Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
I'm getting gamma of 2.52 on mine Tom - and I'm using gamma 2. I think I'm on colour temp2 in film mode, but I'll have to check the settings as I haven't looked at them in a while now.

Gary.

I use CT 2 also, try gamma 3 and re-tune, see if you get close to 2.20?

Hey Sotagear, interesting because I was shopping all day for a Sota turntable. :)

Pretty big jump from a 4805 isn't it? Not just high def but everything. Nice little theater room they have there.
thx for the report.

OK - I'll try that when I've some time.

Have you got any contrast readings from it yet?

Gary,

Guitarman,

Yeah, I admit it's kind of a lame screen name, but I'm so used to using it for years that I forget to update the thing. I have an old Linn Sondek LP12 myself - yes I still listen to albums on occasion. I like your screen name - it just so happens that I'm an old (well, not that old) lead guitar player me-self and still at it amazingly enough after 30 years in the music biz. Us old buggers can still rock!:cool:

Yes, I took a crash course in front projection by buying the 4805 & immediately was impressed with the format & wanted better right away. Damn I've got the bug!

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
OK - I'll try that when I've some time.

Have you got any contrast readings from it yet?

Gary,

Didn't get a light meter yet. It still bothers me aiming the Tri-chromat sensor at the projector. One thing I can tell you tuning grayscales is time consuming. lol

Originally posted by sotagear
Guitarman,

Yeah, I admit it's kind of a lame screen name, but I'm so used to using it for years that I forget to update the thing. I have an old Linn Sondek LP12 myself - yes I still listen to albums on occasion. I like your screen name - it just so happens that I'm an old (well, not that old) lead guitar player me-self and still at it amazingly enough after 30 years in the music biz. Us old buggers can still rock!:cool:

Yes, I took a crash course in front projection by buying the 4805 & immediately was impressed with the format & wanted better right away. Damn I've got the bug!

Great a fellow analog tube guy. Stay young you start falling apart when you get old, things just go!

I think I just went out of tune. lol

Try a CR reading anyway, and with the sensor aimed at the pj and pretty close. Too far means you won't get a correct black reading.

Gary.

Originally posted by guitarman
Stay young you start falling apart when you get old, things just go!

No sh**t. At a young 51, I feel the pain - every day! :eek:

Can't wait to get a look at an H77, seems you are happy with yours.

Congrat's on good recent posts scotthorton.

Originally posted by scotthorton
Well, the really BIG question is gonna be on the panning and posterization issues.


Unfortunately we won't get any indication of improvement in the H79 regarding this from Tom as he say's his H77 doesn't have these issues. :(

Brent

Originally posted by BJM
Unfortunately we won't get any indication of improvement in the H79 regarding this from Tom as he say's his H77 doesn't have these issues. :(
Yes, need someone besides Optoma to test, ahem... I mean Tom to test :D. Knock knock. Dave? You there? Wish you had a H79 to see...

Dave would be the perfect person to compare. He HAS the 300E, went to it over the H77 due to said issues. And he's an expert. And he has an inside line with folks close to Pixelworks. If Optoma wants to really let us know how good it is, let Dave borrow one for 5 days. I'd PAY for that review, really. Dave - have anywhere to borrow one?

Of course all that assuming someone's gonna be able to get these at a reasonable (i.e. way below MSRP) price - see previous distributor rant :).

Originally posted by Fishhooks
Congrat's on good recent posts scotthorton. Thanks, you mean my PP rant :)??

Originally posted by scotthorton
Yes, need someone besides Optoma to test, ahem... I mean Tom to test :D. Knock knock. Dave? You there? Wish you had a H79 to see...

Dave would be the perfect person to compare. He HAS the 300E, went to it over the H77 due to said issues. And he's an expert. And he has an inside line with folks close to Pixelworks. If Optoma wants to really let us know how good it is, let Dave borrow one for 5 days. I'd PAY for that review, really. Dave - have anywhere to borrow one?

Of course all that assuming someone's gonna be able to get these at a reasonable (i.e. way below MSRP) price - see previous distributor rant :).

Hi Scott, yes I'm here. Thanks for the kind words.

I would LOVE to give the new H79 a test drive. I just don't think Optoma would oblige me with a review unit. They kind of ignored me with the issues I brought up with the H77, then I just got fed up and let it go. As I said before, I wanted the H77 to be the great, best buy unit it almost was. The panning issues just totally killed it for me.

I really think that's why we are seeing a new unit like the H79 so quick. So they don't have to admit the mistakes of the H77 by doing board level "upgrades"(fixes) on customer's units. Why not just do the fix, add the latest DLP chip and call it a new unit:rolleyes:

Many manufacturers do this type of thing. That's the reason I was so intrigued with the company TAW, Inc. when they first surfaced back in 1999 and I hopped on board as a rep/dealer. They would constantly upgrade their units, be it firmware, software, hardware, whatever. The upgrades would cost a little once in a while, but it was still cheaper than buying a whole new unit. Most of the times, it was just a quick FW algorithm upgrade right off the net that made an amazing difference and best of all..it was FREE:)

I got the Sim2 HT-300E from Alan and Jason here at AVS. They also sell Optoma. Maybe they can get me an H79 to test out and compare to the 300E???

quote:Originally posted by Fishhooks
Congrat's on good recent posts scotthorton.

Thanks, you mean my PP rant ??

No, just in general. I feel most of the H77 (& Optoma) issues get lost in the hype.

Dave,

I also appreciated your contributions to this thread a lot. I've owned several DLPs (Sharp Z90, Z10K, Z12K, and now the Optoma), and I know what poor processing during pans looks like. The 10K was especially bad in this regard, while the 12K had no issues to speak of. I bought the H77 from PP knowing that I could return it for a full refund if it suffered from panning issues, and also knowing exactly what to look for. The panning artifacts on the H77 were immediately apparent. My unit also has some particularly nasty issues with uneven focus and shaky optics (the lens shifts whenever focus is adjusted).

I'm regretfully placing a call to PP today to arrange the return. I placed an order for a Sim2 Domino 30H from AVS last week and it's due to arrive tomorrow. Hopefully it will have better processing than the H77.

I'd love to give the 300E a shot, but it's beyond my price range.

Just thought I'd let you know that there's someone else out there who sees what you're seeing and doesn't believe it's a defect of some kind. I'd be willing to bet all H77's do it. Most viewers just aren't as sensitive to it as we are.

" Just thought I'd let you know that there's someone else out there who sees what you're seeing and doesn't believe it's a defect of some kind. I'd be willing to bet all H77's do it. Most viewers just aren't as sensitive to it as we are. " -

They're not as sensitive because they don't hang out here! I've seen one tiny portion of one scene in one movie on my H76 which showed some posterization. It zipped by in about 1 second. If I didn't read this forum 5 days a week I wouldn't have recognized it. And I certainly wouldn't pay another 2 - 4 grand to get rid of it. And so far I really see no panning issues with my H76 ( 6 segment wheel - HD2 chip ) compared to my HT1000 - just FYI. Tom, I'm going to bribe you to bring that H79 over here for a one on one comparison with the H76 for a 2 generation difference comparison. That should be interesting. All the wine you can drink, all the cigars you can smoke.

I'm not talking about posterization, which, from what I saw on the New Line logo at the beginning of LOTR, is no worse on the H77 than any other DLP I've seen.

I'm talking about reduced bit depth during pans, which the HT1000 may have as well. I haven't seen one though, so I can't say. If the H77 looks the same as the HT1000 and the HT1000 has the same artifact during pans, it's possible that's the reason why you don't notice anything unusual.

Having seen the difference between the 10K and 12K in pans, I can say that not all DLPs are equal in this regard.

I found this interesting ( from the "New Prices-IF 7205/7210" thread -

" i got the 7205, projecting onto a screen research 115''- i bought the 7205 from 'angilasaurus' (thanks john) , only complaint is that when watching sports live on hdtv, on quick pans it seems the pj can't keep up ,and the fast pans are out of focus. i don't see the same problems on my 8year old 52'' rptv. nothing is ever perfect... "

Are " panning issues " common to many 1 chip DLP projector designs??

thirdkind - I was comparing my H76 ( not H77 ) with my HT1000. Some have speculated that the 8 segment CW of the H77 was partly to blame for panning issues. How many segments does the 7205 have?

thirdkind put it best, "most are not sensitive to it"

Andrea just put up a nice review of the counterpart Mits HC2000. He liked it, no panning issues for him. They did notice contouring on the interlaced signal and explains it quiet well, plus the fix. Very good review.

http://www.htprojectors.com/indexENG.asp

Sheesh at the price now for the H77 I'd imagine they'll be gone in no time. It's a mother beautiful projector. :) The H79 can only be a few steps better, can't wait.

Originally posted by Craig Peer
thirdkind - I was comparing my H76 ( not H77 ) with my HT1000. Some have speculated that the 8 segment CW of the H77 was partly to blame for panning issues. How many segments does the 7205 have?

Not sure. I'd guess 6 segments since InFocus shoots for high brightness in their designs.

Panning artifacts are related to mirror speed, the number of segments, and probably video processing as well. The Sharp 12K, which has 7 segments and an HD2+ DMD, had no noticeable panning artifacts that I could see. The 10K, which has 6 segments and an HD2 chip (which is slower than the HD2+), had pretty noticeable panning artifacts. The H77, which has 8 segments and an HD2+, has panning artifacts comparable to the 10K in my tests. I don't remember seeing any panning artifacts at all on the Sharp Z90, which I believe is a 6-segment DLP. It also has very low resolution (800x600), which means it requires much less processing power to flip the mirrors.

The 7205 is 7 segment.

Nevermind, the 7205 is a 7-segment model.

How about that Andrea's review? He's got some great pictures you can blow up of shots and the internals.

Originally posted by guitarman
How about that Andrea's review? He's got some great pictures you can blow up of shots and the internals.

What I found interesting is the CR that Andrea was reporting on the HC2000. ~804:1 calibrated and ~1445:1 uncalibrated is close to what I was achieving on a HT300e (~920:1 and ~1550:1 respectively) that I returned to be serviced. My Sharp 9k reads about ~600:1 calibrated in the same environment I tested the HT300e. If the HT300e isn't defective and Andrea's readings on the HC2000 are the norm, neither are a worthy upgrade IMHO.

Maybe the low readings are why Tom never posted CR ratings when he tested his H77 with Colorfacts. :)

I still find it fascinating that someone with no affiliation with Optoma can get them to ship out a brand new H79 by SuperBowl Sunday for demo before anyone else in the country has one. I wish I had Tom's mad skillz. :)

Hi Brad, it's just the companys a stone throw away and I've been there, plus they can trust me. :)

I didn't take a reading with colorfacts because I was told it's no good for that and to get a light meter. Most guys with the light meters are getting up near 2800.1. There's plenty of contrast on the dark chips, don't worry.

" How about that Andrea's review? He's got some great pictures you can blow up of shots and the internals. " -

Interesting review. Didn't he have a H77 too?

Originally posted by guitarman
I didn't take a reading with colorfacts because I was told it's no good for that and to get a light meter. Most guys with the light meters are getting up near 2800.1. There's plenty of contrast on the dark chips, don't worry.

I'm not so sure about that. The HT300e in my theater didn't have plenty of contrast compared to my 9k. Maybe plenty is relative without direct comparison:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5103585#post5103585

No H77 but this is just as good. I did find it interesting he had some contouring. I'm not sure if Mits sprung for the firmware, I thought they went their own route and fixed it. Seems like there's a work around anyway.

Brad, somethings wrong for sure. I could see the huge differences in contrast with each step of the way, HD1 to DDR to HD2+ and I expect to see another increase with the HD3.

I did own a Sharp Z9000 that had 900hrs on it. I thought it would replace my Z90 but the Z90 with it's 12degree mirrors had way more contrast. Also more than the HT200 I had at that time also. I only owned the Z9000 for 2weeks and kept the Z90. Next up was the HT1000 with more contrast than the Z90 the H77 with more contrast still.

That's my experience, anyway

I couldn't load your pictures, server must be loaded.

Craig, I keep skipping your mesg. :) I'll get up there and smoke all the Cuban Cigars for you. Maybe the weekend after the Super Bowl. I'd like to travel on to the Casino's up in Tahoe also.

I'd better win.

Bet high on the 6 & 8, regress on the first hit, revert to up and pull, work in a double regression if you can. ;)

Gambling Jargon, ignore
cya

Originally posted by guitarman
Brad, somethings wrong for sure. I could see the huge differences in contrast with each step of the way, HD1 to DDR to HD2+ and I expect to see another increase with the HD3.

Tom,

Why would you expect that? Is the HD3 not a "poor man's" version of an HD2?

Cheers,
Raul

No the HD3 should have better brightness and contrast, plus less SD. I'm dyin here wheres the UPS truck.

Drats no PJ today. UPS came and went.

Tom, you're confusing the HD2+ with DarkChip3 (and other improvements) with the HD3, which is a lower-cost chip meant primarily for RPTVs.

TI's current best is the HD2+ DarkChip3, which is what's in the H79 and HT300e.

Blame TI and their confusing naming scheme.

