AE700 Tweak Thread [Text View] - Page 3

Aussie Bob

01-10-05, 06:13 PM

Thanks for the acknowledgement Mr. Westley. It was gracious of you.

Panasonic aren't any different from Sony, or Sharp or Sanyo... or almost any other manufacturer. They have huge organisations that encompass engineering, design, software, concept development and manufacture. As I said above, they're not selling $10, caveat emptor shareware. They have big factories with robots that make the devices and to re-tool is "very difficult".

And the AE700 is a domestic product. Perhaps you might get some joy from the professional products departments, as professional products are used as test benches for the domestic products - from VCRs to projectors to Formula One racing cars. They want to know how they can improve their professional rig in order to make it easier to manufacture for domestic consumption (where all the profits lie). Some of the feedback sticks in these cases, but only some. For the rest: wait for the new model.

The locally employed guys are regarded as hired hands, there to work, not to think... well, at least not to think too much, except to think about fobbing off customers who find faults in their gear and then to report those faults back to Kobe Factory after all... to be fixed by the next model, or the next. And to perform some of the "nastier" tasks, like laying off local employees when recession hits. Or to front at the sponsorship presentations.

But there is always a chap from Head Office who really runs the local show, despite the front "General Manager" locally sourced, who is there to put a human (i.e. familiar and recognizable) face on [fill in name of company here]. They like to have the local customers think they have some say in company business by hiring local faces to run the local operation. In reality there is no say, and the local guys are just glorified clerks.

Part of it is the Japanese national psyche, part of it is common sense. And it's not confined to the Japanese. American companies and offices do the same thing. As do the Germans, the French, the British and any other nationality you care to mention. There'll be local "color" in the foyer, perhaps a bit of folk sculpture, or a painting of a local beauty spot; a nice middle aged lady in reception. The local language will be spoken at all times. This is all for the locals to digest, but out the back the portrait of President Bush (or the president of the company) will hang behind a big desk where the real power lies. And it's strictly Japanese (or English, or German or whatever) spoken there.

The "common sense" part comes down to quality control. You might say that VB and white flashes etc. are examples of poor quality control, but they're not really. They're literally the best that can be done when merging obsolete technology with new, plus a few tricks to enhance everything and keep it hanging together long enough to get the next model out. The factories, worth billions of dollars and employing thousands, perhaps hundeds of thousands, won't succeed if technology is perfect or upgrades are continually provided to fix problems. Customers won't buy the new box if the old one is good enough.

At the moment, plasma screens seem to be the big thing in Home Entertainment. They work in the light, for one thing. Projectors are a much smaller market, although they have great potential because the picture is bigger and when HD DVDs really get going they'll come into their own. So, for the moment, projector technology, while sort of interesting, is not a big money-spinner, but it might get bigger, so there will be some investment in it. That young guy I saw in the AE700 movie was typical of the seriousness with which Panasonic treats this projector: about "in the middle" I would think. I've seen many of these young guys at trade shows and "meet-the-designer" seminars in the past. They're young and keen. They're given some leeway to come up with solutions. But ultimately they're just hacks among hacks working for the zaibatsu. One in a thousand will come up with something that really makes money, but you need the other 999 to make sure that "one" will succeed.

As a last point, on Blue Ray DVDs: Microsoft have come up with a plausible HD red laser, conventional DVD medium system for Media-9 and later versions. The "Terminator II Extreme" movie looked pretty good, or at least the clip did, on my PC. But have you ever wondered why it hasn't taken off (except for one film and a couple of hokey documentaries)? It's because every time you play a program you need to be logged on to the Net and WM-9 reports back to Microsoft requesting license permission. In Australia we can't watch "Terminator II" because North American copyright doesn't cover us. Who owns the copyright? You can bet your sweet bippy that somewhere, out in the back office, a Japaneese hardware company pulls the strings. "Sony Pictures" isn't "Sony Pictures" because the guys at Sony just love the movies (although they may do so, especially the side-benefits... but this is immaterial). They love the idea of owning the rights to movies, and being able to deny access to those movies to better, software-based technologies which run on almost any platform, that compete with the "new models" being produced in factories back in Japan... factories that must stay open for business or things become "very difficult".

Hence we all have to buy new, expensive blue laser hardware to watch the new generation of digital HD transfers coming out in a short while. "Hardware"? It seems such a crude word, an almost obsolete concept... except where the Japanese are concerned. To them it's life. And profits.

We can't deny them the right to make a profit. After all, it's what we'd do if we had the chance. We taught them everything they know. We (in the west) have given up a lot of our manufacturing expertise so we can sit back and consume culture and technology from overseas, those little sweaty guys who do the hard work while we enjoy the supposed benefits. Why, we even export out jobs out there so we can save a few dollars by paying slave labor wages to the non-white skinned of the world. But one day they're gonna come up behind us and bite us on the a**. Perhaps they already have, and we just don't realise it. Yes... I think that's right.

And that, Mr. Westley and others, is why your VB problem will not be fixed until the next model.

Or the next.

HMenke

01-10-05, 09:34 PM

Originally posted by hboson
I seem to recall someone mentioning the clock phase adjustment or something to help with VB. Maybe I'll try that tonight.

I'm trying to figure out what picture mode works best for the xbox. It seems like video or dynamic, especially since I usually have my dim room lights turned on when playing (otherwise I get a headache after extended play).

I have just been leaving it on Cinema2, which is my "default" mode for HD and DVD. It can be a bit dark in some scenes but I think that may be part of the game design. I'm with you on the headache (mild for me, feels like motion illness from riding in the back of a car too long) - about an hour is my limit for Halo. I may try leaving the lights up like you're doing and see if it helps. During gameplay I have noticed that I am sitting there with my eyes wide open and not blinking, which is probably part of the problem.

By the way, Burnout3 Takedown is absolutely outrageous on the AE700! Total immersion in the sense of speed.

HMenke

01-10-05, 09:36 PM

Originally posted by JamesAHall
You can fix this by turning OFF 480p in your XBox settings. For some reason, when the XBox outputs 480p to the Panny 700, you get some weird artifacts. The most noticable is the vertical streaking you see in static backgrounds like Halo. You'll also notice what looks like noise in the text of some games, especially in bright text on a black background. This is really evident in Madden, and you can see it a bit in Halo in the game summary screens.

I fixed this by telling my XBox not to output 480p--just 720p and 1080i. It will still send out a widescreen image if you leave that set, but the 480i (525i) image looks SIGNIFICANTLY better than the 480p one on the Panny 700. I think there is a problem between the XBox's 480p scaler and the Panny's scaler, but I don't know a whole bunch about video scaling yet.

Excellent tip, thanks a million! I will give this a try and report back if it worked!

JamesAHall

01-10-05, 10:30 PM

Yeah, let me know if that fixes things for you HMenke.

thundabot

01-10-05, 11:18 PM

thanks for the detailed post aussie bob.
i haven't seen this VB thing yet since i'm still waiting on my new house to be build and set up my PJ. i hope that there's a lot of exageration on this issue and it's really not noticeable to a new PJ user like myself.

llamameat

01-11-05, 12:20 AM

JamesAhall, I had a different experience when I outputted 480i from my xbox. While the VB was gone, the picture was much softer and suffered from deinterlacing artifacts. This was using high-quality component cables.

I've tried EVERYTHING....and ultimatly i've just had to live with the VB for xbox. I bet however that the only real solution would be a component to VGA converter ...the 700 seems to handle RGB signals much better.

JamesAHall

01-11-05, 03:19 AM

Llama, I noticed the 480i picture was a bit softer, but not to the level that it bothered me.

What deinterlacing artifacts are you seeing?

bapenguin

01-11-05, 07:22 AM

I use Video mode for Xbox with the color down a few notches.

By the way, 480p for me looks better than 480i on the XBox. I'm not quite sure why you are seeing those artifacts.

joffonon

01-11-05, 08:02 AM

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
...And that, Mr. Westley and others, is why your VB problem will not be fixed until the next model.

Or the next.
All too true. It's all about the bottom line, whether it be in dollars, yen, euros or pounds.

rezokl1

01-11-05, 09:03 AM

Im having trouble finding any of the flicker options or other options you guys talk about.

Im in AU with an AU delivery 700. I go to the menu and only have the usual picture, shutter, advanced options in the menu.

Advanced only brings up the gamma stuff which Im not touching. Nothing of the flicker or other adjustments you guys talk about.

Is there a reason? Thanks.

REL77

01-11-05, 09:21 AM

OK... MY ae700 will be here on Friday... What is the main tweaks I need to do right out of the box right away?

Woof Woof

01-11-05, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by rezokl1
Im having trouble finding any of the flicker options or other options you guys talk about.

Im in AU with an AU delivery 700. I go to the menu and only have the usual picture, shutter, advanced options in the menu.

Advanced only brings up the gamma stuff which Im not touching. Nothing of the flicker or other adjustments you guys talk about.

Is there a reason? Thanks.

Secret Menu #1 - read the Tweak thread

Options/OSD
press and hold down Enter on the remote

JimP

01-11-05, 09:38 AM

REL77

Read the first two pages of this thread. Most of its there.

HMenke

01-11-05, 10:16 AM

Originally posted by JamesAHall
Yeah, let me know if that fixes things for you HMenke.

480i definitely fixed the banding, you were right on with that. But, it also made the menu text quite blurry...I ended up switching back to 480p since I like the menu text to look sharp. Kind of a bummer to have to choose the lesser of two evils...

hboson

01-11-05, 11:25 AM

Originally posted by HMenke
480i definitely fixed the banding, you were right on with that. But, it also made the menu text quite blurry...I ended up switching back to 480p since I like the menu text to look sharp. Kind of a bummer to have to choose the lesser of two evils...

I have a theory about the xbox output (not sure if it's correct, but I did used to work at 3dfx on mpeg2 decoders and video cards if that's worth anything).
Unlike a DVD player when the xbox outputs 480p it is truly outputting twice as many pixels as 480i. Since the video card can render every line at 30 or 24 frames a second rather than every other line at 30/24 fps. So if you set the xbox at 480i, you are loosing half of the information. Unless a game specifically supports 720 or 1080, it's not really useful to output at those settings unless you think the xbox scaler is better than the one in the projector (which it may be). So to me, setting the xbox to 480i really defeats the whole purpose of outputting over component.

With that being said, my xobx is hacked to serve as a media center as well. In this case, setting the resolution to 720 or 1080i absolutely makes a difference. You can really think of the xbox as a crippled computer. Actually, it is possible to make a VGA adapter for the xbox and that should definitely improve the image. If I find the time, I may try this.

Well enough about the xbox, I won't post again on this issue unless I somehow find a cure for VB.

JamesAHall

01-11-05, 03:34 PM

Interesting. I guess the real question is, why does XBox in 480p mode cause the exteme VB? What is it about the XBox 480p output that the projector has so much trouble with? Clearly the XBox 480p output looks ok on other displays.

tsteves

01-11-05, 08:59 PM

I made the mistake of mentioning to the panasonic guy at the ae700 display about my flicker adjustment "problems". He seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. Has anyone had any good communication with them about this?
Aussie Bob - I am starting to think of it less as them biting us, as much as us Randy Mossing them.

hitchfan

01-11-05, 11:59 PM

On the subject of tweaks, I'd like to thank whoever it was that suggested a certain simple tweak that I have found improves the PQ on my AE-700U more than any other thing I've done so far:

In NORMAL Picture Mode,
Setting the COLOR to -9
Setting the TINT to +3
(and then I chose to set the COLOR TEMPERATURE to -1)

I did a quick search to see who it was, but with no real results and I don't remember if it was in this big thread or another even bigger thread, but I just wanted to reiterate it here on this one in case another newbie like I am is just clicking onto this one.

I suppose different screens and different ambient light conditions can cause your mileage to vary. I'm using a Carada Brilliant White screen and my room has light walls and carpet.

bapenguin

01-12-05, 07:34 AM

Originally posted by hboson
... So if you set the xbox at 480i, you are loosing half of the information. Unless a game specifically supports 720 or 1080, it's not really useful to output at those settings unless you think the xbox scaler is better than the one in the projector (which it may be). So to me, setting the xbox to 480i really defeats the whole purpose of outputting over component.
[/B]

The XBox doesn't have a scaler. The game must support the resolution natively and render it at that resolution. A game that is 480p will not output in 720p if you have that checked. Even if you ONLY have 720p checked, it'll output that 480p game in 480i then.

JamesAHall

01-12-05, 02:36 PM

Correct. But for some reason, the 480i output comes out clean on the Panny 700, whereas the 480p output has some serious VB in static backgrounds and lots of noise in bright text, at least on my projector.

I don't know why the Xbox 480p output translates so badly on the projector. 480p from a DVD player looks great.

Rgb

01-12-05, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by JamesAHall
Correct. But for some reason, the 480i output comes out clean on the Panny 700, whereas the 480p output has some serious VB in static backgrounds and lots of noise in bright text, at least on my projector.

I don't know why the Xbox 480p output translates so badly on the projector. 480p from a DVD player looks great.

I've connected my Xbox to my AE700 and have the same "VB" at 480p.

However, I'm not sure it is LCD panel related VB like we see in DVD's if the AE700 is soft-powered off.

