I have been hearing recently that regardless of inferiority in certain categories, a brighter projector can literally outshine a projector with superior sharpness, ansi contrast, etc.

It's not true for me... But for most everybody I meet? the brightest displays are usually picked as best. No matter how good some thing else (less bright but hella more accurate) may seem to me personally.

I have been hearing recently that regardless of inferiority in certain categories, a brighter projector can literally outshine a projector with superior sharpness, ansi contrast, etc.

Looking at the thread title, you've been badly informed as to what machines are the brightest.

Irrespective of display technologies, a bright image can look great. Will that trump genuine PQ factors like sharpness, color, focus, MTF, processing etc.............No, not even close. That applies to all PJ types.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is an imbecile.

no, a brighter projector is just a brighter projector. You can find 4000 lumen projectors out there that dont have the picture of a 700 lumen projector. Now the human eye likes like a brighter picture so if you were to place two projectors in one room with two screens, most people would generally like the brighter picture even if the other projector was better. That is why we never compare projectors that way

no, a brighter projector is just a brighter projector. You can find 4000 lumen projectors out there that dont have the picture of a 700 lumen projector. Now the human eye likes like a brighter picture so if you were to place two projectors in one room with two screens, most people would generally like the brighter picture even if the other projector was better. That is why we never compare projectors that way

Understood...but if it looks better to most untrained eyes, won't it likely look better to me? How long would this last before I grew wise to the illusion?

Understood...but if it looks better to most untrained eyes, won't it likely look better to me? How long would this last before I grew wise to the illusion?
Why do you think it is an illusion? Eyes are not linear vs light level. What your eye / brain is seeing changes with light level. Brighter light level are probably putting you nearer the "sweet spot" evolution has produced for sun light.

This can make some measurement, especially absolute black level, misleading.

Understood...but if it looks better to most untrained eyes, won't it likely look better to me? How long would this last before I grew wise to the illusion?

Not long. One thing about bright projectors is it is easier to see picture flaws than with a dim projector. After a while, you will see those flaws quite often.

I tend to think of it this way: The brightness of the picture IS an aspect of quality in itself. You don't have the same picture with different brightness, if the brightness is different, the picture is different. The picture needs the right amount of brightness to look good. However, there is such a thing as too much light - more light isn't always better. So, if you compare a picture that is too dim but with accurate color etc, to a picture that is bright enough but with inaccurate color, which is better? That is in the eye of the beholder. However, if you start out with a picture that is accurate, with the right amount of brightness, will an even brighter picture look subjectively better? Not necessarily, and especially not if you're not AB'ing them, but just watching them in your own home theatre.

Remember, AB tests really aren't good for evaluating picture performance, in an AB test most people WILL tend to prefer the brightest image, even though that's not what they would prefer in the long run.

Now, having said all this, a LOT of people, especially in the low-end segment of the market, is running PJ setups with WAY too low brightness, so for a lot of people increased brightness may be a very important increase in the image quality by itself.

The trick is to get image quality AND brightness. Most everyone can do one or the other.

One trick to achieve this is use a good higher gain screen.

Understood...but if it looks better to most untrained eyes, won't it likely look better to me? How long would this last before I grew wise to the illusion?

It's the simultaneous side by side setup that makes the brighter projector look better. Trained observers can compensate somewhat by concentrating on factors other than brightness, but even untrained observers will likely pick the dim projector with superior picture as long as they compare them sequentially instead of side by side. The trick is to be able to quickly view one projector independently of another so your memory for each is fresh when comparing.

Said another way the illusion will last until someone brings a dimmer projector with superior picture to your theater. Once your eyes adjust to the lower brightness, you realize the shortcomings of your bright projector. Of course at that point it's too late and the marketing department who chose to blow out the colors to achieve brightness at the expense of accuracy has earned their annual bonus. :)

lets put it this way, if you were to watch movies that take place during full daylight and have bright colors then a bright projector can work fine. The problem is that most movies dont work that way. Typically they are indoors or outdoors with lower level lighting and what really distinguishes the projector is how much detail can you see. Let me give you an example. If you take the movie Gladiator, an early scene has the main character outdoor at night inside a big tent and he is wearing a coat that has fur lining around his shoulders. In comparing my JVC G11 that had about 250:1 and was rated about 1000 lumens to a Marantz 720p that had about 400-500 lumens and was rated about 3000:1 in contrast, the ability to see detail in the Marantz was amazing. You could see the indivdual fibers of the fur on the Marantz and could see detail in the clothes and props in the scene that you could not see as well in the JVC. In the JVC you couldnt see as much detail because the different blacks and grays would all sort of blend in together but on the Marantz, every aspect of the picture could be seen. It was literally day and night between the projectors.