Oh that's what he meant the wobbler.

Come on up Tom - help me tweek my H76 a bit.

Sure you'll find it interesting seeing colorfacts in action. Can you darken the room during the day?

Originally posted by guitarman
Oh that's what he meant the wobbler.

The wobbler is xHD3. It goes like this:

HD2 - 720p
HD2+ - 720p, can be DarkChip2 or DarkChip3 (with even smaller dimple)
HD3 - 720p but lower-end than HD2+
xHD3 - 1080p (via wobulation)
xHD4 - true 1080p

Well H77'ers... In case you are interested. Got a 300E to demo today. I preface this by saying I've spent a total of about 15 minutes with it. Adjusted contrast and brightness, then took a visual at the grayscale. Not on target, but close enough for a viewing. It is noticably louder, but no so much so that it's evident when a movie is going at normal volume. First things I checked were some of my H77 gripes: 1) discrete on/off - YES. 2) sync speed: Could only test component from 1080i to 480i (no DVI-HDMI adapter handy yet). Syncs in 2 to 4 seconds, very nice. My H77 took as much as 15-18 seconds and sometimes needed an extra "bump". Same player, same STB, same cables. Apples and apples there. Sync was 100% cleaner IMO over component.

Bad news is it appears a good bit dimmer than my H77 was. Brightness being pretty important to me. Wish I kept that smart III so I'd have a light meter to compare.

H79 looking like a contender still...

I thought the 300E was BRIGHTER tahn the H77? Maybe once you have done a full calibration it will come out that way.
Good Luck!
Chris

Hope so, not so far though...

The 300e I saw was plenty bright when I saw it, so maybe it's on a different set of settings. There are quite a few different gamma choices (20+ IIRC) as well as colour temp choices, and getting the right combination might be a factor. It was easily lighting up a 104 inch wide 1.2 gain screen, and seemed as bright as the H77 I also demo'd at the time.

Gary.

Gary, are you still using a filter on your H77? If so what type. How does your grayscale look after tuning with colorfacts? Were your out of the box settings way off?

Regarding the image breakup on pans.

When the Samsung RP DLP came out there was significant concern about this issue, particularly with the xbox. Several reported that it was partially related to gamma selection and source (DVI < component). I believe it was Kenland who did some excellent work exploring the issue, but I am not sure and haven’t searched.

I wonder if those who are seeing this effect with the H77 could check the dwarf pan at the beginning of the FOTR and comment on what they see and what source they are feeding it. I know that I can make may DLP breakup on this pan with different gamma settings and different feeds. I don’t believe that blurriness on the pan if what we are looking for and if you freeze this seen you can see that it is a little out of focus. Image breakup is a completely different beast.

Even giving us more info about settings when you see breakup might be helpful. It might even be helpful if H77 owners reported yes/no for image breakup with this scene in a poll – actually collect some data. (Maybe someone who knows how could set up a poll, but I would still like to see the info from those who see the problem.)

P

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
The 300e I saw was plenty bright when I saw it, so maybe it's on a different set of settings. There are quite a few different gamma choices (20+ IIRC) as well as colour temp choices, and getting the right combination might be a factor. It was easily lighting up a 104 inch wide 1.2 gain screen, and seemed as bright as the H77 I also demo'd at the time. Gary, et.al: Apologies for mostly OT info but a small update... I changed the 300E's service menu levels, gamma, color temp, etc. to some that Alan Gouger had posted in another thread. That made a big difference, still haven't done any detailed calibration. Now the 300E is brighter, wow what blacks. I can't see my screen/frame border anymore on my Firehawk. If the H79 has blacks like this, we won't be able to live with Tom :D;D. But the 300E still seems a little dimmer than my H77, wish I still had it to compare. But then again, my H77 wasn't calibrated so that could be part of the perception.

Cilent1

Yes I still use a filter - I think I needed an 81b, but purely by luck I found that an 81a plus a skylight filter (that I already had) when added together had a very similar effect on correcting the blue and green, with the added bonus (for me) of reducing the lumens down to a level I found preferable.

Just screwing them together can cause some lens flare, but removing the lens rings and then putting both filters flat against each other in the same holder eliminates the flare. I used the other ring to clamp them both together to make sure there was no gap. Ferret suggested some form of liquid coupling, so that may be an idea if any flaring still existed. I'm now looking for some 77mm Hoya equivalents on ebay.

I can't remember the settings out fo the box - I think it was pretty close though using color temp 2 and gamma 2 in film mode. I just increased the red green and blue to find the points where increasing them didn't reveal any more colour increase (at 100ire), then measured the colour temp. I found a correcting filter value and tried that (my two filters together), and it flattened out the RGB to within 2% at 100ire. I gained around 300:1 CR improvement too.

Greyscale looks good, though I did find that my sensor had started to wander as I got towards the end of one of my last runs (staretd to look a little green), so I need to do something about that. I'm going to see if I can retrain it to another sensor as a means of software calibrating it, though idealy getting it done properly would be better. An 81c would be the next choice if the image needed further tweaking, or just screw in another skylight which will reduce the colour temp a bit more and reduce lumens further. This way you can use a combination of filter to keep the lumens consistent over the lifespan of the pj.

I use a light meter to check CR though, so that was accurate.

Gary.

Man are there any H77's left? I hear they're selling like hot cakes with the Super Bowl coming and these ridiculous prices.

I thought I got a deal on the NEC HT1000 when I got the discount to $4200 from $5495. This price business is too good to be true for such a Cadillac machine. Unreal really

Oh something
It's says in black bold print on the top ---

"Optoma DARK Chip 3"

hehe

" Oh something It's says in black bold print on the top - Optoma DARK Chip 3" -

What does? Your new H79?? Ya - the PP deal is cheaper than I paid for a H76 damn it! On the other hand, the H76 is a bit brighter which is what I wanted, and who can predict this outrageous sale, eh?

Originally posted by Dr.Poisson
Regarding the image breakup on pans.

When the Samsung RP DLP came out there was significant concern about this issue, particularly with the xbox. Several reported that it was partially related to gamma selection and source (DVI < component). I believe it was Kenland who did some excellent work exploring the issue, but I am not sure and haven’t searched.

I wonder if those who are seeing this effect with the H77 could check the dwarf pan at the beginning of the FOTR and comment on what they see and what source they are feeding it. I know that I can make may DLP breakup on this pan with different gamma settings and different feeds. I don’t believe that blurriness on the pan if what we are looking for and if you freeze this seen you can see that it is a little out of focus. Image breakup is a completely different beast.

Even giving us more info about settings when you see breakup might be helpful. It might even be helpful if H77 owners reported yes/no for image breakup with this scene in a poll – actually collect some data. (Maybe someone who knows how could set up a poll, but I would still like to see the info from those who see the problem.)

P

I detailed my experiences with this very scene a few pages back:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5075441#post5075441

Very obvious image breakup during the LOTR dwarf scene, as well as a few others that serve as a litmus test for DLP panning artifacts.

I'll have to try the Starship Troopers scene on my H76 ( and my HT1000 while I'm at it )!

Here's some more fun for you.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=468975

Originally posted by Craig Peer
I'll have to try the Starship Troopers scene on my H76 ( and my HT1000 while I'm at it )!

Have you gone insane? ;)

Actually I've watched Starship troopers several times on the HT1000 and never noticed anything I can't live with. But to anwser your question - yes, I've gone insane. Hell - I've been here 5 days a week for a year and a half - what would one expect? Perhaps I should join Vidiots Anonymous............( hi, I'm Craig, and I'm addicted to home Theater...................)

Thanks for posting the above link, Tom. Interesting read.

I've seen this artifact on pretty much every DLP I've ever seen, but it varies in intensity.

Z90 - Didn't see it, but it was my first DLP and I didn't know what to look for. Also, this is an 800x600 machine. Much easier to process signals and flip mirrors with so few mirrors to keep track of.

Z10K - Very noticeable (1280x720 HD2, 6 segments)

Z12K - Barely perceptible in most scenes, including the dwarf panning scene. Mostly just blurry like you'd see on any display. 1280x720 HD2+, 7 segments.

H77 - About as bad as the 10K (1280x720 HD2+, 8 segments)

Sim2 30H - Just got this one last night, and its panning is about as good as the 12K. 1280x720 HD2+, 6 segments.

I've owned a couple LCOS machines (Hitachi 5500, JVC SX21), and they were superb in this regard. They displayed only the typical motion blur you see on any other "normal" display.

Certain sources may exascerbate the problem, but it largely comes down to mirror speed and processing speed. The HD2+ can flip its mirrors faster than the HD2, but not so fast that it can accommodate 8 segments. The number of mirrors to be flipped also comes into play. That's why lower-resolution machines probably tend not to have panning problems. I've never seen an HT1000, but I bet it has minimal panning problems because of its 1024x768 resolution.

I've never seen anything of concern on my HT1000 which had a very film-like imag IMHO. A great little projector which is still hard to beat. My H77 is better in some respects such as real world contrast and resolution, but the HT1000 is better in others, such as processing and greatly reduced image 'noise'.

Gary.

I'm probably not alone but I'm not sensitive to the anomoly, never have. It had to be pointed out to me. Looked it over and find it no biggie. Searching back it's been talked about a bit.

Anyway if anyone is very sensitive you can spend the extra bucks or hunt around. I checked the linked cavern scene and the dwarf scene and they play nice on the H79. Nice as they can I mean just a blur with no waves. Get your wallet out though.

Here look, here's more on it from Li-on re new Marantz 12s4.

"Let's talk about the usual 1-chip DLP dithering artifacts (to my standard!):
Low level static dithering - for all intended propose (?), there is NONE!
Motion dithering - reduced a bit compare to HD2+ IMO, still a bit too much for my taste."

How about the posterisation problems on H79?

I just compared H77 to H31 and there is a big difference, and H31 is clearly better in this issue. So is Sony HS-51 and so was H30. I really hope they have fixed this problem in H79.

(As far I watched H79 in CES, is really seemed better. But of course you can never be sure unless you see it with your own dvd's.)

I don't think the H77 has a posterisation problem. Some dozen of so PAL units that I think shouldn't have got out to customers had severe posture problems. We talked about it earlier and compared odd screenshots like U571's triggger job, showing a bright light in a dark room. There my H77 looked fine and later PAL were cleaned up also.

Nothing on the H79.

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
I've never seen anything of concern on my HT1000 which had a very film-like imag IMHO. A great little projector which is still hard to beat. My H77 is better in some respects such as real world contrast and resolution, but the HT1000 is better in others, such as processing and greatly reduced image 'noise'.

Gary.

Image 'noise'? This is the first ive heard that mentioned. Can you elaborate? How are other projectors youve seen in this regard?

John

Tom: Where's that H79? Have it yet?

Originally posted by Expletive
Image 'noise'? This is the first ive heard that mentioned. Can you elaborate? How are other projectors youve seen in this regard?

John

All the HD2 and HD2+ I've seen have it to some degree or another, including the Sim2 range and HT500 3 chipper - it's like film grain if you like, but some are more 'noiser' than others, and the brighter they are, the more obvious it is. In comparison, the HT1000 had very little and was far smoother looking, but that in part is because I like to run my pjs close to 12ft lamberts and I think the HT1000 was a tad under that with the FL-Day filter I had fitted.

Gary.

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
I've never seen anything of concern on my HT1000 which had a very film-like imag IMHO. A great little projector which is still hard to beat. My H77 is better in some respects such as real world contrast and resolution, but the HT1000 is better in others, such as processing and greatly reduced image 'noise'.

Gary.

Somebody found one for the HT1000 remember? Matrix one when Neo's first pulled out of TV world, he's on the table with needles and the camera pans. His arm show tons of blueish bubbles. We all had it.

I didn't Tom, and I looked for it too.

Gary

Originally posted by guitarman
I don't think the H77 has a posterisation problem. Some dozen of so PAL units that I think shouldn't have got out to customers had severe posture problems. We talked about it earlier and compared odd screenshots like U571's triggger job, showing a bright light in a dark room. There my H77 looked fine and later PAL were cleaned up also.

Nothing on the H79.

I had the latest PAL firmware in H77 and the posterisation was still there. It isn't so bad it used to be earlier - in fact it's almost invisible in most dvd's - but it's surely still there, if you know what to look for. Adjusting the CWI did make some improvement but it didn't make it disappear completely. I think your unit looked a bit better in the screenshots. Maybe this is still a PAL problem.

So, now I'm going to live happily with Sony VPL-HS50 until H79 is out.

DHarp still had problems with his ntsc machine so he upgraded to a Sim2 300e, so it's not limited to just PAL machines.

I took some lumen readings last night - here are the results for a 60hr lamp:

High lamp 199 lux = 510 lumens

Low lamp 152 lux = 389.3 lumens.

As expected. they're approximayely 40% lower than the advertised figures.

Gary.

The little white NEC HT's.
Still come up time after time as a reference!

We did an a/b comparision of the HT1000 and H77 the HT1000 looked somewhat pale in comparison plus HD really shined on the H77.

You wanna see a huge jump up you should see the H79.

