CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

Total projectors...about 13, I think. Four G90s, six Marquee Ultras, one G70, the RS45, and an InFocus LP840 LCD data grade projector that I'm thinking of using to project virtual Christmas decorations on my house.

I've had the RS45 only for a couple of days. I paid 1100 for it but that does include a spare lamp.

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I've spent some time with the RS45 temporarily set up under the Ultra, both being fed the same HDMI signal via a splitter, and I've found some surprising things already.

To summarize it in brief terms, at first the RS45 won in raw sharpness and output. But not much else. Started playing with a bunch of settings, and soon found that I could dramatically improve the picture qualities just by setting brightness and contrast to my own preferences.

With that having been done, the black level is getting really good without losing shadow detail and it's starting to look like it
really can challenge the Ultra in many ways. The image still looks more like film with the Marquee but I attribute that mostly
to the non-fixed-pixel nature of the CRT. At 1080P with anamorphic squeeze the scan lines are touching and there is a very film-like smoothness to the image but yet there is plenty of detail resolution to see as well.

I'm not sure which is the more impressive part: That this digital can be so close to the Marquee's performance, or that
the venerable CRT projector can still fight back and deliver an image that really can't be criticized against far more modern digitals.

The weakness of the Marquee is simply that I'm not able to match the digital for raw sharpness across the whole image area. I can get central focus to be so close to the RS45's sharpness without much of a problem but all the outer focus zones are hit and miss. Some are near zero, others are near 100, others are in the central range, and there's no rhyme or reason to it that I can tell.

Now, if I could get its best sharpness all across the screen in all three tubes, then the whole comparison would become even tougher with regard to picking a winner.

What's most interesting of all is that once I got my bearings, I found that the Marquee could match the brightness of the JVC unit
with the lamp in normal (not high) mode and with the aperture at its typical midrange setting. In fact I found myself dropping the contrast DOWN on the Marquee to try to match up with the JVC. Yet the JVC is not lacking for light output. It's no light cannon but 1300 lumens is quite usable in any average home theater.

Trying to stack the two projectors on the same screen does not work for multiple reasons. One, the Moome HDMI input card on the Marquee processes the image MUCH faster than the JVC does. I'd say that the Moome card gets an image to the screen a good tenth of a second faster, if not more.

There are also some interesting oddities with regard to image geometry. Getting the images to overlap closely would require
a good amount of time spent adjusting nearly every geometry feature and especially linearity, to be followed by an intense convergence adjustment session. With raster sizes matched, nothing else in the two images lines up. I wish my test pattern generators had HDMI outputs so I could see which one has the wonky geometry. I know it's not the Marquee. It's been fully aligned and I know what to align for.

**kal** · Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 10:15 pm Post subject:

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

Do consider that this projector was last used in conjunction with a Lumagen 2020 and the calibrations were applied thru it.

Since I'm going direct from BDP to projector, it stands to reason that the calibration will be different.

I haven't dragged out a light meter or calibrator yet so I can't tell you what my screen brightness is.

My target is "adequate". I do know that there is no reason to run the JVC's lamp in high power mode. It's bright enough in normal mode with the aperture partially closed.

**kal** · Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 11:26 pm Post subject:

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

Blu-Ray Disc Player???

**kal** · Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 11:42 pm Post subject:

Gotcha.

So I don't think it makes a difference to the black and white levels if the Radiance is in the loop. Two level are typically used: 0-255 or the more 'standard' 16-235. That's not really calibration. That's just matching source signal to projector. If they're not matched up correctly in terms of range you'll crush or clip on both ends as the setup is incorrect.

Set your Blu-ray player to "standard" output (not enhanced white or similar) so that it outputs the standard 16-235 signal. Then set the brightness and contrast on your digital projector 0 and 0. Any other setting is incorrect and will clip or crush black and/or white.

Grab a copy of the free AVSHD709 disc and throw up the near black and near white test patterns to make sure you're not clipping or crushing. There's no "calibration" here. It's simply setting the brightness/contrast to 0 and 0 usually.

But then, to confirm that brightness and contrast are correctly on a digital projector you need this sort of test disc so I'm assuming you already did this? There's no other way to do it correctly. You can't "eyeball" it. The best solution is to not touch it at all however: Just set the source to "standard" (16-235) output and keep the digital projector at 0/0 for brightness/contrast. That's the correct setting.

Kal

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I always find that I enjoy the picture more when I move away from "calibrated" to get more dynamic range. "Calibrated" looks rather flat and lifeless to me. I like a more contrasty image with slightly intensified colors.

**kal** · Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:59 am Post subject:

Unlike a CRT projector, using incorrect brightness/contrast settings causes image information to be lost (clipped or crushed).

Examples from my guide:

More info: https://www.curtpalme.com/forum_archived/viewtopic.php@t=35322.html

Kal

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I am aware of that, but I have to learn this PJ for myself by actually experimenting with the settings and seeing what happens when I do.

First things first, I need to mount it on something. It's going on a wall shelf under the Marquee.

**kal** · Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 2:49 am Post subject:

I'm confused then. You originally wrote that blacks on all digitals are not good:

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I have said that this is a new adventure for me. My opinion of the RS45 will NO DOUBT evolve as I learn more about it and how to get the best out of it. I'm sure you can easily understand that. I'm not critiquing it from the perspective of a digital proijection calibration specialist, but from the perspective of a CRT enthusiast with a shiny new toy to play with.

**kal** · Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 3:28 am Post subject:

You may want to wait until you've figured out some of the basics before starting to post your opinions on comparing your CRT projector to your digital. Had you prefaced your opinions on digitals with the fact that you knew nothing about how to set them up, not even the basics, then people would have likely ignored your opinions as they're frankly meaningless.

Instead, you originally post comments like:

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

You are right, and really this never should have even gone in the direction of a review, but I will say that my experiences with the RS45 so far give me every reason to recommend it as an entry level digital projector that has the potential to satisfy even most CRT projection veterans.

jbltecnicspro · Joined: 23 Apr 2016 Posts: 512

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

I was able to test out a DLA-X700R a few weeks ago when it came in for a light engine cleaning. if neither of you have had a chance to experience one of these in your own setup before, I think you both would be rather impressed with it, as this was the only digital machine I ever saw to date with completely black blacks. I honestly didn't know the projector was running unless I looked back at the machine itself. It is one of the best looking images I've seen projected from a digital, even though its faux 4k.

The eShift makes a huge difference when watching movies. I wouldn't have known it wasn't a true 4K machine by looking at the projected image if I never heard of the model before.

I know its not a "Entry level" machine, but for $3000 usd used, I would have to say its worth every penny!

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I actually have seen a digital projector that does black so well it makes you think it's midnight in a coal mine.

Zeiss Velvet, at a trade show a few weeks ago. Price....if you have to ask....I'm sure it was six figures.

They ran demo material on it which was a simulation of nighttime operations at a small airport up in the mountains. I've never
seen such a realistic rendering of shadow detail and dark objects far off in the distance. Yet when it went to full black, there was absolutely no visual cue remaining as to where the edges of the screen were. It achieved that "I've gone blind" effect.

Advertised contrast ratio: 2.5 million to 1. I believe it.

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

I assume it was a laser projector based off of that high CR? Sounds like a machine I need to see!

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

The larger the displayed image, the greater the light fall-off but only because the projected image is getting bigger.
But distance alone should not have anything to do with it.

It's screen size, not projector to screen distance, that affects luminosity.

If you go to a larger projected image, yes, you will get better black levels but your white levels will fall off as well.