My opinion is that the banding on Xbox 480p might actually be a scaling/phase/dot clock issue, similar to the moire or vertical bands you'd see with a one pixel test pattern (like Mark Rejhon's linked early in this thread) when scaling or not 1:1 pixel mapped.

JamesAHall

01-12-05, 02:57 PM

Originally posted by Rgb
I've connected my Xbox to my AE700 and have the same "VB" at 480p.

However, I'm not sure it is LCD panel related VB like we see in DVD's if the AE700 is soft-powered off.

Agreed. I see VB in my XBox (at 480p) 100% of the time regardless of the situation. If I switch over to 480i, it immediately goes away. There is either something wrong with the signal or the way the projector is scaling the signal. I don't think it is an LCD panel issue either.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to fix it other than to not use 480p mode from the XBox, which is a bummer. At least you can still do 480i widescreen.

hboson

01-12-05, 03:01 PM

Originally posted by bapenguin
The XBox doesn't have a scaler. The game must support the resolution natively and render it at that resolution. A game that is 480p will not output in 720p if you have that checked. Even if you ONLY have 720p checked, it'll output that 480p game in 480i then.

Yes, you're right about games only outputting 480p even if 720p or 1080i is checked. As far as I now, there aren't any 1080i games and only like two 720p games. Event though xbox can output those resolutions natively, the video card and cpu aren't powerful enough to keep up decent frame rates at those resolutions.

I checked last night to make sure and there definitely is a blurry softness to the 480i picture compared with the 480p. The 480p is much better if it weren't for the VB. The VB does also show up playing DVD's when outputting in progressive mode (you have to run an independent DVD player on a hacked xbox to get progressive dvd output). However, it does not show up when running 720p or 1080i output.

The bad thing is that since the games only display in 480p, the projector does not give you an option to adjust the clock phase over component. So I guess we're stuck with the VB. I don't think it's the projector because other people using tv's and other projectors have experienced similar problems.

Rgb

01-12-05, 03:58 PM

Originally posted by hboson
The VB does also show up playing DVD's when outputting in progressive mode (you have to run an independent DVD player on a hacked xbox to get progressive dvd output). However, it does not show up when running 720p or 1080i output.

Can a hacked Xbox scale/output DVD's at 720p or 1080i?

JamesAHall

01-12-05, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by hboson
So I guess we're stuck with the VB. I don't think it's the projector because other people using tv's and other projectors have experienced similar problems.

Oh really? I hadn't heard that. If this is really happening on other TV's then it is clearly a problem with the XBox 480p signal.

Woof Woof

01-12-05, 07:57 PM

Originally posted by hboson
Yes, you're right about games only outputting 480p even if 720p or 1080i is checked. As far as I now, there aren't any 1080i games and only like two 720p games.

http://www.hdtvarcade.com/xboxlist.htm

There are also lists for PS2 and GC. Amazed at how good 1080i is with Gran Turismo 4!!! ;)

I counted 4 1080i games for the XBox... and over 25 720p games.

I haven't played the XBox on my AE700 exhaustively but those that I did play didn't exhibit any observable VB.

Then again, I am leaving the 700 in standby all the time and the VB isn't really that obvious either when using YPrPb (PAL interlaced, NTSC interlaced, XBox HD/ED) or with DVI running at 1080i (which forms the main usage)

The only things that looked like VB were only from my PAL interlaced input (my VCR playing back OTA transmissions) and they were wide but slightly wavy vertically and looked more like interference from RF than VB really.

rday1960

01-12-05, 10:28 PM

i just got my high def direct tv reciever and have a question about how some of the stations come in.with pbs high def i get a gold line down the left side of the image. on some channels i get it down the right side but not as bright.has anyone experienced that ?

llamameat

01-12-05, 10:42 PM

i also agree that it's a dot-clock issue, not the VB that we generally refer too. Which is why i also believe a component to VGA converter would work.

TraderGordo

01-12-05, 11:23 PM

Originally posted by rday1960
i just got my high def direct tv reciever and have a question about how some of the stations come in.with pbs high def i get a gold line down the left side of the image. on some channels i get it down the right side but not as bright.has anyone experienced that ?

I think this is in the signal the broadcasters send out. They must assume everyone has a little cropping and won't notice it, but it can be frusterating. Its also "show" specific. I've noticed "funny" borders at various times on just about every broadcast network. The color isn't always the same either (I've seen white, gold, gray, black, yellow, green).

jaysoffian

01-13-05, 04:23 AM

Originally posted by TraderGordo
I think this is in the signal the broadcasters send out. They must assume everyone has a little cropping and won't notice it, but it can be frusterating. Its also "show" specific. I've noticed "funny" borders at various times on just about every broadcast network. The color isn't always the same either (I've seen white, gold, gray, black, yellow, green).

That's not even the worst of it. When I got my PJ I fired up one of the test patterns and perfectly aligned the edges of the projected pattern with my screen, with just a thin sliver of overscan all the way around. I congratulated myself on building my screen to the right dimensions, leveling my PJ, etc such that every thing lined up.

Then I fired up my DVD (Zenith DVB318) and discovered it crops the image it outputs via component. And of course the amount of cropping differs depending upon whether you output 480p, 720p, or 1080i. So I set it to 1080i (least amount of cropping, even though this means scaling up in the DVD player and then scaling down in the PJ) and zoomed my lens. Ah, everything in alignment again. (I only use 480p when the DVD's are non-anomorphic widescreen since I can then easily use the aspect ratio adjustment in the PJ to get the image height correct.)

Then I get Time Warner to deliver me an HD PVR (the SA8000HD). Tune it to a 1080i channel and of course the image falls 2" off the right side of my screen. Sigh. Unzoom the lens and get everything correct. Tune to a 720p channel and sigh, 1" of black on the right side. So I compromise between the two.

Then I hook up my laptop to the PJ via the VGA connector. And of course the top of the image now falls of the screen. ARGH.

So finally I just plop the test patterns back up and align the edges of the light cone with the screen just like I originally had it. This aligns well with the VGA input. And there I will leave it. It means that the other inputs have black either top/bottom or left/right, but that's better (to me) than losing an inch or two of image of the edge of the screen.

Oh well. Now I understand why broadcasters don't put anything important in the overscan areas. :-)

j.

HMenke

01-13-05, 06:29 AM

Originally posted by rday1960
i just got my high def direct tv reciever and have a question about how some of the stations come in.with pbs high def i get a gold line down the left side of the image. on some channels i get it down the right side but not as bright.has anyone experienced that ?

I see this on PBS high def a lot. On several of channels I also get a ghost line 1/4" wide on the right side. Just about every high def channel seems to have minor issues like this. The best I have seen is HDNet and HDNet Movies.

HMenke

01-13-05, 06:34 AM

Originally posted by jaysoffian
That's not even the worst of it. When I got my PJ I fired up one of the test patterns and perfectly aligned the edges of the projected pattern with my screen, with just a thin sliver of overscan all the way around. I congratulated myself on building my screen to the right dimensions, leveling my PJ, etc such that every thing lined up.

Had to laugh at your story because I went through the same excercise. :) I am starting to just get used to the shifting picture area, but it's an embarrassment when visitors come over for a demo. Someone usually asks about it.

I'm thinking about zooming the picture for more overscan and be done with the issue. I have a black velvet screen border that absorbs light very well. Since I don't have HTPC I doubt I will miss the 2-3% of the picture lost around the edges.

rwestley

01-13-05, 06:55 AM

I wonder if the shifting picture has anything to do with the fact that the
AE 700 is not using correct 7:20P but is 7:50P. I had a Sanyo Z2 and
I never had this problem on HD TV stations. I did have the problem with
the Zenith 318 but that I am sure is a problem that Zenith did not fix.

I do hope that Panasonic fixes the cropping issues with the AE700 so
we can get true 1x1 pixal mapping. I also hope that this solves the
problem from the SA box on some stations.

TraderGordo

01-13-05, 10:36 AM

Make sure you run "auto-setup" for any input that has that option (is VGA the only one?). This may help some with "pic shift" issues. HDMI doesn't have autosetup, but it does have "position" options which allow you to move it around some.

Auto setup on VGA is described on the first page of this thread (see my tweak list).

hboson

01-13-05, 11:17 AM

Originally posted by Rgb
Can a hacked Xbox scale/output DVD's at 720p or 1080i?

yes, it looks decent but not as good as say the S97 (which I have). It's surprisingly responsive in terms of menus, fast forwarding, etc., better than the S97 even.

jaysoffian

01-13-05, 01:24 PM

Originally posted by TraderGordo
Make sure you run "auto-setup" for any input that has that option (is VGA the only one?). This may help some with "pic shift" issues. HDMI doesn't have autosetup, but it does have "position" options which allow you to move it around some.

Auto setup on VGA is described on the first page of this thread (see my tweak list).

Yes, I've done that. It aligns my VGA image almost perfectly with the test patterns in the diagnostic screen.

The problem is that the images I get in via component (from my DVD player and my cable HD tuner) don't use the full resolution of the projector ... that is I have a 1 or 2" black bar typically on the left side from the HD tuner and on the right side from the DVD player (which I know is cropping the image due to its own bugs). Using the positioning adjustments does not help in this case --- it will move the image left/right, but the black bar remains.

At some point I'll shoot some digital pictures of what's going on.

j.

Smegger

01-13-05, 08:37 PM

So if I'm running VGA from my HTPC will I have this shifting of the picture?

I would assume that this only occurs when changing input sources, so if I go from DVD to HDTV or a game, my picture will not shift.

Right? Heh? Yes? ;)

BTW Ae700 ordered, will be here mid Feb.

Bated breath heh.

salreus

01-13-05, 09:27 PM

I must be lucky. I have a samsung t451 HDTV tuner and liteon 2002 dvd player and they both fit my screen 100%. I havn't hooked up my pc yet cause I need a longer cord.

I have a suttle PCX and was also wondering if anyone would know if I would get better PQ from using my shuttle vs the dvd player. Yeah, I know if I get a better video card. I am asking about the shuttle onboard vga out vs the lite on 2002. I know this should be on the HTPC thread. but I thought I would toss this in with my info about the 700.

abut the 700. I really dont think i could be happier with my purchase.

movadelic

01-14-05, 06:49 AM

so if ae700 outputs 750p, will it be an idea to config ffdshow to send 1280x750 to the vga port?

FZ1977

01-14-05, 07:59 AM

I'm reading this thraed about issue with xbox at 480p with static and everything.

And I'm thinking when I set up some video captation equipment and powerful projectors for convention, I want to be careful about one thing : curent phase.

For exemple when I'm plugging a 12000 lumens projector with any dvd player (yes, it happens a lot), if I don't feed the to with the same phase, I very oftenly have static and artefact.

Hence, (but it is just a wild guess), What about plugging the projector + dvd Player or xbox on a AC cleaner/filter. Couldn't a onduleur solve a great deal of things ?

rday1960

01-14-05, 08:14 PM

thanks trader and jay . i want to do a proper screen and asked about these issues of imperfections around the edges becouse i want to design a good masking system.also ,, with 150 plus new high def channels coming this june the issue will be even more important. we can handle high def dvds fairly easiliy with proper home theater pc. but if all these hdtv channels are going to be all over the place with the signals they send out we will have much less control.still, its not such a bad problem after all.
after watching one of my high def dvds i realize im definately going to have to perfect a home theater pc .

holyc0w

01-14-05, 09:43 PM

Just so I'm straight on this, nothing can be done about convergence issues? I've read through these AE700 threads and haven't seen a solution. My red panel is off by about two pixels. I guess it's not a big deal as the picture looks great and it's impossible to tell at viewing distance, but it would still be nice if it were "perfect".

rezokl1

01-15-05, 02:15 AM

Quick question.

Tried to boot my PC connected to the VGA port on the PJ and the XP screen came up and came before the desktop was due to appear, it rebooted itself and did it again and again....am I better off booting the PC connected to my existing LCD screen and only *then* removing the VGA cable from the screen and hooking it into the PJ (ie when its *on*) ?

Thanks.

jimbra

01-15-05, 02:20 AM

woah-woah-woah

I think we are getting this out of perspective!

Our HT, is running OTA HDTV on this unit, NO Problems

Our X-box, is running, NO Problems

Our DVd, NO Problems (INTEL woo hoo guys chime in)

Our PC, when we integrate to display, NO PROBLEMS

This Panny has been a wonderful, it took a while perfecting it to display ,5 or 6 days, with NO PROBLEMS, but this is what can be expected with a "sub $3,500 unit"

My strong suggestion, for all , start from square one. Set up and follow the directions. Reading the manual works wonders.

Using sound advice from "truly experienced" tweakers also helps.

Just my 2 cents, spending all my quarters and having a ball with this panny.

enjoy :-)

weapon_x11

01-15-05, 08:44 AM

After around 200 hrs with AE-700, I changed my filter from FL-W (green filter) + MC-10 (blue filter) to an FL-D filter cause the picture got too dark for my taste. Still using video mode. Hopefully, it will be around 1000 hrs before I remove all filters completely.