When calibrated, the differences should be minimal in most respects - and with the FL_Day mod, the HT1000 was getting 2000:1 CR, whilst the out of the box H77 was giving 2300:1, so not much in it. I'm only getting 2600:1 from the H77 now though, and it's visible in some scenes.

I still find the HT1000 has a more filmlike image, but the H77 has 60% more resolution and with a filter, 30% more contrast, and both are noticable improvments.

I'd like to know what contrast ratio you're getting from the H79 though Tom.

Gary.

The little white NEC HT's.
Still come up time after time as a reference!

We did an a/b comparision of the HT1000 and H77 the HT1000 looked somewhat pale in comparison plus HD really shined on the H77.

You wanna see a huge jump up you should see the H79.
______________________________________________

Hey, I in no way implied that the HT's were as good as your new toys. Infact if the Optoma / Mitsubs didn't have a considerable edge in performance, particularly with HD, you would certainly have something to complain about!

I hope most took my meaning to simply say how so many of us come back to the NEC baby to compare our 'newys' to.

I know what you mean with the NEC having low digital noise and eking out such good contrast or blacks at such and early time. It was the king of blacks and held the title for quite a while.

Gary, Contrast and especially brightness looks way higher than the H77. Could be the new bulb being part of the brightness. But black level is also increased.

I didn't get a light meter yet plus most of the time available to use colorfacts it's day time around here. I have the room some what shielded but the place is still lit up.

Gotta get over to Ebay to find a deal on a decent light meter.

Hi Tom,

I've literaly just come back from looking at the HT1000 again, and I have to agree with you that the contrast and brightness are better. Though I think I could improve further on the HT1000 contrast because there is more blue and a little more green available in the controls. By pushing those up and finding a filter that will cut more of those colours than the FL-Day does (which cuts mostly green), then the CR will improve further.

The black level is better on the HT1000 but that's probably because it is only giving me 10.6ft lamberts. I would thing that at 10.6ft lamberts, the H77 should win here too. Even so, the Ht1000 is an exceptional projector IMHO and competes well with the HD2+.

I have both the SMART III Extech light meter and an equivalent made by Robin/Fluke which is readily available here in the UK. The model is RT-24 and it's identical apart from colour:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=708&item=3872604226&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

I picked up one for £14 ($25) including delivery here in the UK, so if nothing similar is available in th US, you could try to pick up one of these if they ship to the US.

You can still use CF as a light meter, you just have to make sure the sensor is close enough to get a good black reading, I actually had mine give me a higher CR reading when I opened the HT1000 iris because the sensor was too far away. Putting it closer then showed better CR with the iris shut which is as it should be.

Gary.

As far as using the Tri-chromat meter for CR, what about this idea? I use a piece of PCV pipe. A piece the same size as the lens, then attach the meter on the other side. Figuring to delete any unwanted light and maybe getting a more accurate reading. Or would that setup be inaccurate funneling the light like that.

Not sure Tom, but the idea is very similar to what Darin (I think it was) did using black felt so that he could eliminat the room from the measurements. You could try measuring with and without the pipe to see how the results compare.

To be honest though, if the CF meter is only 3 to 4 feet away, and there's no other ambient in the room, the results will be pretty accurate I would think.
Gary.

" The little white NEC HT's. Still come up time after time as a reference! "

I still like mine even though I have a new widescreen projector! We're having friends over this Sunday for a Valentines Day dinner followed by watching Singing In The Rain - on the HT1000! It still can't be beat for large 4:3 movies.

That said, my wife had never seen ID4, so we watched that on the H76 using the full arsenal of AVS Powerbuy items - the iScan HD with SDI and the Prismasonic H1000 lens. It looked pretty damn good, but I'll be really happy when HD DVD's of any flavor are available.

Craig, try the DVHS version of ID4, no need to wait for HD DVD :D

Gary, will the lightmeter that comes with SMART III be of any use in using colorfacts? Mine's just collecting dust.

Tom, does the H79 sync to sources faster than the 77?

Optoma H77 Price Reduction $4,499.00

We are happy to announce that we have reduced the Optoma H77 retail price to $4,499.00.

Ralph Merrem
Director Product Management
Optoma Technology, Inc.
715 Sycamore Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035
USA
ralphm@optoma.com

Wow this is great news indeed with a retail price of $4500. We can now get somw awesome deals on the H77. I wonder what the MSRP of the H79 will be now. I was thinking of getting an H79 but now I am definately considering cashing in on these great low prices.

I noticed that scott posted that the PP warranty was not with Optoma but being handled by PP. I just bought one of these and raised the issue with PP and they swear that the warranty is directly with Optoma for the 3 years.

Scott,

They told me that the block of serial numbers that they have for the H77s will get the 3 year support directly from Optoma when you call them.

Bob

Adding a 3rd year of warranty coverage doesn't seem too unusual a perk - the H76 came with a 3 year warranty to begin with.

I bought one of these a little over a week ago from PP. Had a problem with the lens shift not working and lamp not lighting. Called PP and they sent me out a replacement UPS next day AIR AM delivery and issued a call tag for the bad one. The rep I talked to at PP told me that the three year warranty would be through Optoma, but because I received a defective one that they would take care of it. Could not be happier with the experience now that it is up and running.
Chris

No, the H77 has a 2 year warranty. It is a great deal. For all the talk on here about motion artifacts ( which when brought up had owners of IF 7205's, Sharp 10000's and several other projectors saying they saw the same thing ) aside, this remains a good projector. Like I said before, I don't see anything different ( with my H76 mind you,or Tom's H77 ) than with my HT1000. Watched the Superbowl with the HT1000 ( don't want it to feel neglected ) and no motion artifacts with HD. The game look outstanding. Maybe some of this is also source related. How many of you are feeding a 720p scaled signal via DVI cable to your H77 from an SDI modded dvd player?

" I took some lumen readings last night - here are the results for a 60hr lamp:
High lamp 199 lux = 510 lumens
Low lamp 152 lux = 389.3 lumens.
As expected. they're approximayely 40% lower than the advertised figures "

Gary - what kind of / how much gain is your screen?

Hey Craig,

You have a PM.

scott

Hi Craig,

My screen is a white 1.2 gain model. Those figures are at the screen and don't take into account the gain.

Something else I noticed again tonight while fiddling around - if you adjust the Green Contrast setting up by one, it can make a huge difference to the colors. I did get it back but can't remember exactly how. I think it might have been by selecting another color and adjusting that, but I'm not sure. It's something Tom might like to be aware of now that he's using Colorfacts.

It makes me wonder if adjusting in the service menu might be better.

Gary.

Hi Gary I've been using Glens forwarded method of leaving the green alone. According to what I read when you use Avia's all black moving bars patterns you're actually setting the green at flat. Seems to work because I've never needed to move the green after this. I just use the red and blue. Red seems the most dominant and it pulls the blue in directions you want also. Getting a pretty good feel for how many clicks to the dotted line, things are getting easier.

I order the same light meter, the extech. Should be here in by Thursday.

Hi Tom,

Glad you mentioned that - I'd read it but forgotten all about it. It doesn't help that my CF meter is going out of calibration either, so that's something I need to look at too.

Glad you're getting the hang of it - it's pretty simple on the face of it, it's knowing how to adjust other aspects and where to adjust them that can be tricky. :)

Looking forward to your results.

Gary.

I am thinking of picking up the Optoma H77 also now at the current discounted price. I was going to wait for the newer DC3 models to come out but the H77 is a very attractive price.
My Concerns are that it might share some "issues" that I had with the H76 I used to own.
The Optoma H76 had a beautiful picture via DVI, but I never thought that the 1080i via component had the same sharpness or detail. Almost like it was "downrezzing" the picture to 480p. It really didn't look like HD. Since my HD Showtime/HBO/Discovery etc, is via C-band, component is my only option.

The H76's signal synching was terrible. Many times it would cycle through all the active inputs looking for a signal, but never would find one. It would eventually lock up after not finding a signal. At that point, I would need to unplug the projector to get it to shut off. Once on again, there was a 50/50 chance it would find the signal.

Those were my main beefs on the H76. I really loved the picture HTPC DVI.
(My 200 recorded HD movies should look fantastic via DVI from my htpc)

I last owned the Infocus 7205 and sold it due to the noise it put out and mainly the black level and contrast of the machine, even with a filter.

So, back to the H77. If somebody can vouch for the 1080i Component input quality vs dvi, I would appreciate it. Also, I have read that the synching is a bit slow, but has anyone had it lock up while synching? Slow is ok, lock ups are not.

Somebody in this long thread mentioned that the motion artifacts on this machine are no worse than a sharp 10000. Well, I used to own that projector too and I was never bothered by motion artifacts, so hopefully that wouldn't bother me.

After going through a Panasonic AE100 (I think Tom bought that one) a NEC ht1000, Sharp 10000, Sony HS20, Optoma H76, and finally Infocus 7205, I'd like to finally settle on something to use for a while. (Tired of loosing so much money actually!)

So, while the current pricing with extra lamp and 3 year warranty is very tempting, I'd like some last minute advice and or info from anyone who can calm my fears about buying the Optoma h77 now, with newer possibly better projectors on the way for maybe not a whole lot more cash.

Thanks, Rick

I too was planning on getting a new DC3 chip H79 but now with prices so low on the H77 I am considering picking one up and using until the 1080p projectors are out.

I am concerned about an H77 being bright enough to light up a carada 126" screen. Is anyone using the H77 on a screen this big? If Gary's figrues are accurate at 510 lumens in bright mode that would drop me to around 8-9 ft lamberts. My room is completely light controlled and painted forrest green.

Don't know if this was an isolated thing or not, but when I auditioned the H79 at Optoma's theater room, I noticed when we were switching between sources that it had a tough time finding & locking to a device the 3 times we changed sources.

Reveille - when I saw the H79 it was shown on a Da-Lite 123" screen, of which I am unsure of the fabric, but was plenty bright enough to light it up with even the darkest DVDs that were shown.

Maybe now that Tom has had a full 2 days+ to mess with the H79 he can give us all an anticipated in-depth review. ;)

Initially 123" may be ok, but as the lamp ages, you will find it is way too big of a screen for the H77, even in brite mode. Just my opinion.
Best,
Chris

I am running on a 122" by 54" 2.35 (HCCV) screen thru an ISCO II anamorphic lens. I am getting 10.2 footcandles at the screen in econ mode and 13.4 in bright mode on a new bulb. One disturbing fact I noticed in the warranty is that Optoma considers it a violation of warranty to use the projector over 8 straight hours. They consider normal covered use 8 on 8 off.

rcweiss

This warranty clause is rather normal for HT projectors. Most manufacturers carry integration/installation lines that are designed for high reliability and high availability, and easy serviceability. They also cost much much more because of their 24/7 features.

HT projectors are designed with the knowledge that they are used a few hours a night to watch movies. Just as portable conference room projectors are designed for a few hours during the meeting.

Nothing to be disturbed by - it is called engineering to your application. The company does not want to warrant HT projectors that are used 24/7 in a sports bar - I hardly doubt they would deny a warranty claim just because you decided to have a LOTR marathon!

You really should rethink your screen gain - with a new lamp you are already at movie levels. The lamp brightness will be cut in half over it's life. Go the camera store and pick up a ND2 filter and see if you can be happy with a half movie brightness screen.

Initially 123" may be ok, but as the lamp ages, you will find it is way too big of a screen for the H77, even in brite mode. Just my opinion.
Best,
Chris

Silverstar ;) (Or Hi Power), I agree with KRAS, at that size I think you need some gain with the H77.

Hi RickE

I have H77 and DVHS deck. Can't see much difference in clarity, resoution or noise between component and HDMI.

I have a feeling only the BNC input supports hi-def, not the RCA. Could be wrong, but could this have been the problem with the H76 ?

Hmm, I'm not sure that is correct. I was actually inputing 1080i to the component inputs, and it worked fine, just looked like 480p.

Rick

Originally posted by nortonl
Hi RickE

I have H77 and DVHS deck. Can't see much difference in clarity, resoution or noise between component and HDMI.

I have a feeling only the BNC input supports hi-def, not the RCA. Could be wrong, but could this have been the problem with the H76 ?

The component inputs also support HD. I am inputing 720p to mine... SJ

Originally posted by rcweiss
I am running on a 122" by 54" 2.35 (HCCV) screen thru an ISCO II anamorphic lens. I am getting 10.2 footcandles at the screen in econ mode and 13.4 in bright mode on a new bulb. One disturbing fact I noticed in the warranty is that Optoma considers it a violation of warranty to use the projector over 8 straight hours. They consider normal covered use 8 on 8 off.

How would they even know that you did this?

Just for the record, my H76 has never " locked up " searching for a source. No real problem there, so they may have fixed that firmware wise all the way around. It's slower to sync than my HT1000, but it still gets there.

I input HDTV at 720p via component too.

I'm running my H76 ( which is 10% brighter than the H77 ) on a 106" x 45.25" 2.35:1 CV 1.3 gain screen and a 92" x 50" HCCV screen - looks bright enough to me in Eco mode, but I wouldn't go any bigger myself.

