Confusion has set in.

I picked up a JVC dvd player for the letterbox support and all my viewing thus far has been with anamorphic titles. I just tried out Office Space which is non-anamorphic and I get black bars all around the projection. When I switch the JVC to 4:3 LB mode and 4:3 on the projector, it's bigger but still surrounded on all four sides with black. When I switch the H30 to window, I can fill my 16:9 formatted screen but the image is swished (squeezed in on the sides).

Am I missing something?

The new adjustments you're seeing in user 1/2 have me curious. I'll have to take a look. I never used the user sets, sounds interesting. Next time you're in the service menu see what firmware number you have?

A quick check in the service menu shows "C07 May 28, 2004".


PS - I just finished watching ROTK. First movie I projected in 6 weeks. Even with my unfinished calibrations, I am still blown away! I'm back in love with front projection, and especially with my H30.

Hey Guys,

I turned Gamma down to 1 instead of 2. I then reset contrast and brightness. That seemed to pretty much clear up the dithering problem.

I also recently watched "The Usual Suspects" and there is a scene at the beginning of the movie where everyone is questioned under a hot lamp. The glow around their faces from the lamp was very clear and did not blend in with the background. It was the same effect I originally reported when I got the H30 with the "Glowing Fish" on "Finding Nemo".
Anyhow, setting Gamma to 1 cleaned this up as well. I still have very slight dithering, and a very slight glow effect, but they are not distracting now.

The only movies I have seen this glowing effect is Nemo and Usual Suspects, so it isn't a problem that pops up in every movie. The dithering I see in most movies. Usually no more than 1 or 2 scenes for a second or 2. Spider-Man is probably the worst, as the whole scene at the end on the Bridge has dithering.
As far as Rainbows, I see them on some scenes, I wouldn't say they are completely gone. I know some people have seen them on 5X wheels too.

I believe turning down gamma lowered my brightness, but now I get full shadow detail where as before I had to turn contrast up to high to to cover the dithering. Pretty happy with the results, finally. Thanks for the User1 tip Gotta, I can use that for my PC and DVD, along with watching TV shows like Buffy that are on DVD. I have only watched Buffy so far, but it is very dark and doesn't look very good with my default settings, good to know I can save some different ones for stuff like this.

Originally posted by Del Laird
Confusion has set in.

I picked up a JVC dvd player for the letterbox support and all my viewing thus far has been with anamorphic titles. I just tried out Office Space which is non-anamorphic and I get black bars all around the projection. When I switch the JVC to 4:3 LB mode and 4:3 on the projector, it's bigger but still surrounded on all four sides with black. When I switch the H30 to window, I can fill my 16:9 formatted screen but the image is swished (squeezed in on the sides).

Am I missing something?

The JVC will have a 16.9auto and 16.9Normal. On my XVS500 I can use 16.9auto and it automatically plays both anamorphics and non-anamorphics. But on my JVC723GD I have to set it to 16.9Normal to display a non-anamorphic dvd. Try either one on your player. 4.3Letterbox is for 4.3TV's only. Your H30 without the firmware is a natvie 16.9 display.

Originally posted by jeff442
A quick check in the service menu shows "C07 May 28, 2004".



PS - I just finished watching ROTK. First movie I projected in 6 weeks. Even with my unfinished calibrations, I am still blown away! I'm back in love with front projection, and especially with my H30.

That's the latest firmware number next time I have my projector on I'll check for those user adjustments.

To give you an idea on using the advanced RGB user adjustments. Here's what Evan at Projector Central had to do to get a green bias out of the picture and get excellent color balance.

"On our test unit, we boosted red and blue contrast to +15, reduced green contrast to -8, raised red and blue brightness to +11 and reduced green brightness to -11. "

Try to see into the balance and math of these numbers. Ok they had a green bias so he increased the red and blue and decreased the green by about half the margin. +15 vs -8

Now with the RGB-brightness they used two thirds the amount on the increase of red and blue +11 vs +15.This is good because in general brightness numbers should stay somewhat less than contrast numbers. He also matched the minus green to -11 from +11's on there red & blue.

Try to use this format for deleting color bias. You may need to vary things sightly but in general this math balance is a good start.

Originally posted by hikarate


I also recently watched "The Usual Suspects" and there is a scene at the beginning of the movie where everyone is questioned under a hot lamp. The glow around their faces from the lamp was very clear and did not blend in with the background. It was the same effect I originally reported when I got the H30 with the "Glowing Fish" on "Finding Nemo".
Anyhow, setting Gamma to 1 cleaned this up as well. I still have very slight dithering, and a very slight glow effect, but they are not distracting now.

The only movies I have seen this glowing effect is Nemo and Usual Suspects, so it isn't a problem that pops up in every movie. The dithering I see in most movies. Usually no more than 1 or 2 scenes for a second or 2. Spider-Man is probably the worst, as the whole scene at the end on the Bridge has dithering.
As far as Rainbows, I see them on some scenes, I wouldn't say they are completely gone. I know some people have seen them on 5X wheels too.



I seem to have the same problem as you hikarate. I get a strange glow around objects on screen, but its most noticeable on faces. Playing with the brightness and contrast seems to lessen it though.
I notice it on ROTK, the very first scene when the camera zooms out from the worm on the fish hook. Just at the right hand side of the actors mouth.

I watched Spiderman last week and noticed the dithering being quite bad in those scenes as well. I have tried turning down the RGB brightness equally which seems to help, although I would have thought that would have the same effect as turning down brightness in the picture menu. Anyone know ?

Thankfully I don't have any old dvds that are non-anamorphic and all new releases I pick up are anamorphic titles (or I wait for the proper release). I purchased an H30 that's operating on old firmware (c03 according to the system) and I'm wondering:

How can I tell if my dvd player is going to be able to properly display non-anamorphic titles on the 16:9 screen we've set-up? What will it look like if it CAN and CANNOT handle it?

I'm not convinced upgrading the firmware to the latest release is something I want to do since all we wanted this for was the 16:9 projection (no tv or gaming is done through it).

Happy 4th everyone! Beers are on Optoma. ;)

Mitsuko

Without the firmware the NA dvd will fill the width ok but the height will be squashed. Not many players allow letterbox support. JVC's, new panys, old pany RP91 is all I know that will cover non-anamorphic dvds.

I´ve have today a h30 but i wonder if the 4805 should be a better choice, should i buy 4805 instead or should i keep my H30????

Originally posted by draags
I´ve have today a h30 but i wonder if the 4805 should be a better choice, should i buy 4805 instead or should i keep my H30????

If you are happy with the H30 and the offset works ok for you then keep it. The PQ on the 4805 is practically identical to the H30. I can't see why any current H30 owner would bother selling his H30 and going for a 4805 unless he had some problems with his H30... such as buzzing, green bar, offset, etc.

But for new buyers it's a toss up.

Thank you Tom. Can you think of any non-anamorphic titles I could find at Blockbuster to rent and test?

Event Horizon, Rounders, Aramageddon. If you like bass try the opening of Event Horizon.

Thank you again Tom.

Hi guys,

Finally can watch a movie (instead of painting)!

setup:
The ht room is finished.
received h30 on May 5,2004.Not sure what the sequence is to see service menu to see firmware release.(will check later)
h30 (came with lens cap & backlit remote )on the 7 foot (80 inches) ceiling on panavise 6" mount.
It is about 12 feet 6 inches back from screen (ceiling mounted).
using keystone =15 (too much ?) seems ok to the eye.
With keystone= 1 slightly trapazoid affect at bottom of screen.
16:9 screen 80"" by 45 " (viewable) diy blackout cloth on woodframe (looks good).

dvd's are awesome!!
This pj is so cool.
Still need to calibrate (I have dve).


Green bar question:

When I use my settop box to watch dtv (non-hd) output via a
25foot s-vhs cable
into my denon 3805 receiver and then out (up converts s-vhs signal to component into h30 .
The signal is good for 3-4 minutes then bang...lost signal ...green bar!
This denon upconverts s-vhs video to component could this be a problem with the h30 ?
What so far can be done with the green bar issue ?
I will try a test later in the week (move stb into basement and hook it up directly (not thru denon).

KenW
Out of the cave and in front of the screen

The green bar lock up happened for me with just HDTV going to 480i. I had to veiw HDTV for about 4 or 5hours before I could get the lock up. I your PJ is very sensitive to the problem, I understand Optoma knows a fix.
See what happens when you go direct. When your ready to test view some HDTV and click over to 480i.

I just finished a two-hour H30 vs. 4805 comparison, and I'm pretty impressed with both units. We tried various configurations, including a DCDi DVD player, DCDi deinterlacer (4805), Pixelworks deinterlacer (H30), and a Silicon Image deinterlacer (iScan Pro).

Neither of us are experts, both new users, so we didn't do the most scientific analysis, but we tried a number of scenes from Finding Nemo and the Fifth Element (superbit).

The results were mixed.

Pros for the H30:
Quiet - the fan noise is definitely lower than the 4805, though the colorwheel noise I'm experiencing (i.e. "buzzing") is louder than the 4805's.
Color - the colors just sort of jumped off the screen a bit more with the H30, but we did not do a full calibration on the 4805.
Focus - the H30 actually had better focus, though we think his 4805 may be damaged (hence going back).

Pros for the 4805:
Picture quality - even with the focus problem, the 4805 had an amazing picture (equal, if not slightly better than the H30).
Deinterlacer - the DCDi on the 4805 is clearly superior to the H30's Pixelwork chip (duh), although the DCDi in my DVD player, fed to the H30 was a pretty even matchup.
SDE - the screen door was better on the 4805 in my opinion (we're unsure as to if this is a problem with the focusing on the 4805, but the inter-pixel lines on the H30 were clearly more defined, thus presenting more "screen door")

Interesting tidbits:
1) His 4805 had a dead pixel, almost centered right out of the box. I've rarely, if ever heard of this on the H30.
2) The 4805 had some VERY different default brightness/contrast settings for interlaced vs. progressive. When we sent an interlaced signal defaults were far better, IMHO. When sending a progressive signal, the image was overly bight and washed out.
3) The H30 is smaller and lighter than the 4805. More than I had expected. Neither would be a problem, though the 4805 obviously can't be mounted with a single 1/4-20 screw, like the H30 can.
4) The 4805 had problems focusing. Parts of the image were always slightly out-of-focus. We chose a "best" setting that made the image as clean as possible.

If I were buying new today, I think I would choose the 4805, though I'm not sorry at all about buying the H30. The money I saved on the H30 made it possible to buy the iScan Pro (I think I still spent less than $1400 for it all). The DCDi on the 4805 is as good or better than the Silicon Image iScan product. We tested several images as follows:

1) DVD player w/ DCDi (interlaced) - H30 - Pixelworks deinterlacer
2) DVD player w/ DCDi (progressive) - H30 - bypass deinterlacer
3) DVD player (interlaced) - Silicon Image deinterlacer - H30
4) DVD player w/ DCDi (interlaced) - 4805 - DCDi deinterlacer (4805)
5) DVD player w/ DCDi (progressive) - 4805 - bypass deinterlacer

The ranking, best-to-worst, was as follows:

4 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 1

The 4805 has a great deinterlacer, no question about it. (As does my DVD player, which has the same chip).

That's about it. Cleary, the 4805 unit being tested has some issues, but it still gave a stunning image. The H30 is no slouch, certainly. I think going either way, would be totally fine. As many have said, if you want the 800x600 - go H30, otherwise, I think the 4805 is THE sub-$1500 projector to own.

First I'd like to say, I have no projector - I'd be thrilled to own an H30.

That said, I found this kinda funny- a quote from an early preview of the H30..."PCWorld news wrote: Optoma H30 DLP projector is the buzz of the South Hall"

Originally posted by valkyrie
I just finished a two-hour H30 vs. 4805 comparison, and I'm pretty impressed with both units.

valk, thanks for the feedback!

You guys weren't kidding when you said all new PJ's have teething problems. The 4805 seems to be even worse than the H30. There is already quite a few reported problems with uneven focus and picture moving when focusing. Not sure if I'd feel comfortable buying one of the first batch of 4805's.

I'm still sitting and waiting. What happened with your buzzing H30 after? Didn't you send it in for repairs?

Thanks for the efforts Valk! Good stuff to know...

KenW-
Congrats on getting your room done and finally getting to watch some goods. On your trapezoid- keystone effect at the bottom of the screen are both corners equal angles or is it primarily one that is off?

Originally posted by guitarman
The green bar lock up happened for me with just HDTV going to 480i. I had to veiw HDTV for about 4 or 5hours before I could get the lock up. I your PJ is very sensitive to the problem, I understand Optoma knows a fix.
See what happens when you go direct. When your ready to test view some HDTV and click over to 480i.


It seems if I don't change the channel on my stb ...... no problem.
AS soon as I change the chanell ....green bar!
My s-vidoi connections is upconverted (transcoded) via the denon 3805.
I think it is loosing the signal when I change the channell.
I can live with this.

Note: sequence this seems to work

1) turn on h30
2) turn on denon
3) choose source on denon


KenW

Thanks Valkyrie for hosting our comparison. I was really impressed with your screening room. I learned a lot, thanks in part to your selection of various signal sources.

I would echo almost every one of your comments, especially the ranking of picture quality: 1.)4805 with internal deinterlacer 2.)H30 with the Yamaha doing the deinterlacing (Faroudja). 1 & 2 were both extremely pleasing images and very close. For me, the only thing that pushed the 4805 past the H30 was the SDE. The SDE on the 4805 was less noticeable at our seating distance. My 4805 will not allow me to focus the screen uniformly and this may have been part of it. I'll only know the answer with a replacement unit. You may even consider a slightly softer focus on the H30 just to help with SDE. My observation was that slight lack of focus doesn’t have to be a horrible thing when the movie begins and you aren’t playing around in the menus.

A distant 3.)The H30 via the Silicon Image deinterlacer. The colors were less saturated to my eye and the image lost some 3D properties. You may be able to tweak for a better picture. It was still a pleasing image, but the other two setups were distinctly better. The last two setups; 4805 via progressive scan and H30 using it's internal deinterlacer were indeed the 3rd tier. I think it would be easy to get the 4805 via progressive to look as good as our top 2 with 10 minutes of tweaking. The 4805’s brightness / contrast was thrown way off when we switched to the same progressive signal that looked fantastic on the H30.

