CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Gannon

Heh.

Sounded too good to not headline.

I got a call from a fellow near Milford with a Dwin HD-700 that had just started sizzling instead of turning on. I have a spare, so I loaded it up in the Vue and drove out to make his work. It was likely the power supply.

Turns out I did the original installation on this unit...just before moving to LA for the magazine work...and the guy had only 2500 hours on it in over ten years!

Swapped out the power supply, put the thing back up on the ceiling...and dialed it in. He was feeding it with the HDMI output of his Yamaha surround processor, into an HD-Fury II convertor. The Dwin requires negative synch, so we had to insert the HD-Fury Game HD-15/HD-15 gamma control with synch invert.

The image from both his Sony BluRay and Cable TV box was stellar, easily one of the tops I've seen with HD.

His WAS very low hours, but it held its own against the new technology. Beat most of the rest to death, actually.

Cheers, long live CRT.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:49 am Post subject:

I was watching a Sony D50 with 3500 hours on it locally that has mild streaking it it, set up by a well known local ISF guy. (Richard Stokes). Superb looking at 3500 hours.

The customer was all, yeah, it's old, I need 1080p, blah blah.. and I think I talked him out of pulling it down from the ceiling for another few years. I'll be back... after the playoffs... to pull the set down and change the bad caps in it.

Gannon · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:51 am Post subject:

The D50 was the Dwin's only natural competitor, other than perhaps the Zenith 900. But the Sony's industrial design, especially that Scheimphlug adjustment, always makes me grin. Such a tight little package, discontinued before its time, too.

dmorse6736 · Joined: 07 Jun 2011 Posts: 2

Hey, I'm guy from Milford. Gannon comments it "dazzles" is an understatement. It's perfection. I was really great to find the originally installer to do the quick repair as I trusted him.

Yes long live the CRT. It is alot of fun to dazzle as guest with the system only to say, I've been watch that for 10+ years now. Hopefully with 4 more to go. And I promise I'll accumulate the "hours" faster.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:19 am Post subject:

I have to say, that last version of 7"/8" tubes (P16LNG) are amazing for ES focusing. Sharpest ES focusing tubes I've ever seen.

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

the only real problem with the Dwins is they're too small and too quiet Mr. Green

JayAllan · Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 175 Location: Los Angeles

I have two and I love them! Need to replace one power supply on my backup though.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:15 pm Post subject:

I just sold one this weekend to another CRT convertee. A Craigslister that bought a $100 subwoofer off me, he saw the sets in my shop, and proceeded to tell me how crappy his $2000 digital was. Smile

HE came back this past weekend to demo a DWIN 700, was blown away, and bought it on the spot. As soon as he hangs it and runs the HDMI cable, I go and tweak it.

Jeremy112 · Joined: 28 Sep 2006 Posts: 2649 Location: Fond du Lac, WI

I've been looking for one of these sets for cheap to give to a friend, from what I've read the HD-700 is THE set to get if your going to go for an ES focusing one. I like the fact that its small, virtually silent, and the design of it is very industrial Very Happy

Theres one on FeeBay for $84 buy it now but he wants the $150 shipping and he has no remote for it which is apparently required (like the NECs) to do anything with... If only I knew it worked and lived a weee bit closer!

dmorse6736 · Joined: 07 Jun 2011 Posts: 2

Gannon, or Curt Palme,

Since the repair I've noticed a new anomaly. It occurs mostly on a scene change. Immediately after the scene change, the image, only for a few frames (like 100 ms), seems "washed out" then goes to good color. I've never noticed this before. Thinking about the update, we deleted the transcanner and went direct to the projector through the Fury II and the Gamma (something) for the negative sync. (Note, still doing all outputs scaled up to 720p through HDMI) Maybe I'm thinking to much here, but could it be related to either? I haven't played with the Gamma slide bar yet but almost seems like, upon as scene change it needs a few samples to set the saturation level. Once it gets the color controlled, its good until another scene change. (By scene change I mean like indoors,darker, to an outdoor scene or vis versa). I may be noticing the same, but to a lesser degree, when the seen changes background light. Such as following a horse in the shadows or back straight away. I saw it on Secretariat (lots of inside the stable, then outside, and in/out shadows, and I then I noticed on Social network. Any ideas? thoughts.

TheVerge · Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 928

Jeremy112 · Joined: 28 Sep 2006 Posts: 2649 Location: Fond du Lac, WI

gjaky · Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2802 Location: Budapest, Hungary

Gannon · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 3:27 pm Post subject:

Oh NOs!

I just heard from this gentleman...the projector died over the weekend. Headed out within the next few days...

Yucky.

TheVerge · Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 928

^^ no good

I see somebody from AVS has put his dwin up on ebay. Shame i'm about to lose my jerb or i would really consider it.

Gannon · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:41 pm Post subject:

Heya Dale!