Carbo

01-16-05, 03:26 AM

I made the jump and ordered mine. Just wondering, how does this thing look with the new Faroudja upconverting players? Does it display macroblocks?I remebered reading this a bigger problem with Panasonic displays. I haven't purchased an upconverting dvd player yet and trying to decide which to get.

rwestley

01-16-05, 12:46 PM

I have the 97S Panasonic DVD Player and the AE-700. The picture looks great,
very little Macroblocking problems with the AE-700.

tvted

01-16-05, 04:57 PM

Originally posted by Carbo
I made the jump and ordered mine. Just wondering, how does this thing look with the new Faroudja upconverting players? Does it display macroblocks?I remebered reading this a bigger problem with Panasonic displays. I haven't purchased an upconverting dvd player yet and trying to decide which to get.

Macroblocking. I believe, is an issue with MPEG2 and is *not* display dependent other than black level adjustment. It is in fact *player* dependent.

If Macroblocking is an issue for you. either adjust your display black level or look into the new Sony - which has some CUE issues.

Yah picks yer poison.

ted

Stew4msu

01-17-05, 01:27 AM

I've had my projector since the middle of November. I was originally planning on hooking it up via HDMI, but for reasons to lenghtly to get into here, I ended up going component instead. From the start, I never had any VB and I have always used stand-by. The picture I've had has been very good and the whole family has been very happy. This weekend, I decided to try and hook up HDMI and see what it looked like. I must say tht the picture difference is significant. I put in the new Fifth Element and did some comparisons by swithching from HDMI to Component. My wife and I immediately noticed that the HDMI connection was much better. It was brighter and showed more detail. For example, there's a scene when we're first introduced to Milla Jojovich (when she's in the tank) that has the two men talking about her at the control panel. The one military gentlman has on a dark V-neck sweater and a dark tie. With component, it was a little hard to tell where the sweater ended and where the tie started. With the HDMI, not only was this very clear, but you could also see the knot of the tie very clearly where you could not on the Component.
We watched Daredevil this evening via HDMI and we were again very impressed. Unfortunately, however, we did experience white flashes three times during the 2 hour movie. The first time I saw it I didn't say anything (it was during the opening credits). The second time, my wife said "did you see that?". So I explained to her what it was.
I still think we're going to stick with HDMI, because we like the pic so much better and the flashes are so quick, but I'll also be looking forward to the firmware upgrade if it does indeed fix this problem.

For those interested, I'm using a Pioneer Elite 59avi DVD player an HDMI cable from BlueJean Cables.

Stew

KostaVan

01-17-05, 04:50 AM

Stew...

What is the length of your HDMI cable?

BTW...if the MSU you are talking about is Miss. State --- The Crimson Tide are going to ROLL them in Basketball come Tuesday night :)

-Kosta

llamameat

01-17-05, 08:11 AM

just opened up my ae700 and made a modification. I noticed that Panisonic had put tin-foil material around the bulb housing. I assume they did that to keep stray light from being absorbed by the grey plastic material and instead reflect it the way it was suppossed to go (out the optics of the projector). I can't think of any other reason for the tin-foil to have been placed all around the bulb.

However on one side of the housing they had put a peice of black plastic. I'm not sure why they did this...perhaps they were afraid this section was too close to the electronics, and they didn't want to risk putting a metal sheet in such close proximity.

Anyway, I figured I would take the risk and carefully covered the bulb side of this black plastic peice in tin-foil as well. Subjectively, I'd say I've gained around 5% in brightness through this tweak. Unit temps haven't increased any and the projector hasn't blown up after 4 movies watched since. I've write more detail about this is anyone's interested.

TheLittleBoy

01-17-05, 11:19 AM

I currently have Pana AE-700 AND LG 4200A . I am using component cable. I like the result, but I am hoping to get better picture quality using digital cable. Would you suggest replacing my component cable with DVI to HDMI cable ? If so, what cable are you using ?

Thanks

bradbissell

01-17-05, 12:06 PM

So what is the final word on calibration filters used with the AE700? I'll be receiving mine this week and want to be ready. I'll be using Smart III on the Video setting as per cine4home.de's review/tweak.

Stew4msu

01-17-05, 12:44 PM

Originally posted by KostaVan
Stew...

What is the length of your HDMI cable?

BTW...if the MSU you are talking about is Miss. State --- The Crimson Tide are going to ROLL them in Basketball come Tuesday night :)

-Kosta

The cable is a 30 footer.

The MSU is Michigan State. We already got rolled by Wisconsin yesterday.

Stew

gireesh

01-17-05, 03:17 PM

I had the 4200A for a while feeding my Plasma. You will definitely get a better picture with the DVI/HDMI connection, because there is no D to A to D conversion. Check this cable

Acoustic Research PR-481 Pro II Series DVI to HDMI Adapter Cable, at buy.com or amazon. It is about $30, you can always return it if it doesn't work for you.

srauly

01-17-05, 08:52 PM

If anyone cares to help me out, I just started a new thread here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=497436

I just got my AE700 about three weeks ago and I'm (confusingly) getting better PQ via my standalone DVD player over S-Video cable than I am via my HTPC.

Scott

Gn0m0rz

01-18-05, 09:14 AM

I´m using HDMI connection and need the function "AUTO" for 1:1 pixel perfect.
¿ How i can update my firmware ?

TraderGordo

01-18-05, 07:59 PM

Originally posted by Gn0m0rz
I´m using HDMI connection and need the function "AUTO" for 1:1 pixel perfect.
¿ How i can update my firmware ?

So far reports are not all the positive about the newer firmware (1.05) - apparently it doesn't fix HDMI cropping as hoped. Any upgrade (according to Panny) would require the unit to be sent in, although they aren't currently even offering this option, and it isn't even certain that they WILL offer this option in the future.

Alternatives are to live with cropping or switch to VGA.

TraderGordo

01-18-05, 08:05 PM

Did you ONLY swap cables, or did you swap cables AND DVD player? Brightness is a function of your settings on each input (and obviously each input has independent settings). Its possible that the default "brightness" on HDMI is brighter than the default on component, but it has nothing to do with the cable...

Once you have brightness calibrated on both inputs, you should look at sharpness. Its possible that the extra "detail" you see over HDMI is actually bogus artificial sharpening. Many users have reported excessive artificial sharpening by default on the HDMI input. You can reduce this by entering the standard "picture" menu and turning down sharpness as far as it will go. If you LIKE the artificial sharpening, you should try juicing up the sharpness setting on component to see if you can match that of HDMI in order to give the two a fair comparison.

Originally posted by Stew4msu
I've had my projector since the middle of November. I was originally planning on hooking it up via HDMI, but for reasons to lenghtly to get into here, I ended up going component instead. From the start, I never had any VB and I have always used stand-by. The picture I've had has been very good and the whole family has been very happy. This weekend, I decided to try and hook up HDMI and see what it looked like. I must say tht the picture difference is significant. I put in the new Fifth Element and did some comparisons by swithching from HDMI to Component. My wife and I immediately noticed that the HDMI connection was much better. It was brighter and showed more detail. For example, there's a scene when we're first introduced to Milla Jojovich (when she's in the tank) that has the two men talking about her at the control panel. The one military gentlman has on a dark V-neck sweater and a dark tie. With component, it was a little hard to tell where the sweater ended and where the tie started. With the HDMI, not only was this very clear, but you could also see the knot of the tie very clearly where you could not on the Component.
We watched Daredevil this evening via HDMI and we were again very impressed. Unfortunately, however, we did experience white flashes three times during the 2 hour movie. The first time I saw it I didn't say anything (it was during the opening credits). The second time, my wife said "did you see that?". So I explained to her what it was.
I still think we're going to stick with HDMI, because we like the pic so much better and the flashes are so quick, but I'll also be looking forward to the firmware upgrade if it does indeed fix this problem.

For those interested, I'm using a Pioneer Elite 59avi DVD player an HDMI cable from BlueJean Cables.

Stew

nastyboy

01-18-05, 09:06 PM

I had no issues getting the firmware updated on my projector via customer support center @ Panasonic Canada. (white flashes) I should have my projector back by the end of the week. I also asked them about convergence if there was any way one could align the panels via the service menu and they told me it could not be done @ home. Hopefully the red will be good on the replacement unit with the latest firmware applied.

Stew4msu

01-18-05, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by TraderGordo
Did you ONLY swap cables, or did you swap cables AND DVD player? Brightness is a function of your settings on each input (and obviously each input has independent settings). Its possible that the default "brightness" on HDMI is brighter than the default on component, but it has nothing to do with the cable...

Once you have brightness calibrated on both inputs, you should look at sharpness. Its possible that the extra "detail" you see over HDMI is actually bogus artificial sharpening. Many users have reported excessive artificial sharpening by default on the HDMI input. You can reduce this by entering the standard "picture" menu and turning down sharpness as far as it will go. If you LIKE the artificial sharpening, you should try juicing up the sharpness setting on component to see if you can match that of HDMI in order to give the two a fair comparison.

Just the cables. Also both inputs were calibrated via Avia before I did the side by side comparison. Maybe I did calibrate as well with the component as that was my first time using Avia and calibrating with the HDMI was my second time. , but the HDMI picture looks clearer and more detailed.

Stew

bapenguin

01-19-05, 08:05 AM

What's the best way to clean the lense of the projector? Should I use a standard blower brush? Lint free cloth?

JimP

01-19-05, 08:27 AM

An SOS pad works nicely. lol

Actually, I use one of the antistatic cloths. If available, get something like a antistatic brush. Less likly to scratch the lens.

Kingdaddy

01-19-05, 05:19 PM

Use an old dryer static sheet (bounce) once they have been run through the dryer they are free from all the softeners an perfume but they still have a good amount of lint free anti stat cleaning ability. I've been saving my old dryer sheets for years to clean my direct view TV screen and now my projector lens, they work like a dust magnet and wont scratch, plus their free if you normally use them in you dryer.

llamameat

01-20-05, 02:33 AM

I'm surprised nobody cared about my tin-foil tweak. It IS brighter...not much but a little. I guess our bulbs are too new.

bapenguin

01-20-05, 08:03 AM

Originally posted by Kingdaddy
Use an old dryer static sheet (bounce) once they have been run through the dryer they are free from all the softeners an perfume but they still have a good amount of lint free anti stat cleaning ability. I've been saving my old dryer sheets for years to clean my direct view TV screen and now my projector lens, they work like a dust magnet and wont scratch, plus their free if you normally use them in you dryer.

awesome. Thanks!

bradbissell

01-20-05, 09:51 AM

Llamameat: Tell us about the tinfoil tweak. I'm interested, but I just want to make sure it doesn't effect the projector negatively. Could you post pics so I know exactly where things are in respect to your tweak.

Thanks!

hayatiakbas

01-20-05, 01:10 PM

hi...
I am new to this....but I ll tell you this much ...you shouldn't put anything in the bulb bedding area...thats important for the lamp to not get too hot...how do you know maybe the levek of tin foil the reflecting level of the light and heat is designed by engineers. panasonic put has a level of tin foil.. reflecting the light, or heat...so you are putting extra tin foil which will reflect the light and heat more towards lenses and the bulb itself...you will not notice a sudden negative effect on the projector but i assure you it ll shorten the lamp life maybe to much light to the panels.......there must be enough room in where the bulb is to air to cool it.......my projector after 200 hours got brighter..this kind of lamps work full throttle after couple hundred of usage...i am telling you that is not a tweak...that is messing with the mechanism of the pj...and you said it yourself...didn't blow up after two movies.. why would you concern if the pj will blow up or heat to much and stuff...why this tension?..why not watch movies as relaxed as possible with no worries instead!!! why do we need that little more brightness?...
I don't mean to be against you ..I am just sharing my thought with you...
maybe to help..

hayatiakbas

01-20-05, 01:16 PM

drier static sheet will not scratch or lint the lenses???...I use the dust off..air blower...but there is something very important with it..its flammable..so use it only when pj is cold..not turned of..because the air might get into the hot area of the lamp...clean just the surface of the focus lenses and use it as directed on the bottle..you ll see it works great..thats what they use in movie cameras..

Aussie Bob

01-20-05, 03:10 PM

Does anyone else have "dust" inside the lens?

I see quite a bit - not hairs or anything substantial - just tiny, tiny "bubbles" on the surfaces of the inner elements (illustrated in attachment to this post). None on the outer surface of the lens.

Or are these just micro-specks, exaggerated by having 135 collimated watts of light rammed through them?

The lens appears quite clear when the projector is off and a torch is shone back in through the lens from the front. PQ seems excellent when projecting.

I should say that the "dust" shown in the attachment is most apparent when the picture is bright. It looks finer when a darker picture is projected. The attachment illustrates what it looks like in a very bright scene. Although it is not illustrated well (it was hard enough getting the exposure correct), I can clearly see layers of these micro-particles on each lens element when the projector is projecting.

It's hard to tell whether this problem is getting worse.

I've never removed the lid of the unit. I always cap the lens when not in use. I've cleaned the filter regularly.

Just askin'...

Kingdaddy

01-20-05, 03:41 PM

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Does anyone else have "dust" inside the lens?

I see quite a bit - not hairs or anything substantial - just tiny, tiny "bubbles" on the surfaces of the inner elements (illustrated in attachment to this post). None on the outer surface of the lens.