Two things that I take away from our mini-shootout are that Faroudja deinterlacers live up to the hype. They made a world of difference for both machines. The other is that I was hoping to come away from your house wanting the H30 simply because I’m a little ticked about my 4805 having two issues straight out of the box (focus uniformity and dead pixel). I will try another 4805 first, but will be happy with a H30 if it doesn’t work out. When both projectors were at their best, they were extremely close, but I was convinced that the 4805 has a slight edge. The buying decision should come down to desired aspect ratio, offset, and available deinterlacer. If the buyer is going to feed an interlaced signal, then the 4805 has a sizeable advantage.

I would also like to elaborate on the fan noise. We never put the projectors side by side. I would guess that the 4805 could have been slightly louder, but I don’t think it was more annoying than the H30. Valkyrie’s H30 is one of the buzzing units. We never took the projectors out of economy mode and the 4805 was on a coffee table in front of us while the H30 was mounted above us in close proximity. I can’t honestly say which I would rather have in terms of noise between these two units so I’ll call it a wash with the H30 having the higher upside if it doesn’t buzz. I think everyone knows that the 4805 is loud in high-power mode.

Sorry my first post is so long, but I think that many people want as much info as possible regarding these two competitors.

Thanks again Valk,
-Switch Monkey

Interesting Test, I guess Valks OTB calibration is very good? About the SD between the two. They're both way lower than the Z90 which was the first budget SVGA projector to have the RGB/RGB color wheel.

I went up to the screen to examine the 4805's screen door. The 4805 was good in that the lines around the pixels were much slimmer than the Z90. The comparison with the H30 was a little different. The H30 has a faint color to slimmer lines, almost makes them fade away into the screen. There is a slight thicker area at the corner of each pixel which matches the thickness better to the 4805. In any event both are dramatically better the the Z90. Really great for a SVGA projector.

The best way to focus a projector is to view whit text or a 100IRE field, and sometimes menu's. The menus on the 4805 were computer sytle not sure how great they'll be for focus. You need either two people or binoculars to focus.

In my brief time with the 4805 thus far, I haven't had any focus problems. Just out of the box, it's not a fair comaprison with my Colorfacts calibrated H30, so I'll reserve any comments until I get it dialed in better tonight. Then, I'm planning on hooking up the Bravo D2 to the 4805, so we'll see.

(Tom, I might just beat your H77 review yet. ;) )

Mike, I'd like to hear if the D2 has bright push like the D1 thru DVI? I know there's brightness adjustments but how's it a zero out of the box?

Good morning all! Good afternoon and evening to our friends in EMEA and Asia.

Can't stand to see this thread relegated to the second page :)

Originally posted by MikeSRC
In my brief time with the 4805 thus far, I haven't had any focus problems. Just out of the box, it's not a fair comaprison with my Colorfacts calibrated H30, so I'll reserve any comments until I get it dialed in better tonight. Then, I'm planning on hooking up the Bravo D2 to the 4805, so we'll see.

(Tom, I might just beat your H77 review yet. ;) )

We'll see, I've been checking the UPS truck. They told me it would ship out this week and it's one day to my shop. I'm a quick setter upper and a screen shot maniac and the race is on. :)

So when did you acquire Colorfacts?

You know the H30 sure looks great with OTA 480p. How was it said? "Colors just pop off the screen" . The channel 2 news never looked so good.

Originally posted by guitarman
We'll see, I've been checking the UPS truck. They told me it would ship out this week and it's one day to my shop. I'm a quick setter upper and a screen shot maniac and the race is on. :)

Well, I did spend some time with it last night (report to follow), but no screen shots, so you'll probably win that one Tom. ;)

So when did you acquire Colorfacts?

I didn't. My H30 was calibrated by Wing back when they had it waiting for the new firmware.

I spent more time with the 4805 last night. Right out of the box, I'd say it would provide an adequate picture for most people. Red and blue were muted compared with green, but some adjustment to the Gain with Avia took care of that. The 4805 is brighter than the H30, but not by much and I didn't have a problem using it with my matte white screen.

Fan noise of the 4805 is a decibel or two higher than the H30, but not at all objectionable. Just for fun, I put it into high power mode and I thought a jet was landing nearby. I can't imagine anyone using anything but the low power setting.

Since I already have a Faroudja-equipped DVD player (Panasonic RP82), there wasn't much difference switching between progressive and interlaced. Using the 4805's deinterlacing does give you a higher level of control (chroma and luna detail) as well as being able turn off CCS (which can't be done on most Faroudja-equipped DVD players).

In general, I found little difference between the 4805 picture and the H30 picture (in 16:9 Native). Screendoor is non-existent for both at normal viewing distances. The extra pixel count of the 4805 doesn't make an appreciable difference with DVDs, even when the H30's in 16:9 (800 X 450) mode. Remember, you're only talking about less than one hundredth of an inch in pixel width over a 80" wide screen. Throwing up a color field or two with Avia, it seemed that the H30 has better color satuaration, but it may be possible to achieve the same levels with the 4805. I'll have to do more tweaking.

Finally, I hooked up the Bravo D2 with a DVI cable and the InFocus M1 adapter (available separately unfortunately) and calibrated with Avia. The upscaled output of the Bravo (at 1080i) with a digital connection was an unbeatable combo. The picture became incredibly sharp and color saturation was improved as well. It probably similar to what Jason's been seeing with his HTPC setup and the H30. Using the now famous "Darla" scene as a comparison, the edge along the top of her finger was much cleaner than with the analog connection and the hair strands were more clearly defined. Is this a huge difference? No, not at normal viewing distances, but it is noticeable. I'll try to get some close-ups to demonstrate this.

I checked for focus and light uniformity across the screen and it did vary somewhat on the edges. The 4805 seems to have a finer focus than the H30. A slight movement of the focus ring can throw it off (much more so than the H30) and it is more sensitive to precise positioning relative to the screen.

Tom, I didn't notice a brightness push with the D2, at least no more than other DVD players. I didn't have a D1 around to compare, but there shouldn't be any difference in PQ between the two.

More to follow. ;)

Re the brightness with the Bravo. It's probably a good match with the 4805 so there's no hugh bright push like I had with the HT1000 and other had with many other projectors IF7200 for one.

This is a good thing because it won't mess up the IF factory grayscale settings.

I've been telling those guys to get the Bravo. Go over there and help them out with your review. Also with the D2 try out a custom res.
Thx Mike

Your saying the focus looked sharper. I noticed this to but I think it's that the IF's idea of video sharpness is higher. When I set the H30's sharpness to full up or 50 it mimicked the same look, but I soon went back to a lower sharpness preferring the smoother look. Try raising the H30's sharpness, see what you think.

Originally posted by guitarman
Also with the D2 try out a custom res.
Thx Mike

Thanks. I forgot to mention that. I did try a custom resolution to match the 4805, which did look good, but the 1080i looked even better.

Good stuff Mike! Thanks for the efforts.

So it sounds as if the differences are minimal and each PJ has its advantages .

--- Now the obvious choice for use with a non-faroudja equipped dvd player would be the 4805 .

--- I would be willing to bet the differences between the two would be even smaller fed via an HTPC [ especially after proper calibration ] .

--- I still plan to compare a 4805 but the more reviews that I read the more I think the H30 will stay with me until a 720p upgrade comes along [ or I go back to CRT projection ;) ] .


--- Thanks for the review Mike :D .


----------- Jason

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
--- I would be willing to bet the differences between the two would be even smaller fed via an HTPC [ especially after proper calibration ] .


Based on what I've seen in your screen shots, I think you'd win that bet, Jason. ;)

Originally posted by MikeSRC
Thanks. I forgot to mention that. I did try a custom resolution to match the 4805, which did look good, but the 1080i looked even better.

With the D1 I always thought 720p looked sharp and 1080i was smooth. What custom res were you able to set and refresh rate? I think someone mentioned even though he set the correct res on his computer the projector showed something different. Don't think that matters though. The HT1000 did something similar with res readout. I mean if it's pixel matched its pixel matched.

I'm about to send my PJ for maintenance next week (to get rid of the green bar)

Does anybody have an idea what's been changed between 05 and 07 firmware?

Would be cool if there'd be a changelog somewhere :)

Cool, so what did the tech area tell you about the fix? I understand it's a hardware fix.

07 adds full 800X600 native 4.3 and two ways for letterbox support, window or 4.3. Window puts the letterbox at the bottom of the chip. 4.3 puts the letterbox in the center. Just a matter of which type screen you use. Or which option you prefer.

Originally posted by guitarman
With the D1 I always thought 720p looked sharp and 1080i was smooth.

Seemed like the opposite with the 4805. I think that's more a factor of how the display handles each resolution.

What custom res were you able to set and refresh rate? I think someone mentioned even though he set the correct res on his computer the projector showed something different. Don't think that matters though. The HT1000 did something similar with res readout. I mean if it's pixel matched its pixel matched.

I set it for 854X480, but I believe it came up 852X480. Close enough. I don't remember the refresh rate, but I think it was 60. I'll have to look again. I think the reason there not much difference in the custom resolution is because the 4805's a native 16:9, so any native 16:9 resolution looks good, with the highest resolution 16:9 (1080i) looking the best. With a 4:3 native display, or one of the inbetween plasma resolutions, the custom resolution setting makes a greater difference.

Contacted Optoma a week ago and asked them what I could do about the ocassional picture distortion when using my DVD player.

The problem is best described as seeing vertical features having a slight horizontal distortion at one or two points in the displayed picture.
In other words a small part or parts of the whole picture is completely offset sideways by around 1" to 1.5".

The DVD player is part of a Thomson DVD/hard drive recorder which I believe uses Linux as an operating system, the picture is perfect when displayed on my 28" Sony TV.

When I told Optoma tech about this they immediately said send it back and we will upgrade the firmware and make some mods to the PCB, apparently they have discovered a problem with PAL RGB under certain circumstances.

I thought fair enough and said OK to which they then arranged a courier to pick it up the next day.

Off it went and I was expecting it back any time now.

Had a call this afternoon from Optoma tech who said the firmware and PCB had been updated, fine I thought.

Then he went on to say "it was sent back for a green bar problem wasn't it" Nope I said to which he said "ah yes it was the black screen issue" Nope I said then went on to tell him about the real problem.

Ok he said I will get someone to look at it tommorow and it will be back with you by the early part of next week.

Now I have to say that I am a little worried as it appears the unit has been worked on for just about everything else but the problem it was sent back for.

Ten out of ten to Optoma for deciding without hesitation to sort the problem out and for collecting and returning the unit at their expense however I am concerned that my H30 has possibly had unnecessary work carried out on it due to a mix up.

I suppose it's because I'm one of those don't fix it if it aint broke types.

I still remember sending a Davis DLS8 for repair only for it to return with a small dust blob on the DLP chip to which the company concerned didn't want to know and I had to learn to live with it.

Anyway I'm sure it will come back working fine with all the latest bells and whistles so perhaps it won't be so bad, but then what if it buzzes Oh No!

Regards, MikeDes

Tom

C05 already had those changes, C07 seems still misty to me when it comes to what has changed.

Are you sure you don't hv C07, because the early firmwares were C03, C05 and it was C07 that was adding 800X600. Can you view a full 800X600 4.3 image?

Originally posted by mikedes
Contacted Optoma a week ago and asked them what I could do about the ocassional picture distortion when using my DVD player.

The problem is best described as seeing vertical features having a slight horizontal distortion at one or two points in the displayed picture.
In other words a small part or parts of the whole picture is completely offset sideways by around 1" to 1.5".


Just wondering if I may have the same problem as you mikedes ? Is this problem most noticable on faces when watching DVD's and TV or does it affect the whole picture ? I to use PAL RGB.

My H30 is currently with Optoma in the UK to get the green bar problem fixed. They are also going to update the firmware to the latest version. I did have C05. I should hopefully get it back tomorrow, they were testing it today when I phoned to check the status on it.

It's been a long time, but 03 and 04 were the old versions. 05 added the full 800X600 support. Don't know what 07 adds.

That's what I remembered also... that 05 was when the full 800x600 showed up. That was the cause of the availability delays a few months ago- waiting for 05 to get finished and installed on the new units.

Don't know what 07 adds.

Do you guys with the 05 have "user 1" and "user 2" options available in the H30 menu? I don't remember my projector having these until I sent it in for the 07 firmware upgrade.

I have the 05 firmware and the "user 1" and "user 2" options, so it's at least in that release.

Well I guess I have the C05 but I didn't see anything extra in the User 1, User2

Originally posted by jeff442
Well I finally got my projector back for the second time from Optoma yesterday. It has been roughly a month and a half since I first sent it in for the firmware update, so you can imagine how anxious I am to get back to watching movies. Optoma did a great job this time around, as I received the projector with the reflashed firmware within a week of sending it out to them. Despite some QC problems with the H30, I have been VERY happy with their customer service (Kristine B. in particular). With my H30 back in the system, and the firmware properly implemented, my image for both DVD and Comcast HD lines up perfectly on the screen. No more black screen when I feed the projector 480p. Very happy about all of this. I do have a couple of issues which seem very curious:

1)You guys are going to think that I'm nuts, but it appears that the offset for the projector has changed. The shelf on which my H30 is mounted is in the exact same place as before, but now the image shoots higher than before the new firmware (I'm talking FEET). I literally had to lower the shelf so that I could get the image to line up without tilting.

2)The projector arrived seriously miscalibrated this time (the first time I got it back, the image was gorgeous). Now I am seeing what you guys are saying about red in the blacks. Big time red push, extremely noisy blacks. I spent a few hours yesterday with Avia and some reference DVD's. Picture is now looking very good for DVD. I can't seem to get it dialed in properly for HD. When I use the advanced adjustments to get the blacks right, I lose that vibrant Optoma vibe that Tom raves about. My mind might be playing tricks on me, but I could swear I had a much better PQ for HD before. How could a projector that never had red push before suddenly have it?

3)Did the new firmare add anything different to the menus? I'm noticing User 1/User 2 settings along with a new Color option (auto, YUV, RGG).