I just caught your post...sorry no followup.

We'll look into that once it is working...please remind me.

Cheers, see you tonight.

Gannon · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:57 pm Post subject:

OK, it is up and running...so far so good!

Yay, Curt. You are my hero once again.

Cheers from just ahead of the storm...got a whopper comin' in from ChiTown now.

Gannon · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 2:40 pm Post subject:

Big lesson on this one. BIG lesson.

"Stop when you're ahead."

I got the projector running, then we remembered a 'tear' in the image in the exact top-center...prominent in green, slight in blue, none in red.

No problem! I had my parts mule with decent tubes...so once again, projector down from the ceiling...swapped the tubes...remounted it (again) for convergence and tweaking.

THEN I finally remembered his complaint from above about the hiccups in black level retention. When a scene would change from dark to light or back...the overall brightness (not peak white, that is another thing) would 'surge' for a moment...just enough to be distracting.

Often, the G2 voltage is the baseline for such band-aid circuitry...it was all-too-common for designers to introduce a circuit that tracked overall image brightness, and slid black into gray during bright scenes in order to TRICK the peak white measurements that so many used to use to compare products.

So, I revisited the G2, then realized that I left my Video Essentials BluRay at someone's house (fess up and give it back...) and decided to use the Disney WOW disc to see if any of the pots on the main board would narrow the timing of this surge.

Using the internal service menu, where the hour meter hides, there is an option for G2 which must be chosen before setting the fine pots on the video drive boards (he doesn't use the gross ones on the focus block, they are not connected to anything). I should've stopped at that...because it truly solved the problem. But the Disney test pattern was still surging a little bit...and in my quest for perfection I went wandering around the pots on the main board...which we have NO documentation for, and only a casual understanding of SOME of their functions.

The last pot I tried to reverse-engineer was that one available through the hole in the faraday cage around the digital board. It was the very last thing I was going to try. My metal Extron screwdriver...which long ago shed its rubber insulation...barely touched the tiny metal exposed on the variable resistor, and shorted on the faraday box.

And I toasted the projector. Vaporized the mf'er. At three in the morning.

Returned the following day, because he had a huge party on Saturday, and we were intent on making this thing shine...but he had a backup. He purchased the new Sharp 17000 3d, after much research, and said if the Dwin wouldn't work we'd 'temporarily' install it. At least back when he was holding a projector with only 2400 or so hours on it.

I worked on the Dwin for hours, but didn't have a mint main board or power supply in my hands...so by the time he got home from work, we set to installing the Sharp.

When I was calibrating IT...I slipped in that Disney WOW disc to set black and white levels (although I like the patterns on Stacey Spears' and Munsil's Benchmark Disc better) and discovered THAT THE DAMN TEST PATTERN HAD THE f*cking SURGE I WAS TRYING TO 'CURE' ON THE DWIN HD-700!!!!

So, my mistakes were minor when viewed alone, but in aggregate ended up catastrophic. Let this be a lesson for all. Use test patterns you know. Never use an uninsulated metal screwdriver on variable resistors when the projector is plugged in. Don't wander through undocumented variables, unless you are ready to face the consequences.

A coda, though. The Sharp 17000 was defective, out-of-the-box. Overall it looked quite good, but in areas of high contrast there were odd vertical lines everywhere. It will be replaced later this week...but damn.

So, now we've got a mint-looking black-cased Dwin HD-700 that will be whole...looking for a new home. He has the HD-Fury 2 or 3 HDMI adapter and the matching Game thingie with the gamma adjustment and negative synch switches. I'm sure he'll sell for a reasonable price...but I'd rather install it, so if anyone in a decent drive from Detroit is looking for a killer picture, this will be a nice catch.

I may buy it myself, and then get rid of the NEC XG-85 currently in my viewing room...

Cheers, humbly,
John
Detroit

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

I have seen the Sharp and it is pretty nice except for lack of on/off.

As for WOW Disney disc, do as Leia says "Run, run far away." I have inside info that the disc is really flawed. I would use Spears disc instead.

Gannon · Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:12 am Post subject:

Yeah, but Stacey didn't put every possible test pattern on it...there are things I used the Joe Kane disc for, and then used the Spears & Munsil for their incredible patterns that show things the Digital Video Essentials doesn't.

I'm still pissed at myself for losing that disc! There were only a few customers where it could be...but I haven't tracked it down yet. I'm too cheap to buy another one just yet, LOL!

I didn't even OPEN that Disney disc until a month ago (I got it at last year's CEDIA!), and never looked at it on my reference system...we had a wee bit of water trouble this year with all the rain. <sigh>

Thanks for the warning...it IS amazing how a company like Disney could screw up something so basic, but if anyone remembers...when THX put test patterns on regular DVDs, their first offering was on Fight Club...and THEY got things wrong, too.

Cheers,
John