Craig: My H77 had the original firmware on it and it would very often fail to sync. It never locked up per se, but it would give up with a "no signal" message. I had mine set to not run through the whole gamit of sources (auto off?, I forget the setting name) but even then it still went through every combination of possibilities for the particular input. It wasn't the end of the world but it was very annoying if I was channel surfing and accidentally crossed from a HD to a SD channel and had to wait on the resync for example. Or if I accidentally activated my receiver's on screen menu. My H77 with the original firmware would take at least 13-15 seconds, but sometimes 30 secs to sync after said change. The other non-Optoma PJ I tried does it in about 2 secs which is more like it. All other things equal or similar I still prefer the H7x (non)loudness to the other's I've seen, even with a slow sync.

How long does your's take with the new firmware? That would be a very nice enhancement if they've improved it.

Tom: Have you seen any changes in that regard on the H79 you were able to see?

Thanks as always for the info guys. Scott

" How long does your's take with the new firmware? That would be a very nice enhancement if they've improved it. " -

I'm not saying mine has new firm ware, I'm just saying that while slow, it does sync after cycling thru once. The only time it didn't sync was when I drank too much wine and had the iScan set to DVI and tried to send HDTV which is pass thru on component ! Operator error............

Originally posted by Craig Peer
" The only time it didn't sync was when I drank too much wine and had the iScan set to DVI and tried to send HDTV which is pass thru on component ! Operator error............ Ha! Funny.

I should add to mine, I dont' know if it matters on performance but I was using 30' DVI and component cables.

Originally posted by nortonl
Hi RickE

I have H77 and DVHS deck. Can't see much difference in clarity, resoution or noise between component and HDMI.

I have a feeling only the BNC input supports hi-def, not the RCA. Could be wrong, but could this have been the problem with the H76 ?

I noticed in the service menu of the H79 theres two color wheel index's
CWI 50hz
CWI 60hz

So maybe PAL units will be out faster like Optoma said. Before you ask there's no switch to slow the color wheel. But with the speed increase of the mirrors I think your guys will be better off this time. Escpeially with what I've seen on the hard to render dither scenes.

But Tom: how can you tell ? You never saw it on the H77 :)

Originally posted by guitarman
I noticed in the service menu of the H79 theres two color wheel index's
CWI 50hz
CWI 60hz

So maybe PAL units will be out faster like Optoma said. Before you ask there's no switch to slow the color wheel. But with the speed increase of the mirrors I think your guys will be better off this time. Escpeially with what I've seen on the hard to render dither scenes.

Why would pal need a higher mirror speed than ntsc ? The problem should be worse on ntsc than pal since the colorwheel is moving faster (less time per color) not slower. Also can some one please confirm the mirrors run faster on a dc3 than a hd2+ since ive not seen the confirmed with any facts.

Daniel.

I received my H77 yesterday. So far I really like it. I saw some jitter during pan scene but further investigation point to my momitsu. I don't see that problem with my RP56 in 480p. I will try some custom resolution.

Any FAQ's on the H77. This thread is just to long. A FAQ on:

Service menu access.
Setting to enhanced picture.
Custom setting with bravo D1 or Momitsu V880

Scenes to see paning jitter, clay face etc....

I know, all the information is here somewhere but I'm just curious to find out if anyone just summarize it.

One thing to stay away from is the white peak adjustment. It causes flaring at different white levels depending on the setting you use. Very obvious on white objects in a picture or in a gray scale ramp. On the gray scale ramp you can watch the flaring move down the scale as you change the adjustment. Recalibration of the contrast does not help.

I noticede something very sinilar on my PC desktop and in the posterisation test scene of U571, so it doesn't look like something that can be used for video in anything other than zero setting.

Gary.

Originally posted by bgosselin
I received my H77 yesterday. So far I really like it. I saw some jitter during pan scene but further investigation point to my momitsu. I don't see that problem with my RP56 in 480p. I will try some custom resolution.

Any FAQ's on the H77. This thread is just to long. A FAQ on:

Service menu access.
Setting to enhanced picture.
Custom setting with bravo D1 or Momitsu V880

Scenes to see paning jitter, clay face etc....

I know, all the information is here somewhere but I'm just curious to find out if anyone just summarize it.

I was first told to look at Charlies Angels when Drew gets blown away and crashes out the window. The main part of the scene has the room panning around the actors. I watched it a dozen times and it looked normal. :) So that ones out.

The best motion dither scene is FOTR when gandalf first lights up the staff in the Moria cave and the players start walking or bopping. You'll see waves around the faces as they move. This scene reeks havoc on just about all 1 chip displays. It does play cleaner on the H79, you wanna pay $3,000 for that?

Just kidding you do get more than that with the H79.

Originally posted by danielo
Why would pal need a higher mirror speed than ntsc ? The problem should be worse on ntsc than pal since the colorwheel is moving faster (less time per color) not slower. Also can some one please confirm the mirrors run faster on a dc3 than a hd2+ since ive not seen the confirmed with any facts.

Daniel.

"I noticed in the service menu of the H79 theres two color wheel index's
CWI 50hz
CWI 60hz

So maybe PAL units will be out faster."

That's just letting you know the CWI 50hz is already in there on the H79. Engineer designer that goes to Ti directly said the new pivots on the Dark Chip 3 lets the mirrors move faster. Says it will help with contouring, motion dither etc.

I've already seen the difference on motion dither scene's.

I check my service menu,

I have a few questions about some function.

In DPTV3DPRO settings
Noise reduction on off
2D/3D combo filter
Gamma
moition detection on off

What does motion detection do? What about Noise reduction?

Color wheel Index. mine is at 30 and I can change it. should I put it to 24 if I use a refresh rate of 48HZ?

In Degamma table what does black, white and magenta calibration do?

What does spoke light on mean? I have a choice between white, black, red, green, blue.

Originally posted by Cine4Home
I do not use the Eye one for CR readings. :) So my measurements are pretty accurate. And when you compare, my measured max. CR matches almost exactly the official PJ spec ;)


About the filter, I will chek out next week what filter fits best to get above 3000:1 at D65.


Regards,
Ekkehart, www.cine4home.de

I haven't found a review on your site. And you never got back with the filter you used.

Bruno

I'd like to know that too.

I couldn't get much more than 2600:1 without crushing the RGBs, so I'd love to know what settings get 3450:1 CR so I can try that then find a filter to color correct opticaly.

Gary.

Originally posted by bgosselin
I check my service menu,

IColor wheel Index. mine is at 30 and I can change it. should I put it to 24 if I use a refresh rate of 48HZ?



I will answer my own question. The colorwheel index change the sync between the colorwheel and the DMD chip. If you change it to much all colors are affected. Default value should be the best one. I guess a good way to make sure is with the color bar decoder check in avia. Pure red, blue, green will change if you change the index.


Bruno

SOme of us have used the CWI to reduce/eliminate color banding/posterisation. We used a scene where the effect was obvious, such as chapter 15 of U571 and moved the CWI up and down until we found a point where the banding was no longer obvious. It's possible to pause that particular scene and make the adjustment to see where it works best. I foyund a CWI of 28 seemed best for my H77.

Gary.

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
SOme of us have used the CWI to reduce/eliminate color banding/posterisation. We used a scene where the effect was obvious, such as chapter 15 of U571 and moved the CWI up and down until we found a point where the banding was no longer obvious. It's possible to pause that particular scene and make the adjustment to see where it works best. I foyund a CWI of 28 seemed best for my H77.

Gary.

let me add a few words from optoma itself on the topic when we asked many moons ago :
------
We have different sequence code to counter the difference between 50HZ PAL
and 60Hz NTSC

However, the CWI can require different settings according to the lamp age,
the input device and the input signal.

We set up the CWI using a greyscale pattern on our own test equipment using
a smooth grey scale test pattern.

You can adjust this CWI as much as you like with no ill effect.

It will change the potential for contour. Even if perfectly adjusted you
might get a tiny bit of contour on some extreme scenes particularly if they
are computer generated sources. This is the price we pay fro the HD,
hi-res, contrast and colour.

By all means use a setting of 29.
-------------

Greetings,

Daniel.

[QUOTEHowever, the CWI can require different settings according to the lamp age,
the input device and the input signal.[/QUOTE] Hmmm. Tom says the H79 has no such adjustment. Hope H79'ers wont' need it when the bulb ages...

A friend and I had a chance directly compare a H77 to my Sharp 9k in my theater over the weekend and although I am no longer in the market for a new projector (My wife and I are expecting our first child any minute now), the H77 offers an excellent bang for the buck. As soon as we plugged it in, it was obvious how much better contrast and detail the H77 had over my Sharp 9k.

Our tests source was DVI out of a HTPC at 720p native with a Holo3d feed via SDI from a Panasonic RP-82. We were projecting on a 110� Firehawk from about 15 feet in a totally light controlled (read black) room. After calibrating with test disks, we demoed scenes from The Fifth Element SBE, Spiderman 2 SBE, Starship Troopers SBE, and LOTR FOTR as well as played a little XBOX Pro Race Driver 2.

Here is a quick review. We did not take any pictures.

Here is the good stuff:
1. Better absolute black level than my 9k. (Only just, but my 9k has 400 hours on the bulb)

2. Much, much better brightness, contrast, and detail.

3. Performance on the normal (low) bulb setting is great. (All of our testing was done in normal bulb setting) As an added benefit, there is an even brighter setting that can be utilized when watching a sporting event, TV, or just as a fall back when the bulb gets older. When playing the Xbox, we used the bright setting. It was very nice to have most of the rear lights in the room on when playing.

4. Very damn quiet. Boy this thing is silent. We had it on a TV tray slightly in front of the seating position (within 3 feet) and you almost didn�t know that the projector was there. It is really nice to have such a quiet projector in the room. I could hear nuances in the movie soundtracks that I just can�t with the white noise from my Sharp. I have had a few projectors in my theater and this is by far the most silent projector I have ever not heard. Lack of noise from the H77 is a big plus for this projector. Without the power LED, it is near impossible to determine if the projector has powered on.

5. Good color balance OOTB. We did not calibrate or test with Colorfacts, but it looked really good by eye. The color compared nicely to my calibrated Sharp.

6. No (almost) light spill out of the projector case. There is still some very faint light spill out of the side vent. The Sharp has no light spill.

7. Good user custom configuration options from the menu system.

8. It does support 48kHz as a display input, but, there was no apparent quality improvement. Pans were no smoother than when using the normal 60kHz nor did it reduce the panning artifact inherent to the H77 (see below). I have never used 48kHz from my HTPC so it is possible that a proper scalar would produce better results.

And the not so good:
1. The panning (what looks like bit depth reduction to me) artifact mentioned in this thread are evident and I�m sorry to say, they are worse than my Sharp 9k. It is very annoying when it happens and it will pull you right out of the movie experience. It is rare though, and for most users, the many other benefits (as well as cost) might well out weigh the few occasions where this artifact shows itself. It will rear its nasty head a handful of times in a movie. It is totally dependent on the source material. Fast pans are not an issue and slow pans are fine also. It takes just the right moderate pan speed and movie contents and color to produce the effect. It really too bad because this is the only real gripe I have about the projector. In Spiderman 2, there is a real easy scene to see this effect. Although I don�t remember the chapter, it is where Peter is dragging his busted up motorcycle home after he missed Mary Jane�s play. As he passes all the posters of her on a wall, her faces smear out pretty major as they pan behind him.

I have created a simulation in Photoshop to express the artifact. This altered image was pulled from a previous post and does not reflect how it would render on a H77, but, I have modified it too appear like there was a panning issue on this scene. I think it reflects the problem well and should give a good idea what the artifact looks like. Look at the guard�s face in the background. This is almost exactly what happens to the panning portions of the image when the artifact is visible:
http://www.go-racecar.com/htstuff/H77/h77_panning_problems_PS.jpg

2. We had one lockup once when trying to change the bulb brightness. The projector locked up and required a power cycle of more that a few minutes to get it back working again. We had to physically turn the hard power switch off to turn off the projector to work. The soft power button on the remote or the unit failed to turn off the projector. After which immediately turning the projector on, the lamp failed to power on. No error messages or anything, just no light. We unplugged the projector for more than 5 minutes and then tried and it worked fine.

3. Sync on a video input took a while and was sometimes hit or miss. Usually the projector will sync on a video input in about 5 � 10 seconds which is longer that what I have seen from most projectors. Occasionally it didn�t sync at all and required a jump to another input and then jump back to the one originally intended. The sync seems to happen in two stages: first it determines the color space, resolution, and frequency; second it then performs a standard sync to the signal.

4. There seemed to be a little noise in the projected image. More so than my Sharp 9k. What I don�t know is if this good or bad. It could be that the H77 resolves so much more detail over DVI than my 9k that this is just what is in the source material or it could be noise added by the projector. I don�t know for sure. It isn�t a major problem anyway. I would chalk it up to more detail in the H77 and the inherent limitations of MPEG DVD�s.

5. Bright ass blue power LED. I�m not sure what Optoma was thinking, but this LED lights up my whole theater. It�s odd that they would go to so much work to create a projector so silent and with no light spill and then put a LED so bright it would blind anyone looking directly at it.