Now that I figured I had the firmwares mixed up. I'm wondering if Jeff's offset difference is the digital shift. Wings not in for a confirm. Jeff anything in the menu's for picture shift? And what does using the (auto,YUV,RGG) look like?

ah- something new on the H30 frontier! i know for a fact i have 05, as i was one of the first to recieve after the delayed shipments- i've been wondering what the 07 was all about, and now were seeing new menu items showing up? humm, too bad we can't flash the H30 w/o sending it in-

Time to take this thread outside, beat the dust outta it and get ready for some new info-cool!

I'm sure Tom will get the scoop for us soon-

rudee

ps- Pimp you keep up the HTPC talk and i'm going to have to break out my copy of TheaterTek and see how it does against the Q50 :-)

Now that I figured I had the firmwares mixed up. I'm wondering if Jeff's offset difference is the digital shift. Wings not in for a confirm. Jeff anything in the menu's for picture shift? And what does using the (auto,YUV,RGG) look like?

So maybe I'm not going crazy? I literally had to lower my mount by roughly 2 inches to get the image to line up on my screen. The good news is I no longer have to use tilt... and furthermore, no keystoning to correct this tilt! As for where the digital shift controls are, I have no idea. Changing the H30 from auto to YUV does not affect the picture. Changing it to RGB makes everything look a screwy black and green (like night vision).

Keep looking. You sure you don't have your DVD player set to 4.3 letterbox because that would put the image in the center of the chip? And create that offset.

I'm testing a C07 H30 for a customer right now. I don't remember the "Color Space" setting on my C05 unit.

Guys, I'm gone cross eyed trying to figure out the offset of the H30 from that page in the manual. If I place an H30 exactly 12' back from my 16:9 screen, can someone tell me how far down the top of my 16:9 image would be from the lens center? Assuming PJ is level and no keystone.

Please? Pretty please???

ps. screen built, cables ordered, still no pj but getting closer ;-)

Just to give you an idea, my H30's (level and w/o keystone) about 12'-6'' from a 92" diagonal 16:9 screen and the offset from the center of the lens to the top of the 16:9 image is about 26". I actually mounted the projector first, noted the picture location for the screen size, then mounted the screen to match.

Keep looking. You sure you don't have your DVD player set to 4.3 letterbox because that would put the image in the center of the chip? And create that offset.

I checked that a couple of days ago upon your suggestion. It's set at 16:9. My projector used to be almost pressed against the ceiling, mounted on a shelf upside down, and tilted a decent amount. Now it's a few inches lower, no tilt

Originally posted by MikeSRC
Just to give you an idea, my H30's (level and w/o keystone) about 12'-6'' from a 92" diagonal 16:9 screen and the offset from the center of the lens to the top of the 16:9 image is about 26". I actually mounted the projector first, noted the picture location for the screen size, then mounted the screen to match.

Thanks Mike, that puts the bottom of my screen 14" off the floor. Needless to say, that's not gonna work for me.

My ceiling is 92" high so...
26" +
6" for ceiling to lens +
43" image height +
3" bottom screen border
= 78"

92 - 78 = 14"

That's a real pain in the @ss because I think I had finally convinced myself the 4805 is not worth the extra $300 here in Canada over the H30. So it looks like I am left with the Epson Home 10 or 4805, and the 4805 will run me about $500CDN more than the Home 10.

Basically, in Canada the price goes something like...
Home 10 = $x
H30 = $x + $300
4805 = $x + $500
(I hope I'm allowed to put it that way mods)

Anyone think the 4805 looks $500 better than the Home 10?

Originally posted by UnknownShadow
Anyone think the 4805 looks $500 better than the Home 10?

I've seen them both and that's a tough call. If mney wasn't too much of an object, I'd go with the 4805, but otherwise, that's a pretty high percentage increase over the cost of the Home 10. If you don't mind the greyer blacks, the Home 10 has nice color saturation and a sharp picture.

You could always tilt the H30 up slightly and pick up a few more inches.

Originally posted by jeff442
I checked that a couple of days ago upon your suggestion. It's set at 16:9. My projector used to be almost pressed against the ceiling, mounted on a shelf upside down, and tilted a decent amount. Now it's a few inches lower, no tilt


Somethings up, Ok leave your DVD player in 16.9 and hit the 4.3 native button on the remote. If the 16.9 image is up and has light spill above and below the image, then this would be a big change. But why, I'll have to catch Wing tomorrow before he goes to Taiwan to get the details. The only thing I heard that was coming up was a digital shift. Be back

Okay, I have some interesting news regarding the buzzing issue. Veggieguy and I finally had a chance to get together this evening and comapre units. I brought my buzzer to his place, and we ran them one after the other.

The biggest surprise - mine was silent! Well, there was fan noise, but NO buzzing. This is the first time I have heard this (or not heard, as the case may be). Needless to say, we're both stumped.

I have tried multiple plugs in my house (on separate circuits), even tried it at work, still buzzed! Up at his house, just plugged into a wall outlet - no buzzing.

One thing of note, is that he has a dimmer switch. So, we tried that, and did detect a noticable difference in the H30 when the dimmer was anywhere between 0 and 100%. If it was at either extreme, it was quiet. If not, it buzzed.

Now...this tells me that I think the "buzzing" issue may indeed be a "power" issue. The only thing is...I don't know what to do about it. Does anyone here have more electrical background than I do? Any suggestions as to what this might be? I really loved how quiet my H30 was at his house, and I'd love to find a way to get it like that here.

This may be an explanation for all the buzzing units, save Fleaman and his boss. They had two units side-by-side with different noise levels. For that, I have no explanation whatsoever, except that maybe it is a flywheel "burn-in" period.

I'm going to contact Optoma tomorrow with this news, and let you know how it all turns out. Maybe the H30 is a bit more sensitive to certain power fluctuations. Or...maybe my circuit is overloaded. It may come down to getting an electrican out and seeing if I can't clean up the power a bit. I've checked grounds, and they're all grounded well.

The mystery continues....

Valkyrie

Power contamination is problematic to isolate - it could be that your house is in an area where someone is sending back a lot of hash into the grid - or something in your house. It is also possible that your ground is not really that well grounded (did you actually check the voltage to ground?). One good way is if you know anyone who has a good power filter (like a dezorel etc) to plug your projector into that to see if hash in the power system is affecting the H30 ps. I must say that it still reflects badly on Optoma that their ps is so sensitive to hash if this is the case!

I have the same problem - the H30 makes no buzz at the dealer's showroom but in my house it buzzes off and on. I do know that my whole HT system has electrical leakage as if it is not grounded properly - if I touch any bare metal on the HT components or even the interconnect plugs when it is powered up or I will get a nonlethal but unpleasant kick.

Originally posted by GGB
Just wondering if I may have the same problem as you mikedes ? Is this problem most noticable on faces when watching DVD's and TV or does it affect the whole picture ? I to use PAL RGB.

My H30 is currently with Optoma in the UK to get the green bar problem fixed. They are also going to update the firmware to the latest version. I did have C05. I should hopefully get it back tomorrow, they were testing it today when I phoned to check the status on it.

Hi GGB, no the problem is only really easily noticeable with vertical parallel objects such as telegraph poles ends of buildings and the like and only with DVD's.

With curved and irregular objects such as faces you have to look much closer to see the offset.

The problem seems worse immediately after scene changes and then seems to settle down until the next scene change.

As I posted earlier, Optoma tech told me that they had identified an issue with RGB under certain circumstances and that they would conduct a firmware upgrade and change/add components to my H30's PCB to correct it.

I figure that rather than a fault with the H30 mine is more one of incompatibility as it is a DVD player and hard drive recorder combined but running PC (Linux) software.

Problem with this is that feeding SCART RGB via SVGA cable doesent allow me access to the H30 PC menus, I kinda feel if it did I could perhaps adjust the problem out from within the Signal menu.


Finally I gotta say this, Optoma have given me absolutely first class support for their product since I bought the H30 a few months ago.
It really gives you confidence that they are genuinely interested in helping and not just going to fob you off with some **** and bull story.
Well done Optoma, keep it up.

Hope your H30 is well sorted when you get it back GGB.

Regards, MikeDes

Jeff442, this may be the reason:
I send my H30 for repair, and got it back today. In previous version, 16:9 picture was in lower part of 4:3 picture. Now, with new firmware, 16:9 picture appears at UPPER part of 4:3 picture.
Is it same for you, try first with 4:3 native and see where 16:9 appears when you change the picture mode?

I can live with upper part 16:9 picture, but my neck hurts more....I would certainly prefer old system, but if green bar is now gone, I am happy.

Is this new 16:9 placement a bug???

Originally posted by Vierimaa
Jeff442, this may be the reason:
I send my H30 for repair, and got it back today. In previous version, 16:9 picture was in lower part of 4:3 picture. Now, with new firmware, 16:9 picture appears at UPPER part of 4:3 picture.
Is it same for you, try first with 4:3 native and see where 16:9 appears when you change the picture mode?

I can live with upper part 16:9 picture, but my neck hurts more....I would certainly prefer old system, but if green bar is now gone, I am happy.

Is this new 16:9 placement a bug???

Wait, 16.9 is at the very high point of a 4.3 screen? Not in the middle? Ah ha, that would keep the image in the sweet spot of the lens yet lower the offset immensely. Think about it.

Like my projector lens is 6" down from the ceiling. With C07 the start or top of a 16.9 screen would be just 10 of so inches down from the ceiling. I think it's a good thing. There will be less keystone problems although some users will need mount extensions. I do see a negative, the light spill would be at the bottom and in your face. What do you guys think about this new development?

Hey Valk, early on in the music world many guitar amplifiers had a ground buzz. Back the you could just turn the plug around in the wall socket. If you can't find a plug adapter or extension cord with no ground protection, just shave the metal pieces off a cheat plug so you turn it around for a test.

Tom,
Seems odd that Wing wouldn't have clued you in about the 07 firmware and what it changes when you were down at Optoma a few weeks ago- Can't wait to hear what's going on

rudee

Originally posted by guitarman
Wait, 16.9 is at the very high point of a 4.3 screen? Not in the middle? Ah ha, that would keep the image in the sweet spot of the lens yet lower the offset immensely. Think about it.


Not good for me. I was almost sold on this PJ because I actually NEED the extreme offset. Guess I'll have to request an older firmware...

Originally posted by rudee
Tom,
Seems odd that Wing wouldn't have clued you in about the 07 firmware and what it changes when you were down at Optoma a few weeks ago- Can't wait to hear what's going on

rudee
I missed him yesterday and will be on it early today 10:30. Bet this firmware came down from Taiwan. Last time I talked about firmware he said the only thing coming was digital shift and that would be it. But it seems Taiwan has adopted the image shift by just having the 16.9 at the top in stead of the bottom.

Originally posted by mjolson
Not good for me. I was almost sold on this PJ because I actually NEED the extreme offset. Guess I'll have to request an older firmware...

I'm on the other side, H30 is not an option for me because of the extreme offset. If this latest change is true then the H30 may be back in the running for me. Basically, I need the top of my 16:9 image about 20 inches down from my ceiling (not lens) for a good fit.

Why can't they put an option in the firmware so we can select exactly where we want the 16:9 image? Or is that the digital shift people are talking about?

By the way, if the light spill is at the bottom, how noticable is it? Give me an idea, is it like someone shining a bloody flashlight or just a very dim cast? I have no idea what light spill looks like on a 4:3 PJ.

Originally posted by guitarman
What do you guys think about this new development?

For my install it would suck. I don't want to sit back and look up at an image way up by the ceiling. Would it even be feasible to adhere to the guideline of having eye level 1/3 of the way up the screen with this development?

I like mine the way it is... :)

Jeff442, this may be the reason:
I send my H30 for repair, and got it back today. In previous version, 16:9 picture was in lower part of 4:3 picture. Now, with new firmware, 16:9 picture appears at UPPER part of 4:3 picture.
Is it same for you, try first with 4:3 native and see where 16:9 appears when you change the picture mode?
I will try this when I get home tonight. I am sure this is the case. I'm glad you are able to confirm my sanity.

For my install it would suck. I don't want to sit back and look up at an image way up by the ceiling. Would it even be feasible to adhere to the guideline of having eye level 1/3 of the way up the screen with this development?
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I love the fact that I no longer have to use keystoning and the light spill is less visible now than when it was above the screen. I should mention that I don't find the 1/3 eye level guideline very practical. I run 3 identical tower speakers up front, with the bottom of the screen just above the top of the center speaker. Having the screen at eye level would force me to use a horizontally positioned center speaker. With the old firmware, I couldn't get the image high enough without tilting. The projector obviously can't be mounted any higher than the ceiling. With the new firmware, we all have options. If I want my image up high, I can leave the H30 where it is. If I decide I want to place the screen at a more conventional level, I can lower my projector mount.

Originally posted by valkyrie

This may be an explanation for all the buzzing units, save Fleaman and his boss. They had two units side-by-side with different noise levels. For that, I have no explanation whatsoever, except that maybe it is a flywheel "burn-in" period.

I'm going to contact Optoma tomorrow with this news, and let you know how it all turns out. Maybe the H30 is a bit more sensitive to certain power fluctuations. Or...maybe my circuit is overloaded. It may come down to getting an electrican out and seeing if I can't clean up the power a bit. I've checked grounds, and they're all grounded well.

The mystery continues....

Did someone mention me:rolleyes:

The problem(?) with my current buzzing unit is that the buzz will fade away completely after the unit has been on for a while...anywhere from 30 Mins to 2-3 hours.

Both my H30's (when I had both at the same time) had the exact same buzz. As a note, when I tested them at my boss’s house full of dimmers, none of the dimmers were on and they still buzzed. I didn't bother to turn any of them on at the time.

While his house is newer and has grounded wall sockets/circuits, my house is old and has no grounding on the wall outlets. In any case, I can't see how that would affect my buzzing that will fade away when burned in for a while. Maybe it is a color wheel noise? Just doesn't sound like it to me and it still comes from the pwr supply area.

The mystery still continues....

Fleaman

Originally posted by jeff442
I will try this when I get home tonight. I am sure this is the case. I'm glad you are able to confirm my sanity.


Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I love the fact that I no longer have to use keystoning and the light spill is less visible now than when it was above the screen. I should mention that I don't find the 1/3 eye level guideline very practical. I run 3 identical tower speakers up front, with the bottom of the screen just above the top of the center speaker. Having the screen at eye level would force me to use a horizontally positioned center speaker. With the old firmware, I couldn't get the image high enough without tilting. The projector obviously can't be mounted any higher than the ceiling. With the new firmware, we all have options. If I want my image up high, I can leave the H30 where it is. If I decide I want to place the screen at a more conventional level, I can lower my projector mount.

Well, if Optoma has really done this, they should REALLY make it user adjustable. For me, the pic would be too low as I have the screen above my tv (can't put it in front). I need the offset to be the way it is originally.

Also, for Optoma to do this (if true) w/o telling/advising the customer that his offset is going to be different, is just no cool. You got people spending a lot of time setting up their projectors, mounts, screens, etc. and then Optoma sends back an H30 that puts that all to waste??

Tell me that isn't so!

Fleaman

I forgot to add that in my case, I can't lower my projector mount anymore than it is.

Fleaman

Let me clarify one issue.
I am using the projector upside down in the ceiling mount. With old H30, 16:9 picture was in lower part of the 4:3 picture. With repaired H30, 16:9 picture now shows at upper part of the 4:3 picture. I haven't checked the firmware version yet, just got the projector back today.

Note that I have not tested the projector when it is table mounted. It could still put the picture to lower part when H30 is "normally" mounted.

As I said my neck doesn't like the new screen position. I think I can live with it since I am having 4:3 screen. But those using 16:9 screens may have trouble.

Just forget to add: Fleaman I agree with you, it should be adjustable. Maybe the service menu has some new option, don't know yet.

I forgot to add that in my case, I can't lower my projector mount anymore than it is.

I could see where this new offset would be a pain. What type of mount are you using? My DIY mount is pretty ghetto, but very functional. Just a piece of white shelving from Home depot, two runs of rope, and 4 ceiling hooks. When I realized the offset had changed, I cut 2 longer runs of rope and now the shelf hangs lower. Miraculously, I did no measurements during the re-mount, just guesstimated. The new height shoots the image perfectly, with no tilt. I'll get some pics up soon so you guys can poke fun.

Wouldn't you know it! I just get my projector back from Optoma, and they release a new firmware that would eliminate (or drastically reduce) keystone adjustment for my setup. Drat!

Oh well... maybe I'll send it back in when the details are figured out.

FYI... when Valkyrie and I were testing his H30 for buzzing at my house last night, not only did his not buzz when my dimmer was fully up or down, but my H30 did get a slight buzz with the dimmers set in the middle. It's very slight, and I had never noticed it before, but I usually turn the lights off when watching movies. Valkyrie said the buzzing mine made under those conditions was much quieter than his buzz, but was definitely the same thing.

Yeah originally this next firmware was supposed to let you choose the top or bottom of the lense. Or at least that was promised in a future firmware, maybe not the next.
I am going to call them up and get an RMA for my buzzer. I'm right at the end of my 90 days to get a replacement, so going to go ahead and do that and get the c07 firmware. When I last called they told me to give them 8 weeks and I have.

Ya- it would be good to get all the changes between the two fw revisions documented so that when someone sends theirs in or gets a new one in hikarate's case- they know what to expect when it comes back. I would hope you could request 07 or 05 depending on your installs characteristics as well. Jeff makes a good point in that what sucks for me may be perfect for him.

Here's hoping hikarate gets a perfect unit back :)

Cheers and have a great weekend all!

Originally posted by fleaman
I forgot to add that in my case, I can't lower my projector mount anymore than it is.

Fleaman
Ditto Flea... you can see my Panavise mount position in my gallery shots. I'm 6-3 and that projector is about 2-3 inches above my head when I stand under it. It's not going any lower.

Jeff- Can you please post some pictures of your rope and shelf unit. I promise we won't laugh :)

Cheers!

Wing says due to many requests for a better offset Taiwan issued the C07 firmware which indeed does start a 16.9 image at the top of the chip. The option to have the C05 firmware will be available in a couple of weeks for those who need the other format. Also at a much later time they still plan to add the Digital shift feature.

The added items in the User1 User2 save settings are for markets that have a sync problem like Austrailia for one. The preset is auto and the other two are for Austrailia users that see a green screen which they can fix with the other options YUV/RGB.

Originally posted by hikarate
Yeah originally this next firmware was supposed to let you choose the top or bottom of the lense. Or at least that was promised in a future firmware, maybe not the next.
I am going to call them up and get an RMA for my buzzer. I'm right at the end of my 90 days to get a replacement, so going to go ahead and do that and get the c07 firmware. When I last called they told me to give them 8 weeks and I have.

Not sure if you read this but Valk had no buzzing when he brought the PJ to Veg's house. It could just be a reverse ground in his house that causes the buzz. I told him to shave a cheat plug and reverse the polarity for a test.

I'll run that test tonight, but I'm pretty sure I checked it already. (I bought one of those ground testers, and it said everything was good). I'll try the ground adapter tonight and report back with results. I'm also going to bring the H30 into work this weekend. We just had a new dedicated circuit put in for a piece of test equipment, so I know it's isolated. I want to put the H30 on that one and see if I still get buzzing.

- Valk

I already took the thing over my friends house and it buzzed there. I will try it over at my dads house before I send it back just to be sure.
I couldn't get an RMA over the phone, they replied with an E-mail and told me I had to mail in an RMA request, then they would issue me an RMA #. I don't remember reading anyone else having to do this. This normal?
I'm not shaving a pug for a reverse whatchamadoodle test.
I'll blow my house up!

The plug reverse comes from before guitar amps had a polarity switch. To fix we just reversed the plug. Ofcourse back then the prongs on a plug were the same thin size. I had to fill out the form over the internet.

Well I guess I did not get the latest firmware on my new H30 as my image is projected in the same location as it was before [ so I must have c05 ] . Cool for me actually as I would not want the image projected right up at the ceiling ;) . My current image is only about 26" off the ground with Zero tilt from an 8' ceiling [ puts the image right at eye level when seated :D ] .


*** Oh and for rudee , an HTPC with TT will DESTROY a Q50 :D - hehe ***


------------ Jason

My current image is only about 26" off the ground with Zero tilt from an 8' ceiling

Wow. I guess I'm just starting to realize how wacky my setup is. Where do you put your center speaker?

So if I understand this correctly, with the new C07 firmware and the H30 ceiling mounted 12' back from the screen... the top of your 16:9 image would now be about 12.35" down from the center of the lens?

If so, sign me up for C07 because that would work great for me. Now I just have to find out how bad the light spill is when it's below the screen. Nobody answered my previous post. Is it really bright or just a slight glow/cast?

Jeff ,

--- Center speaker is right under the bottom of the screen [ tilted slightly upward towards ear level ] .
______________________________

UnknownShadow ,

--- The light spill is very dim once properly calibrated and if you had the light spill off the screen thrown onto some black background you would not notice it [ the wall behind my screen is totally black and I see no spill ;) ] . Now if your overspill hits some white screen or a white wall then you will notice it but it is not blinding .


--------- Jason

Tom, I tried your idea. No difference in my buzzing when plugging the projector in either way. Bummer...I kind of hoped that was it. I tried shutting off circuits in my house one at a time...no difference.

I am REALLY stumped. There's just no explaining this unless the H30 is REALLY sensitive to noise and most of you have REALLY clean power coming into your houses.

I welcome thoughts, but I just don't get it.

I don't think clean power would characterize my install. I have the extension cord from the projector running back to a laundry room where it is plugged into an outlet with a good quality surge protector. Sharing that circuit is the washing machine, a dehumidifier, a chest style freezer and my beer fridge. Talk about some major power hitters. This is on top of the fact that I have 8 recessed lights on two dimmers and another three lights on two other dimmers in the house. Needless to say- I am one lucky sumb*tch in that my H30 is whisper quiet.

Cheers!

Rub it in gotta, rub it in...

:)

Seriously, that's cool.

For two weeks ago i send my H30 to make the upgrade - here in sweden they say that my H30 didnt answer at the upgrade so they need to send it to England - 3 days should it takes to do the upgrade they say here in sweden and then they will send it back, so i hope i got it next week.

How long did it take for you out there to do the upgrade?

I have a question about dvd player, today i have a Panasonic r82, with no component or de-interlacer.

If i should buy another one, which one should i choice if i want better picture with better de-interlace chip than pixelwork.?

around 30-70 dollars or euro

Here is a good bright screen shot that shows how little the light spill can be once the H30 is properly calibrated [ your monitor must be properly calibrated as well ;) ] .



http://home.comcast.net/~jlcburg3/wsb/media/19852/site1127.JPG



------------- Jason

hey guys need some help here-
Not sure if this is normal as i don't remember anyone asking-
With the lens mask cap off, i get a large "bowed/arched" light projected onto the floor - pj is ceiling mounted . the white arc is about three feet from the screen wall and spans wider than the screen- think "over the rainbow".
IS THIS NORMAL? it can be annoying w/o the mask cap.

rudee


pimp wrote:
*** Oh and for rudee , an HTPC with TT will DESTROY a Q50 - hehe ***

Thanks pimp- another project to look forward to!

I disagree on the Destroy part. The Q50 is a very sharp DVD player with unbeatable deinterlacing. Does HTPC have Farouja now? :) I have to disagree because I've used the Bravo thru DVI which Alan said was surprisingly better the his HTPC. When a/b,ing the Bravo and the Pany RP82 the difference wasn't that drastic, both looked absolutely great.

The light is the light flare from the lens, nothing wrong here.

The new firmware looks to be great for 16.9 screen users. It makes for a normal offset. If you have a high ceiling you can just use and extension pole. The firmware knocks 15" off the offset and will totally do away with any keystone problems. I don't see the firmware as good thing for a 4.3 screen user.

Originally posted by valkyrie
Rub it in gotta, rub it in...

:)

Seriously, that's cool.
Sorry about that, not trying to.

draags,
I send mine for repair, and it took altogether 3 weeks. I live in Finland. I would expect similar schedule for you as well.

I don't see the firmware as good thing for a 4.3 screen user.

Tom, I think you are right. For 4:3 users, screen must be quite close to floor in order that 16:9 is not sky-high. But some 16:9 screen users may need to re-mount in order to get picture back to the screen. ;)

Originally posted by draags
I have a question about dvd player, today i have a Panasonic r82, with no component or de-interlacer.

If i should buy another one, which one should i choice if i want better picture with better de-interlace chip than pixelwork.?

around 30-70 dollars or euro

Pansonic interlaced players can look very good on the H30. Sometimes I use a RV32 player which looks excellent. The better would be any player with farouja deinterlacing but there's isn't much out there now. You have to dig up an older model. Panasonic RP82, XP30, XP50, Denon 1600. Maybe you can find one I won a XP30 off of ebay a week ago for $72. Good luck in the hunt. Oh there's some Q50 Phillips models around that have the DCDI chip at a bill also.

Guys, when was the C07 firmware released? If I bought an H30 from my dealer today, what are the chances it has C07 already installed? I guess it depends how long he's had the PJ in stock.

It's going to be hard to weed out which is which. Until we know a cut off date a dealer would hv to check one out for you.

I believe the date on the one I checked was 5-30.

Shadow - With the C07 firmware setting the same offset if table or ceiling mounted, your offset would be about 12" as you stated.

Originally posted by guitarman
I disagree on the Destroy part. The Q50 is a very sharp DVD player with unbeatable deinterlacing. Does HTPC have Farouja now? :) I have to disagree because I've used the Bravo thru DVI which Alan said was surprisingly better the his HTPC. When a/b,ing the Bravo and the Pany RP82 the difference wasn't that drastic, both looked absolutely great.

--- Well Tom until you have seen a tweaked HTPC in action you really have no idea what you are missing [ and you are missing out with any stb dvd player IMO ] . I think Alan's HTPC was lacking all the more recent filters and tweaks that are available to HTPC users [ the newer codecs from Nvidia and Intervideo are superior to those of just a year ago - which is probably about the time Alan did his comparison ] . So basically regardless of Alan's opinion ( and mine for that matter ) there have been many comparisons done and when it comes down to over-all image quality the HTPC comes out on top . Now for ease of use and lack of problems a stand-a-lone dvd player is tough to beat but then all the upscaling dvd players seem have issues as well .
--- I too wasted money on trying different dvd players ( the hot player of the month club ) until I tried HTPC , it was all over from that point on :D .
--- I am not an advocate for very many things and I seldom proclaim anything to be the BEST but in the case of HTPC I must trust my eyes ;) .

----------------- Jason

What kind of deinterlacing gets done with HTPC?

The deinterlacing is done by a combination of the player that you are using and the video card [ some handle this better than others - this is in software mode ] . Basically anything that Faroudja can do can also be done on an HTPC (with enough cpu ;) ) .
--- I am not knocking Faroudja here , they have some amazing products and certainly know what they are doing .
--- I just have yet to see an stb dvd player that offers the clear/sharp/defined image of an HTPC [ some stb dvd players are very smooth but not nearly as sharp IMO ] .
--- I certainly prefer a detailed & sharp image while others may not :D [ some prefer the grainy film look ] .


------------ Jason

i would never knock the htpc pq vs. a stand alone player- i have seen a modest htpc make a "shouldn't be using in a home theater pj" look great. I consider that the "back in the days" period of front projection. I will rebuild my htpc for the occasional special viewing- kids and wife away :-) but i've been loving the ease of use with the stb (Q50- which i scored for cheap even with warranty) i really want to see the Zenith 318 on the H30 to see what all the hype is about but haven't grabbed one yet.

rudee

Lol, grainy film. We call that smooth film like image. :)

Originally posted by MikeSRC
I believe the date on the one I checked was 5-30.

Shadow - With the C07 firmware setting the same offset if table or ceiling mounted, your offset would be about 12" as you stated.

Excellent! So I just mount the PJ down about 8 to 10 inches and I'm all set to go. This will match my room perfectly! That puts the H30 right back in the running for me.

I'm currently thinking I can put up with the H30 light spill more easily than the extra fan noise of the 4805. Still might grab the Home 10 for a 30 day trial when my component cables arrive though.

Anyone compared regular old cable TV on both the H30 and 4805? Does the Pixelworks hold up ok or does the Faroudja leave it in the dust?