Or are these just micro-specks, exaggerated by having 135 collimated watts of light rammed through them?

The lens appears perfectly - I mean perfectly - clear when the projector is off. PQ seems excellent when projecting.

Just askin'...

Mine looks just like that, but doesnt seem to degrade PQ. I've found that if you carefully look into the lens from a angle as not to get the full brightness of the bulb into your eyes you can see the panels inside and it's very easy to see any dead pixles. Mine has a few, but they dont show up on a test pattern that I can tell.

Aussie Bob

01-20-05, 03:47 PM

Thanks Kingdaddy,

You've given me some consolation. I take your point about it not degrading PQ. It was my own observation too.

But consider this: how would we know how good PQ can really be (if a "dusty" lens is the best we've had to work with)?

Maybe if the specks weren't on the lens elements it might perform better?

Just had another thought. Are you a smoker? Or, do you have smokers in the house? (There is a new thread on smoking vs. projectors just started up).

I am a smoker.

Then again, Japanese smoke like chimneys. You'd think they'd design a filter that coped with cigarette smoke?

440forpower

01-20-05, 04:34 PM

XBOX???? Hello, I have read in this thread many people having vb or something similar when they play their xbox through component and at 480p. And that it isnt there when the xbox is playing a 480i, 720p or 1080i game. My ? is has anyone tried using a vga to component adapter or vga xbox adapter and hooked into the ae700 vga port? Does this get rid of the problem when playing 480p games? I am really interested in this projector but if it has problems with 480p games thats a deal breaker for me. Thanks for your help

Kingdaddy

01-20-05, 04:38 PM

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Thanks Kingdaddy,

You've given me some consolation. I take your point about it not degrading PQ. It was my own observation too.

But consider this: how would we know how good PQ can really be (if a "dusty" lens is the best we've had to work with)?

Maybe if the specks weren't on the lens elements it might perform better?

Just had another thought. Are you a smoker? Or, do you have smokers in the house? (There is a new thread on smoking vs. projectors just started up).

I am a smoker.

Then again, Japanese smoke like chimneys. You'd think they'd design a filter that coped with cigarette smoke?

I'm not a smoker but I have had smokers in my house and have noticed well after the smoker left while viewing my computer desktop with a light background I could actually see the smoke swirling around on the screen image. I have a friend who owns a bar and has complained that his DLP projector in the game room of the bar is having problems due to smoke. Seems that the smoke will coat the insides of the projector optics with sticky residue that will allow the dust to stick and cake up causing reduced light output and focus problems. For this reason I will no longer allow smoking in any part of my house. I did notice the tiny specs on my lens the day I first turned it on well before any smokers visited.

jeffmcc

01-20-05, 04:47 PM

Aussie Bob,

My lens looked the same as yours the first time I took it out of the box. I am not a smoker and no one is allowed to smoke in my house, I have noticed no picture quality issues.

In fact, I remember when I used to work at a theater in college, the lenses looked the same way, and that was after cleaning them with the lens solution and lens tissue paper that was provided by the theater.... And we never had picture quality issues there either.

Now this is not to say that you won't experience issues later down the road if people continue to smoke around the projector, because tar and nicotine will build up on the lens, and as Kingdaddy said, it will collect and hold on to paritculate matter in the air.

One more example, my friend has a Benq in his home theater and his lens shows the same kind of 'stuff' on his lens.... with no picture quality problems.

Just my two cents.

Aussie Bob

01-20-05, 05:24 PM

That was bugging me, Jeff. Thanks for your opinion and information. Particularly (forgive the pun) relevant was your statement that yours looked as bad right out of the box. It really does look bad with strong light coming through the lens. But if you switch the pj off, virtually nothing can be seen with the naked eye.

Maybe this is why we're asked to pay $10,000-up for a projector with sealed optics and Schneider (or Zeiss) lenses. That little bit of extra contrast? On other sites it's taken as a "given" that smoking and LCD projectors in particular are anathema to each other. Then, looking closely at the dates of the posts, many of these are from way back in 2000/2001, when it was the Wild West out there LCD-wize.

I've seen other complaints in various threads about scratches and lint (as opposed to my "micro dust") inside the AE700 lens. Assuming Panasonic subbed the lens out, I wonder if they had a lot of QC issues with the optics? Another thought was that perhaps Panasonic bought "whisper quiet" ventilation with a more porous filter?

Talking of filters my "cleaning" of them (three attempts in 400 hours) hasn't picked up much observable dust at all, and I regard my house as relatively dusty: two dogs and a cat bringing muck in from the outside see to that. Our air-conditioner wall unit (ten feet away from the pj) does pick up a reasonable amount of larger particles of dust (six monthly cleaning interval). I wonder if I'm missing something?

On the other hand, I assume this pj has pretty mature optical and cabinet engineering by now, compared to several years ago. You'd think they'd get the lens right, as it is so important to PQ. There are no caveats in the manual re. dust on internal elements that I can see. There is no admission that the filter isn't adequate for all environments.

Thanks again, Jeff and KingDaddy.

srauly

01-20-05, 06:21 PM

I just got my projector recently, don't smoke, and have the same thing. At least I think it's the same. For me it could be on the outside (I don't have a lint-free cloth so I haven't tried wiping it yet), but it looks like what you've pictured, so I suspect that it's the same thing. Rather odd. As others have said, I'm not seeing any obvious PQ degradation as a result.

Scott

KostaVan

01-20-05, 08:12 PM

Does smoking in the same room as the projector really affect it negatively?

TraderGordo

01-20-05, 08:48 PM

Well for what its worth, I use XBox via 50 foot component cables (HDTV AV adapter for XBOX). I have 480P and 720P "enabled", and it looks fantastic. There is no VB. I have no idea what exactly the issue is with those that report XBOX specific VB. Maybe it has something to do with some hardware difference in the newer XBOXes? I have no idea (mine is an "original run" unit).

So I guess this is hit or miss. The people that mentioned VB problems seems to be happy using 480i and letting the projector scale it. So maybe its not such a big deal.

Originally posted by 440forpower
XBOX???? Hello, I have read in this thread many people having vb or something similar when they play their xbox through component and at 480p. And that it isnt there when the xbox is playing a 480i, 720p or 1080i game. My ? is has anyone tried using a vga to component adapter or vga xbox adapter and hooked into the ae700 vga port? Does this get rid of the problem when playing 480p games? I am really interested in this projector but if it has problems with 480p games thats a deal breaker for me. Thanks for your help

TraderGordo

01-20-05, 08:57 PM

Originally posted by KostaVan
Does smoking in the same room as the projector really affect it negatively?

I think the tiny dust on inside of lens is normal (if not universal). This was one of the first things I noticed on my unit the very same day I got it. It does not appear to affect the projected image.

I'm sure a smokey environment is not ideal for the inside or outside of the lens (not to mention your lungs :) ). I don't smoke, but I have burnt some food a couple times -- its pretty neat to see the projector's cone of light in a smokey room.

Aussie Bob

01-20-05, 09:42 PM

"...its pretty neat to see the projector's cone of light in a smokey room." - Trader Gordo.

I'll second that. Especially watching an old noir film from the 40s.

llamameat

01-20-05, 09:54 PM

hayatiakbas,
You're right of course. However since it's all sealed up again now i'm probably going to leave it. The temperatures listed in the status menu didn't go up any. Additionally, since I live at sea level the temperatures were pretty low to begin with. I'll see how long the bulb lasts, but I'm no longer afraid it's going to blow up since it's been several days.

Yes, it's certainly a questionable modification, but I'm a brightness freak and I get a kick out of modding my electronics (wish i had a silverstar). I'm thinking about replacing the fans also with quiter more efficient ones. Question though, which areas do the temperature displays monitor? Is one the bulb itself?

canthony15

01-20-05, 10:49 PM

Originally posted by llamameat
hayatiakbas,
You're right of course. However since it's all sealed up again now i'm probably going to leave it. The temperatures listed in the status menu didn't go up any. Additionally, since I live at sea level the temperatures were pretty low to begin with. I'll see how long the bulb lasts, but I'm no longer afraid it's going to blow up since it's been several days.

Yes, it's certainly a questionable modification, but I'm a brightness freak and I get a kick out of modding my electronics (wish i had a silverstar). I'm thinking about replacing the fans also with quiter more efficient ones. Question though, which areas do the temperature displays monitor? Is one the bulb itself?

Watch out for those temp readings. They are backwards. Lower numbers are hotter. Check out this thread:

xxx.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174196&highlight=temperature

(change xxx to www)

I think the interesting stuff starts with post #25 or so.

llamameat

01-21-05, 12:35 AM

canthony, thanks for the link, every ae700 owner should read that

hayatiakbas

01-21-05, 02:02 AM

thats a good question Ilamameat... I don't know the answer but I think canthony has a good point here....

Aussie Bob

01-21-05, 03:05 AM

I was wrong about the caveats in the AE-700 manual against smoke. They're there alright:

Page "English-7": "Do not set up the projector in humid or dusty places or in places where the projector may come into contact with smoke or steam"

Page "English-8": "Ask an Authorised Service Centre to clean inside the projector at least once a year.
* If dust is left to build up inside the projector without being cleaned out, it can result in fire or problems with operation"

Fire? This is a serious box we've all bought!

Elsewhere, the introduction part of the manual gives very sensible warnings:

* not to use the projector "in the bath or shower" (page "English-7") and
* not to "put your weight" (i.e. stand) on the projector (page "English-8").

Geez! Not just a great picture from Panasonic. These guys think of EVERYTHING! Everything? Yes, everything...

From page "English-6": "Do not insert any foreign objects into the projector."

No internals! Be warned, darlings out there: we don't want any of that kinky fetish stuff around our projector. Go outside and do it if you have to!

(Of course, none of this beats the old Sony 3/4-inch U-Matic manual - a classic of its kind - that warned: "NOT TO TOUCH POT-1191!!! Video revels will be set autom-stically!!")

But seriously folks... the above passages are a virtual admission that the projector is not really dust-proof. OK, so (from the posts above) the "micro-dust" was there in pretty-well everyone's unit from its out-of-the-box state. But there does seem to be a warning from Panasonic that the thing ain't hermetically sealed in any way, shape or form. It needs a good spring clean... literally! Again from the manual:

"It is s good idea to clean the projector before the season for humid weather arrives"

Why, that's practically hentai.

Nightmare I had recently: It is the local Panasonic service centre. The 'season for humid weather' is finally here. Gone are the bone-chilling gusts of winter wind. The first, furtive birds are chirping their song of perpetual renaissance. Life abounds. Aussie Bob is taking his unit in for 'routine cleaning'. They've never heard of the internet mob he bought the projector from: 'very difficult'. But it gets worse: the Panasonic engineer has never cleaned one before. He has only the service manual - which he has never read - to go by...Oh well, 'in for a penny, in for a pound'..."

Then I wake up. Every time. Sweating.

Smegger

01-21-05, 06:57 AM

Bob, dude....chill. It's ok. It was just a dream.

Bring the PJ over here, I've got a compressor here that will hit 1400psi in a microfart. By the time I've cleaned your unit with that, ain't gonna be nuthin' left inside!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, my 700 arrives mid feb(apparently) so I'm considering what I will have to do to maintain it. Obviously just blowing it out with a compressor(easy there) isn't going to be enough.

So what is the recommended method of cleaning the INSIDE of this PJ?

Drop it in a bath of metho? AlcoSwabs? Wander into a carwash with the unit open? Freon? Argon? Radiation?

Should I build a hermetically sealed room to keep the PJ in?

I really don't want to send it back to Panasonic every year or so, and then pay exhorbitant rates to do something I can do myself.

johng

01-21-05, 09:16 AM

Originally posted by jeffmcc
Aussie Bob,

My lens looked the same as yours the first time I took it out of the box. I am not a smoker and no one is allowed to smoke in my house, I have noticed no picture quality issues.

One more example, my friend has a Benq in his home theater and his lens shows the same kind of 'stuff' on his lens.... with no picture quality problems.

My Sim2 HT-300+, which is a $10K projector new, shows the same "fuzz" on the interior of the lens. It has sealed optics. I do not notice any PQ problems.

Kingdaddy

01-21-05, 10:33 AM

I might try the po-boy clean room trick. The company I work for had to do this for certain instruments we overhaul, simple pressure zone above and around the instrument or projector in this case will keep all dust away. The ones we used at work look like vent-a -hoods with filters and low speed fans directly over each workbench. I'm thinking a simple fan blowing over the unit should keep most of the dust away, maybe a boxer fan in the ceiling just above the projector. The trick is not to stir up the dust, just a light pressure zone around the pj with a very low speed fan should do the trick. This should keep smoke (kitchen or cigarette) away enough to prolong the life to the max.

I’m on target for 3000hr in my first year if I keep using it the way I am now so I’m starting to get nervous, I don’t plan on buying another projector for several years so I’m going to do what I can to keep this one in good clean shape.

johng

01-21-05, 11:40 AM

Guys, I wouldn't get too concerned about this "dust" issue. Cleaning, whether it is done at the Factory or DIY, should probably be looked at as one of the "trade-offs" for purchasing a projector in this price range. Now before you freak out, consider how projector costs have dropped while performance has increased. My first projector (about 6 years ago), was the Davis DL-S8. It was the first "business" DLP projector that was touted for Home Theater use. If you want to talk about a "dust magnet", this was it! There were numeroous threads on this forum from owners sharing their "how to clean" suggestions. AND, that Projector was $5K new (and HAD to be used with an external Scaler for decent HT perfomrnace).