6. When adjusting focus, sometimes the image will shift a pixel or so left or right.


Overall this is an excellent projector for a great price. If it were not for this panning artifact, I would surmise that this is the best single chip DLP projector below $8000 (street). Heck this is probably the best single chip DLP projector below $8000 (street) WITH the panning artifact.

Thanks for this great write-up. I really like your panning issue picture. I never saw this on my H77 in the way that has been described, but will look for it on my H79. Having a picture of this might help me. My eyes/brain may be immune to it... SJ

Originally posted by SJHT
Thanks for this great write-up. I really like your panning issue picture. I never saw this on my H77 in the way that has been described, but will look for it on my H79. Having a picture of this might help me. My eyes/brain may be immune to it... SJ I never saw it exactly on my H77 either. But I didn't know what I was looking for. Ignorance was bliss.

bdavidson,

Thanks for taking the time to post your observations.

I have seen much worse image breakup on pans - another good place to check is in HD basketball games - watching the faces in the crowd. Not only do they lose color depth, but the faical anaotomical margins are not updated. They can take on a very goulish appearance. Have you seen anything that looked worse that what you are describing with the H77?

When you tried 48Hz, did you hear the CW change speed?

P

Originally posted by Dr.Poisson
bdavidson,

Thanks for taking the time to post your observations.

I have seen much worse image breakup on pans - another good place to check is in HD basketball games - watching the faces in the crowd. Not only do they lose color depth, but the faical anaotomical margins are not updated. They can take on a very goulish appearance. Have you seen anything that looked worse that what you are describing with the H77?

When you tried 48Hz, did you hear the CW change speed?

P

I watched MANY HD basketball, football and hockey games on my H77 and never saw this. Maybe I'm looking at the players instead of the fans... I'll keep that in mind and look for it on my H79. SJ

Originally posted by Dr.Poisson
bdavidson,
I have seen much worse image breakup on pans - another good place to check is in HD basketball games - watching the faces in the crowd. Not only do they lose color depth, but the faical anaotomical margins are not updated. They can take on a very goulish appearance. Have you seen anything that looked worse that what you are describing with the H77?

When you tried 48Hz, did you hear the CW change speed?


We didn't watch anything other than the DVD's listed. I haven't seen much HD material on the H77.

Yes, you can clearly hear something slowing down when inputting 48Hz. Not sure what it was but the projector gets even quieter. But, again, it didnt appear to effect the image breakup on the pans.

Sorry, I was unclear in my comments. I haven't seen an H77 so I don't know about pans with it. But I have seen worse image breakups than I think bdavidson was desribing - that was my point.

P

Watched Down With Love and part of T2 Extreme tonite on my H76 - sure looks great after Tom calibrated it - thanks Tom! No image break up on mine.

Originally posted by Dr.Poisson
bdavidson,

Thanks for taking the time to post your observations.

I have seen much worse image breakup on pans - another good place to check is in HD basketball games - watching the faces in the crowd. Not only do they lose color depth, but the faical anaotomical margins are not updated. They can take on a very goulish appearance. Have you seen anything that looked worse that what you are describing with the H77?

When you tried 48Hz, did you hear the CW change speed?

P

Yes, that is where I saw the panning issue mostly too, with HD sports and also when a reporter would be interviewing a person and people would be walking in the background. Their faces would totally break up into a cartoony mess. The worst I've ever seen.

I'd love to see an H79 to see how it's improved.

Thanks Craig, glad the tuning worked out. The fifth Element looked perfect after the grayscale tuning, but that movie always looks great. Check out an Austin Powers movie for colors.

Brad was talking about how nice it was to have some lights on in the back of the room with the H77 still showing great contrast. Well I have to say that just this morning I had the H79 going with daylight in the room and the image still had great power and contrast. Also in econo mode.

Originally posted by DHarp193
Yes, that is where I saw the panning issue mostly too, with HD sports and also when a reporter would be interviewing a person and people would be walking in the background. Their faces would totally break up into a cartoony mess. The worst I've ever seen.

I'd love to see an H79 to see how it's improved.

I have the same panning problems with my new Optoma H77. It is very annoying. This projector as really good contrast and the 3d of the image is simply amazing. That panning problem is a joke and should not be there. I doubt it's a question of mirrors speed. I think it's simply related to the processor power. I see no difference between 48Hz and 60Hz. I can hear the colorwheel reducing spead from 5x to 4x when i change the refresh rate. But I see no amelioration that give 20% more time to the mirror to do their job. I think the H79 probably have better scaling ability.

I see also a lot of noise in the whites? Snow is sparkling and drive me nuts. It's the same with all bright scenes. Anything I can do to adjust that? I have firmware no c16 (should be the latest one).

Bruno

Hi Bruno,

Have you set teh brightness and contrast using Avia? If not, that might help.

Gary.

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
Hi Bruno,

Have you set teh brightness and contrast using Avia? If not, that might help.

Gary.


Yes I did.

Exactly how did you do the brightness & contrast? Which patterns/which technique?

Oh no white peak allowed. :)
Contrast try the all white moving bars and try having the right moving bar half the brightness of the left moving bar.

Brightness, the all black pattern with moving bars, have the left moving bar disappears and bring back till it just re-appears, delete menu's dark room.

You should see no dithering in the blacks.

Originally posted by guitarman
Exactly how did you do the brightness & contrast? Which patterns/which technique?

Oh no white peak allowed. :)
Contrast try the all white moving bars and try having the right moving bar half the brightness of the left moving bar.

Brightness, the all black pattern with moving bars, have the left moving bar disappears and bring back till it just re-appears, delete menu's dark room.

You should see no dithering in the blacks.

I think the latest firmware is C18

I use AVIA. Pulse pattern. I make sure I see the second bar. I try lowering contrast on a specific scene to see if it's going away, and it is not.

I will try with a different player and input.

Bruno

Contrast pulse pattern. Most of us were setting the contrast to a point where the second bar just disappeared then back till it re-appeared. But Guy Kuo gave me a tip to adjust the right bar half the brightness of the dark bar. It may help your white crush, or maybe another player.

How big is your screen, and what gain is it bruno?

Gary.

Hi Bruno

What type of screen do you have ? I have a micro-bead type (Da-Lite Video Spectra) and with the H77 it sparkles like a Christmas tree. Didn't have the problem with CRT, LCD or DILA machines. My (uneducated) guess it is the DLP mirrors swining back/forth. The screen has a dotty texture with the other projectors but the dots don't shimmer.


Leigh

Interesting idea - Video Spectra is more of a sparkly coating like FireHawk - it is High Power that is microbead. I have never though of the mirrors in motion highlighting the sparklies - be interesting to poll VideoSpectra users!

You're right - Da-Lite describe it as pearlescent.

Which is why it's sibling for tensioned screens is called Pearlescent

Originally posted by nortonl
Hi Bruno

What type of screen do you have ? I have a micro-bead type (Da-Lite Video Spectra) and with the H77 it sparkles like a Christmas tree. Didn't have the problem with CRT, LCD or DILA machines. My (uneducated) guess it is the DLP mirrors swining back/forth. The screen has a dotty texture with the other projectors but the dots don't shimmer.


Leigh

I have a Focus View gain 1.1 85 inchs wide. Don't know what kind of fabric. But I don't recall seeing it that bad with a Benq 8700+, Domino 20 et Infocus 4805.

I try yesterday with different sources, resolution and refresh rate. The sparkling effect is always present.

Bruno

Originally posted by bdavidson
A friend and I had a chance directly compare a H77 to my Sharp 9k in my theater over the weekend and although I am no longer in the market for a new projector (My wife and I are expecting our first child any minute now), the H77 offers an excellent bang for the buck. As soon as we plugged it in, it was obvious how much better contrast and detail the H77 had over my Sharp 9k.

Our tests source was DVI out of a HTPC at 720p native with a Holo3d feed via SDI from a Panasonic RP-82. We were projecting on a 110� Firehawk from about 15 feet in a totally light controlled (read black) room. After calibrating with test disks, we demoed scenes from The Fifth Element SBE, Spiderman 2 SBE, Starship Troopers SBE, and LOTR FOTR as well as played a little XBOX Pro Race Driver 2.

Here is a quick review. We did not take any pictures.

Here is the good stuff:
1. Better absolute black level than my 9k. (Only just, but my 9k has 400 hours on the bulb)

2. Much, much better brightness, contrast, and detail.

3. Performance on the normal (low) bulb setting is great. (All of our testing was done in normal bulb setting) As an added benefit, there is an even brighter setting that can be utilized when watching a sporting event, TV, or just as a fall back when the bulb gets older. When playing the Xbox, we used the bright setting. It was very nice to have most of the rear lights in the room on when playing.

4. Very damn quiet. Boy this thing is silent. We had it on a TV tray slightly in front of the seating position (within 3 feet) and you almost didn�t know that the projector was there. It is really nice to have such a quiet projector in the room. I could hear nuances in the movie soundtracks that I just can�t with the white noise from my Sharp. I have had a few projectors in my theater and this is by far the most silent projector I have ever not heard. Lack of noise from the H77 is a big plus for this projector. Without the power LED, it is near impossible to determine if the projector has powered on.

5. Good color balance OOTB. We did not calibrate or test with Colorfacts, but it looked really good by eye. The color compared nicely to my calibrated Sharp.

6. No (almost) light spill out of the projector case. There is still some very faint light spill out of the side vent. The Sharp has no light spill.

7. Good user custom configuration options from the menu system.

8. It does support 48kHz as a display input, but, there was no apparent quality improvement. Pans were no smoother than when using the normal 60kHz nor did it reduce the panning artifact inherent to the H77 (see below). I have never used 48kHz from my HTPC so it is possible that a proper scalar would produce better results.

And the not so good:
1. The panning (what looks like bit depth reduction to me) artifact mentioned in this thread are evident and I�m sorry to say, they are worse than my Sharp 9k. It is very annoying when it happens and it will pull you right out of the movie experience. It is rare though, and for most users, the many other benefits (as well as cost) might well out weigh the few occasions where this artifact shows itself. It will rear its nasty head a handful of times in a movie. It is totally dependent on the source material. Fast pans are not an issue and slow pans are fine also. It takes just the right moderate pan speed and movie contents and color to produce the effect. It really too bad because this is the only real gripe I have about the projector. In Spiderman 2, there is a real easy scene to see this effect. Although I don�t remember the chapter, it is where Peter is dragging his busted up motorcycle home after he missed Mary Jane�s play. As he passes all the posters of her on a wall, her faces smear out pretty major as they pan behind him.

I have created a simulation in Photoshop to express the artifact. This altered image was pulled from a previous post and does not reflect how it would render on a H77, but, I have modified it too appear like there was a panning issue on this scene. I think it reflects the problem well and should give a good idea what the artifact looks like. Look at the guard�s face in the background. This is almost exactly what happens to the panning portions of the image when the artifact is visible:
http://www.go-racecar.com/htstuff/H77/h77_panning_problems_PS.jpg

2. We had one lockup once when trying to change the bulb brightness. The projector locked up and required a power cycle of more that a few minutes to get it back working again. We had to physically turn the hard power switch off to turn off the projector to work. The soft power button on the remote or the unit failed to turn off the projector. After which immediately turning the projector on, the lamp failed to power on. No error messages or anything, just no light. We unplugged the projector for more than 5 minutes and then tried and it worked fine.

3. Sync on a video input took a while and was sometimes hit or miss. Usually the projector will sync on a video input in about 5 � 10 seconds which is longer that what I have seen from most projectors. Occasionally it didn�t sync at all and required a jump to another input and then jump back to the one originally intended. The sync seems to happen in two stages: first it determines the color space, resolution, and frequency; second it then performs a standard sync to the signal.

4. There seemed to be a little noise in the projected image. More so than my Sharp 9k. What I don�t know is if this good or bad. It could be that the H77 resolves so much more detail over DVI than my 9k that this is just what is in the source material or it could be noise added by the projector. I don�t know for sure. It isn�t a major problem anyway. I would chalk it up to more detail in the H77 and the inherent limitations of MPEG DVD�s.

5. Bright ass blue power LED. I�m not sure what Optoma was thinking, but this LED lights up my whole theater. It�s odd that they would go to so much work to create a projector so silent and with no light spill and then put a LED so bright it would blind anyone looking directly at it.

6. When adjusting focus, sometimes the image will shift a pixel or so left or right.


Overall this is an excellent projector for a great price. If it were not for this panning artifact, I would surmise that this is the best single chip DLP projector below $8000 (street). Heck this is probably the best single chip DLP projector below $8000 (street) WITH the panning artifact.

Guitarman. Can you check that scene with your projector and tell me if you see a panning problem in the posters? I want to know if all H77 show that bahavior. You can't see it by freezing the image. The effect goes away. Just check if the Marie jane face is smooth like it should be. I will find more scenes this weekend. I have a cartoon call Reboot "my two bob" there is a scene were you see it quite easily. You also see it in that scene you told me about in LOTR. Just after Gandalf light is cane, Logolas walk buy and his face is all cartoonish. I want to know if I asking for a replacement by Optoma would fixed this.