Quote: I really want to see the Zenith 318 on the H30 to see what all the hype is about but haven't grabbed one yet.

For what it's worth, I'm using a Momitsu V880 with the H30 and I could see a very clear difference between the 480P setting and the 720P/1080i settings with the movie Underworld (uncut) and most other movies as well. I love that screenshot that Pimp posted. It makes me want to try htpc's but I only have a low cost store emachines pc from walmart. One day though, I will have to see how much better they look!

Originally posted by guitarman
Lol, grainy film. We call that smooth film like image. :)

Tom ,

--- I think you mis-understood my comment ...

--- IMO it should only look grainy if it was intended to look grainy by the director [ if the grain helps the mood of the film then by all means it should be there ] . I have seen film look grainy on one system and not on the other so it is not always the fault of the source material [ sometimes it is the fault of the player ] .

--- If it is on the dvd then I want to see it , HTPC allows for a smooth yet much more detailed image than any stb dvd player I have seen [ and I have seen & owned many ] .

*** by the way can your faroudja dvd player play true HiDef source material [ not upscaled ] ... mine can :D ... and does often .



---------- Jason

Jason:

What kind of htpc do you have?

What is the specification?

Originally posted by guitarman
The new firmware looks to be great for 16.9 screen users. It makes for a normal offset. If you have a high ceiling you can just use and extension pole. The firmware knocks 15" off the offset and will totally do away with any keystone problems. I don't see the firmware as good thing for a 4.3 screen user.

How does this figure into Optoma's initial claim that the reason for the severe offset on the H30 was so that the light beam would pass through the 'best' part of the lens? Meaning not the middle of the lens.

So now with this new firmware the light beam should be passing closer through the middle of the lens, which according to Optoma originally, was not the best part of the lens to use!!

What up with dat?

Fleaman

16.9 is still at the far end. It's the same thing but passing at the upper part, no center area is used.

Wing told me the image will even be a little better with C07.

Wing told me the image will even be a little better with C07.

Hmm...I wonder why this is. You'd think when they were deciding to use the top or bottom of the lens, this would have been chosen to give the best image quality. Is there something else in the C07 that makes it better?

Probably the spot where the 16.9 image shoots thru the lens is a little sweeter at it's new point. But you know the light shoots on a similar angle with all projectors. Wing was probably talking about the glass at the curved area and how it produces the best image at that point.

Originally posted by guitarman
16.9 is still at the far end. It's the same thing but passing at the upper part, no center area is used.

Wing told me the image will even be a little better with C07.

But wouldn't it (16.9) be much closer to the center of the lens now? If your H30 is upside down (ceiling) and originally when the 16.9 was at the bottom of the chip the light beam was very drastically angled down (the bottom of the image) while the top was closer to the center of the lens. Now if the 16.9 was at the top of the chip, the beam would be much closer to going through the middle of the lens because the top of the image is still not 'above' the projector, still some offset down, just not nearly as much.

To me it sounds like the beam is now much closer to the center of the lens, I bet even that much of it is now going through the center of the lens...much more than before. And that would really seem to contradict Optoma's original rational for having such a drastic offset and putting the 16.9 image at the bottom of the chip.

Now on the other hand, if on tabletop mode, putting the image at the top would now put the 16.9 beam higher and further away from the center of the lens than before.

I seem to remember that someone said their pic was a little clearer/sharper in tabletop mode (when 16.9), which puts the beam more to the center of the lens. In ceiling mount the 16.9 would be further from the center of the lens, correct?

Fleaman

:), yes it's all confusing and probably doesn't mean much of anything. We're talking increments of measure. How's the picture looking? Focus is clear and uniform ;)

I'll do my best not the get the firmware for when I use a 4.3 screen. 16.9native starting at the top of a 4.3 is a no go for esthetic's.

Originally posted by guitarman
:), yes it's all confusing and probably doesn't mean much of anything. We're talking increments of measure. How's the picture looking? Focus is clear and uniform ;)



Actually it's not on mine, <at least> the pixel structure is not uniform on my H30 through out the screen. I do seem to remember that in table top mode the pixel structure looked a little more uniform through out the blue screen, but not really sure. I do remember that another person thought the picture was sharper in table top mode and now maybe even Optoma might agree with this, even if this was contradicting their original claim that the sweet spot was not in the center of the lens.

Fleaman

I think it would be interesting for anyone making the switch from 05 to 07. Perhaps they should study every inch of their screen closely for pixel uniformity and then re-examine it when it comes back with 07 and the image is possibly using a different part of the lens. If I wanted the 16:9 image at the top of my 4:3 screen and if I was having focus or pixel structure uniformity issues- I'd go for it.

I'm with Tom though in that I want my 16:9 image at the bottom of my 4:3 screen. My grid lines are also perfectly uniform across the screen except for about a 5"x8" area at the extreme lower right hand corner of the screen where they fuzz out a bit. I'll stand pat.

Maybe 09 firmware will be out in September and give us vertical shift so we can pick where we want the 16:9 image on a 4:3 screen :D

Cheers!

C05 or C07 is all pretty good and covers the needs of many. I'm moving up to the big dog next week. The Optoma H77, it will be nice. I plan to do a review in the let your money fly area. :)

In any event the H30 is a wonderful projector for color and HT enjoyment. I really like using it on a 4.3 screen. With the H77 I'm stuck with the little bitty 4.3 view. :(

Moving up and out??? :( Should we throw a going away party for you then? Sniff.. sniff..

Good grief Tom- that thing weighs 16.5 lbs. Don't do it man!! :D

Seriously- that sounds very fun and we look forward to hearing your impressions of that..

What 's about the lens mark? Can I still use it on the C07 firmware?

sorry "lens mask"

I went out and bought a pair of boots today but it sounds like I might need some hip waders as it is getting deep in here ...

------ Jason

parstpt ,

--- The lens mask should work at either top or bottom but it certainly does not work for a centered 16:9 image . In other words the mask should work with c07 [ only opposite ] .

------------- Jason

Just made a new discovery with HTPC and the H30 ...
--- 1280x960p @60Hz looks AMAZING :D [ desktop is ugly but HiDef & DVD content is just incredible !!! ] .
--- Some re-adjustment of the picture was needed but I am blown away at how much better this looks than the pixel mapped native resolution [ first time I have seen anything look better than 1:1 mapping ] .

---------- Jason

Jason, this is minor issue but you have false information regarding lens mask.

Lens mask works exactly as in older firmware. I suppose it is large enough to cover whole 4:3 picture, that's why you can also see full 4:3 picture with it. So, lens mask is exactly in same place with new and old firmware. I am sure it would also work with 16:9 picture that is centered to 4:3 picture.

So you can use lens mask exactly as before.

Originally posted by gottahavapj
Moving up and out??? :( Should we throw a going away party for you then? Sniff.. sniff..

Good grief Tom- that thing weighs 16.5 lbs. Don't do it man!! :D

Seriously- that sounds very fun and we look forward to hearing your impressions of that..

I'll still have the H30 up at the same time so I'll be still be around to help new H30 owners. I've seen the 77 and you could fit three H30's inside of it. With the large size Wing said they were able to set air draft channels to get the lowest or quietest sounding PJ on the market.

Pretty amazing they got the H30 so quiet. It's on now and I can't even hear the thing. :)

Originally posted by guitarman
I've seen the 77 and you could fit three H30's inside of it. With the large size Wing said they were able to set air draft channels to get the lowest or quietest sounding PJ on the market.


That's for sure. I've seen it in operation and there's very little noise at all.

Tom - are you going to be keeping the H77 or just trying it out on loan?

First I'll be trying it out and it looks like it this week, maybe I'll keep it. Shipments will be moving up to 1,000 a month soon.

Vierimaa ,

--- Have you tried this yourself ? I do not have c07 so I am only speculating based upon the limited technical information that has been given here thus far ;) .

--- I don't see how the lens mask would work with exactly the same location if the other end of the chip is being used [ it is not like they can alter the angle of the chip or the lens ] .

--- I have tried to use the lens mask with a 16:9 centered on 4:3 image and it does not work well IMO , works much better when the H30 is in 16:9 mode [ c05 firmware ] . Even though you can see the entire 4:3 image with the lens mask in place it is obvious that it should not be used in such a manner as it causes the outer portions of the image to darken and look blurry [ at least that has been my experience with it ] .

--- If it indeed does sit in the same location then I apologize for any poor speculation on my part .


------------ Jason

DOH !!!

--- What the heck was I thinking , I can try it out myself via HTPC and just shift the 16:9 to other end of the chip .

--- Lens mask results to follow ...


---------- Jason :)

It makes sense if you see shadow at the top of the 4.3 chip when you use the lens mask that that shadow will effect the 16.9 C07 image. Maybe with some lens mask angling and projector tilt you could clear up the shadow.

I tried the tape tweak when using a 16.9 image and it does help things. Wing says you'll get a better CR when doing this. He also said for 4.3 you get some better CR but it does add shadow at the upper corners. 16.9 and the tape you'll get a much larger increase in CR.

It doesn't work well IMO when the image is shifted to the other end of the chip [ like in c07 ] , I just tried it with my HTPC and the Lens mask causes too much shadow for me .

--- The image was no different either so the gain in image that is supposed to be present in c07 [ from what Tom stated Wing told him ] must be something in the firmware and not just the shifting of the image .


---------- Jason

Tom, when you tried the tape tweak, about how much of the window did you cover? When I've tried to cover enough to remove the light spill, I start to get the shadow encroaching you see with a 4:3 image. I'd rather have the slightly lesser CR than the shadows. With a 16:9 screen, the lens mask alone improves CR and reduces light spill enough so that it's not noticeable on a dark wall.

As far as the 4805 is concerned, right now I'm leaning toward keeping the H30. The only thing that holds me back is the DVI (M1DA actually) input of the 4805. With some of the upscaling DVD players on the horizon that only use HDMI or DVI with HDCP, it's soon going to be a requirement. If the H30 had a DVI input, there'd be no doubt. Of course, I'm sure that by this time next year (or sooner), Optoma will probably have a native 16:9 projector with DVI for the same price the H30 currently goes for. Maybe I'll just wait another two months for CEDIA to decide. ;)

Yes it will real hard to part with the H30. With the tape I found a spot where there was no shadow. It's easy to find with a 4.3 screen around. Wing talking about a better image with the C07 angle meant just the angle. Whether you can see it that's another story. :)

Originally posted by hikarate
Hey Guys,

I also recently watched "The Usual Suspects" and there is a scene at the beginning of the movie where everyone is questioned under a hot lamp. The glow around their faces from the lamp was very clear and did not blend in with the background. It was the same effect I originally reported when I got the H30 with the "Glowing Fish" on "Finding Nemo".
Anyhow, setting Gamma to 1 cleaned this up as well. I still have very slight dithering, and a very slight glow effect, but they are not distracting now.



Hello hikarate, can you give me any other advice on how to fix the glowing problem ? I am seeing this myself, particularly on people faces and it can be quite distracting sometimes.

Jason,
I assume I have c07 since the 16:9 picture is now in upper part of the 4:3 screen when having ceiling mount. Haven't checked the service menu yet. And yes, I am using lens mask as previously with c05.

Hope I am correct but if the 16:9 screen is in table mount at lower part of 4:3 screen and in ceiling mount also at lower part (as in c05) you would actually have different part of screen used when ceilin mounted, don't you agree? (because the machine is now upside down)

So if table mount produces picture at lower part and ceiling mount to upper part (c07) then the screen would hit exactly the same spot with lens mask. Right?

Originally posted by GGB
Hello hikarate, can you give me any other advice on how to fix the glowing problem ? I am seeing this myself, particularly on people faces and it can be quite distracting sometimes.

That would be too much contrast or white crushing. First try lowering the user contrast.

Tom, when you tried the tape tweak, about how much of the window did you cover?

Mike, it was just about 1/8". Not much, what I did was watch the light spill above the 1.85 image and used the 100IRE Avia pattern. Getting the tape as close as possible without any shadow.

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
Just made a new discovery with HTPC and the H30 ...
--- 1280x960p @60Hz looks AMAZING :D [ desktop is ugly but HiDef & DVD content is just incredible !!! ] .
--- Some re-adjustment of the picture was needed but I am blown away at how much better this looks than the pixel mapped native resolution [ first time I have seen anything look better than 1:1 mapping ] .

---------- Jason

Jason - can you tell more about your htpc - what kind do you have and so?

im new on that.

Originally posted by guitarman
That would be too much contrast or white crushing. First try lowering the user contrast.

What Tom said. I come here more to ask questions than give advice :)

All I know is its a balancing act between the dithering and "white crush". I guess thats my new term for the day. I read up on this stuff but it never relates too well to actually seeing the problems on the screen. Is there a site with examples of what these terms mean?

This is the only one I know of, it doesn't cover "white crushing" and its a bit dated:
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/VideoArtefacts/VideoArtefacts.html

Any others out there?


Is anybody else running at Gamma1?
Tom I also still have the brightness turned down in the service menu as you recommended a while ago. It actually got my blacks to match the off pixels. Should I turn that back to normal before I ship it back in? I know you later turned yours back up when you got some hours on the bulb.

The DLP ones, yes turn them back.

After Wing ran colofacts he got.

DLP-brights & contrast all at 32 which is stock on all the H30's.

Picture
Gain red 136
gain green 127
gain blue 135
Bias red 131
Bias green 128
Bias Blue 129

ADC
adc red gain 131
ads green gain 124
adc blue gain 119
adc red offset 68
adc green offset 92
adc blue offset 55

Then in the advanced user
Red contrast 3
green contrast 10
blue contrast minus 15

red brightness minus 7
green brightness minus 13
blue brightness plus 2

Cinema & film,
white peak 3 (this one he says a max of 3, higher is too much for the way white light hits the very outer part of the color wheel)
colortemp 2
gamma 3

Man the H30 has a ton of variables.

Thanks Tom,

I am just going to try those numbers and see what mine looks like.
It does have tons of variables.
I do have another question though. In Avia they have settings for Tint and Hue. In the H30 there is only the 1 color setting in the basic field. Can't remember window name, buts its like you set
Brightness
Contrast
Color
Gamma

Or something close to that:
How are you supposed to match this up with the blue filter. I don't remember which one color equates to, Tint or Hue, but i am just wondering why there aren't 2 different settings for this. I have just been moving the color setting up or down until the Blue filter is as close as I can get it, but I don't think thats the right way to do that, is it?

