Did you guys see this yet. Sorry if it is a repost.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/ae3000_hw10_shootout.htm

With respect to Full On/Off contrast, the AE3000 is rated at 60,000:1 contrast compared to the HW10's 30,000:1. Despite the huge numbers, this is actually a rather small difference in visible contrast on the screen, since a subtle change in black level can create a large swing in on/off contrast numbers.

Why does PC refuse to post measured On/Off contrast of these machines?

Why does PC refuse to post measured On/Off contrast of these machines?

Why/what good would it do.PC does a great job at reviewing fp's.Their reviews are more for the normal person than the nutcakes on this forum.Every HT room will effect the contrast so what's the point.Both fp's were givin great reviews as being excellent.What else do you want.

Why/what good would it do.PC does a great job at reviewing fp's.Their reviews are more for the normal person than the nutcakes on this forum.Every HT room will effect the contrast so what's the point.Both fp's were givin great reviews as being excellent.What else do you want.

Sorry, but this is just asinine. Only HT rooms with ambient light will affect on/off CR. But more to the general point, we need measurements to filter out the BS that manufacturers give out. For example, if Panasonic claims a 60k:1 on/off CR and only delivers 3k:1 native and 13K:1 dynamic when calibrated while the Sony, which claims 30k:1, actually achieves it, one might think that the Panny has a better CR than the Sony if nobody published measurements. Same thing with lumens.

If you bought a sports car, would you pay any attention to horsepower, torque or any other specs? If so why? They all probably go fast.

Why/what good would it do.

Because they've decided to start quoting ANSI Contrast measurements. It seems very odd to me that they'll state measured ANSI, but in the same breath quote the manufacturer's On/Off but not measured On/Off.

That makes it look like they only state measurements when it's advantageous to their favored technology. If they don't want to use measurements at all, that's fine, there are valid reasons for a reviewer to not go into measurments, but you just can't go around only stating the positive measurements. Cine4Home measured On/Off that was (when calibrated) nowhere close to the 60,000:1 spec. Sorry but it just seems like PC is trying to cover up the fact that, while much better than the AE2000, the AE3000 still doesn't compete closely with SXRD or DiLA in On/Off.

PC does a great job at reviewing fp's.Their reviews are more for the normal person than the nutcakes on this forum.

The problem is the way they are presenting information is very confusing and potentially missleading "Our AE3000 gave an ANSI contrast reading 446:1, while the HW10 registered 416:1. With respect to Full On/Off contrast, the AE3000 is rated at 60,000:1 contrast compared to the HW10's 30,000:1."

What does that say? Nothing useful, just adds confustion.

And then there's this nugget:
"The AE3000's slightly higher ANSI contrast and incremental edge in black level combine to make it appear to be a little bit higher in contrast than the HW10."

Which is just confusing. The ANSI measurement say's nothing about black level, and the black level superiority could well be due to the AE3000's lower light output. The only way to provide a clear picture of both is to provide all the measurements they took. With the ~25% difference is light output between the two machines it's very possible for the dimmer machine to have better black level, yet lower contrast.

Either give all the relevant measurements or none. Providing only part of the measurements just creates confusion and the appearance of impropriety.

Every HT room will effect the contrast so what's the point.

ANSI will be affected greatly, On/Off is only affected by ambient light. So PC is quoting (by that logic) the more worthless of the two contrast measurements.

Both fp's were givin great reviews as being excellent.What else do you want.

Simple, if you're going to quote ANSI CR, give On/Off as well. Both are important to understanding the PJ's performance.

I believe ProjectorCentral discussed their take on the worthlessness of On/Off contrast measurements in another article a while back (actually I thought I remembered two articles on the subject) and so I don't see any contradiction in their choice to not bother with it. I personally think it's probably a very difficult measurement to take accurately when the numbers get up well into the tens of thousands... the differences at those low light levels are soooo small it becomes difficult (and really expen$ive) to get consistently accurate measurements especially over time and even tiny errors (variations) in measurements can have huge consequences in the final tallied contrast ratio. There is a good possibility that PC doesn't believe they have the equipment and facilities/environment to take repeatable and accurate measurements and so if that be the case I would think it probably be better off for them to not publish inaccurate/highly variable measurements and rather think they should simply mention their personal subjective opinion, which is what they've done.

I personally think it's probably a very difficult measurement to take accurately when the numbers get up well into the tens of thousands... the differences at those low light levels are soooo small it becomes difficult (and really expen$ive) to get consistently accurate measurements especially over time and even tiny errors (variations) in measurements can have huge consequences in the final tallied contrast ratio. There is a good possibility that PC doesn't believe they have the equipment and facilities/environment to take repeatable and accurate measurements and so if that be the case I would think it probably be better off for them to not publish inaccurate/highly variable measurements and rather think they should simply mention their personal subjective opinion, which is what they've done.