Now with my old projector the ability to have more lumens didnt help me at all as I would have prefered to have the higher contrast ratio. In todays world, just about every HT projector has good contrast ratio but of course some do it better than others. There is a inverse relationship between brightness and contrast. Higher the brightness the lower the contrast and of course it works the other way around. Of course in order to have a great picture, there are other factors involved so I would imagine you could have a crappy projector with high contrast.

In the end it also depends on you. Maybe you want your projector for sports, well then you may want brightness because most people would watch with some ambient light and you would then sacrifice some picture quality for the brighter image. However, if intend to watch movies in a cave with black walls, then brightness wouldn't necessarily be your first consideration unless of course you have a 180 inch wide screen. It kind of depends on your requirements.

I used to think brighter is better but not anymore, once you hit a certain point its bright enough. My W5000 is putting out about 820 lumens and I am perfectly satisfied with a high gain screen (2.4), infact anything to 800-1000 with a high gain screen is perfect for me. Infact putting it to max brightness (close to 1200) I had regular people telling me its to bright its to hard on there eyes and it was not natural, it was like having a flash light shined in your eyes.

Being a plasma owner as well you get great brightness but I am usually toning it down to get a better picture, but its still plenty bright.

On the other side I have had dim projectors though that I hated, it seemed weak and underwhelming, and not immersive.

But imo there is a point where brightness just hurts the picture making it uneasy to watch, and also not to mention can wash out the picture. And colors being washed out is terrible.

So what I learned i dislike dim projectors, but I would not want a projector just because it put out 2000 lumens. I want one thats sufficent with brightness but puts out a great picture, with great colors and great contrast.

The under hand pitcher in the home run derby. Tryg is batting.

OK Tryg. Please give us your recommendation for a higher gain screen. :)

In the end it also depends on you. Maybe you want your projector for sports, well then you may want brightness because most people would watch with some ambient light and you would then sacrifice some picture quality for the brighter image. However, if intend to watch movies in a cave with black walls, then brightness wouldn't necessarily be your first consideration unless of course you have a 180 inch wide screen. It kind of depends on your requirements.

Mine will be almost exclusively for movies. How much is enough brightness? I will be sitting about 8-12 ft. from the screen in a fairly light controlled room. Does the Marantz VP15S1 have enough brightness?

Also, which would you deem a more important factor - the native contrast ratio and black levels of the RS1 or the sharpness and lack of motion blur on the Marantz?

Tom. To answer that one would need the screen size and gain. The viewing distance really has nothing to do with the brightness.

Tom. To answer that one would need the screen size and gain. The viewing distance really has nothing to do with the brightness.

Sorry, say 90-120 inches (maximum). What would you recommend for a screen with no gain, and for a screen with high gain?

Tom. Are you talking diagonal or width? whatever, the range you specified is hough and different projectors may be indicated because of the great range in size. You need to fiqure the sq ft area of each screen size and you can get an idea of the percentage increase in area.Screen gains can be anywhere too. .8, 1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, 1.8, 2, 2.8 for example.

If you are talking 90-120 diag screen size, then the brightness issue is really a moot point because every projector out there can handle that size and includes the Marantz that has traditionally been known for having high contrast and low brightness projectors.

As for screen, there are some who favor 1.0 white screens (which i assume you mean by no gain ) but in my opinion you really need a room where there is absolutely no reflection off the walls. You would probably need a completely black room although I would assume you could get away with other colors. Assuming you have a normal size screen (whatever that means) and you have total light control, then I favor white 1.3 gain screens. AGain depending on your situation, maybe you need a non tensioned screen, then the Dalite HP would be the way to go, maybe you want ambient light, the a gray screen would help.

Tom. Are you talking diagonal or width? whatever, the range you specified is hough and different projectors may be indicated because of the great range in size. You need to fiqure the sq ft area of each screen size and you can get an idea of the percentage increase in area.Screen gains can be anywhere too. .8, 1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, 1.8, 2, 2.8 for example.

If you are talking 90-120 diag screen size, then the brightness issue is really a moot point because every projector out there can handle that size and includes the Marantz that has traditionally been known for having high contrast and low brightness projectors.

As for screen, there are some who favor 1.0 white screens (which i assume you mean by no gain ) but in my opinion you really need a room where there is absolutely no reflection off the walls. You would probably need a completely black room although I would assume you could get away with other colors. Assuming you have a normal size screen (whatever that means) and you have total light control, then I favor white 1.3 gain screens. AGain depending on your situation, maybe you need a non tensioned screen, then the Dalite HP would be the way to go, maybe you want ambient light, the a gray screen would help.

