come out and say this, SMX wipes the floor with any AT screen out there. Seymour is good for a cheaper alternative, but SMX is it if you have the money. I wouldn't even consider Stewart or any of the others.

Dennis Erskine had THX certified booth with Procella speakers. It sounded like the life was sucked out of the sound. The movie clip was ok, but you could tell it was missing something. The music tracked was horrible and probably lost them more sales than if they hadn't played anything.

Harman had a demo truck. The Revel/Levinson two channel demo was excellent in a horrible room (which they admit). The other side of the trailer had JBL speakers for movies and was equally excellent.

More later and I will let the camera pro give the pics, as I really didn't take many.

Wan,
Darin and I had a laugh about you trying to get into Cedia. If you want to go tomorrow, then there are plenty of people that will give you their badge. Crabb is leaving tonight, so he won't need his. Even if you don't get one, I guarantee it will be a ghost town tomorrow. They might pay you to come in.

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Met up with Crabb yesterday and took him over to the JVC demo. Unfortunately, he got a divorce from his wife and quickly put a ring on the 4k lens. Mr. Green

He was transfixed by the 4k images and honestly who wouldn't be. It is that good. They did tell me that they are running a new VP. I looked at this a little more critically today. You could literally see a two inch high windmill in the background spinning on a 20 foot wide screen. You can only see pixels on an all white screen at about two feet away.

I talked to Derek Smith of Spectracal. We had a good conversation.

I had dinner with Crabb, his friend Chad, Mark Seaton and Itai of Irule fame. I understand why one would want a hard button remote, but for a Crestron killer remote I would be all over the Irule. It is that cool.

I saw the Wolf demo today. It was pretty good, but I didn't think it was as good as other demos.

Disney is coming out with a test disc that looks to be pretty good for the Joe six pack consumers.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:06 pm Post subject:

Alright, I'm back in the saddle and have a pile of work. I'm going to slip in my quick CEDIA recap this morning, because if I don't, it will probably be the weekend before I'll have time.

So, yeah - Met up with Spanky... It was great to meet him, and good times were had by all eating good food and shooting the breeze.

3D... This was the year of 3D. I joked they should have changed the name to 3CEDIA or 3DEDIA. Sony, Samsung, LG, JVC, Cineramax, DPI, and several others all had 3D setups running. All I have to say is that 3D is pretty cool with games on a direct-view set like a big 46" LCD. Very cool, in fact. Looking at still photos was even fun. But, for front projection, I think it sucks. Even watching the beast DPI Titan (which was very impressive), I had the same reaction I have every time I watch 3D front projection: I flip up the glasses and take one look, and say, "Wow, give me THAT picture! Look at those bright whites, look at those beautiful deep, rich colors!" Put the glasses back on and everything turns to sh*t. So, personally, I think 3D console games in the living room might be 3D's "killer app". For movies, they can have it.

I saw several single-chip DLP machines with LED light source, and I have to say it was the first time I've ever liked single-chip DLP. I saw both the avielo and the eeColor TruVue Vango... Both were beautiful. Great brightness, awesome color, and excellent ANSI contrast. The color gamut with LEDs is gigantic, so they have to be dialed way back for Rec 709. In fact, had an interesting chat with eeColor about their eeColor Processor... Good stuff. I know some people will freak out at the mere mention of doing anything but standard color calibration, but I have to say it looked awesome. They leave the center region of the gamut alone, but stretch the primaries out a little with some crazy 3D math. I guess I'd liken it to using Audyssey or Trinnov to make your sound better, or more to your liking.

http://www.eecolor.com/techsupport.htm

Here's a video demo that sort of simulates the effect, thought without the LED gamut, it's only a simulation.
http://www.eecolor.com/mandy.htm

Saw the new JVC's... The RS60 is beautiful. I could easily live with one. I'd be happy to give up some on/off for the plethora of other improvements over my current picture. Awesome ANSI, decent on/off, great color with no banding to be found, and the only time I could see anything resembling pixels was way, way inside 1x screen width, and even then generally only on bright white on black titles or other high-contrast details.

Like Spanky said, we saw the new Epson Pro Cinema 31000 demo'd. The demo material kind of sucked, but the projector looked great. It has servo zoom, shift and focus with memories, just like the Panny AE4000. The mid-range and higher-end Pro models come with a spare bulb and a ceiling mount, and Epson has a zero-dead-pixels policy. I did see some slight panel mis-convergence or lens chromatic aberration, but this was a pre-production model. They don't ship until I think November or December.

I don't hate digital at all anymore. They've gotten really nice - even at the lower-end. They should be really amazing in a few years - especially when LED-lit single-chip DLP filters down to the lower-end of the market. No more bulbs to change, and the calibration should be much more stable over time.

The new Integra stuff looks great. The new Denon and Marantz stuff looks great, too. In fact, I took a closer look at Marantz' new AV7005 prepro, and it might be a good candidate to replace my Integra DHC-9.9 if I decide to do so. I'm in no hurry to do that, but Integra made it kind of difficult to do so in their line because they split their prepro line in two - one with a much cheaper point of entry, and the other significantly higher.

The AV7005 is nice... It has 6 HDMI inputs, all the new codecs and processing including Audyssey Pro, and balanced outs - all for $1499. Daddy like...
http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/processors/marantz-av7005-7.2-channel-preamplifier-first-look

Well, I guess that's it for now... I'll look back through photos and post some more when I get a chance.

SC

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

Hey SC. Did the Epson Pro Cinema 21000 have the lens zoom feature? Was it there for demo?

I am hoping the 31000 will street for a decent price but it will still likely be way more than I want to spend.

I am contemplating going cheaper on the bulb in hopes that LED light source make their way down to consumer level in a few years.

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

I will have to double check, but I believe it does. It also has a cms. The 21k and JVC 250 should street for around $2500. The RS40 should street for around $3500. I think these are the digital pjs to get in this price range.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

From the Epson website it looks like the 31k gets the ISF cal but the 21k loses it. The general specs for all of the LCoS includes the lens memory but it wasn't clear what else got robbed from the low end 21k.

I agree...if this comes in at $2500 it will be one to beat. I would assume it would beat the Panny AE400...but if the AE400 comes down at all on price it is a pretty nice unit for that range as well.

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Sorry, the Panny would have to street for under $1400 for it to be good. Most people around these parts love on/off cr and the LCDs just have poor native cr.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320