My Advice: use the Warranty period to have the Projector cleaned at the Factory. After the warranty expires, do the cleaning yourself.

I hope this helps those of you who are concerned about this issue.

Aussie Bob

01-21-05, 01:49 PM

Maybe I could take it into the shower with me... just the one last time.

bfahle

01-21-05, 03:33 PM

Originally posted by Kingdaddy
I’m on target for 3000hr in my first year if I keep using it the way I am now so I’m starting to get nervous, I don’t plan on buying another projector for several years so I’m going to do what I can to keep this one in good clean shape.

You do realize, of course, that a full-time job is only 2000 hours a year...

SteveCoug

01-21-05, 03:36 PM

I did a search, but I was not able to find any mention of this problem so I apologize if I missed something and this issue has already been covered.

I have had my AE700 for about 3 months with about 240 hours on the lamp.

I have recently noticed while watching some DVD's and HD-TV DVR recordings that sometimes the screen brightness will suddenly change.

What I mean is that the picture will be normal, then suddenly it gets brighter or darker for a couple seconds, then maybe the brightness changes again for a couple seconds, then stops. This is not during a moive where the scene changes from bright to dark, the screen brightness changes DURING one scene where there is no change in lighting. Typically, this brightness "flicker" lasts for a few seconds and then there may be no more brightness changes for 30 to 60 minutes.

This does not happen very often, it just an intermittent problem that occurs maybe once or twice during an hour program. I thought it might have something to do with the atuo-iris, but not sure how to adjust that.

Has anybody else experienced this problem, or is it just me?

Kingdaddy

01-21-05, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by SteveCoug
This does not happen very often, it just an intermittent problem that occurs maybe once or twice during an hour program. I thought it might have something to do with the atuo-iris, but not sure how to adjust that.

You can't adjust it but you can turn it off in the menu. I've read other threads that talk about a fast flickering but that don’t sound like what you’re experiencing. Try turning the auto iris off.

tsteves

01-21-05, 08:10 PM

Aussie Bob
"Maybe I could take it into the shower with me... just the one last time."
Wow aussie bob, are the aussie women out there like that? I'm there baby!
Showerin' with the babe and the pj's on.

bfahle
"You do realize, of course, that a full-time job is only 2000 hours a year..."
2000 for you 10,000 for me. Wimp. Sissy. Aren't you into time travel yet?

Aussie Bob

01-22-05, 12:01 AM

Me and Mrs. Bob (alias "Her Indoors") have separate showers. There isn't room in there for her and me and the pj (not when I have the 115-incher happening, anyway).

Stew4msu

01-22-05, 12:38 AM

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
(not when I have the 115-incher happening, anyway).

I hope you're talking about the screen size.

Stew

einaros

01-22-05, 02:50 PM

I've had a couple of problems with my AE700..

First of all, ive witnessed a change of light strength, almost like a flicker, but not constant. Every 5-10 seconds, the light dims or increases over the whole screen -- slightly. Somewhat annoying.

Second, when displaying a _completely_ white picture, both with VGA and component input and different sources, theres a vertical diffuse (somewhat horizontally gradient) part, covering about 20% of the complete width, near the right edge of the screen which is slightly blueish-green tinted. This is seen very clearly when the picture is zoomed down to a absolute minimum, but even with a 2m wide image, one can see that white on the left is not the same white as is displayed to the right. When I change the mode from from to rear, which mirrors the image, the vertical area stays in place -- so its not likely to be caused by source or cable interference.

Any thoughts?

TraderGordo

01-22-05, 03:53 PM

The diming and brightening is probably the dynamic iris. You can turn this off via the menus. Regarding your white screen observations: sadly, I'm pretty sure this is "normal". Lots of people now have reported the same thing.

Originally posted by einaros
I've had a couple of problems with my AE700..

First of all, ive witnessed a change of light strength, almost like a flicker, but not constant. Every 5-10 seconds, the light dims or increases over the whole screen -- slightly. Somewhat annoying.

Second, when displaying a _completely_ white picture, both with VGA and component input and different sources, theres a vertical diffuse (somewhat horizontally gradient) part, covering about 20% of the complete width, near the right edge of the screen which is slightly blueish-green tinted. This is seen very clearly when the picture is zoomed down to a absolute minimum, but even with a 2m wide image, one can see that white on the left is not the same white as is displayed to the right. When I change the mode from from to rear, which mirrors the image, the vertical area stays in place -- so its not likely to be caused by source or cable interference.

Any thoughts?

Bigger

01-22-05, 04:32 PM

Hi Nastyboy,

Let me/us know how your upgrade goes. I am going to pickup a 700 this week and if I can not get the current firmware then I am interested if it goes pretty easy for you.

Where abouts in Canada are you? I am just curious if you can have the firmware updated in a local Panasonic service shop (Richmond BC) or if I have to send it back east?

Johnny

Originally posted by nastyboy
I had no issues getting the firmware updated on my projector via customer support center @ Panasonic Canada. (white flashes) I should have my projector back by the end of the week. I also asked them about convergence if there was any way one could align the panels via the service menu and they told me it could not be done @ home. Hopefully the red will be good on the replacement unit with the latest firmware applied.

nastyboy

01-22-05, 06:51 PM

No I am out in Ontario. I got the upgrade done here, was going to pick up the replacement projector today but a crazy snow storm rolled into town. Hopefully will be able to pick it up tomorrow will keep you updated. I am off to clock some more hours on this projector before I do the big switch. Love my projector :)

JimP

01-22-05, 08:27 PM

I have a Iscan HD+ and would like to feed the AE700 in its native resolution. However in the menu it says 750/60, not 720.

Does anyone know if this basically means that it doesn't accept its native resolution?

DV8

01-22-05, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by Bigger

Where abouts in Canada are you? I am just curious if you can have the firmware updated in a local Panasonic service shop (Richmond BC) or if I have to send it back east?

Johnny

Hey Bigger, I am in Vancouver also with a Panny 700 in need of firmware.
Let me know if you find out if you can get it flashed locallly instead of sending it back east.

Bigger

01-22-05, 10:10 PM

Originally posted by DV8
Hey Bigger, I am in Vancouver also with a Panny 700 in need of firmware.
Let me know if you find out if you can get it flashed locally instead of sending it back east.

Hey DV8,

I am going to call the Panasonic Service Depot in Richmond on Monday, (604) 278-4211 if you want to call them as well.

I actually bought my Panny 700 today from my friend who is a manager at AB sound! I didn't take one from their stock as it is the old firmware, so he is going to check to see what he can get me from Panasonic Canada with the newer firmware.

If they don't have stock or I have to wait a long time than I will pursue the firmware update.

bradbissell

01-22-05, 11:20 PM

I've done a search, but to no avail.

What does the 525p <on> in the secret menu do? Does it remove the 3:2 jitter in 60hz film sources? Seems as if it makes motion smoother. Have others noticed this, or is it just my mind???

Thanks!

einaros

01-23-05, 08:26 AM

What's the newest / best firmware version, and how can I found out what I've got?

What should be regarded as the lower treshold of acceptable firmware version?

And third.. Are many of you suffering similar white variance as I mentioned a page back?

tlink

01-23-05, 02:38 PM

Originally posted by TraderGordo
Make sure you run "auto-setup" for any input that has that option (is VGA the only one?). This may help some with "pic shift" issues. ... Auto setup on VGA is described on the first page of this thread (see my tweak list).
TraderGordo - I followed the procedures that you outline at the beginning of the thread. (I'm using a G-force 2 video card set to 1280 x 720 connected to the RGB input.)

I ran "AUTOSETUP" on the AE700 several times, re-booting the PC after each time. However the image cuts off 15 or 20 pixels of the right-hand side of the Windows desktop. Any other suggestions for sizing this?

TraderGordo

01-23-05, 02:44 PM

See this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4606637#post4606637) on the first page of the thread for firmware version differences and how to check what you have.

Originally posted by einaros
What's the newest / best firmware version, and how can I found out what I've got?

What should be regarded as the lower treshold of acceptable firmware version?

And third.. Are many of you suffering similar white variance as I mentioned a page back?

TraderGordo

01-23-05, 02:49 PM

Originally posted by tlink
TraderGordo - I followed the procedures that you outline at the beginning of the thread. (I'm using a G-force 2 video card set to 1280 x 720 connected to the RGB input.)

I ran "AUTOSETUP" on the AE700 several times, re-booting the PC after each time. However the image cuts off 15 or 20 pixels of the right-hand side of the Windows desktop. Any other suggestions for sizing this?

Not sure if it will help, but try using the Rage3D tweak tool first (mentioned and linked on the first page of this thread). If that doesn't work, can you use the position menu on the AE700 to correct it? If not, the only option I can think of is PowerStrip, which will give you the ability to properly map 1 to 1 (this is the road I originally went down in fact - the only reason I dont' recommend it is that it usually isn't neccesary and the other solutions are easier to setup and free). PowerStrip is a free trial type thing so you can at least download it and see if it works for you.

Just to reiterate though, we are only talking VGA here. There is no "crop free" HDMI yet as far as I know, even with the new firmware.

tlink

01-23-05, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by TraderGordo
... try using the Rage3D tweak tool first (mentioned and linked on the first page of this thread).
The web site for the Rage3D tool indicates that it only works with ATI / Radeon cards. If you think it might work with NVIDIA / GeForce cards as well, I'll give it a try. (I'm using a GeForce 2 card connected to the RGB input of the AE700.) Otherwise I'll download a copy of PowerStrip, per your suggestion.

If that doesn't work, can you use the position menu on the AE700 to correct it?
The horizontal shift moves the image left and right, which allows me to choose the portion of the image that is shown, but doesn't allow the entire desktop to be displayed. I haven't explored the "Clock Phase" and "Dot Clock" options yet.

My assumption was that the "Clock Phase" and "Dot Clock" options allow me to synch up with the video card output to avoid jitter in the picture. However, I have a stable picture - just an incomplete one. If you have further insight into ways to use the AE700 position menu to view more of the picture, that would be useful. Thanks!

TraderGordo

01-24-05, 11:21 AM

Sounds like you will either have to use powerstrip, or buy a Radeon (you can get a decent fanless 9600 for around $60). See newegg for example, you can search, then sort by price. Looks like they start at $64 + $2 shipping:
link (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-153-013&depa=0)

beocop

01-24-05, 01:39 PM

Has anyone try to tame Video mode using a color filter? Presently I am using AussieBob's suggested Light Salmon Filter (from Lee Filters) and Video & HDMI mode. I don't have any colorimetry calibration devices so I used DVE and the Cinema2(adjusted) as a reference for my adjustments. I've gotten the picture to look pretty good (to my colorblind four eyes :-)) and close to the Cinema2 mode and wonder if anyone else have done similar tweaks or used SmartIII or colorfacts. I've post my settings tomorrow. Hopefully, someone else has one calibrated so I could compare settings.

rezokl1

01-24-05, 05:24 PM

Hi guys.

Do I need to do anything special to get the 700 working with my PC to surf the net?

I tried simply hooking up the VGA cable, but because my PC is configured for my 19" Hyundai, just at is was about to load the desktop it reboots, and goes around again and again ....

rwestley

01-24-05, 05:44 PM

Try changing the resolution in the control panel under display. You may need Powerstrip. There is information in this thread. Do a search.

bradbissell

01-24-05, 06:15 PM

I have started to tweak the AE700 using Video mode and a CC40R. It looks pretty good so far. I'll be doing a full calibration with SmartIII some time this week. I just have to find the time.

Bigger

01-24-05, 07:17 PM

Hi DV8,

I called Panasonic Canada Service (the local service centre number forwards to it) and they said that you can just drop off your PJ at the Richmond service centre and they will update the firmware. Not sure how long they have to hold on to it for.

On a side not for those Canadians who have not purchased received the 700s yet you can ask for the newer firmware by serial number. You are looking for:

XX 461 XXX....

The first two items are letters and then you need to have that 461 leading the rest of the serial number.

Originally posted by Bigger
Hey DV8,

I am going to call the Panasonic Service Depot in Richmond on Monday, (604) 278-4211 if you want to call them as well.

I actually bought my Panny 700 today from my friend who is a manager at AB sound! I didn't take one from their stock as it is the old firmware, so he is going to check to see what he can get me from Panasonic Canada with the newer firmware.

If they don't have stock or I have to wait a long time than I will pursue the firmware update.

tlink

01-24-05, 08:06 PM

Originally posted by rezokl1
Do I need to do anything special to get the 700 working with my PC to surf the net? I tried simply hooking up the VGA cable, but because my PC is configured for my 19" Hyundai, just at is was about to load the desktop it reboots, and goes around again and again ....
Originally posted by rwestley
> Try changing the resolution in the control panel under display.