The way you get around a high on/off contrast is to place the light meter really close to the lens. Yes, you may run into issues with the "range" of the meters in question, but this will only really apply to something like an RS20 where the maximum and native contrast are the same. If something has a 3,000:1 - 7,000:1 natice CR, you can measure that with meters costing just a few hundred dollars (e.g., CA813, EA33, etc.).

On/Off contrast will be heavily dependent upon what the light floor of the room in question is, but ANSI will be affected by the reflectivity of the room. If they have a grudge against the former, then they really ought not to publish the latter since it is eaven more environment-dependent.

Bill

I believe ProjectorCentral discussed their take on the worthlessness of On/Off contrast measurements in another article a while back (actually I thought I remembered two articles on the subject) and so I don't see any contradiction in their choice to not bother with it.

Well if they really think On/Off performance/measurement (not specs) are meaningless, then we should have even more problems with their reviews. On/Off is, by far the easiest image attribute to observe.

I personally think it's probably a very difficult measurement to take accurately when the numbers get up well into the tens of thousands...

On/Off is far, far easier to measure accurately/meaningfully than ANSI, if they can get reasonable ANSI measurements then they have the setup to properly measure On/Off.

the differences at those low light levels are soooo small it becomes difficult (and really expen$ive) to get consistently accurate measurements especially over time and even tiny errors (variations) in measurements can have huge consequences in the final tallied contrast ratio.

As Bear5K said, it's really easy, you just stick the sensor close to the projector (either looking into it or facing a "screen" that's very close to the screen.

There is a good possibility that PC doesn't believe they have the equipment and facilities/environment to take repeatable and accurate measurements and so if that be the case I would think it probably be better off for them to not publish inaccurate/highly variable measurements and rather think they should simply mention their personal subjective opinion, which is what they've done.

Well if that's the case, they should say so. But again, ANSI is much harder to measure, and if they can manage to measure ANSI accurately, they can measure On/Off accurately.

If they can't measure on/off accurately, then we should question the validity of their ANSI measurements.

On/Off contrast will be heavily dependent upon what the light floor of the room in question is, but ANSI will be affected by the reflectivity of the room. If they have a grudge against the former, then they really ought not to publish the latter since it is eaven more environment-dependent.

Bill

That's really what it comes down to, they should either state both, or neither. Neither measurement is terribly useful in isolation, though from what I've gathered so far in my projector "expedition" I think On/Off is probably of more interest/value than ANSI. On/Off is easily correlated to the picture you see on the screen, while ANSI is much harder.

I believe ProjectorCentral discussed their take on the worthlessness of On/Off contrast measurements in another article a while back (actually I thought I remembered two articles on the subject) and so I don't see any contradiction in their choice to not bother with it.One thing I find a little strange is that in that article (which I am not endorsing since I think there is some misleading stuff in there):

http://www.projectorcentral.com/contrast_ratios.htm

they basically put down contrast specs, but now seem to give measured ANSI CR values (for whichever mode gives the highest number) and on/off CR specs. As others have basically mentioned, it is ANSI CR that is affected by pretty much every room, so just a little weird to put down CR largely because of rooms and then only give the measurements for ANSI CR, while mentioning the spec for something where they basically put a whole article telling people to ignore that spec.

For a site that published that article about ignoring CR from projectors they sure seem to be stuck on putting CR out there as one of the main differences between projectors they review (which I don't disagree with overall), but seem to be stuck on ANSI CR. For instance, in the Samsung SP-A800B review at http://www.projectorcentral.com/samsung_a800_projector_review.htm they say:
Contrast and black levels are good on the SP-A800B, but not as good as we currently see on the competing 1080p models that have just been released. ANSI contrast on our test unit measured 369:1, which is modest compared to other DLP projectors we've seen this past year. The LCD and LCOS projectors that have appeared this fall are producing higher ANSI contrast as well (Panasonic AE3000, 443:1, the Sony HW10, 416:1, and the Mitsubishi HC7000, 409:1). To be sure, ANSI contrast stats don't tell the whole story, but the fact is that each of these 1080p projectors achieve visibly deeper blacks and higher contrast when viewed side by side with the SP-A800B.I haven't measured an A800 myself, but wonder if it really has lower ANSI CR than those others (especially in movie modes) and have my doubts about the CR differences they saw by eye between it and those others really being due to the ANSI CR and not the on/off CR and maybe other factors.
Yes, you may run into issues with the "range" of the meters in question ...Just wanted to mention that this is a problem on the low end (some of these black levels are getting pretty low for a meter even close to the projector), but for overall range of a meter between white and black there is an easy workaround. If putting the meter close to the projector to get a good black level reading means saturating the meter for white, just measure the ratio between 20 IRE and 0 IRE close to the projector and the ratio between 100 IRE and 20 IRE from close to the screen. Then multiply the 2 ratios. The result is the ratio between 100 IRE and 0 IRE. This of course assumes that the ratios are the same close to the projector as at the screen, but that has to be true in general for measuring the light a little ways from the projector to be valid anyway.

--Darin