I get tint also with component feeds from a progressive player. Tint usually ends up at the zero mark anyway. After you try these numbers then run Avia. Why no Tint? What exactly are you running? interlaced, s-video, PC?

Originally posted by hikarate
How are you supposed to match this up with the blue filter. I don't remember which one color equates to, Tint or Hue, but i am just wondering why there aren't 2 different settings for this. I have just been moving the color setting up or down until the Blue filter is as close as I can get it, but I don't think thats the right way to do that, is it?

Avia has settings for Saturation (Color) and Hue (Tint). As Tom said, you should see both Color and Tint if you're using a prog scan input. With an interlaced input, Tint is gone. Use the Colr adjustment with the Blue bars and Blue filter to match up the colors and stop the "Saturation" square from flashing. If you have the "Tint" adjustment, you can do the same until the "Hue" square stops flashing, otherwise, just using the Color will be fine.

Thanks Guys,

So the Settings screen in the H30 removes the Tint setting for Interlaced inputs? That explains it. I was originally setup as S-Video and I remember being able to set both Color and Tint. When I switched to Component it was gone. My DVD player is interlaced.
Thats pretty weird, wonder why the Tint option isn't available for component interlaced, but is for S-video which is also interlaced. Or am I mistaken? Been 3 months since I had it set up with S-video so my memory is fuzzy.

Vierimaa ,

--- Well if it works for you then by all means use it :D . I cannot be certain of the characteristics of c07 as I do not have it .

______________________________________

draags ,

--- Click my WWW link above and read the "ABOUT" for some HTPC specs ;) . The hardware used is important but the software and 'tweaks' used are just as important (or even more important) when it comes to using an HTPC .



------------ Jason

Hello Tom

What 's colorwheel number in the service menu after calibrating with colorfact? Mine got 18920.

Man the H30 has a ton of variables.

Amen to that. I'm having a hell of a time calibrating my H30 to my satisfaction. I'll do AVIA and get the color bars looking just fine, only to discover that fleshtones look artificial when viewing actual movies. I've ended up ditching AVIA and calibrating fleshtones from traditionally filmed flicks (ex. American Beauty, The Rock... but no Matrix, LOTR, Fight Club). I find it interesting that you are now using Gamma 3. Doesn't this reduce black level and make dithering more apparent?

As Tom and I figured out very early on you cannot use the numbers from another H30 , they all seem to be different [ for whatever reasons ] . So please do not expect to have a Colorfacts calibrated H30 by just plugging in Tom's numbers [ it will not work and you will probably have an ugly mess of an image ] .

--- Gamma 3 seems much too high to me as well but again consider what I said above ;) .


-------- Jason

Hey Pimp

Could u tell me what program u are currently using to run DVD and Hi Def on your HTPC? I am now using WinDVD 6 and Reclock.

I just got Hi def movie to run and I gotta say that it's awesome,best pic on my H30. I will try your trick of 1280x960p @60Hz and check it out how great it is.

Thanks for the help Tom and hikarate, have lowered the contrast and im no longer having the problem i described.

Contrast is now at 30 and brightness at 18.

parstpt ,

--- Currently using Zoomplayer Pro [ Windows Media Video edition ] as my front end GUI .
--- I am using the yet to be released Nvidia Forceware Multimedia codec for dvd playback and the AC3 filter for audio [ most impressive codec I have seen for dvd playback and it is only in beta form ;) ] .
--- I use ffdshow as well with Resize [ no other sharpening ] .
--- For HiDef playback I use VLC [ VideoLAN ] as it plays almost any format and does an exceptional job .
--- I do not use Reclock as I have no stutter or sync issues .
--- WinDVD6 would probably be my 2nd choice as a player , I really enjoy the new Dimension filter with CGI & Animation :D [ the 3-D effect is just incredible ] .

---- I discovered that with 1280x960p I do get occasional tearing in the video , which is a real bummer because it just looks so very nice . Please do try it out and let me know what you think ;) .


----------- Jason

Hey Pimp,

I got WinDVD but it doesn't quite match up with my screen. Does it have options to resize the image or reset its location? Don't go to the trouble of telling me where they are or anything (If it does), just wondering if they have these options, or do I need to run something else like that ffdshow thing you mention.
Thanks.

BTW I got my RMA #, didn't you guys mentions a expiration period on these like 30 days or something. If anyone knows what it is let me know, I wouldn't mind playing around with the H30 another week or 2 before I send it in to try some of the stuff you guys are talking about, especially on the PC side. Thanks.

And I know punching in other peoples numbers never works, but I was willing to give it a try since me trying to calibrate the thing doesn't seem to work either! :)

I was really happy with the image I had until I saw The Usual Suspects and ran into the White crushing issue. Never noticed it on the other DVDs I watched (Except Nemo, which I thought was an effect of the DVD and not a problem), but it was glaringly bad on that Suspects, so back to the drawing board as they say.

Originally posted by DaGamePimp

--- Gamma 3 seems much too high to me as well but again consider what I said above ;) .

-------- Jason
Ditto- anything above Gamma 1 produces noisy blacks for me.

Cheers!

Gamma 3, after all the tuning and testing Wing told me on my machine gamma 3 is doing a fractional better job with the grayscale but said gamma 2 is also good. I use the option as if I want a more Plasma look I'll choose gamma 3 and if I need a darker view then gamma 2.

The time limit for RMA's is 60days.

Short story, last night an Ebayer gentleman and his son came over to buy some Paradigm speakers I had for sale. Guess what he wants an H30 now. He some how thought a projector that produces an image this good would be $6,000. :)

Originally posted by parstpt
Hello Tom

What 's colorwheel number in the service menu after calibrating with colorfact? Mine got 18920.

That's something we don't adjust. How did the CF cal go? The number shown at the CW area changed?

There's been a lot of discussion about the projection being through the upper half of the lens vs. the center, how can this be good etc. Just for comparison's sake, I checked out the image positioning with the InFocus 4805 and lo and behold, they do the same thing. You could almost cover the bottom half of the lens withour affecting the image. The positioning is similar to what you see with the lens mask on the H30.

Regarding gamma, the correct setting can differ greatly based on your setup, room lighting conditions and screen. The same can be true for other settings, but I wouldn't stray too far from Avia or DVE settings or you might get an unnatural image. DVE does have some good patterns for checking flesh tones, which Avia lacks. Of course, in the end, it comes down to what looks best to you. ;)

Originally posted by gottahavapj
Ditto- anything above Gamma 1 produces noisy blacks for me.

Cheers!

Thanks for the info Gotta. Up till now I though me and 1 other guy (Valk or Flea, can't remember) here were the only ones seeing this ditheirng problem. Good to know someone else has noticed it as well. Gamma one nips this in the bud for me though. I really like the plasma look of gamma 3 like Tom said though. I think if you were trying to sell this thing thats the setting to use, but for me at least, the dithering is off the chart at that setting unless contrast is set to compensate which of course results in loss of black level detail.

I do need to clarify that I am complaining about a couple scenes in movies that I either have to fight with dithering or white crush. In general 99% of the movies look awesome! Just a scene here or there in a couple movies that drive me nuts. I guess I should just make a setting to account for dithering and one to account for white crushing, and then another average one. This will work great for movies I have already seen, but does me little good for watching new movies when I don't know which setting to use. Guess thats what the average one is for.

Thanks for the info on the 60 days Tom. My fiancee's birthday is the 30th and one of her presents is going to be a Imax Niagara Fall DVD (She doesn't know it even exists). We are going there to get married so I was hoping we could watch that before I send the H30 back.

I've seen the dithering as well, but only in a few movies as you mentioned. The last one was The Last Samurai during the ninja attack. The other people watching with me didn't notice it, but I sure did. I can put up with it on such an occasional basis to get better black and shadow detail the other 99% of the time.

Congrats on the upcoming wedding, hikarate! :)

Thanks Mike,

No one else has noticed or commented on the dithering scenes that I have watched either. I just thought there wasn't supposed to be any at all and I had something configured wrong. If you see it on occassional scenes with yours then I am going to stop obsessing over it.
Appreciate the congratz as well, Thanks!

Congrats hikarate , you will be an official WAF member soon ;) .

------- well I hate to comment like this [ not rubbing it in ;) ] but I have no dithering via my HTPC , I did have some before proper calibration however . Dithering is a known issue with DLP and a very slight amount on a PJ in this price range is to be expected [ just be thankful we don't have VB to deal with as DLP users , that drives me nuts :D ] .

------- Jason

Originally posted by hikarate
Thanks Mike,

No one else has noticed or commented on the dithering scenes that I have watched either. I just thought there wasn't supposed to be any at all and I had something configured wrong. If you see it on occassional scenes with yours then I am going to stop obsessing over it.
Appreciate the congratz as well, Thanks!

Yeah stop obsessing. :)

All the DLP's have mosquito noise in some dark scenes when you go up to the screen. At the top of this forum they have a device to help lower the dithering. The new Optoma H77 has two extra dark green segments to also lower the dither.

You should have seen the newbie's first view of the Optoma H30 last night. I even snapped down the 120" 4.3 screen to show him what classic's can look like. Totally stunned,

Originally posted by guitarman
Yeah stop obsessing. :)

All the DLP's have mosquito noise in some dark scenes when you go up to the screen. At the top of this forum they have a device to help lower the dithering. The new Optoma H77 has two extra dark green segments to also lower the dither.


Can you elaborate on this device? Like what it's called and who deals it? I'm assuming that if they are one of the sponsors above, it shouldn't violate forum rules...

....and, have you used it? How effective is it? There most be some drawbacks...other than cost?

Other than getting a delicate balance of contrast vs. dithering via calibrations, I’m wondering how this device might also help me/us.

Fleaman

fleaman-
i think it's $3500-4000 grand- not an option

rudee

My first thought was that Tom was referring to a DVDO iScan product but I'm probably wrong once again :D.

Congrats here also hikarate! Make sure you get all your toys bought before it's "our" money. :) Then things like dining room sets take on a whole new life. hehehe

You guys make me glad to be single, haha. ;)

My iScan Ultra just arrived today. I'm sitting here on the verge of opening it. I just need to find someone to buy my iScan Pro now.

Valk-

I'd be real curious as to what your impression of the iScan products are, especially if you are treated to the same semi-crappy SDTV signals I get. I don't think a Pro has enough inputs for me or I'd be interested.

Cheers!

I was pretty impressed with the Pro, honestly. Unfortunately, I get a LOUSY cable feed (thanks, Comcast!), so it's hard to tell if it makes a difference there. When SwitchMonkey and I did our comparison, we turned the iscan on and off, and compared against the DCDi of the 4805 and my DVD player. The result was that the DCDi was even a notch better than the iScan Pro (though I hear the better chip in the Ultra evens the odds a bit). Anyway, I wanted a pass-through for my DVD player after seeing how good the PQ was, so...I upped to the Ultra. A bit more pocket change, but it also has a ton of inputs, which is what I wanted. I also love the ability of these units to correct for color/saturation/brightness/contrast/etc with a simple control. That way, I leave the H30's controls alone, and can adjust to suit the ambient lighting I get. I'm sure there's ways to do it with the H30 and the "user settings," but this is really quite simple, plus I can feed all my device (PVR, DVD, VCR, etc.) to the H30 with a single cable.

I saw Veggieguy's H30 set-up and I was impressed the Pixelworks chip's handling of his cable, but his screen was a bit smaller than mine (I have 114", so defects are pretty noticable, if there).

I'll post my assessment of the Ultra when I have a chance (may not be until this weekend).

Originally posted by gottahavapj
............. Congrats here also hikarate! Make sure you get all your toys bought before it's "our" money. :) Then things like dining room sets take on a whole new life. hehehe

Ain't that the truth!!!

How can i check which software i did have inside my H30 - if its c05 or c07

Please help????

draags ,

--- Click on my www link above and the first page of my website tells you how to access the service menu ;) .

-------- Jason

Originally posted by gottahavapj
Congrats here also hikarate! Make sure you get all your toys bought before it's "our" money. :) Then things like dining room sets take on a whole new life. hehehe

That's when you need workarounds. Like when I wanted furniture for my home theater room, I said why don't we get new furniture for the family room, then I can move the old stuff (2 years old) upstairs to the theater. Works a lot better than saying: "We need to buy theater seating". :D

Cunning Mike, very cunning :) I always knew you were an intelligent man.

Cheers!

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
draags ,

--- Click on my www link above and the first page of my website tells you how to access the service menu ;) .

-------- Jason

Up + Enter (at the same time)-hit it twice /-> Left + Enter (at the same time)-hit it twice /->

Hi there Jason, Does the above procedure mean hit them both twice or only hit enter twice whilst holding the other button down?

Regards, MikeDes

Push both the Up and Enter buttons at the same time and do it twice. Repeat that with the Left and Enter buttons. Don't hold any of them down.

hello pimp,
my system is overclocked athlon 2296 256 ram geforce2 i cant resize over 1152X864 is it the geforce or ram i have to upgrade.if i resize to 1280X960
i just get a frozen frame,shoudn't i get a low framerate picture also if i touch anything in controls fast forward or something else movie will pause and wont play again unless i stop first is this normal.thanks pimp

totoybato ,

--- I would have to guess your limitation is your GF2 video card but a faster cpu wouldn't hurt ;) .

--- Are you using DDR memory ?

--- Do you have Fast Writes enabled ?


------------ Jason

Originally posted by MikeSRC
Push both the Up and Enter buttons at the same time and do it twice. Repeat that with the Left and Enter buttons. Don't hold any of them down.

Don't forget, you have to do that above sequence on the projector itself and not the remote.

:D

Originally posted by MikeSRC
Push both the Up and Enter buttons at the same time and do it twice. Repeat that with the Left and Enter buttons. Don't hold any of them down.

Thanks for clearing that up Mike & Kimocal.