Connecting the AE700 to a PC is easy to do, even with a plain vanilla PC. As rwestley notes, you need to set the resolution in the "Display Properties" control panel to a resolution that the AE700 will have no problem handling -- 800 x 600 for example. Then increase to a higher setting -- say, 1024 x 768. (Use the "Apply" button in the control panel each time you increase the setting, so that if it does not work out, it will revert to the previous setting after a few seconds.)

tlink

01-24-05, 08:16 PM

Originally posted by TraderGordo
Sounds like you will either have to use powerstrip, or buy a Radeon (you can get a decent fanless 9600 for around $60). See newegg for example, you can search, then sort by price. Looks like they start at $64 + $2 shipping.
Makes sense. Since there's no downside to trying PowerStrip, I'll give that a shot this weekend. If that doesn't do the job, I'll replace the GeForce 2 with a Radeon. Do you know if the fanless 9600 will also support display of WMV High Definition video?

TraderGordo

01-24-05, 09:14 PM

Originally posted by tlink
Do you know if the fanless 9600 will also support display of WMV High Definition video?

Absolutely. Looks great.

Gn0m4

01-25-05, 06:02 AM

New screenshots of my Pana:

http://personales.ya.com/Gn0m4/

Regards.
-QuinT-

SteveCoug

01-25-05, 02:09 PM

Regarding the sudden screen brightness change problem that I posted earlier in this thread, I talked to tech support at VA today and they sent me on to Panasonic.

The problem is apparently caused by a faulty lamp circuit or power supply. I have to take my PJ to an authorized service repair shop to get this fixed.
Unfortunately, that means leaving it with them for 10 days. :-(

I guess I will wait until after the Super Bowl!

Also, I asked the Panasonic guy about the firmware upgrade. He says it will fix the "white flash" problem for HMDI connections and it will be released in the next day or two. They are still not sure about how to distribute the firmware upgrade to existing AE700 owners. At this point, he says they dont' know if you will have to take it to a service shop, or it will be something you could do yourself. So stay tuned! The answer will be coming in a few more days.

Joe Schwartz

01-25-05, 10:27 PM

I thought firmware version 1.05 already fixed the white flash problem?

billymac

01-25-05, 11:54 PM

can you guys help me please. i posted in the regular ae700 thread, but haven't gotten a reply yet, and i may not because i was a little confused. hopefully i'll have my ae700 soon, i'm waiting for some to come into stock. i want to be all ready to go when it arrives. my question is in regards to all the problems people have been having with cropping over the hdmi port and problems with 1:1 pixel mapping with htpc.

i'm going to be watching 50% htpc (dvd, games, etc) and then 50% sdtv and hdtv. okay, so here's my question, should i use the hdmi port for the hdtv and then use dvi to component for the htpc (ati radeon aiw 9800 pro)?

OR, am i better off going dvi to hdmi via radeon aiw on my htpc and then just using component for the comcast box?

i currently own an x1 and sometimes hdtv doesn't sync right with black border on left or right and it drives me NUTS. i'm looking for the best two possible pq's with the least amount of ongoing frustration and i'd like to go ahead and pick up the hdmi cable.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

DV8

01-26-05, 01:51 AM

Billy, It is becoming clear that Panasonic is now stating that the AE700 "is not designed for PC based home theater"

my earlier post here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=5061216#post5061216)

I have the same setup you are considering doing i.e. AIW DVI out to HDMI in to AE700 and component from HD satellite box. You will get an incredibly crisp PC screen from HDMI but you will get it cropped by about 14 vertical lines. Can you live with the trade off of outstanding crisp picture of part of your desktop?

HMenke

01-26-05, 06:33 AM

This is from an email reply I received from my PJ dealer on Tuesday 1/25/05:

Me: How is Panasonic progressing on the fixes for the PT-AE700U issues?

Dealer: They haven't released the firmware upgrade yet. We haven't been given a firm date. I figure sometime in February.

rwestley

01-26-05, 07:35 AM

I spoke to Panasonic service on ther 800 number and was told that information should be available in a day or two about new firmware. I will call them again and post the information as soon as I get it. They expenced the infomation on Monday but for some reason they did not get it yet. They did say that it should be very soon.

pinkfreud

01-26-05, 09:06 AM

I received an e-mail from Pan canada stating that their pj's are now shipping with the new firmware. For the upgrade on existing pjs - no response.

PF

biffbyun

01-26-05, 03:50 PM

I'm not sure if this has already been mentioned, but I have been noticing that the flashes on the HDMI output happen only on my DVD player (denon 1910). On my HTPC, when ever I view movies, I get no flashes whatsoever. I have both hooked through a dvi swticher and both are using the same dvi cables. At least this prooves that the white flashes do not come from the cable. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Rob

niloc

01-26-05, 07:32 PM

Hi,

I cannot get my LG 7832 (DVB 318) DVD player to work with my AE700 over DVI/HDMI. I have a 30ft HDMI cable with a Monster DVI<->HDMI adapter to the player. Basically the player freezes at the "hello" stage... ("hello" message at powerup).

The DVB 318 FAQ mention reports of DVI/HDMI problems that are probably caused by HDCP incompatibilities.

Looking at the 1.05 firmware new features in this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4606637#post4606637) I noticed these two new menu items:
- HDCP1 (a)
- HDCP2 (on)
Does anyone know what these are? I don't have a 1.05 firmware myself so I cannot give it a try. Can I hope that these might solve my HDCP imcompatibilities with the DVB 318? Any other ideas to help me find a solution to this?

Thanks,
Colin.

5thlion

01-26-05, 08:02 PM

i having problems acheiving that natural look i have the jpn unit
how do i access the color temp menu?

BajaFishin

01-26-05, 09:07 PM

hello,

I'm seriously urge need of your help. I just got the AE700, so far I am really happy with the projector, but only one thing - Vertical Banding!!

I have being doing the flicker tweak, but I just can't seems to tweak out the VB.

When I first got the projector, the original setting was:
Celing Red = 27
Celing Blue = 24
Celing Green = 24

It look fine (no flickers, but still has VB), couple days later, the setting above started to flickers when I try to tweak out the VB.

The setting now are:

Celing Red = 24
Celing Blue = 20
Celing Green = 20

No Flickering now, but VB still there.

Well, I'm not expert at flicker tweak, so I assumed you can tweak out the VB, or is it imposible to get rid of all VB?

Thanks in Advance.

Please help me, or just give me some idea.

Baja

Woof Woof

01-26-05, 09:14 PM

Originally posted by 5thlion
i having problems acheiving that natural look i have the jpn unit
how do i access the color temp menu?

It is in the Color adjustment menu alongside Contrast Brightness etc

BajaFishin

01-26-05, 09:22 PM

Color Temp is in the picture menu, you gotta have signal from the source into AE700, or else you can't get into picture menu and adjust the color temperture.

I still need some help on tweak out the VB.

Baja

HMenke

01-27-05, 06:29 AM

Originally posted by BajaFishin
Color Temp is in the picture menu, you gotta have signal from the source into AE700, or else you can't get into picture menu and adjust the color temperture.

I still need some help on tweak out the VB.

Baja

Have you tried powering down at the main switch on back when not in use? Leaving the PJ in standby mode for hours causes a lot of VB on some units.

rwestley

01-27-05, 06:41 AM

I also have a small VB problem but it nearly goes away after a half hour. VB does vary from unit to unit. You might want to complain to your dealer and get an exchane if it is very bad. I do think that all units have some degree of VB.

Try the suggestions of leaving the unit unplugged insted of using the standby mode before you speak to your dealer. I would also suggest that you try to
use the flicker adj only after the unit warms up for about a half hour. I had similar settings to you when I first used the flicker adj. I went back to the
original settings after readjustment when the unit warmed up.

Good luck

pinkfreud

01-27-05, 08:54 AM

Off topic here. Wondering about connecting satellite to the Panny. I'm in canada and will be using BEV - hdtv 6100 unit. It has DVI out. Can I connect it to the panny in this manner (dvi to hdmi). Are there hdcp issues in terms of compliance. Can't seem to find info. on this.

PF

duihlein

01-27-05, 10:43 AM

I have a Dish DVR921 connected to my AE700 using component. When I attempt to connect using DVI-->HDMI cable the picture never appears. It also knocks out my component video link. When I unplug the DVI, component works again. I have also tried DVI-->HDMI alone. Does anyone else have a DVR921 connected via DVI/HDMI? Could this be a problem with the AE700 and HDCP? It did work with the Dish 811, so I was leaning toward an issue with the DVR921, but since I have had no other problems with the 921 I am hesitant to ask for a new, potentially troublesome one.

Any feedback would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Dave

rhwimmers

01-27-05, 11:04 AM

Just got the 700 used for about 1 hr now, so far everythings good...Is there any tweaks I should do if its working? Im not seeing flickering or VB...But im always up for better looking HD!
Ross

miacyclops

01-27-05, 02:11 PM

I have an AE700 on order and I've been told that HDMI is (arguably) the best way to connect the Panny. I've also read about the cropping issues with HDMI, but only when a HTPC is used as source. I'll only be feeding DVD's and XBOX to the projector; will I have cropping problems with these sources as well? What exactly does "cropping" mean?

Thanks.

BajaFishin

01-27-05, 03:01 PM

Thanks Guys for all the help.

This's what my finding to reduce the VB (As Stated before in this thread)

1. Most importantly - The projector needs to warm up for at least 3 - 5 min. before you feed / turn on any source to it.

2. When not in used - unplug power core, or switch off the main power in the back of the unit.

3. Flicker tweak - set the flicker to the minimin.

The VB now has been reduced, but on scenes like lite blue sky, or white clouds, I still see VBs, but on the good side, I have to really look for it.

So far, it's cool.

Baja

the marshal

01-27-05, 03:51 PM

The HDMI cropping has to do with the projector not the source... you will get the cropping whatever source you're using.
The cropping is basicaly a black border all around the picture. Those border comes over the actual source so that you won't be able to see the whole picture.

John Ballentine

01-27-05, 03:59 PM

Originally posted by BajaFishin
Thanks Guys for all the help.

This's what my finding to reduce the VB (As Stated before in this thread)

1. Most importantly - The projector needs to warm up for at least 3 - 5 min. before you feed / turn on any source to it.

2. When not in used - unplug power core, or switch off the main power in the back of the unit.

3. Flicker tweak - set the flicker to the minimin.

The VB now has been reduced, but on scenes like lite blue sky, or white clouds, I still see VBs, but on the good side, I have to really look for it.

So far, it's cool.

Baja
I had terrible VB on my 700 when new. I almost returned it. Now I'm up to 250 hours on my 700 and NO VB at all. None. One of the last things I did to lower my VB down to almost zero was change out my DVD player. Went from a SONY 9000 to a DENON 2900. Both progressive out. I also have a CAMBRIDGE AUDIO DVD player and it shows VB the worst of all my 3 of my DVD players. If I switch the CAMBRIDGE to Interlace the VB is reduced. So yes the DVD player also plays a part in the VB scenerio. And YES YES YES power down the unit every night before you go to bed at the main switch. This worked for me more than any flicker tweaking I did. I never think about VB any more - and if you read some of my earlier posts back in Oct and Nov you can see it was a nightmare for me. I also think VB may slowly diminish over time as well. At least for me it has. Hope this helps.

Born2Fly

01-27-05, 04:03 PM

Originally posted by the marshal
The HDMI cropping has to do with the projector not the source... you will get the cropping whatever source you're using.
The cropping is basicaly a black border all around the picture. Those border comes over the actual source so that you won't be able to see the whole picture.

What does that mean with hd cable? The picture will have a black boarder all the way around? There will be a black boarder line on just one side or two? Or will the black boarder not be seen because it is beyond the LCD panels so the net result will be a slight offset picture from the HD cable source? And lastly does all this affect dvd players over HDMI as Well?

I will be buying this player on Monday and would like to get this figured out buy then.

bradsears

01-27-05, 04:08 PM

It is my understanding that anything coming over hdmi will be cropped. It is fine over the other inputs as far as I know.

billymac

01-27-05, 04:29 PM

just got my 700 and i'm STOKED!!!

says December 2004 on it, i think it has newer firmware, didn't run self check, but it does have the stuff underlined at the beginning of this thread so i bet it's newer.

i couldn't wait to get it home so i fired up my boss' notebook with it and was surprised to hear a little "kachunk" when it comes on. is this normal? it reminds me somewhat of defective hard drives which i obviously associate with a "bad" sound...hopefully it's normal... :)

unit is sharp looking, little bigger than i imagined, i like the looks of it. can't wait to get it home....

/me slides off the diansour's tale...

bradsears

01-27-05, 04:35 PM

The sounds are normal. The manual briefly talks about it. They even say you may hear a 'tinkling sound'. I know I tinkled a bit when I first got mine set up.

BajaFishin

01-27-05, 06:14 PM

John,

Hopefully VB would be eliminated after I put more hours into the projector. I also read many reports that has happened – hope so.
My DVD player go into AE700 is S97, I also have Momitsu, maybe I should try the V880 instead, but I purchase the S97 for the intention of using it with the AE700.

Thanks for the help

Baja

the marshal

01-27-05, 07:21 PM

Originally posted by Born2Fly
What does that mean with hd cable? The picture will have a black boarder all the way around? There will be a black boarder line on just one side or two? Or will the black boarder not be seen because it is beyond the LCD panels so the net result will be a slight offset picture from the HD cable source? And lastly does all this affect dvd players over HDMI as Well?