Bruno

All the H77's will play these odd scenes the same way. It's the eight segment color wheel with the HD2+ chip and it's timings for the H77. Many other macines handle this the same way. The H79 plays them smoother with it's quicker mirror speeds. Oddly Alan said his 300e played it with dither. The other odd pan scenes will play jerky, like the Dwarf's getting their rings, the motorcycle guy in U571 special opp scene. These scenes are rare and fly by. But you can get these better with the H79.

Originally posted by bgosselin
Guitarman. Can you check that scene with your projector and tell me if you see a panning problem in the posters? I want to know if all H77 show that behavior. You can't see it by freezing the image. The effect goes away. Just check if the Marie Jane face is smooth like it should be. I will find more scenes this weekend. I have a cartoon call Reboot "my two bob" there is a scene were you see it quite easily. You also see it in that scene you told me about in LOTR. Just after Gandalf light is cane, Logolas walk buy and his face is all cartoonish. I want to know if I asking for a replacement by Optoma would fixed this.

Recently Tom finally mentioned (Slipped up? :-) in another thread that he actually could see the color banding in pans on his h77. I think you will find that all H77 produce the same or similar effect. Whether the effect is "noticeable" or not, I believe is subjective and will vary from viewer to viewer.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5186036#post5186036
Originally posted by guitarman
Panning motions on the H79 renders quicker. The odd tuff clips will just look blurry with no waves, the way they look on a tube TV, (Journey in darkness LOTR clip). The clip will show some waves with the H77 though.

I have a crossover screen/projector question. Optoma rates the H79/H77/H76 at 1000/900/1000 lumens. Manufacturers numbers seem to be universally disregarded and everyone expects them to drop with calibration, PLUS we almost all run them in ECO mode. So what's the lumen output of a calibrated H76/9 in Eco mode? How about after a few hundred hours?

The reason I ask is that I am looking for a screen for my H76 and the new projector central screen calculator takes lumens into account. I will sit about 12 feet from the screen, so I was thinking about a 88-96" screen but the calculator indicates the screen will be too bright, 44-37fl. I expect the calc to be using 1000 lumens in the equation, so I'd like to know the actual output in Eco mode.

I sort of liked the idea of a 1.3-1.5 gain but that would just make it worse. Could anyone offer an opinion or solution?

The room will be light controlled. Mainly movies, with some HD. The walls are light at the moment, but will be painted much darker once I get pernmission;)

Ken

chengka

If you don't know use half the lumens. Then half again if you want to account for an old lamp and don't want to use high power lamp modes.

I wouldn't be surprised if the (DLP) manufacturers lumens figures were taken without a colour wheel installed. Otherwise I can't imagine how else they get the advetised firures.

Gary.

Originally posted by bdavidson
Recently Tom finally mentioned (Slipped up? :-) in another thread that he actually could see the color banding in pans on his h77. I think you will find that all H77 produce the same or similar effect. Whether the effect is "noticeable" or not, I believe is subjective and will vary from viewer to viewer.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5186036#post5186036

Brad, you've been out of touch. I said that eons ago. I even started a thread on it. First chimer on was Alan stating he saw the waves on his 300e. It's a tuff clip.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=468975

Originally posted by krasmuzik
chengka

If you don't know use half the lumens. Then half again if you want to account for an old lamp and don't want to use high power lamp modes.

So what's the consensus on necessary FL? I think I've read 18-19 is fine for complete light controlled rooms, am I right?

I go all the way to 12ftL as that is the reference for screening rooms. Of course you want some margin for your lamp dimming - I am still on a search for the cheap adjustable neutral density filter so it can always be perfect.

If you plan for 24ftL - then the lamp will be 12ftL at the end. Or you could do 16ftL - hit 12ftL in the middle - then turn on high power lamp get back to 16ftL - then back to 12ftL again. Or you could start at 16ftL stay in low power and hit 8ftL in the end - and be very happy when you get a new lamp.

Ken - it won't be too bright on a 92" wide HCCV ( grey ) 1.1 or a CV ( white ) 1.3 screen. Not on Eco bulb setting anyway. I'm using the 1.85:1 picture on a 92" wide HCCV and the 2.35:1 picture on a CV 1.3 gain 106" x 45.25" screen ( both with and without the Prismasonic anamorphic lens for 2.35:1 great either way really ) - it's just right - period. When the bulb dims you can go the the regular bulb setting. Under no currcumstances would I go bigger than those sizes my self. You really only start with maybe 70% ( or less ) of rated lumens anyway.

I actualy prefer something closer to 12 as well, and was even quite happy with 10.5 from my HT1000. The H77 was a fair bit brighter, so I'm using two color correcting filters and I'm at 13.3ft lamberts at the moment.

Gary.

hello everyone, i'm a newbie .

based on the many good reports about the h77 , i went ahead and ordered one. but the panning issues and dvd artifacts seem to be rearing there heads as more people buy these units. does anyone know if there may be a fix for these problems? does optoma recognize these issues? i have not yet received my unit, but now i'm concerned if i should even open it when it does arrive. thanks in advance for any help.

tom

Originally posted by oilndrums2
hello everyone, i'm a newbie .

based on the many good reports about the h77 , i went ahead and ordered one. but the panning issues and dvd artifacts seem to be rearing there heads as more people buy these units. does anyone know if there may be a fix for these problems? does optoma recognize these issues? i have not yet received my unit, but now i'm concerned if i should even open it when it does arrive. thanks in advance for any help.

tom

I received my unit ltwo weeks ago and I easily see the panning problem describe by bdavisdson. I call Optoma and they acknowledge the problem and toll me their engineer are working on it. But I have no faith in them to solve this. They made more than a dozen firmware updates without finding a cure. I doubt they will found one, I don't even believe they are really working on this. I will like to get my money back or upgrade to the H79 but my dealer doesn't want to take my unit back at the price I bought it. (Optoma drop the price in the last few days by a 1000$)

If you are picky about image quality and those artifact drive you nuts. I think you should send it back.

Bruno

bruno,

thank you for your reply.

anyone else have an opinion?

A search using the words "H77 panning" yielded quite a few opinions.

"A search using the words "H77 panning" yielded quite a few opinions".

i've been following the post for quite awhile . it seems that in the last few days more people are bothered by these issues. some have even sent the unit back. i'm just wondering if you had not already owned the unit , would you still buy it with this panning issue?

Originally posted by oilndrums2
bruno,

thank you for your reply.

anyone else have an opinion? I didn't notice it on my H77 as described here. I'm looking at getting the H79 and I frankly doubt it's any different than the H77 was in this regard. So to answer your question, in a way, yes, I'd get mine again, I'm about to. I'm just takinga look at the IF7205 first which I never got a chance to see prior to getting the H77. I doubt I can live with it's limitations and noise so my most likely replacement right now is the H79, even if it has the panning artifacts others see (I didn't).

Hope that helps, but I know it won't.
Scott

Scott, thanks. Everyone's experiences are important to me. My h77 is due to arrive tomorrow. I guess I should fire it up and see for myself. Someone mentioned a couple of scenes where they noticed it. I'll report back with my opinion fwiw.

Tom

Originally posted by oilndrums2
Scott, thanks. Everyone's experiences are important to me. My h77 is due to arrive tomorrow. I guess I should fire it up and see for myself. Someone mentioned a couple of scenes where they noticed it. I'll report back with my opinion fwiw.

Tom You're welcome. If I get an H79, I'm not going looking for it. If mine had it before and I didn't notice, I don't want to find it. I'm learning more about "ignorance is bliss" in this hobby all the time. Most of the technical folks who saw it also saw it on the other single chip DLP's too. Since I see that as my platform of choice, and there may be no way around it, the H79 (or h77)'s quietness is a big factor for me. I tried a different popular brand that is supposed to be pretty quiet, but it wasn't compared to the H77. Since the thing is gonna be sitting over my head or close to it (16' seating position, plus second row behind that), then noise is a factor. Folks say "well I didn't notice it when the movie was going..." and at first I agreed with that statement. My wife and I watched The Notebook and every time the movie had a quiet scene, first thing that jumped out at me was the PJ noise. So, all that said, if I choose something other than the H79 in the next few weeks, I'll be doing a quiet box of some sort, that's for sure. If I get the H79, that won't be necessary, assuming it's the same as teh H77 in loudness and I see no reason it wouldn't be.

HTH,
Scott

Originally posted by oilndrums2
Scott, thanks. Everyone's experiences are important to me. My h77 is due to arrive tomorrow. I guess I should fire it up and see for myself. Someone mentioned a couple of scenes where they noticed it. I'll report back with my opinion fwiw.

Tom

Tom,
Just fire it up and enjoy the wonderful picture you're getting for $4k. Take it from someone who speaks from experience! I have friends who have been dazzled by my 960x540 projector using a BO screen. Sometimes I wish I could break this habit! Of course, I had to have 1280x720! More $$ to my pusher.
Sure there are probably defects in the picture, but why search. If they jump out at you, then you'll have to ask yourself if you want to spend another $5k+ to get a projector that may still have defects. Don't look for them! Don't expect Optoma to correct it in the H77, that ship has sailed.

Congrats on the awesome projector you just treated yourself to.

Ken

Ken and Scott, me thinks you speak true words of wisdom. It appears that no projector is perfect. I'm firing the h77 up tomorrow. I'll just let it rip and we'll see. Thanks for your input.

Tom

Watched I Robot on my H76 this weekend and on our 106" x 45.25" CV screen it looked AWESOME! Great movie for both picture quality and sound!!

Yes it looked great on my H77, when i watched it a few weeks ago. Troy looked very sharp.

mine is a 119" screen.

HD DVD's(and blue ray) are with in 1 year now (fingers crossed)



I have almost 500 hrs on my projector and everything is working great. bulb is dimming little by little but thats it.

Steve

Recieved my H77 two weeks ago. I love it. I have been shooting about 126" image onto a walmart bright white sheet. In bright mode even on the sheet it looks bright enough now. However, as bulb dims I can see it will start to look dim on sheet. On sample of carada bright white it looks great.

Projector is unbelievably quiet. The fan on the HD tivo in the rack is much more audible than projector fan. Mounted on the ceiling 10 feet above our heads we just can not hear this projector at all in normal or economy mode.

Picture quality is outstanding. Great colors and good deep blacks. HD material simply looks like a window. It looks about as good as my 65" rear projection TV. DVD is also very good. Panning issue is highly overrated on this forum. It is present but difficult to notice. I had 15 people over and played scenes on DVD's. Only 1 person could notice panning issue. After pointing it out most people could see it but it is not disturbing to normal viewing. I have not been able to see panning issue on any of the HD material to date.

Fpr the sale price going on now this projector has to be one of the best buys available. I still can not believe how good this projector is for the money I spent. I was prepared to spend thousands more for the sharp 12k but feel this projector has just about as good a picture but is much quieter. I can also get a great screen, new DVD player and have a lot of money left over to put away for my next 1080p projector.

Great review Reveille. After watching Leon - The Professional last night on my H76, I can imagine how good the H77 looks, 'cause the picture quality last night on the 76 was amazing. At 1.5 screen widths the picture is totally immersing and looks fantastic!

Lord knows I can't wait to see my new H79 arrive!

I'm taking my H77 to Optoma next week for several tweaks.

1. New firmware. I think I have about the oldest production firmware out there and I at least want the improved aspect ratio update. I'm not sure what other improvements are included, but that alone will be nice.

2. Recalibration. I did a user level reset several months ago. I did not understand that this would wipe out all the factory calibration, but that is what happened. After the reset, the image was lacking in contrast. I subsequently fixed this with the band-aid of going to gamma 1 which makes the picture look about right. However, I really want to get the thing recalibrated, particularly now that I have a few hundred hours on the bulb.

3. I am asking Optoma to try to fix the panning issue. I understand that Optoma does not seem to have a true fix yet, but I want Optoma to try and to tell me what it can do.

Note that I have adjusted the CWI to reduce banding and that has worked well. A side effect is that I see less panning effect problems than I did previously. The problem is still there, but looks bad less often.

I will report back on my results. I am also tempted to ask Optoma about the price to trade for an H79 as others have reported getting deals.

Ira

Hi Ira:

I heard on here somewhere they weren't doing a recalibration (as was first implied early in the thread) when you got a fw update. But I hope they will for you and I'm interested in what they do for you. I'm in a holdng pattern to replace my PJ right now, H79 still at the top of my list but I have a couple others I'm looking at first. So I'm particularly interested in #3's coments by them as I'm worried the issue will still exist on the 79. Let us know how it goes...

Thanks,
Scott

Ira, I would rent colorfacts for a month for $299. Colorfacts is simple for any new user. The wizard will walk you thru it, plus you could get quick help in this forum. Why get colorfacts? Because just about every projector will not be super tuned with all the companies. But you've probably seen that from reading reviews. They mostly come from the factories on the blue side near 7500k.

as decscribed in the PC reveiw of the h77, has anyone experienced a big difference in light output using the dvi input versus the other inputs.