Regards, MikeDes

Originally posted by MikeSRC
That's when you need workarounds. Like when I wanted furniture for my home theater room, I said why don't we get new furniture for the family room, then I can move the old stuff (2 years old) upstairs to the theater. Works a lot better than saying: "We need to buy theater seating". :D

That's exactly what I did to get the projector, we got new livingroom furniture. I tried for a Lazyboy sectional but lost out to more traditional furniture. I have make the projector portable and will set it on a coffee table when in use, hence HTPC, and the loveseat is ~19' from the screen so I'm happy, she's happy but the kid's aren't because the "big room" is no longer their playroom. I think they'll be happy once the projector arrives, which hopefully will be Mon.

So how's the Dalite High Power screen working out for any H30 owners?

Tom ,

--- I am considering the HiPower but it would seem that for my high ceiling mount [ only a few inches down from an 8ft. ceiling ] the benefit of the HP is all but lost . I actually just got my pricing from AVS yesterday and for the difference in cost from the HCMW I am not so sure the HP is worth it for me [ being the more expensive of the two ] .

--- I know the HP should have no waves but as I understand it something in the 92" diagonal [ 16:9 ] range should not have waves on the HCMW either [ now a bigger screen is a different story ] .

--- Now maybe I am wrong with my assumptions here but this is what I have gathered thus far after some research .

--- Does anybody here have the HCCV in use with the H30 ? Is it too dark ?


------------ Jason

Even though you ceiling mount the HP adds some nice punch to the picture. I've seen it with the HT1000. Since I've also seen the same setup with the mat white .1 gain, I'd say the HP looked like a 1.8 gain.

I worry about any of the new materials showing waves with video on non-tensioned. I know the HP is the best for this and the mat white comes in second.

The Video spectra I had was aweful for waves being shown and screen shots and opinions on the .08 dalite (not sure what the call letters are for that) showed heavy wave with video.

hey guys i have the video spectra and have no waves , but i do keep the screen rolled down at all times and the only way i am going to roll it up is when i move to my new home , and the pic is excellent and i do agree with tom with the pj ceiling mounted you should get a gain of around 1.4 to 1.8 or so :D


ps . tom make sure you are the one that gets post 6000 :0

So is the view cone more limited with the HiPower [ vs. the HCMW or HCCV ] ?

------ Jason

"92" diagonal [ 16:9 ] range should not have waves"

What's that a 80" wide. That's the new width I'm thinking of but I still plan on the 80X60 format. This way no masking needed and I can bop around all the aspects. The only thing that suffers is the look of OTA which is stuck in a small window view. Maybe a black roll down mask just for OTA.

Yes on the view cone but it was never noticed, my seat is center up and if my wife or kid are in the theater room their spot starts just along the left side of the screen. It's no where near like my soon to go out the door RPTV.

H30+High Power = Heaven! I am using a 16:9 106" dia and the picture is just beautiful. It is like a 106" plasma screen. I have calibrated it with Avia. The H30 is table mounted and quiet. This is my first projector and I like it so much I feel like upgrading to the H77.
Last night , after 115 hours of use, I switched from HDTV to DVD and experienced the Green bar. Can this be fixed by Optoma?

i have a ceiling mounted h30 about 88" from the floor with the high power screen mounted to a diy frame 81" diagonal (bottom of screen is about 34" from floor). my ceiling was painted black and the walls are a dark green color. the combination of the high power and ceiling-mounted h30 work very well in my small room (13' x 10'). i would guess that the gain is about 1.5. i much preferred the high power to any grey screen sample as i found those too dark to my liking. blacks are not real black but are not bad after i had turned down the rgb brightness. i have some ambient light from a side window which does not seem to affect the pq much. i will eventually install a blackout shade but viewing dvds in the afternoon is still enjoyable. i am very happy with the high power screen. truly does give a plasma-like experience. cheers.

Lights up the screen, that's the impression I got with the HT1000 ceiling mounted also. That green bar problem some have, Optoma now has the fix ready and I confirmed it. One of the boards will get replaced.

Ok , well then maybe the HiPower is not for me as I do not like the over saturated Plasma look [ only plasma that I have seen that was actually impressive was well over $10K ] . After using crt front projection for years I find that black level is VERY important to me and I cannot give up any more black detail than what I have already given up by going to digital (from CRT) .
--- Plus I do not have a Black ceiling and cannot paint it black either as I am currently in an apartment [ only my front wall is black - using cloth to cover the entire front wall behind the screen ] .
--- Maybe in my situation [ white walls and ceiling ] I would be better off with an HCMW or HCCV [ waves are something that I could not tolerate however ] .
--- I guess my biggest problem is just me , I am too picky ;) .


------------ Jason

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
Ok , well then maybe the HiPower is not for me as I do not like the over saturated Plasma look [ only plasma that I have seen that was actually impressive was well over $10K ] . After using crt front projection for years I find that black level is VERY important to me and I cannot give up any more black detail than what I have already given up by going to digital (from CRT) .
--- Plus I do not have a Black ceiling and cannot paint it black either as I am currently in an apartment [ only my front wall is black - using cloth to cover the entire front wall behind the screen ] .
--- Maybe in my situation [ white walls and ceiling ] I would be better off with an HCMW or HCCV [ waves are something that I could not tolerate however ] .
--- I guess my biggest problem is just me , I am too picky ;) .


------------ Jason

Be handy and make an aluminum frame, pick up the HCMW material. It's the only way to beat the waves with that material.

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
--- I guess my biggest problem is just me , I am too picky ;) .

It's said that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. ;)

I think I am gonna go for the 92" Model B Deluxe HiPower and hope it works for me , for the money I am sure I can always sell it local for very little loss if it doesn't work out . Wish there was a way to try screens out without being stuck once you get it [ the sample thing just isn't big enough to get the full grasp of each material IMO ] . Not ready to order the screen just yet but I have to plan it out now :) .

_____________________________________

---- veggie ,
----- Hehe , yeah I have heard that too ;) .


____________________________________

--------- Jason

Is there anyone out there having good tweak settings for s-video and interlaced dvd???

What is your settings????

Let the games begin : http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=423902


------ Jason

The portable wide power Insta Theater does not give me waves like my past standard roll downs. The material is actually thinner than past models...almost cellephanelike and based on its properties will never get waves because the material is not elastic at all. It is also portable and can be moved to be hidden. Mine is currently hidden behind the curtains.

http://www.spacelofts.com/h30/




Originally posted by DaGamePimp
I think I am gonna go for the 92" Model B Deluxe HiPower and hope it works for me , for the money I am sure I can always sell it local for very little loss if it doesn't work out . Wish there was a way to try screens out without being stuck once you get it [ the sample thing just isn't big enough to get the full grasp of each material IMO ] . Not ready to order the screen just yet but I have to plan it out now :) .

_____________________________________

---- veggie ,
----- Hehe , yeah I have heard that too ;) .


____________________________________

--------- Jason

The new firmware would work good for your screen. The black area below should soak up the light spill. I see they have decent sizes in the Intsa Theater. You can go 90" 16.9 diagonal or 100" 4.3 diagonal. The models are a little pricey but deals can be found.

It's great to hear this material will have no waves. Do you know what gain level they rate the Wide Power?

It's great to hear this material will have no waves. Do you know what gain level they rate the Wide Power?




tom the wide power is rated at 2.2 gain

Thx, I just spent an hour and couldn't find any info on the wide-power. I did find out if you can live with 80" diagonal it can be very cheap.

Originally posted by Saturn_AD
The portable wide power Insta Theater does not give me waves like my past standard roll downs. The material is actually thinner than past models...almost cellephanelike and based on its properties will never get waves because the material is not elastic at all. It is also portable and can be moved to be hidden. Mine is currently hidden behind the curtains.

http://www.spacelofts.com/h30/

This screen intrests me. I just noticed that at your site you give the 2.4gain 45degree view angle which is very good. Also your Star Wars dark scene shows very good blacks for this high gain. I wonder how the gain is effected by ceiling mount vs table? One other thing your (screen case) changes color from Black to white? Nice trick :)

Originally posted by guitarman
The new firmware would work good for your screen. The black area below should soak up the light spill. I see they have decent sizes in the Intsa Theater. You can go 90" 16.9 diagonal or 100" 4.3 diagonal. The models are a little pricey but deals can be found.

It's great to hear this material will have no waves. Do you know what gain level they rate the Wide Power?

The only issue with the portable Wide Power is it come in small sizes only....well relatively small if someone want really big 100" diagonal I do not believe that is available. It is also thin....so....no sharp objects around it...It seems to be durable since it goes up and down fairly regularly for the last couple of months without any issues. The side edges do curl a little in...but only in the borders left and right about center...the rest of the screen is flat.
I presume Dalite should provide you a sample of it.

Originally posted by guitarman
This screen intrests me. I just noticed that at your site you give the 2.4gain 45degree view angle which is very good. Also your Star Wars dark scene shows very good blacks for this high gain. I wonder how the gain is effected by ceiling mount vs table? One other thing your (screen case) changes color from Black to white? Nice trick :)


lol.....yeah those pictures are time elapse couple of days.....after I spray painted the case...The fiancee complained it did not match the color scheme..so I spray painted it. it is 2.4 ...I went live chat with a Dalite person.
Sorry I do not have a ceiling mount but the gain is high and the contrast is great. I believe I had to tone down the brightness...but this screen totally is great....knock on wood..I hope the durability is the same. I do not know many people using it. The reason for the portable is because the wall I have is windows which is on an angle.

just noticed that at your site you give the 2.4gain 45degree



no it is max 2.2 gain and it is a nice screen material and the blacks do not get hurt as they do on the high power material and all i can say is this screen material ( wide power ) and a dlp pj is a good combination .


the pic was very nice after it was dialed in

Hey Joe;

Whatcha runnig now...did you get your upgrade?
And no I have not forgotten.

saturn i just dialed in the h56a and i am keeping it for now and then i am going to pic up my ultimate pj ;) and then comes the pop corn machine and the snack bar and so on :D , i am just holding off till the new place .brother


but for right now i am picking up a digital cam soon just doing research and stuff '

Hi guys,

Well I have been away from this thread for a while. Just got a chance to use the PJ after about three weeks, and I get the orange light at startup. I have tried unplugging the unit several times but it does not fire-up. Any ideas other than an RMA?

FYI, I had the unit unplugged while I was away. I have never seen the orange light problem prior to this.

Last resort trick is to re seat the bulb. Some have seen the orange light and it went away. good luck

Tom,

Just reseated the lamp. Unfortunately it did not do the trick. I have the C.05 frimware so I guess I should have it updated as well?

Guys,

I got the H30 in January after reading Tom's initial review. The first one worked for 1 week and then wouldn't start up anymore. I sent back to Optoma and they fixed because they were on backorder. After 1 month the projector would not come on again so I sent it back to Optoma again. This time I received a new unit and it worked until 2 weeks ago and then it wouldn't power on. Last week I just got it back after being fixed at it has the new C07 firmware but I am not very confident in the reliability after having this happen 3 times. Maybe I am cursed but man has this been frustrating. My fingers are crossed cause I love the image this little baby throws.

When sending back to Optoma I never mentioned the firmware but it has been automatically updated every time I have received a projector back from them.

Mike

Sorry to hear that. That C07 looks interesting for 16.9 screens. Makes for a super low offset. No other 4.3 projector could have an offset like this for 16.9 screen users. Unless it had digital shift.
good luck

Yes, I am getting the light spill below my 16:9 screen now that I didn't have before. I have read a few pages back you talking about putting a piece of tape of the bottom on your lens to get rid of this. Is that right? Just a little piece of say black electrical tape? Let me know if that is what to do. I want to try that.

Thanks,
Mike

It's tricky but yes black electrical tape on the Lens Mask. Find the spot where it doesn't show shadow creeping into the image. Use an all white avia pattern if you can. The amount you cover is only about 1/8" or less. If this isn't good encough you'll have to find some way to darken the lower surrounding screen area.

This is why I was just saying earlier the the new Insta Theater Dalite screens are taylor made for the H30. The whole bottom portion is deep black.

Thanks Tom,

Weird thing is my whole room is completely black but I was still getting the light spill so that I noticed it. It was only apparent on certain scenes like when a DVD would have a 4:3 advertisement at the beginning. During 16:9 movies I can never see the light spill since my whole area around screen is black. I don't understand the logic behind getting the light spill though just during the 4:3 scenes because its not like the Optoma projector was switching to 4:3. I mean the projector stayed in 16:9 mode and the 4:3 box was in the middle of my 16:9 screen where it should be. Weird.

Thanks again,
Mike

The best you can do is make sure your brightness is at the optimum area. Maybe it's a shade or two bright and the mirrors are still on a little in the 4.3 area.

Originally posted by guitarman
So how's the Dalite High Power screen working out for any H30 owners?

Maybe interesting information for people living in Europe were it is more difficult to find Dalite High Power screens. Since "Dalite" and "Projecta" are one company now, they sell the same material on their screen models (but different mechanics)
I have since 3 weeks the 84" diag. sealing mount HP screen from Projecta, the model number for this screen is PSWAW018. (The 100” diag. or 2 meters wide is PSWAW020)
I already bought a sealing mount for my H30, but after seeing the results with this screen with table mount, I don’t use the sealing mount. The results with the table mount are so good. Everybody told me that I would suffer black level, but this is not the case. Black is black. Picture looks very sharp and with punch, of course every error in the source material is more visual but this could be expected from a good screen.
Myself I hate plasma screens and I prefer looking at a real CRT screen. I would rather compare the HP look with a CRT Trinitron TV screen (in regards to contrast and intensity in a dark room). If you can stand the intensity of your TV in pure dark, you will accept the contrast of the intensity of this screen.
The disadvantage I find with the screen is that as soon you move more then 3 feet (1 meter) left or right from projector the intensity drops very fast. As a test, I put a piece of matt white screen material (gain 1.0) on the my HP screen and found that the gain never dropped below 1.0 even at the most extreme 180 degree angle. With sealing mount the gain is 1.0, when your head is more then 5 feet below the projector (This is not an exact figure).

The reason I bought the High Power screen was to be able to view in moderate daylight conditions and yes it does the job right. No miracle but it works way better then normal screen material. On top of all these advantage the material screen really looks nice and smooth.

Guitarman thanks for your unbiased opinion, every shop advised against this screen material but for me I made the right choice, thanks to you.

