I currently have a Sony Ruby with about 500 hours, ceiling mounted, directly overhead from the sitting position and projected on a 106" Optoma Graywolf screen. Seating is about 12-14' straight ahead. Fully light controlled room. We watch movies (preferably Blue Ray) and some classic SD DVDS. I originally had a Panny AE900U which was nice but the upgrade to the Sony was good. Especially and primarily when watching 1080P Blu Ray movies.

However, I still have issues with overall brightness, contrast, color saturation and sharpness that i wonder if an upgrade would help me. I recently saw a fantastic theater with a SIM2 (50$k range projector) and the image was breathtaking. That is out of my price range however. Brightness might be my biggest beef. When there is ANY ambient light, the image washes out significantly.

So has anyone upgraded from their Ruby and been happy with the new results? Are they noticeable or only slightly so? I don't have a budget yet and it may depend on what i can get for my Ruby. I would budget for about 5-10k for the new projector but it will depend on the actual projector and perceived upgrade in performance. I would also consider a new screen as part of the upgrade to get the improvements i hope to get.

I know these requests are so frequent but there seems to be so few places to visit to see projectors in person.

So fire away....

You might want to consider changing technologies to DLP if you liked the SIM2. I think they make projectors that sell in your price range (D80E). I'm sure you'll get a lot of people suggesting the JVC, but this is similar technology to what you currently have and while they have more contrast, they will not improve your brightness situation or give you the kind of shadow detail that a good DLP will give you.

I would recommend the JVC RS1 or RS2 as I think it's a step up from the Ruby.

But your main problem seems to be brightness. The best and easiest way to solve this in your situation would be to get a Da-Lite High Power screen. I think if you do this it will completely renew your enthusiasm for the Ruby. And it should be superior to the experience you are getting with your Greywolf. In fact you could even go bigger.

This is the cheapest and most sensible way to fix your issues.

Thanks for the tips. They both sound interesting.

Tyrg:
I have tried a few screen suppliers to try and get some samples of the screen materials with no luck. I am reluctant to buy a screen just to try it out. Do you know of any suppliers that lend (or sell) sample swatches like the DaPower? Any reason i couldn't use the Da-Lite High Power with an electric pull down setup? Alot of posts have said the same as you about the improvement in pq with the HP...

Pete:
Good point, i will try and find another demo of a Sim2. The setup i saw was someone's showroom quality HT. I think it was a screen research AT 110" screen and the color, sharpness and saturation of the movie CARS was astounding (even with some ambient light!)

The only showroom near me for HT was Harveys and they sucked and went out of business. They were Runco this Runco that blah blah.

1. Read my High Power review below

2. Get a sample from Da-Lite

3. Yes electric is a good choice and are very affordable. Call AVScience for pricing

I just called D-Lite directly and they are sending me a batch of samples. It should be an eye-opener when i get them. I hope the High Power material does for me what it sounds like it has done for you (and others) because that would save me a bundle!

I received a sample swatch booklet from Da-Lite and want to try some tests with my Ruby to see if any (like the High Power) are a good upgrade for me. Can anyone recommend a method of putting these to the test?

For example, can i use blue painters tape to attach them to my existing graywolf screen without damaging it? Its either that or asking my wife to hold them up and that wont last long :)

What kind of image should i use for evaluations (light, dark, color, etc.)? Should i just use a Blu Ray movie like Pirates of the Caribbean via my PS3? Any other tips or things to look for? The samples are only about 12"x12" of about 10 different surfaces.

The sample will only tell you how bright the screen will be. To do this throw up a ANSI checkerboard pattern and then just hold the material up in the white and black areas.

A sample wont tell you a lot of other things a full screen will. Again, you will have to read the review below for that or search the forum.

...or give you the kind of shadow detail that a good DLP will give you.

What are you talking about? The RS2 (and to a lesser extent the RS1) should have superior shadow detail to any DLP unit unless the dlp unit has some janked out gamma in the low range but then you'd be left with light grey blacks partly defeating the whole point since good shadow detail is IMO useless when the black level is crap. I have to wonder when I read some of the stuff on these forums...



To the OP:

I do agree that one of the Sim2 units would be a good idea since they apparently have good brightness and respectable on/off CR and obviously a sharp image.