Hi,

Here's my H77 greyscale with FL-Day and 81B filters. Contrast was around 2700:1, but image was a tad dim, at around 10ft lamberts. Would probably be fine in high lamp mode though. CF was showing over 2600:1 CR as well.

Here's the gamma which is gamma level 3 on the pj.

This is with gamma 4.

Thanks Gary.

Do you think if i keep the screen size to about 77" Diag. i should be fine with the econo mode. I will use the pj for night use with moderate to low ambient light . mostly because of a light cathedral cieling. everything else is well controlled.

I wish i could put the pj through a few tests myself before committing but its not possible. I did intend to use an upconverting dvd player through the dvi input.

Tom

I would think at 77" this projector is more than bright enough in the econo mode. You will be surprised at how much light output it has even in the econo mode. I am using a 123" king sized sheet in bright mode and it lights it up fine right now. I am concerned about brightness when bulb dims so I will be getting a screen with some gain to turn back in econo mode for now and than use bright mode as bulb dims.

Revelle, are you using the dvi input?

Originally posted by guitarman
Ira, I would rent colorfacts for a month for $299. Colorfacts is simple for any new user. The wizard will walk you thru it, plus you could get quick help in this forum. Why get colorfacts? Because just about every projector will not be super tuned with all the companies. But you've probably seen that from reading reviews. They mostly come from the factories on the blue side near 7500k.

Tom,

I may do that after I get the unit back from Optoma.

I am a bit frustrated as I already own the i1 spectrophotometer (or whatever you call it). I'm fairly serious about digital photography and bought the i1 Photo kit to do color profiles on different papers for printing pictures. My frustration is with the fact that there does not seem to be any inexpensive option to purchase just the Colorfacts software for those of us who already own the sensor.

Ira

Originally posted by oilndrums2
as decscribed in the PC reveiw of the h77, has anyone experienced a big difference in light output using the dvi input versus the other inputs.

I don't see any difference between the DVI input and component in terms of light output. Don't know where it's coming from.

Bruno

iblumberg

Call Milori - they had a post on their forum they were willing to accomodate you!

oilndrums2

PJC always reports DVI/480i/480p have different brightness/contrast measure. It just shows they don't know what they are doing - as properly calibrated all inputs will achieve the same brightness.

I am using component input only.

Figure if you tune the contrast and brightness correctly all the signals should be bright. You'll notice first time viewing HDTV it's really bright and your first tweak here will be lowering the brightness control. Also you could look for white in the video and raise the contrast till white looks pure white. Then I'll work on the color to make sure it's not over or under saturated.

I still haven't given the RS RF channel 3 thing another shot yet. I'm supposed to be able to tune 1080i with it, if I can get the thing to work. :)

Thanks gents,

I'll spring for the hdmi to dvi cable now and give it a whirl . I really do want to see this upconverting thing for myself. Thanks much for the input. Everyone on this forum is very generous with their experience.

The sale for this projector runs out today, 2/28, at one of the forum's sponsors. Does anyone care to venture a guess if they are going to extend it?

Bear in mind the MSRP of the H77 was reduced recently. I just pulled the trigger on the H77 a week ago or so, and I couldnt be happier. While I dont think the price will go up, I am happy with the value for the money - especially considering the extra bulb and 3rd year warranty.

Good point. However the price went down a couple of hundred last week from the previous week. I guess at this price (and being that Optoma is probably not making anymore with the H79 being out) availability of it will run out before they have to lower the price again.

Hey guys,
I pulled the trigger today right at the end of the sale, at 5:00pm EST.
Gonna get the free bulb and 3 year warranty.
They have to verify my credit card, but I am happy.
I got the 119 inch screen from da-lite from them, as well as ceiling mount and a 23 foot DVI cable for connecting my PC to it. ( I can also use the RGB 15 pin input )
I can't wait!!
Waiting for 2 years to get something, considered the Screenplay 7205, but this price is unbeatable!!

Sean

I upgraded my Sony HS10 today for a Optoma H77. Can soemone refer me to a thread that suggests settings for tweaking so I do not have to use the "out of the box" settings (which are pretty damn nice actually). It is not much brighter then my Sony (it is in brite mode) but the colors are much better and the blacks are no contest.

I know I should calibrate it myself (I use Video Essentials in the past), but it takes FOREVER and frankly, I found soemone who tweaked their HS10 and posted the factors, and I used those and it blew my feeble attempt a tweaking OUT the window!

So... please... Guitarman (who still likes that D1....) or anyone... any post you can point me to?

One more thing... As I got hooked up I have noticed 2 very disturbing things. 1) when playing a DVD through DVI Input the projector looses the picture and seems to search and then find it again through "Auto In" displays 1920x1080 then returns to the beautiful picture, only to blank out and go through the same thing again.
2) There are sparkles all over the place in the pic... sometimes unbelieveable other times barely noticable.

HELP!

When you say sparkling are you talking about white squares during darker scene? or look like video noise in white scene? If it is white squares during dark scene you DVI cable is faulty. But a completly black background in Avia. Or the opening of LOTR FOTR. If you see white sparkle there is definitely the cable. 720p should be worst.

Bruno

Thanks, I think you're right. This cable was fine for my HS10, but the Optoma H77 is more sensitive to the cable. It dissapears in lower res.

Also, I think the upconverted signal from my Samsung with DVI output must be confusing the projector... and that is why at every dark sceen it switches to that aweful auto in mode and trys to sync to the decks output.

I am thinking of sending the Optoma backa and getting a HS51... any thoughts? Any place with posted calibration tweaks for H77?

i don't get it

Joe you have to use your DVE because each persons electronics are different. At least use the THX optimizer to tune the blacks and whites.

This is the first time I've heard of a cable taking priority over a video picture. :)

The Bravo D2, Samsung, new Oppo all have low output. It's not the projector mainly. You either go shorter cable or a better up converting player. Bravo D1 has the power, the tosh sd5970 has the power. Not sure on the others like Pany, denons etc. But the three up top for sure are weak and need shorter cables.

Cant do shorter cable... but I'll bet a better quality cable would do it. I wonder why my Sony HS10 worked so well with it?

VE drives me batty! I get a headache and I swear they don't put on the screen what they say they are putting up (eg for black they say there are 2 bars and to decrease bright until below black bar is gone but you can still see the other bar - problem is there is only 1 bar up there!) Also, my son lost the blue filter... I'll go buy DVE or Avia (can these be found at Best Buy or other retailer?)

What do you think of HS51 v H77 (I know you love the H77 and now even moreso on H79)

Two big items on the Sony vs the H77, LCD screendoor and dimness. If rainbows don't bother you I think you're better off with the DLP.

You can pick up Avia at Amazon and cheaper, $39 vs full boat $59 at the stores. But you can find it at best buy or Tower records ($59).

How long is that cable? Maybe look for a D1 or check the DVD forum for signal issues on the Denons or Panasonic.

10 meter cable. It was cheap and I remember some in the forum had same issue... I did not with the HS10. You think H77 is brighter? I don't mind SDE as do some, as I hate a soft picture.

" Maybe look for a D1 " - I have one I'm not using - PM me.

Had a D1... Hated it.

Joe, which Samsung model do you have? My signal trouble was with the first one the 931.

One thing you should do is check the signal lock so the PJ doesn't cycle thru every signal. It won't help your problem but it's the best way to keep the signal timings down. Try a different player or gamble on a better cable.

Too many reviews on the Sony being dim, even HT-mags review brought it up. If it's dim out of the gate, well you know.

Yeah, its the 931. Signal lock is on.

Thanks... I don't care for dim.

Dr. Joe f:

Mate that H77 to a denon 3910 and it will be plenty bright in econo mode
and you'll have guests at times wondering if that DVD is some type of HD format, Sweet :D Sweet picture you will have,

Originally posted by drtunes
Dr. Joe f:

Mate that H77 to a denon 3910 and it will be plenty bright in econo mode
and you'll have guests at times wondering if that DVD is some type of HD format, Sweet :D Sweet picture you will have,

Or, if you have the bux a nicely modded dvd player with sdi through an iscan HD is VERY nice.

" Or, if you have the bux a nicely modded dvd player with sdi through an iscan HD is VERY nice. " -

That's what I'm using with my H76 - looks great!

Sorry to hear about the 51. You should notice a big difference with the H77. Tomorrow's soon enough. Come on back and let us know what you think.

Any new about TI new firmware version, specially addressed for those whose projector has a 8 color wheel, Tom?

I suppose that if they have released the new H-79, it should be ready for the H-77, despite of the obvious differences amongst them

Cheers

Juan

Nothing new on the firmware front. That ended way back when with the PAL contour fix. The firmware before that just added letterbox support.

Hmm - just talked to the support manager yesterday who claimed a new firmware release was made available this week and I am in the process of getting it. Will post update if it has any effect on the panning issues.

Bob

Sounds promising. Would be nice to know what the new firmware actualy does though - didn't they say what what had been addressed?

Gary,.

I specifically asked but the guy either didn't know or didn't want to say. He would only say that it did have some relevance to the panning issues. He also said that Optoma hopes to get the panning issue addressed by firmware changes. Being in the software industry myself I found it amazing that the service manager didn't know what exactly changed in the firmware and there are apparently no release notes.

Will this be a RTB firmware upgrade or will dealers be able to do it? I think I remember them saying they didn't wan't owners doing it though.

ary.

I am returning the projector to Optoma for the upgrade.

guitarman,

Can you check with your Optoma contacts? I'm very interested in the H77. If not for the panning issues this projector at its current price looks really good to me.

I would like to know also. I'm thinking of upgrading to the H79. But if they could fix the panning I would keep the H77.

I compare scene yesterday between the H77 and an old Viewsonic PJL 830. The old DLP was way better for panning. It actually look sharper than the H77. Obviously the H77 is in a different league for contrast, colors, noise etc.

A fix on the panning issue make the H77 the best bang for the buck out there. IMO

Bruno

Originally posted by KramerTC
guitarman,

Can you check with your Optoma contacts? I'm very interested in the H77. If not for the panning issues this projector at its current price looks really good to me.

Wing's still in Taiwan, maybe another week. I can say when I asked about the dither in odd scenes and some say they see panning problems, he said that some people are more sensitive to it while others won't be affected. The 77 handles the scenes the way it does do to timings and the new color wheel, same for the posture/contour problem PAL users had. The timings were adjusted in a firmware to fix the contour/PAL. He said the adjustment of the CWI plus a persons setup could help make the scenes look less dithery with some tweaking. I haven't heard about anything new. I asked these ?'s last week before he left for Taiwan.

Just for a test so you know. I ran the LOTR journey in the darkness dither scene on my HT1000, it played the scene much worse than the H77 can handle it. I'm not really bothered by it though.

I also spoke to OPTOMA about new firmware. I had them install C16 a few weeks ago and it had no improvement in the panning. Called them back and they said they Now had C17 which should help. I thought C17 was out for a while, even before I had sent mine back. What was the code again to check the service menu? He said they were working hard to fix the panning problems, but that they would give up soon. Wife thought the picture looked worse when the projector came back with respect to colors and shadow detail. I guess they didn't readjust the color settings. I guess I'm going to have to get AVIA. I have a 4 year old VE disk but it doesn't seem to work well for DLP or is it my imagination?

HDK

Originally posted by hdk
I also spoke to OPTOMA about new firmware. I had them install C16 a few weeks ago and it had no improvement in the panning. Called them back and they said they Now had C17 which should help. I thought C17 was out for a while, even before I had sent mine back. What was the code again to check the service menu? He said they were working hard to fix the panning problems, but that they would give up soon. Wife thought the picture looked worse when the projector came back with respect to colors and shadow detail. I guess they didn't readjust the color settings. I guess I'm going to have to get AVIA. I have a 4 year old VE disk but it doesn't seem to work well for DLP or is it my imagination?

HDK

Mine was upgraded 3 weeks ago and they put c16 in. To get in the service menu just press the two buttons on the left and the one on the right (3 out of 4 buttons) when you are facing the screen.

Bruno

Avia is much easier to use, specially the color adjustments using the blue color filter and flashing boxes. For now you should be able to at least get your blacks and contrast set right with the THX optimizer. If DVE comes with a blue filter you could try it with the Optimizers color pattern. After the basics look at the advanced tune-up tip I put in the first post.

Originally posted by Craig Peer
" a nicely modded dvd player with sdi through an iscan HD Craig, What's the details on your modded player? Sounds interesting. I tried a Bravo D2, pict was fine but ergos were too quirky. I got a Denon 3910 but it's way more player than I need (don't need/use audio capabilities it has). Thanks, Scott

I had my good old Panasonic RP56 modded by JVB Digital. It's still highly rated by Secrets. Picture always looked almost as good thru component to me as the Bravo D1 thru DVI. Looks a bit better still using SDI. And it ain't quirky!!!

Thanks Craig, I found their website, I'll check it out. Scott

Originally posted by guitarman
Exactly how did you do the brightness & contrast? Which patterns/which technique?

Contrast try the all white moving bars and try having the right moving bar half the brightness of the left moving bar.

Brightness, the all black pattern with moving bars, have the left moving bar disappears and bring back till it just re-appears, delete menu's dark room.