"CRT Trinitron TV screen "

That's a good comparision. But like the old original Trinitrons when they first came out. Remember the cool quality to the color and image. Very much like the H30 and what the HP should bring it to. :)

Originally posted by guitarman
"CRT Trinitron TV screen "

That's a good comparision. But like the old original Trinitrons when they first came out. Remember the cool quality to the color and image. Very much like the H30 and what the HP should bring it to. :)

Yes indeed the old Trinitron.
http://users.pandora.be/jan.struyf2/test/DSC_5965.jpg

We were watching the news last night after being away for three days (H30 withdrawal) when the power took a big hit of "off,on,off,on again in about 1.5-2 seconds, Ouch! I saw the bright orange/red little lamp light glowing for the first time ever. As I go back and count days on the calendar- Mike invoiced that thing for me 91 days ago :D. Toooo funny. No worry's (yet) though- I gave the fan like 5 minutes to run, unplugged it from the wall for 20 mins, plugged it back in and everything was normal.

Whew!!!

Cheers!

When the power first turned off the projector you'd be ok even though the fan is out also. But you should wait a while (1/2hr) before powering back up for the bulbs sake.

Immediate thought is to test it right away.

I still can't decide on a smaller screen. The SD is looking all but gone on my 120" screen. I can down zoom to a 100" size and can't really see an advantage, brightness, color saturation seems the same.

Smaller screen withdrawal is tough to bare. But maybe I can get over it. Had hopes on a 100" High Power.

I got my replacement H30 today (green bar problems with the old one). As far as the green bar goes all seems well.

However, I'm noticing on this one that when I play PAL over the air via Composite, that there is a white band at the bottom of the picture. I think this is due to too much information, as it goes away when I use the zoom menu control. The image without zoom does show too much information.

Any others find this? I couldn't find an over/under scan setting as you get with some projectors. Is there any fix?

Cheers

Steve

Try in the Signal area the horizontal and vertical shifts.

I have been using the new C07 firmware for about 5 days on my Optoma H30. I had sent it back to Optoma 3 times because projector would eventually not come on. Here is a new thing this projector started doing. I turned on my computer with H30 off and for some reason the H30 came on all by itself. Anybody ever have that happen. There is an auto shutoff feature in the menu but not an auto turnon feature. I have bad luck with projectors so maybe this one is just cursed like all the rest.

I tried Guitarman's colorfacts settings with my Radeon HTPC. It made the picture way too green. I have a Denon 1600 DVD player also so I might try those settings with that to see if the settings work better with that signal.

Thanks,
Mike

Settings between the H30 can be way different. We had a blue problem when tuning my H30. Just for giggles I'd like to see Dagamepimps new settings. It's a crap shoot but maybe they'd help you.

I've heard of a H30 going on by itself. He was trying to pinpoint whether there was a stuck button on his remote. You could make sure the PJ stays off by using the power surge protectors switch. Or the PJ's power switch.

Thanks Tom, but there is is no Signal area for composite.

Cheers

Steve

My settings from a Colorfacts calibration are completely different from Tom's as well, so don't bother trying to copy settings. I'd expect Jason's to be different as well.

Mike ,

--- I am curious to know your CR after calibration ?

--- I still find Tom's 1871 hard to swallow since even the 4805 did not do that well after calibration and it has the new dark chip 2 technology .

--- Maybe Wing knows something that he is not saying in regards to the service menu ???

-------- Thanks ,
--------- Jason

okay- so post all three calibration numbers and we common folks can take an average :-)

now for what i came for:

Am i the first to get a hairball on the h30? pretty sure i got one- blank screen with a green blog, outta focus, been there for three days. i've been in denial.

Should be esy to get rid of-

MikeSRC, any tips since you've pulled the hood? i'll have to dig the inards photo's out of archives or maybe you can repost with hints since there are H30's finally getting some hours on them, hard to tell if that's even true with the amount of returns and replacements.

my first H30 with 170 hours and one good size dustball-yikes.

I've taken apart a 14 lb sharp lcd pj apart to clean dust bunnies, that was loads of fun-NOT! - i'd like to think the H30 would be a breeze and may not rquire a "look under the hood" I was thinking vacuum first, a shot of good compressed air and maybe followed by a combo at the end. Needs some feedback before i begin- It's not even noticable with picture showing.

rudee

rudee ,

--- I would try the Vac idea first , canned air is a bit trickier to use and can make things worse ;) .


-------- Jason

I must say that this calibration issue is very frustrating. Perhaps I've set my sights too high, but after viewing the colorfacts calibrated H30 over the weekend, I've found my unit difficult to watch. I've tried countless setting combinations under the advanced menu, but my color balance and contrast is still off. Tom, or anyone else who has done their own extensive calibrations... can you do your best to explain what each part of the service menu does, and how to set each step by step using Avia? With a basic Avia calibration, you do the needle pulses for brightness/contrast, blue filter for color/tint and you're done. No room for interpretation. When I have the test patterns pulled up and I go into the service menu, I feel like I'm all over the place. Correcting one thing, but creating another problem, jumping around from one control to the other. Any Avia patterns I should be using? Should I be using the filters for color contrast/brightness?

jeff ,

--- I would be happy to lend a hand with an AVIA calibration via the service menu [ I did it several times on my other 2 H30's ;) ] , if you would like to bring your H30 over to my place sometime [ would be interesting to compare them side by side - actually ceiling/floor ;) ] . My Parkland screen is about the same as your Blackout at 1.0 - 1.1 .

--- Adjusting via the service menu is the way to go [ wish there would have been time to do it that way at the meet ] .

--- Be sure to reset all the std. menu calibrations before you enter the service menu . I had issue with this throwing off some calibrations once I dropped back out of the service menu .

--- Follow the Basic AVIA set-up procedures and then do any fine tweaking with the normal menu .

--- If I can lend a hand then please let me know .

--------- Jason

Well, that does it.

After sending back my first H30 for the green bar problem, my new one just did exactly the same thing.

This time while playing the menu on the French Connection via component. I didn't even try switching inputs.

The picture is very good (when it works) but I'm not playing guinea pig any more.

4805 here I come.

hello all
ive just got my h30 its my first projector
and im very new to all this and this thread is a wealth of information
ive used it for about 8 hours so far and its very impressive.

dagamepimp that screenshot you posted of shrek is incredible and got me wondering
im currently running a p4 2.4ghz
256 meg ram
ati 9700 pro ,vga, dvi out
sound blaster audigy

im wondering if i could run this as an htpc to the optoma mainly for dvd playback
not sure if i use vga or the supplied dvi to vga adapter that came with the card to connect to h30
i understand i would have to get a silent running fan for cpu if i were to use this full time
just wondering if this pc would be powerful enough to use as htpc
im ready to take it downstairs to give it a try
thanks
im not sure if this should be in htpc forum

Originally posted by jeff442
I must say that this calibration issue is very frustrating. Perhaps I've set my sights too high, but after viewing the colorfacts calibrated H30 over the weekend, I've found my unit difficult to watch. I've tried countless setting combinations under the advanced menu, but my color balance and contrast is still off. Tom, or anyone else who has done their own extensive calibrations... can you do your best to explain what each part of the service menu does, and how to set each step by step using Avia? With a basic Avia calibration, you do the needle pulses for brightness/contrast, blue filter for color/tint and you're done. No room for interpretation. When I have the test patterns pulled up and I go into the service menu, I feel like I'm all over the place. Correcting one thing, but creating another problem, jumping around from one control to the other. Any Avia patterns I should be using? Should I be using the filters for color contrast/brightness?

Jeff,
I'd start with a progressive signal from my DVD player. First just use Avia to set all the user level in the user Picture menu. If you can set blacks and white ok and see true black (no dither or mirror activity) when setting blacks. I'd continue and do the color and sharpness etc.

Then I'd take a look at the Fifth Element. If I needed to delete green from the flesh tones I'd pull back the green in the advanced RGB-contrast until it was gone. Then for balance I'd move the green back 1/2 and conter move the Red & Blue.

Lets say you see Red in the blacks. Same kind of format but you use the lower and of the grayscale the Advancec RGB-brightness.

You looking to make flesh tones in a reference movie like the Fifth Element look golden redish. Like reference phots in Home Theater magazines. Similar to this screen shot.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h30lee14.3.jpg

FYI - As Tom has mentioned before, your stardard picture settings will reset when you EXIT the service menu. For instance, I reset the settings for my H30 via the standard menu. I move the color temp from 2 to 1 and then enter the service menu. Once I complete my adjustments and exit the service menu, the projector resynchs for a moment. I go back into the sevice menu, and hmmm... something seems off. The color temp has gone back to 2! I set the color temp back to 1, and everything looks much better. Just beware that this is happening.

If I needed to delete green from the flesh tones I'd pull back the green in the advanced RGB-contrast until it was gone. Then for balance I'd move the green back 1/2 and conter move the Red & Blue.

I've finally got the hang of doing this. So if I need to knock green back 4 notches, I should actually knock green back 2 notches and red/blue up 2 notches? What is the reasoning behind this? I assume it's done to keep the controls centered.


In the service menu, what is the difference between the Picture and ADC controls? I know that ADC only applies to progressive signals. So if I want to remove green, do I do it from picture or ADC, or both?

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
Mike ,

--- I am curious to know your CR after calibration ?


Sorry Jason, But I don't know what it was. Mine was done by Wing at Optoma. BTW, were you guys using the lens mask with the H30 at your comparison?

Originally posted by jeff442
I've finally got the hang of doing this. So if I need to knock green back 4 notches, I should actually knock green back 2 notches and red/blue up 2 notches? What is the reasoning behind this? I assume it's done to keep the controls centered.


In the service menu, what is the difference between the Picture and ADC controls? I know that ADC only applies to progressive signals. So if I want to remove green, do I do it from picture or ADC, or both?

The service menu rgb controls will effect all the imput signals. Usually s-video and interlaced look ok already on the H30's, so you'll just have to fix the user setting rgb for progressive. Maye with some you couldn't get the blacks right in the user area with Avia. Then you'd hv to go with the service rgb's at the start and continue with the user rgb's.

Wing says the three different rgb adjustments are a chain effecting different area's of the projectors electronics.

ADC - service area
Picture - service area
Lastly Adavnced rgb - user area

Right you use the other rgb color adjustments in conjunction the the one you moved for balance. When you're near where you want to be, start sliding each color while viewing the image. See what it's doing to the flesh tone and find a spot you like.

Go look at what Evan at projector central did when he reveiwed the H30.

Hey don't sell your 4.3 projector yet. Latest issue of Home Theater mag says the FCC's probably extending the deadline for HDTV from Dec 31st 2006 to Dec 31st 2009, or mainly 2010.

BTW, were you guys using the lens mask with the H30 at your comparison?

Nope. Lens mask was not used. I believe that Jason has found the mask to be too intrusive on the brightness uniformity. Although he did agree that contrast is noticeably better with it on. I've found that uniformity while using the mask is better with the C07 firmware.

Thanks Jeff. I didn't remember seeing that in the comparison thread. I don't have any uniformity issues with the lens mask and a 16:9 image on a 92" diagonal screen (maybe a larger screen would be more noticeable), but I certainly do with a 4:3 image (using the full chip). Using the mask with a full 4:3 image is a tradeoff I wouldn't be willing to make.

kennyb5 ,

--- Those PC specs are plenty for an HTPC ;) .


--------- Jason

For me the lens mask seems to cast shadow here and there . I was unable to get rid of it totally [ this is in 16:9 mode ] . I will try it again and see what I can do since I have not messed with it since first getting this newer H30 [ at about 50 hours now ] .

-------- Jason

Originally posted by jeff442
FYI - As Tom has mentioned before, your stardard picture settings will reset when you EXIT the service menu. For instance, I reset the settings for my H30 via the standard menu. I move the color temp from 2 to 1 and then enter the service menu. Once I complete my adjustments and exit the service menu, the projector resynchs for a moment. I go back into the sevice menu, and hmmm... something seems off. The color temp has gone back to 2! I set the color temp back to 1, and everything looks much better. Just beware that this is happening.

Yes that was a wierd problem which I wasn't aware of and messed me up when I brought my 6500k'ed H30 over to compare with the 4805. With mine the upper grayscale numbers in the User Advanced area reset to zero. I was thinking Marks DIY screen was fouling up my colors. ;)

Originally posted by DaGamePimp
For me the lens mask seems to cast shadow here and there . I was unable to get rid of it totally [ this is in 16:9 mode ] . I will try it again and see what I can do since I have not messed with since first getting this newer H30 [ at about 50 hours now ] .

-------- Jason

I'll check a 100IRE pattern but since I got my new machine I've left the lens mask on. I watch allot of 4.3 and haven't noticed the upper shadows. Try angling the mask. Like more in at the bottom, the top pulled out a little. Ceiling mounted.

I'm up to 500hrs on the new machine, 900hrs on the old.

Oh about the colorfacts CR readings. CF isnt' good for CR because you'll get a different reading every time you do it. Darin was the one to bring this out. He'd get readings that were 400 to 500 points different. I think the device the guy at Home Theater Mag uses is supossed to be the most accurate. Thinks it's a Minolta light reader.

Here's the take from a thread I started in the 3500over forum.

"HT Mags reviews, 12s3, 7205, Z12000

Home Theater Mags July issue, Geoffrey Morrison does some test on the three projectors.

Says he uses a Konica/Minolta LS-100 light meter to measure CR and that it's the most accurate tool for the job.

Infocus 7205 ---
1,017.1 Full fields
355.1 16 box checkerboard pattern

Sharp Z12000 --- HC-mode econo
3,425.1 Full fields
424.1 checkerboard

Marantz 12s3 ---
2,838.1 Full fields
503.1 checkerboard

All done with an 87"wide Da-mat 1.0gain screen."

So these CR ratings would be the most accurate. Not too bad with the Sharp Z12000. They also have Colorfacts but he doesn't use it for CR.

See if you can tell much of a difference.

First shot, my first H30 at stock using just Avia

Http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h30fifth2.jpg

Second shot Leeloo with colorfacts calibration.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h30cf1.jpg

Third shot and 6,000 post :)

Fifth element and eyeball 6500k tune up.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h304.33.jpg