I will be buying this player on Monday and would like to get this figured out buy then.

Again cropping happens with all hdmi source. And the black border is all the way around the picture.

About VB on my unit, I did definitly saw more at the begining... now with nearly 200hr I only see it occasualy. I always shut my unit with the power switch and did the flicker trick...

And lot's of ppl are talking about the VB but far less about the shading which is another problem. I did watch some B&W movie and it's definitly annoying... the color are just not right and you can see it during the whole movie. That's only for B&W movie through, I am not even watching a lot of those myself.

miacyclops

01-28-05, 03:16 AM

Is the whole picture inside the black border, or does it mask the picture, causing loss of information?

01-28-05, 07:28 AM

Originally posted by miacyclops
Is the whole picture inside the black border, or does it mask the picture, causing loss of information?

The cropping is mostly an issue for HTPC users. The bottom of the Windows desktop contains the start menu button, taskbar, notification bar, etc. Which are all cropped by this issue. The top of the desktop contains min/max/close buttons and menu's when applications are fully maximized on the screen and can also be partially or completely cropped out.

beocop

01-28-05, 09:40 AM

To minimize the effect of cropping, you could "unlock" the taskbar and move it to the sides (less cropping) and "hide" it when not being used.

Born2Fly

01-28-05, 11:34 PM

Originally posted by TraderGordo
Sounds like you will either have to use powerstrip, or buy a Radeon (you can get a decent fanless 9600 for around $60). See newegg for example, you can search, then sort by price. Looks like they start at $64 + $2 shipping:
link (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-153-013&depa=0)

TraderGordo

Would you mind telling me the hardware you are running in your HTPC?My only interest in a HTPC is DVD playback from the Hdd. Just trying to figure out the best parts to use and still keep the cost down....

RobZ

01-29-05, 12:41 AM

The vertical banding on the 700 has been very infrequent for me. Interestingly, when we have a cold front in my area, the VB increases (unless we have the house heated). When it warms up inside, the VB virtually goes away or is dramatically reduced.

Woof Woof

01-29-05, 10:42 AM

Originally posted by RobZ
The vertical banding on the 700 has been very infrequent for me. Interestingly, when we have a cold front in my area, the VB increases (unless we have the house heated). When it warms up inside, the VB virtually goes away or is dramatically reduced.

Hmmm makes sense to me. I stay pretty much just a nudge off the equator and it is always warm here and I barely see VB.

liowik

01-29-05, 01:19 PM

Perhaps some people didn't see my long ago posting. Before the AE-Seven00, the AE-Five00 supported 720 1:1 through DVI - digital - it is also in the manual, and this correct mode for this is called WIDE720.

Panasonic's response about the AE700 not supporting 720 under HDMI is true, as it also shows in its manual that WIDE720 is not supported for HDMI (although it is for the VGA input) - instead we are forced to use 750p.

The big problem I have is that if the AE500 could support it with DVI - why are we losing this feature now!!?? The switch from digital DVI to digital HDMI shouldn't force us to lose this very important feature. This is the crux of the whole thing - Panasonic can do it - they just don't think people need or want it.

Hello Panasonic - if you are reading this - I have been delaying my purchase for this very reason and I have not been recommending this projector to others who use HTPC unless this is addressed.

HTPC is here now, and will be getting only stronger and stronger and Panasonic is very foolish to not have the vision to fully support HTPC, especially when they already did in the past.

If we are paying $2000 who wants to have to deal with a funky picture with half a taskbar and half the title bar missing. I mean yeah - you can use it but it looks half baked!

Also I think I remember reading here that the newer firmware can now also "crop" the sides as well, so make sure to have that setting off in one of the menus, or the cropping is actually then worse.

tsteves

01-29-05, 08:17 PM

I'm still fiddling with the flicker adjustment every time I watch anything I want to see at its best. I don't turn off main power. I generally start it up 20 minutes or more before watching my "feature" or game or favorite program. I then adjust the flicker. No big deal. 3 minutes max.

TraderGordo

01-29-05, 09:27 PM

Originally posted by Born2Fly
TraderGordo

Would you mind telling me the hardware you are running in your HTPC?My only interest in a HTPC is DVD playback from the Hdd. Just trying to figure out the best parts to use and still keep the cost down....

Well, that's kind of off topic for here, you should look in the HTPC section of these forums, but...

MyHTPC is nothing crazy, it was pretty low budget to begin with. I'm using a Dell poweredge 400sc server ($300 on a good day near the end of their fiscal quarter) with a radeon 9600 video card ($60) and the stock dell DVD drive that came with the server. Chaintech AV-710 7.1 Channel PCI Sound Card ($24) to pass sound (SPDIF) to my external receiver via digital/optical cable (included). I use Zoomplayer Pro ($20) to play DVDs and the latest Nvidea codecs ($15) with FFDShow (free) for some post processing & scaling. I use MyHTPC (free) to organize and display the DVD collection with MyMovieImport (free) to download cover art and descriptions of the movies for MyHTPC. I use an AccessDTV card ($150) for over-the-air high definition & digital tuning/recording/PVR. I have a 200 gig drive in the HTPC ($50 again on a good day) and about a terabyte total on another machine that is connected via lan.

I have run both VGA and HDMI to the AE700. I tried HDMI for one month, then reverted back to VGA exclusively for a number of reasons. VGA works better with the AE700 for HTPC (no cropping issues) and small text is easier to read over VGA. HDMI does seem to have richer colors and generally a more "sharp" picture which I'm sure some people would prefer. My HD tuner card only outputs to VGA which required flipping between modes on the AE700 if using HDMI which is not a big deal but has lower wife acceptance factor. VGA cables are also a LOT cheaper than a high quality HDMI cable (especially for long runs).

Example Look for DVD collection:

http://www.gordosoft.com/HTPC/myhtpc.JPG
http://www.gordosoft.com/HTPC/myhtpc_example.JPG

Born2Fly

01-29-05, 10:44 PM

thanks for the info.....

I did not think about the topic before I posted.....sorry.

mikea423

01-30-05, 10:26 PM

I got my ae700 about 5 days ago. I was very impressed with the picture overall, but did have very bad VB and PaB before I did the flicker fix. Now VB is barely visible.

The last thing that concerns me about it is the black levels that I'm seeing. They are not good. I am displaying onto a white wall in a white room right now, so I'm sure that is a big part of it, but it is completely light controlled. But how dark should the blacks be when it has been properly set up? Right now the "black" bars above and below a 2.35:1 movie are quite bright (much brighter than the surrounding wall outside the 16:9 area).

Here are the settings I am currently using: Normal, Brightness -12, Contrast +8, Color -8, Lamp Low. Using these settings helps the black levels somewhat over the original settings but they still look too grey to me and I'm sure I lost at least some greyscale in setting the brightness lower. I am displaying out of both a PC through VGA and Pioneer DV-578A through component. Both have bright blacks.

What kind of black levels should I expect in my current viewing conditions? I know I can't expect completely dark blacks from an LCD. I would appreciate what some of you see in similar conditions.

KostaVan

01-31-05, 01:36 AM

Mike A...i just wrote long post but my comp deleted it...

In short....your room settings are bad for this projector...

Try putting a dark rug and darkening ceiling with black velvet. Also a dalite hccv screen will help a lot.

Try different settings on your projector such as Cinema 1 with color at -1

Hope this helps.

e2zippo

01-31-05, 06:06 AM

Hi guys, i've been reading this whole thread and it's great!
However, i have a problem.
When using VGA from the PC i displayed a testpicture with some text and stuff and at the top the text is sharp but starting from the middle and then downwards the text is surrounded by a green tint getting worse the lower you get, also the text gets more blurry. Is it a convergence problem maybe?

Please help!

/Martin

Edit: The Cable is 10m and the vga-card is a Radeon 9700 Pro.

JimP

01-31-05, 08:40 AM

e2zippo

Sounds like your projector and screen are at too severe of an angle for it all to be in focus at the same time. Are you having to use a lot of keystone correction?

mikea423

01-31-05, 12:16 PM

Thanks KostaVan, your tips are good. However my current room is only temporary for the next week and a half until the "theater" room is complete, which is very very dark, not quite black but close.

What I really wanted to know is how noticable are the black bars on the top and bottom of 2.35:1 material without masking them? Are they very bright under ideal room conditions after the projector is properly calibrated? I do plan on masking them, but I would like to know.

This is my first projector and I'm just not sure what to expect and am not that good at calibrating it yet.

Thanks

e2zippo

01-31-05, 02:40 PM

Originally posted by JimP
e2zippo

Sounds like your projector and screen are at too severe of an angle for it all to be in focus at the same time. Are you having to use a lot of keystone correction?

I'm using no keystone correction at all, and the lens shift is almost in centre.

tvted

01-31-05, 07:25 PM

Originally posted by mikea423
Thanks KostaVan, your tips are good. However my current room is only temporary for the next week and a half until the "theater" room is complete, which is very very dark, not quite black but close.

What I really wanted to know is how noticable are the black bars on the top and bottom of 2.35:1 material without masking them? Are they very bright under ideal room conditions after the projector is properly calibrated? I do plan on masking them, but I would like to know.

This is my first projector and I'm just not sure what to expect and am not that good at calibrating it yet.

Thanks

They are noticeable and given what you have written I believe you will be annoyed.
I suggest you mask.

ted

texass44

01-31-05, 10:42 PM

Howdy all,

The manual says 1080i (50hz) is supported over the PC (VGA) input.

I've been trying to get powerstrip to provide this signal to the AE700 without luck so far. Has anyone had any luck at either 50 or 60 hz ??

I know 720p @ 50hz is not supported over VGA but 1080i @ 50hz should be.

I get some sort of signal, looks like diagonal dots (or bits of icon).

I'd like to see how my HTPC looks with PAL material at 50hz over VGA.

Thanks.......Tex.

KongFan

02-01-05, 02:47 AM

I haven't been consistently keeping up with either 700 thread lately, but I have seen no recent mention of anyone using the "filter tweak", ala Cine4Home & AussieBob. I'm mentioning this because some time ago I followed AussieBob's suggestions for filter, settings & mode choice, and was not merely impressed, but flat-out blown away by the improvement. And it didn't cost a NICKEL. I really don't think people know what they're missing if they haven't tried this. The samples in the free Lee Filters swatch pack, as small as they are, are actually far bigger than the image is right at the lens. I made a goofy little thin copper wire rig that simply sits on top of the PJ and reaches forward and down and holds the filter in front of the lens (picture a snake sitting coiled on the PJ, and it's biting the edge of the little filter piece and stretching down to hold it in front of the lens). The weight of a single 4" loop of the wire, acting as the base, far outweighs the teeny little filter piece.

The benefit of this impossibly cheap, and even more impossibly effective tweak is a subtantially brighter (or bigger) picture, that not only doesn't compromise the contrast, but actually improves it. Any doubt about this can be put to rest by reading (or enduring through Babelfish) the testimony of those anal uber-tweakers at Cine4Home. When I go back to compare with ANY of the modes, including the AVIA calibrated "Natural" mode I had originally settled on, and enjoyed greatly, I'm still boggled by the difference, and by how much the pre-tweak image suffered in a way I couldn't have appreciated. How can a boost like this be so easy, cheap, effective & apparently free of compromise? I wonder if many have written it off merely because it doesn't sound credible.

I really want to emphasize that it's a mistake not to at least try it, especially if you pine for a bigger picture. You have virtually nothing to lose. If you think "how could it be any better?", you sound like my old (now vehemently disavowed) self.

If anyone's interested, search AussieBob's posts in (I think) the original, stupendously huge 700 thread.

KongFan

jmatt

02-01-05, 09:27 AM

KongFan,
What are your values for contrast, brightness, color, tint, and temperature with the filter?

psteele

02-01-05, 10:10 AM

I have been getting vertical lines on my ae700, they always appear in the same location and only when there are large areas of the same color over that region, such as a blue sky. These lines occur no matter if I am watching a DVD, or cable.

It is my understanding that vertical banding is something that does not always occur in the same area of the screen. Being that mine is always in the same spot, do I have a different problem?

JimP

02-01-05, 10:15 AM

psteele

Its the same problem as vertical banding. See page 1 and 2 for the fix.

bradbissell

02-01-05, 12:54 PM

Kongfan- I'm using a CC40R on my AE700 in video mode. Looks great. I still have to calibrate with SmartIII, but so far it looks great without much tweaking.

beocop

02-01-05, 02:05 PM

Originally posted by bradbissell
Kongfan- I'm using a CC40R on my AE700 in video mode. Looks great. I still have to calibrate with SmartIII, but so far it looks great without much tweaking.

Brad,

How did you end up using a CC40R? What led you to use that specific filter?

Aussie Bob

02-01-05, 08:55 PM

My Dear KongFan and other Filter Freaks,

I'm still here.

Now that I've re-read this post it is perfectly on-topic for the "AE700 Tweak Thread". It discusses faults in and improvement of the projector's blacks by using a filter, foibles in the optics of the AE700's zoom lens, color adjustment techniques, SDE and one way to almost totally eliminate it, and (at last!) a use for the cross-hatch pattern available in the SERVICE MODE menu. So, get a coffee and a smoke and read on!

