CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**kal** · Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:05 pm Post subject:

Excellent score SC!

Should be a huge step up from your 12xx !

Kal

Phil Smith · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 7717

Damn! You lucky bastard! What a home run that was! I think you'll be very pleased with your G70. Mine throws a great pic with over 12K on it. I can't begin to imagine how good of a pic a G70 with that low of hours will have. Congrats!

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:44 pm Post subject:

Clarence,

I had no idea, so I did some research. The manual for the PSS-70 is easy to find, but the PSS-90 manual seems a little more rare. Of course, the manuals for the mounts are the only place where there are good drawings of the mounting plates themselves.

There are dimensions for the mounting hole patterns on the projectors in the install manuals, though. So, comparing the dimensions of the bolt patterns, it looks like they're totally different. For instance, the distance between the back set of bolt holes and the single hole in the front is 21.625", while the same pattern of bolts are only 14" apart on the G70. I guess it makes sense when you think of the size and bulk of the G90 compared to the G70.

If nobody has one laying around, I'll just fab one up myself. I wonder if Curt has any - I know sometimes surplus machines come the plate, while the rest of the mount got tossed or recycled..

SC

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject:

Yes, it should be a hell of an upgrade.

Over the years, I read all those stories about guys getting cheap or free projectors, or some other wicked good deal. It's so sweet to finally have a steal of my own!

Right now, I'm waiting for my buddy to come over to help me set it up. The anticipation is driving me NUTS.

SC

rabies_70 · Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject:

Mr crab sir, now is an appropriate time to say it. VERY CRABTASTIC Thumbs Up

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 3:00 am Post subject:

It's pretty 'crabbtastic' all right. Friggin' amazingly crabbtastic, in fact.

My buddy helped me this afternoon and we set it up on a stand behind my chair. I did a quick setup, but there are geometry issues, convergence issues, flapping not right... basically, it was a mess by any standard. Still... WOW, is this thing SHARP compared to the 'ol 1271. I mean, night/day sharp.

I fired both projectors up so I could switch back and forth instantly between them with PIC MUTE... Wow. Small detail in the background of wide shots are noticeably sharper. That, and the contrast makes for a much more lifelike picture. Switching between the two, the 1271 looked good (I think I probably have one of the better set-up 1271's), but the G70 looked AMAZING.

The problem I can see (besides my horrible setup)... 1080i scan lines are really obvious from 1.2x screen width seating position. Uh oh. I was afraid of that. I'm either going to have to run 1080p, or work on adjusting astig for an oval-shaped dot.

Regardless, I'm really impressed so far - even with complete crap setup.

Oh yeah, it has 150 hours on the clock, now. Wink

It's not all roses (I'm not complaining, mind you). I found out that a bunch of the buttons on the remote are non-functioning, as is the backlight. When I got it last summer, I popped open the battery door, and there were nasty corroded batteries inside. I took the batteries out, but I think some of the acid juice must have run into the PCB. I'll have to disassemble it and see if it's savable.

Also, one time from a cold start, one of the fans didn't spin up and generated an error code. Might have to do the fan mods or at least a replacement or 3.

Man, it's excellent being the lucky bastard once in awhile instead of the UNlucky bastard.

SC

MikeEby · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 5237 Location: Osceola, Indiana

Phil Smith · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 7717

It seems to be a personal preference thing. I can tolerate scan lines more than a soft pic. I'm sharpness freak. Sharpness matters more to me than anything else.

Something to think about when running high bandwidth: The STK chips (I think that's right) on the DC board run hot. The higher the bandwidth, the hotter they run, and running hot might eventually lead to failure. This is an issue with XGs as well.

At least that's my understanding. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject:

I considered that. I'm not sure how tolerant the G70 would be to running 1080p all the time. Maybe somebody else has an opinion. Somebody here is probably doing it, I'd imagine. Isn't there a slight issue with the heat sink design on the XG's STK's? I thought I remembered reading about that somewhere.

I just know that the scan lines are REALLY obvious whenever the screen lights up much. I mean - this this thing is seriously friggin' sharp! That's one thing I still really love about the 'ol 1271. It may not be the sharpest (it's probably only resolving decently something closer to 960x540), but at 1080i it looks like a soft version of 35mm film. There are no artifacts of any kind. No pixels, no scan lines, no nothing to distract you from the image itself. I think I'll kind of miss that in a way. This thing is so sharp, it's going to real a lot more warts in the source(s).

What's your screen size/viewing distance relationship, Phil?

SC

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

Try running 720p. My G70 has very visible scanlines at 720p (so no worries about overlap or anything) but you'd require serious eagle-eyes to see them from 1.2x.

fireanimal · Joined: 17 Jul 2007 Posts: 231 Location: Stayner, ON

What about 840p, that will bring the scanlines closer together without overdriving it. But then again some people are having good luck with 1080p on a G70, and if it works for you go for it!

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject:

I'll definitely have to play with different options after it's on the ceiling. I don't like 720p because there just isn't enough spatial resolution for my liking. Throwing away a third of the horizontal and vertical resolution (with film-source - mostly) to go progressive just isn't worth it IMHO - especially with a projector that will actually come close to resolving the 1920 pixels.

If I wanted to spend a pile of money on a scaler, I'd try something like 1920x800p... but, I don't. Not yet. In a year or two when the next greatest thing comes out and guys are dumping their scalers for a grand that they paid $2500 for a year ago, then I might bite. We'll see - depends on how the G70 likes 1080p, I guess... Oh, and how I like 1080/60p.

SC

**kal** · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject:

I hear ya. I'd love to do 1080i/71.928 but the cost of entry is too high for me now (ie: a good video processor). If I get a new pre-amp with a good video processor built in it lessens the bite a bit. Smile

SC, I think you'll find yourself in Dave and Kal land soon doing 1080i/60Hz. Smile

Kal

Zebu Fellenz · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2567

On my G70 I'm running 1920*800p at 60hz.

It looks great to me. Smile

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

**kal** · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:14 pm Post subject:

That cheap huh? Interesting. I'm in the market for a new preamp so until I figure out which it'll be (Emotiva? Anthem? Something else), I'm just going to sit on the fence a bit longer. $500 is cheap but the hard part for me is finding the rack space, time to set it setting it and the projector up perfectly, etc.

Kal

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:16 pm Post subject:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:55 pm Post subject:

fireanimal · Joined: 17 Jul 2007 Posts: 231 Location: Stayner, ON

If you look around the Lumagen's are being dumped for cheap, 2 weeks ago I picked up a HDQ for $800, and there not even close to being obsolete, and an excellent scaler.