I am talking diag

The under hand pitcher in the home run derby. Tryg is batting.

OK Tryg. Please give us your recommendation for a higher gain screen. :)

He doesn't need you he is pitching to himself.


Art

Tom. To answer that one would need the screen size and gain. The viewing distance really has nothing to do with the brightness.

actually untrue. The further back you sit the more brightness will become important AND the more pleasurable the image will be. This plays out time and time again.

A foot or two in viewing distance will not affect the perceived brightness. The brighter it is the more you will light up things you don't want lit up either like the walls and ceilings. Whether a projector is bright enough depends on how much brightness you want viewing films with a litle age say 400 hours on the bulb. do you want 10 ft lamberts, 12, 14, 18, 20?

The difference in area between a 100"D and a 120"D is about 50%. Brightness will decrease by about 1/3.

I wonder how 3 chip owners can pair it up with a silver star. I heard people talk about it and I used to want one. But Im nothicing anything over 1000 lumens on a screen with that high of gain would be like looking at the sun and hurting my eyes.

With SD material anything over 12fL will start to show up image noise such as compression artifacts. You may even start to see similar noise with some HD material, especially if you go for the 20fL level that is now being suggested by some people (for HD, not SD) but it's less likely.

If you don't see the image noise at higher reflectance levels then you're lucky and a brighter image won't be a problem, but if you do, seeing mosquito noise where solid backgrounds should be for example can be a bit of a distraction.

Gary.

I could not agree more with Gary. Bright images always show more garbage in the source materials. When I have my projectors in the dimmer theater viewing modes almost anything looks respectable.

I could not agree more with Gary. Bright images always show more garbage in the source materials. When I have my projectors in the dimmer theater viewing modes almost anything looks respectable.

If a dimmer projector is filtering out the garbage then it is probably filtering out some of the detail in the image as well. The undesirable stuff (mosquito noise, etc..) is in the image, so any method to suppress it likely suppresses things you don't want suppressed.

A lot of people will happily trade some detail in the image for the lack of noise, so this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is just that you should be aware there are no free lunches, it is just a matter of finding your ideal equilibrium.

12fL +-1fL is the standard for digital theater (+-2fL for film), so is a good guide IMHO and appears to work well for home theater, considering the sources we have.

Gary

I have been hearing recently that regardless of inferiority in certain categories, a brighter projector can literally outshine a projector with superior sharpness, ansi contrast, etc.

Nope. Now it IS true that to an untrained eye...2 similar performing projectors, but with one being substantially brighter...most people would gravitate to the brighter at first. I think that tends to be what a lot of newer people to this field do. After one gets familiar with projectors, though, they will quickly start to see other, more important aspects.

That being said...with the exception of uncalibrated or high end projectors, most of today's offerings are really similar in light output anyways. That isn't my conclusion from specs, but rather from real world measuring with my own 2 hands.

12fL +-1fL is the standard for digital theater (+-2fL for film), so is a good guide IMHO and appears to work well for home theater, considering the sources we have.

Gary

Who wants to be standard? ;)

The question is whether 12 fL became the standard for digital cinema because of limitations on the equipment being able to light up those huge screens, or whether it was determined the most cinematic and pleasing picture is from 12 fL.

I like my theater brighter than "digital theater" standard which is why I have a 2,500 lumen projector (Probably more like 1,500 - 1,800 realistically). I certainly can live with 12 fL if that was my only option, but luckily it isn't.

Who wants to be standard? ;)

The question is whether 12 fL became the standard for digital cinema because of limitations on the equipment being able to light up those huge screens, or whether it was determined the most cinematic and pleasing picture is from 12 fL.

I like my theater brighter than "digital theater" standard which is why I have a 2,500 lumen projector (Probably more like 1,500 - 1,800 realistically). I certainly can live with 12 fL if that was my only option, but luckily it isn't.

Ah, but pertaining to the original poster...you have both brightness AND sharpness AND ANSI contrast...you are cheating. :) Kidding!

I have personally been enjoying watching high def ( of one flavor or another ) at 18 foot lamberts. It looks excellent on the dVision 1080p. We almost never watch SD material.

Ah, but pertaining to the original poster...you have both brightness AND sharpness AND ANSI contrast...you are cheating. :) Kidding!

Haha.. Yes, correct. Pertaining to the original poster your response was spot on. My post was just in response to 12 fL being the standard.