You should see no dithering in the blacks.

Someone please help this idiot find the "all white moving bars". I have looked and looked on the Avia dvd and I can't find such a patter. Could someone tell me the chapter number. I have seen chapter 2 which I think is called needle pulse with steps, but that's not an all white pattern. Honestly the DVE and AVIA dvd's are enough to make me put my hair back in!

chengka

It is in the white portion of that needle pulse pattern - there is not all white pattern like there is an all black pattern.

You find the digital projectors black and white patterns under

Video test patterns which is right under basic settings.

After you open video test pattern you hit Grayscales and levels.

The very top two patterns are what you need. On the left is the contrast pattern, on the right is the blacks pattern.

Originally posted by Gary Damico
Well I got the H77 and am very pleased with the picture quality. It's much brighter than the Sony HS51. I don't see any panning artifacts and I'm not going too look hard for them. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the amazing picture. Well at least amazing compared to the HS51 and previous Z2. I'm very happy with this choice. Color saturation is awesome!

I never noticed anything awful either. Really don't trouble yourself about that. Just enjoy your high class machine, a projector that was $9,000 not more than 6months ago.
enjoy

Originally posted by guitarman
he said that some people are more sensitive to it while others won't be affected. The 77 handles the scenes the way it does do to timings and the new color wheel, same for the posture/contour problem PAL users had. The timings were adjusted in a firmware to fix the contour/PAL. He said the adjustment of the CWI plus a persons setup could help make the scenes look less dithery with some tweaking.

As a new owner of an H77 (PAL) I have to say that these effects (panning, contour, clayface) etc. are anything but subtle! I guess my worst fears were realised after reading all the stuff in here. I have the v14 firmware and contouring is really very noticeable, especially on anime DVDs. Comparing on a CRT or LCD shows this is not inherent on the DVD itself. No matter what the setting of the CWI it doesnt get better (although with that its easy to make it worse!).

I am quite disappointed in the H77 with respect to these issues, and living a long way away from Optoma etc (south africa) it doesnt seem like it will be adressed at all through local distributors/dealer. Mostly silence emanates.

bdavision's observations about these faults were spot on the money, all of them. Everyone who has watched has noticed these effects and its hard for me to believe the "some people are sensitive" comment as anything more than a copout rationalisation. I have an older Yamaha dpx1 and while its not as rich, sharp and colourful it certainly displays none of these panning/contouring shortcomings.

As I said, redress is all but impossible from here as shipping the thing internationally is unfeasible and undesirable and we have no otion but to buy sight unseen - no one ever has demo gear here, you need to order the unit first and commit. Tom's early positive remarks and this thread's enthusiasm for the H77 were pivotal in deciding to go with this projector -- not that I am saying its his fault though - it was my own choice all the way -- I just wished I'd heard from bdavision sooner!! It all started going south when the PAL issues emerged, although the truth is most of my DVDs are Region 1 or 2 NTSC, especially the anime stuff. SO is it really a PAL issue? I dont think so. Our power is still 50Hz I guess.

Sigh!

I will keep praying for a miracle update and my heart beats faster when I read stuff like the possibility of a new TI firmware etc in the hope....hope....hope...

pardon my melancholy :-)

(btw its fed from a Denon 3910 via DVI)

Bummer you got an old stock piece, pre PAL fix. I'd return it if there isn't an easy way for repairs.
good luck

Seems like most of the problems with this projector is beeing addressed or attempted to be addressed with firmware, but does anybody know if there are multiple HW revisions out there and which ones to avoid because the problem cannot be fixed with firmware?

I just took delivery 2 weeks ago, and the firmware is C08.

There's at least 2 HW revisions. Well if you consider a case color change a revision. They went from silver to white.

C08 is what my silver one has. It works fine here in NTSC land, only thing it's missing is Letterbox support. Letterbox support was the first firmware. Not many Silver models out there, they quickly went to the white color.

typrat needs C16 or higher, thought they had a C17 & C18 also. These were timing fixes for PAL mainly.

I got a white box with C08. being in US, it seems like I am ok..

are there any versions between C08 and c16?

They just installed the latest C17 in my H77 should have it back on Monday. This is supposed to have improvements for the panning issues. I will let you know the results after testing.

Just looked at the settings on my H77. The color wheel index is 26. Most of the comments on this forum have been about 29 versus 30. I have version 16 of the operating system. Anyone else got a value as low as 26 on their wheel. I have not touched it This is as it came from the factory. It ccertainely shows the panning issue with Spiderman 2 but I do not notice it on the scene of the dwarfs getting their rings in LOTR. It is probably there but not really a problem for me. The Spiderman scene is quite ugly.

THanks Tom for the tuning issues. RCWEISS, I hope to hear thatyour problems are fixed. Mine goes back on Monday.

HDK

Originally posted by wilsonrob
Just looked at the settings on my H77. The color wheel index is 26. Most of the comments on this forum have been about 29 versus 30. I have version 16 of the operating system. Anyone else got a value as low as 26 on their wheel. I have not touched it This is as it came from the factory. It ccertainely shows the panning issue with Spiderman 2 but I do not notice it on the scene of the dwarfs getting their rings in LOTR. It is probably there but not really a problem for me. The Spiderman scene is quite ugly.

I don't see anything in the dwarfs scene on my H77. But I see it in a lot of other scenes.

Bruno

If you want a really good demo piece for the panning problem, check out the first few minutes of "The Corporation"on DVD - a documentary feature. Its practically impossible to make out what the visuals are at all !! Nothing subtle here... :-)

Originally posted by guitarman
Bummer you got an old stock piece, pre PAL fix. I'd return it if there isn't an easy way for repairs.
good luck

Tom, is there any way to tell if that might be true - like serial number etc.

(Ser# T81E444 AAAAAA 1060)

Anyone?

tia

The old firmware kinda shows it's an early model, and although you're on a 50hz main supply, the power supply is universal 96v to 264v and will immediatley convert the voltage to what it needs internaly - probably 12v and 24v DC, so there are transormers and rectifiers converting as required.

The color wheel will spinning at the correct speed for the format, so that shouldn't be any different.

Some other US owners had the same issues you had, so it's not purelu unique to PAL land. The firmware fixed most of these issues for most people, so getting it upgraded to 14 or later (16 and now 17) should resolve the issue. One tweak that might help is the color wheel index (CWI) via the service menu - many were set to 33, but by changing it to 28 or 29 you might greatly reduce the banding. You can do it in real time, and watch an image as you change the XWI - put up an image that is showing the banding, and pause it. Now adjust the CWI up and down and see how things change.

To get to the service menu you have to press 3 of the four buttons on top of the pj, but I can't remember which ones. try the search for this thread and it should turn up.
Gary.

Originally posted by wilsonrob
Just looked at the settings on my H77. The color wheel index is 26. Most of the comments on this forum have been about 29 versus 30. I have version 16 of the operating system. Anyone else got a value as low as 26 on their wheel. I have not touched it This is as it came from the factory. It ccertainely shows the panning issue with Spiderman 2 but I do not notice it on the scene of the dwarfs getting their rings in LOTR. It is probably there but not really a problem for me. The Spiderman scene is quite ugly.

I wonder about the picking of scenes. I took a look at the Spiderman motorcyle drag scene with two PJ's this morning and it looked the same. The camera is focused on the spider guy clearly the photo wall behind him is not focused. I really don't see anything unusual. The film director had the actor focused but he can't focus the distant wall at the same time. What's going on?

Re firmware, C08 is the first NTSC firmare from day 1, C14 is the letterbox fix, C16 is the PAL contour fix, C17 is a step further in the contour dither fix and I think it added a ND something feature in the service menu.

Tom, I think part of the spiderman thing is that some the photos of MJ on the wall have some striations in them to start with. These are consistent with posters on a wall getting dirty over time, so may well be deliberate as opposed to bad compression. I watched the same scene however on my 56 inch rear projection TV and they wee much smoother.

I have had the 77 for two weeks and really enjoy it because of the depth of color.

"some striations"

I saw that, like paste up wripples, not the PJ causing wripples.

" I wonder about the picking of scenes. I took a look at the Spiderman motorcyle drag scene with two PJ's this morning and it looked the same. The camera is focused on the spider guy clearly the photo wall behind him is not focused. I really don't see anything unusual. The film director had the actor focused but he can't focus the distant wall at the same time. What's going on? " -

It's called depth of field. The background is supposed to be " a blurry mess " - that's the way it was filmed I assume ( since I don't have this dvd but I understand the photography principle behind it ). I have yet to see the panning problem on either my HT1000 or H76. Haven't watched the H79 enough yet but I'm sure will have by the time the weekend is though.

Gary - what is your opinion on the H77 vs HT1000 regarding the whole panning issue? I don't recall you chiming in on this ( maybe I missed it )!?

I agree with you Craig, and I've said it a few times on this thread before - I don't have any image issues with my HT1000 whatsoever. :)

The posterisation/color banding was never an issue and the U571 scene had no banding at all. My H77 doesn't have any on that scene now either, but it was definitely there when it had the 08 firmware. I use HTPC and DVI so I'm not feeding it PAL or NTSC. Same for the HT1000.

I haven't tried the Spider-Man scene on tyhe HT1000 or H77 yet, but might fire them both up over the weekend. I've never seen any image anomolies on the HT1000 other than a very minor (1 to 2 second) clay-face on an R2 Star Trek Generations chapter 2 on Sulus daughters face, and a bad case during motion in a Red Dwarf out-take of Rimmers face (ep: thanks for the memories?). Other than those when I first got the machine two years ago, I've seen nothing on it to take me out of the movie since.

I am using filters on my H77 to increase contrast and dim the image to around 13ft lamberts, so I wonder if that's minimising any other artefacts. I'm now very pleased with the H77, but the HT1000 is still hard to beat image wise and contrast wise even when compared to newer xga or matterhorn projectors IMHO.

Gary.

Interesting Gary - thanks. I still use my HT1000 not only for reference picture wise ( it is very good ) but as a permanent part of my theater - as you can see here - http://gallery.avsforum.com/showphoto.php?photo=13047&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

LOTR chap 28 A journey in the Darkness scene. The HT does poorly with that one, but so do all the others.

That looks very familiar - I still have the HT1000 mounted on the ceiling a little in front of my H77 too. :)

How do you ensure you get plenty of circulation and cool air to the projectors Craig (as well as allowing the hot air to be removed)?

Gary.

I bought an in line duct fan ( 148 cfm as I recall ) and ran ducting into the attic ( which you can see in one photo ). The fan is in the attic, switched at the wall where the projector switches are. The exhaust duct intakes are right at the projector exhaust vents. It is nearly silent - quieter than the HT1000 alone, about the sameas the H79.

http://www.rewci.com/fafxseincefa.html

Craig's setup is neat, though he needs a mirror added for remote reflection. Look at this mess.

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

Confusion reigns

You need a couple more up there Tom! The H79 is more responsive in the soffit than the H76, or else I move the flex duct enough by accident. Optoma - wake up and put a remote sensor on the front too ( like the H31 - K? )!!

Originally posted by Craig Peer
You need a couple more up there Tom! The H79 is more responsive in the soffit than the H76, or else I move the flex duct enough by accident. Optoma - wake up and put a remote sensor on the front too ( like the H31 - K? )!!

There is a IR remote sensor on the front of the H79. SJ

There is? now I'm looking for it but all I see is the front and the lens. Ah ha, small IR window just under the DLP logo, good catch.

Hey same window on the H77. Craig maybe you could drill a hole in the theater cage and get better IR reception.

I spent some time calibrating my H76 last night. I think I need my eyes calibrated to set the contrast bars. I am not too good at judging when the right bar is half as dark as the left. Anyway I muddled through and the image is definitely better.
Questions:
1) I am using composite (RCA YpBR..) and there isn't a Color or saturation available in the Picture menu. The manual leads me to think I should be able to set it for everything except Digital RGB. Shouldn't I have "COLOR" with component? If not, what do you use to adjust saturation? My DVD player will let me change it a bit, but it seems there should be another way.
2) The double horizontal grey(?) looks a bit green to me. Is that normal? I recall something in this mega thread about not changing the green in Advanced. Is that correct? How do I best to eliminate green in the greys?


I just watched Gladiator again, I use that as my "dim" movie basis. The tunics on the Praetorian guards(Caesar's guards) look purple to me in scenes in the coliseum when I watch on my Z1, but black on the H76. What color should the be?

Thanks,
Ken

I also posted this question in the H77 Owner's Thread. I apologize if I am not allowed to double post like this. I won't do it again...but I am going crazy not knowing.

I entered the service menu on my H77 (by pressing the 3 buttons on the PJ in unison).
Shortly after that, I accidentally reset my projector to the Factory defaults (while in the service menu).

My question is this....by hitting reset in the service menu have I reset my box to where it was when it was delivered to me? That is, have I ONLY lost MY tweaks..cause that is no biggie...I wrote everything down and can set it all back to where I like it.

What my fear is...did I reset it to something OTHER than what was delivered to me out of the box?

Can someone confirm that I didn't screw up big time?

I appreciate all your help and advice and wait in anticipation to hear from you guys.