The RS2 would be ideal as well except for possibly the brightness and I have no clue if it would be "bright enough" or not for you. It is bright enough in my light controlled room with the same sized screen and I have recently played a bit of GTA4 on it with lights on in the back of the room (to be able to check out the paper map) and the image seemed fine even with that ambient light. Still, if brightness is the biggest concern then the Sim2 DLP units seem like the best choice that I can think of right now. The RS1 is brighter than the RS2 and I'd think the RS1 would be plently bright for your situation but I would probably look at the Sim2 units over the RS1. Having owned both the rs1 and now the rs2 I can easily say the RS2 is worth the increase in price and is in a different level of performance (not saying the rs1 is junk as it is a great performer) but the RS2 may be too dim for you...again, I have no idea and you'd have to see it yourself to know.

Can you position your projector to be closer to center of the screen? If so, that dalite HP could give you that brightness punch that you are searching for with your current projector. If you want brighter than that, a RS1 is pretty dang bright. The RS2 has better image quality but isn't as bright. Going from a gray screen to a HP would be a dramatic difference if done right.

My Ruby is ceiling-mounted directly overhead from my sitting position by about 2-4' from my head (i think is is about 12-14' from the screen). The projector is probably about even with the top of the screen. And because i am tall, and the ceiling is low, i think i have a pretty direct angle at the screen. I see from experience how off-axis viewing suffers with my Optoma Greywolf by the way. Its a long narrow room mostly just two of us sitting on-axis.

Again i am hoping a HP screen will do what i want so i can save some $ and milk the Ruby for many more hours...

Also, i just tried GTA 4 and needed to dial up the brightness (in the game) to max because in some scenes i couldn't even see the main character! But that seems normal for alot of these games even on a plasma.

Where do you live ? If you are in Northern California ( your profile doesn't say ) I have a Hi Power tripod screen you could try.

Thanks for the offer. I am on the right side of the country not the left (NY) :)

I will see if these samples help. If not i may take you up on your offer.

+1 on the high power screen.

I bought mine after reading Tryg's review and I could not be happier. It was very inexpensive (<$400 + s/h) for the pull down "model C" in black. You will probably need to lower your projector a lot to get the most out of the screen, and to keep the gain uniform across seating positions. My PJ (VW40) is at 4'6", sitting on top of my equipment cabinet, 2-3 feet behind the seating. My screen center is about 4'8". The image shoots just over my head if I sit up straight (which I don't usually do when viewing). I calculate my my gain right at 2.2, which gives me about 26-27 FtL @ 450 lumens. I love it. I can stand, sit, move left to right, and the gain change is imperceptible with this setup.

I would highly recommend the "all screen gain calculator" from this forum to help you figure out what your gain will be with different setups. It was a big help to me. I don't remember the poster who created it, but they did a nice job.

Good luck!

the ceiling mount does diminish the magical HP effect a bit, but it might still work for you. It will probably be difficult to tell exactly how much better it would be without a larger sample though.

FYI: If I ceiling mounted my PJ (8 ft from floor), my gain would drop precipitously to 1.2. If I dropped it down to 7ft, gain increases to 1.4 (6ft = 1.7, 5ft = 2.0). This is based on the calculator, I have not actually tried this to see how it looks.

I understand how brightness changes by axis becusae i see the effect currently with my graywolf. Frankly i do not know how i could have a more on-axis setup without the projector sitting on my head or being right in front of my head or right behind my head :)

When i stand (and then my eyes are literally right next to the projector lens) i do see the best brightness from my current screen. But that situation is undoable for regular movie watching for me. I think i am close to on-axis as i will get.

yeah the falloff is large. It seems like if the gain were down to 1.2 or 1.4, you might be better off with a carada etc.

I notice you indicate that your room is light controlled. Are the walls dark? If not, some dark paint and/or wallpaper might be a cheap and highly effective upgrade.

The walls are leafy green and the ceiling is white. I have convinced my wife that black may not look bad as a ceiling color :) And a new wall-to-wall carpet may help in a darker color.

FYI: I setup the Da-Lite screen samples over my existing Graywolf and was BLOWN AWAY by the high power material. The Matte White and High Contrast Matte White were nice too but the HP was a huge difference. It allowed me to see details in shadows that are simply not visible on the other materials. For example, i can see wrinkles on peoples faces and the textures of wood flooring when before i could not (in Casino Royale blue ray).

So i think i am sold on the high power. I am slightly off-axis with the projector above my head but it is still fantastic. And i may decide to reposition the projector behind me (more on axis) to maximize the brighness.