But to KongFan first... Thanks for the vote of confidence in the Aussie Bob filtering experiment. It was pleasing in the extreme to read that someone doesn't think I'm a complete maniac.

For those who haven't read the thread concerning this experiment, here's a re-cap.

First a definition: "absolute black" is defined as the blackest, no-signal black that the AE-700 can output. It's the black you get when the RGB input is "0,0,0". It's the black you get when you turn the shutter to the "OFF" position in the main menu.

We all know by now that this "absolute black" is not absolutely black at all. It's a dark, cyan-gray. This is due to inevitable optics problems related to the combination of light passing through three transmissive LCD panels, plus not quite perfect opacity of the panels themselves. It is endemic to all LCD projectors to date. Some are better than others (see the "HS51 vs. AE700" Wars).

Panasonic (and others) use "dynamic aperture"control to ameliorate the problem by making dark scenes darker (via a shutter and modulation of the lamp) so that we don't perceive the imperfection of the blacks as much as we might.

Now down to details...

The basic idea of using a filter (and this applies to all such techniques) was this: Blacks will be much darker and neutral (therefore richer) relative to the rest of the image if a filter that cuts out the "excess" blue and green in absolute black, and in the right proportions (but leaves reds less affected), is placed externally in the light path of the projected image. It's no good just reducing blue and green (or increasing red) with the projector's menu color controls. These color controls can have no effect on the "absolute black" level output of the projector. It is fixed at "dark cyan gray" due to reasons outside the influence of the projector's color controls. They only affect parts of the picture that have at least some luminance, not absolute black.

Placing the pink filter (Lee Filters Light Salmon #109) in front of the lens the blue and green portions of absolute black are reduced to roughly the level of the (darker, less bright) red portion. This has the effect of darkening absolute black plus making absolute black more achromatic (free of cast or tint). End result? Richer blacks.

Downside:

A pink piece of gel will affect ALL colors that have luminance (i.e. anything above 0,0,0 RGB), so you will have to offset this by adjusting the resultant pink color cast with the on-board color controls of the projector. There are two ways of doing this: one, reduce RED; two, increase BLUE and GREEN. I originally suggested reducing red, but lately I've tried increasing blue and green with some success.

Here's why...

The other thing that the pink filter does is to reduce luminance by about 2/3rds of a stop. That leaves the picture only about 70% of the brightness of the original picture. There are several ways of increasing brightness.

One thing you can do to claw back some of the brightness you lose with the filter is to INCREASE blues and greens rather than reduce reds when you're getting rid of your pink cast. If you increase the blue and green CONTRAST settings, then their "black" levels remain the same. Increasing contrast affects the brighter portions of the image more than the very darkest ones. You need to be careful not to go too far with this otherwise you'll end up clipping whites again. Try not to increase the BRIGHTNESS controls, as increasing brightness will add back grayness to the absolute blacks, which is what were started out trying to get rid of in the first place. Either reduce brightness in the reds, or increase contrast in the blues or greens. If you increase contrast you can use the LOW gamma control to rescue the shadow detail after CONTRAST has had its wicked way with it.

Secondly, you can use one of the projector's brighter video modes, like VIDEO or DYNAMIC. I use DYNAMIC myself because it is so damn bright. However, DYNAMIC tends to clip whites. So I put a variable resistor in the luminance path (sounds complicated but it wasn't) and wound down the luminance only (the "Y" part of the Y-U-V signal) until whites weren't clipped anymore.

A third method is to INCREASE the DVD player's output by using one of its brighter output modes. My Sony 575 has two "Dynamic" modes, I and II (not to be confused with the projector's DYNAMIC mode). These increase gamma and boost the Y signal above 1 volt peak-to-peak. So a little more tweaking of my pot was required to tame the clipping tendency of the projector's DYNAMIC projection mode. But it worked out fine. Now I have a good, bright, vivid picture, rich in blacks and high in contrast without clipping the whites.

In combination, all three of the brightness-enhancing techniques mentioned above serve to return the Panny's projected image back to its original brightness, or very close to it, but now the blacks are good.

Result? Sensational pictures that still have just a tad of "gray bars" in widescreen presentations, but much reduced and pretty close to achromatic (more on "gray bars" below).

One area where I diverged from the minimalist approach laid out by Mr. KingFan above: I went out and bought a clear glass filter from Panavision here in Sydney and stuck a piece of the Light Salmon filter onto the back of the glass filter. Then, screwing the whole assembly into the 78mm thread on the front of the Panny's lens, I had my filtration effect plus the bonus of keeping the Panny's lens scratch free when I needed to clean it. I think I lose some extra light this way from interface reflections (the filter itself, and then the glass) but not too much. The whole thing cost me about a hundred Australian dollars to purchase and mount and I feel better for it. It's also neater. The minimalist approach - just sticking the filter gel in front of the lens - works perfectly, too. That way it doesn't cost you a cent, except perhaps some loose change for postage and five minutes of your time.

I think perhas the very best approach would be to use a dichroic pink filter that minimises internal reflection, but this is really Pie-In-The-Sky stuff. At least as far as I'm aware, no such filter exists for any kind of reasonable price.

All the research for this technique was done with a (free) Lee Filters sample swatch, simply by swinging candidate pink filters (they're hinged and there are hundreds of them) out from the swatch and in front of the projector's lens until I achieved the best result. Later on I developed a technique of using my D100 digital camera to calibrate the color temperature of the projector. It's too complicated to explain here. It involved some quite tricky mathematics to do with calculating CC color filter units and their transposition to and from Photoshop. Suffice it to say that the results I obtained back from this experiment indicated that the Lee Light Salmon #109 filter was pretty spot-on for the task. This seemed to confirm that my el Cheapo D100-as-colorimeter technique had some robustness to it.

Then again, I got the same result by eye, so who's to say one technique is better than another? After all, it's our eyes we use to look at the picture, not a colorimeter. The idea of spending $4000 on a colorimeter/software package to improve the output of a $1600 projector just seemed kinda wrong to me. I had the D100 to hand, so I used that, Google (to find out about the Wonderful World Of Gamma And CC values) and my empty head to put it all together. Worked for me.

So much for my filtering technique. Now for another wild Aussie Bob idea...

In my continuing quest to avoid day-to-day work, family and other adult-orientated responsibilities, another thing I've tried recently was using an anamorphic lens (two-prism design) to remove the Cinemascope "black bars" (although, with the filter, they are now more black than gray) from widescreen movies.

The basic procedure is to use the ZOOM-1 mode of the projector to stretch the image vertically (leaving a 16x9 anamorphic image i.e. everybody's tall and skinny, except now they're tall and skinny filling the full 16x9 frame) so that the widescreen gray bars are cropped out of the image. You then reduce the image size, using as your determining factor the height you want for your widescreen presentation. Then you interpose the anamorphic projection lens in front of the projector and use it to stretch the image by 133% horizontally, thus restoring correct image geometry.

Result? A 2.35:1 widescreen presentation that has not a trace of the dreaded "gray bars". In combination with the filtration technique, this is the nearest to projector heaven I think I can get out of the AE700.

Using an anamorphic lens has some pitfalls. If you don't understand (at least basically) the principles of the optics, you can spend a lot of time mucking around trying to get rid of the various distortions these lenses introduce to the projected image. I do have some modest understanding of these principles, but only in theory. It still took me hours to get right, fiddling, thinking and then fiddling again.

Apart from the obvious (and intended) anamorphic effect, you will also notice some pincushion distortion, especially if your throw distance is small and your screen is also wide. This is simply because the outer extremities of the prisms are used and the anamorphic optic formula accelerates at the edges a little (incidentally, they had the same problem with using prisms to film the original Cinemascope epics like The Robe - except it was with fat faces in the centre. "Taking" lenses squeeze instead of expand, so the pincushion effect is inverted to barrel distortion in the middle. The problem was solved for the making of Ben Hur - at great expense - by interlocking the spherical len's focus with the anamorphic lens's rotation adjustment mechanism). My throw is 15 feet and my screen width is 115 inches. That's a pretty wide angle of projection, close to the limits of the projector's lens.

I purchased the lens second-hand and it had some problems. Firstly, its adjustment mechanism wasn't set up properly (its one of those interlocked constructions that rotates each prism in opposite directions at the twist of a single knob. If their default orientation isn't perfect, then you'll never get an evenly expanded picture. Hence the adjustment performed by petit moi). Set-up of the lens is a mechanical adjustment followed by an observation and measurement process involving lots of different sized Allan keys and some patience. I noticed that the right side of the screen was more enlarged than the left. I very gingerly undid some of the Allan key screws holding the mechanism together and, armed with a ruler, proceeded to tweak them until the AE700's cross-hatch pattern (MENU/OPTION/OSD(5sec)/SERVICE-MODE, plus a couple of left arrow clicks) was evenly projected with equal sized squares (or, with the lens in play, rectangles) at equidistant points from the centre of the image.

This not only improved linearity of the anamorphic expansion, but reduced the pincushion effect of projecting a wide-angle image through it to acceptably small proportions. The lens was designed for long-throw - 70 feet-plus - cinema presentation, so it exhibits hardly any pincushion distortion at narrow angles. Wide angle, typical HT projection angles are a different matter.

There's a special "Anamorphic" lens thread here somewhere, so I won't go into any more of the unexpected little foibles of using the lens in any detail, except to say that it almost imperceptibly softens the image, reducing SDE dramatically, while maintaining gross detail excellently. This is an unexpected plus.

Talking of SDE: the other thing (apart from the softening the focus) that the anamorphic lens lets you do is reduce screen height to your widescreen presentation height. This also minimises SDE simply by projecting the horizontal rows of pixels in a finer mesh, closer together (the vertical columns are the same size as before, given constant screen width, so no loss there... think about it).

The interpolation used bythe AE700's ZOOM-1 function also adds "smoothness".

The whole effect of using an anamorphic lens is very film like and smooth. The softening effect is no problem at all for movies off DVD. It helps them.

I measured (with a professional spot meter) the light loss at about 5-7% overall: hardly noticeable. Things you need to take into account in predicting light loss are:

(a) light INCREASES when you substantially reduce image size (narrow the cone) in preparation for fitting the anamorphic lens,

(b) however, the AE700's zoom lens also increases f-stop, i.e. the lens's aperture becomes effectively smaller due to the zoom optics as the cone narrows (look it up, it's in the manual, "Specifications" section), so the increase in brightness from (a) above is not as much as you'd expect from applying just the "inverse-square" rule, but there's still a decent brightness increase, nevertheless,

(c) the surfaces of the prisms reflect some of the light, reducing brightness. My device has coated (anti-reflective) prisms, but the light loss is still in the 15-20% range,

(d) the horizontal stretch uses up another 25% of the light from the projector (NOT 33%... work it out).

All told, the resulting image is about 94% as bright as the pre-anamorphic image. As I said, "hardly noticeable". And when you consider the benefits (including saving on the expense of one of those "pixel softening" filter contraptions), a very small price to pay for a stunning presentation that will impress your friends, family and even the dogs.

Hope some of this has been of interest to y'all.

tree109

02-01-05, 11:21 PM

Hello I've had a salmon filter on for a month and as half and love it! My blacks are awesome! Aussie Bob you kick Ash! I love using your dynamic mode for DVD via DVI enabled. But, dynamic is awful via my HDTV Motorola Sattlite receiver using component. I tried using VGA but get flashes and cropping using vga. Anyway I tried using Video mode and Normal mode. Both got better results for HDTV sources(XBOX,HTPC,HDTV receiver). When I switch to DVD movies I prefer Dynamic. I think HDTV is over color saturated or DVD is under saturated. A bit of both! If anyonewants to see what I ended up with , here goes: VIDEO MODE: Cntrast +9 , Bright-2 , color temp-1 , Gamma mid+2, Gamma Low +2, Contrast Red -16, Contrast Green +6 , Contrast Blue +14, and Bright Red +10. NORMAL MODE: Contrast +16, Bright -4 , Color temp -1, Gamma mid +3, Gamma Low +3, Contrast red -12, Contrast Green -2, Contrast Blue+10 , Bright Red +1 . The rest of the settings that are not listed are set to 0. I love Video Mode settings! I like the skin tones in the video mode but still need more time looking at gamma setting more carefully. Normal mode seems to lack a bit of punch. I like the dynamic punch but overdone on HDTV. But I like the punch from video mode settings. Please, anyone with feedback please list!

02-02-05, 07:46 AM

Originally posted by tree109
I tried using VGA but get flashes and cropping using vga.

Did you mean to say you got flashes and cropping using HDMI?? Or are you really reporting those known HDMI problems to occur over VGA?

mercator

02-02-05, 10:38 AM

TraderGordo,

I had severe banding on my image from PT AE700. I called Panasonic service, and that guy said that adjusting the flicker might get rid of it. But he said he was not 100% sure about it. He did not give me any directions on how to do it either.

I followed your directions and adjusted the flicker. The banding problem seems to be gone now! I only tested it breifly though. I am also now turning the projector off completely after I am done.

A couple of odd observations:

1. When I went in to the flicker menu, the RGB screens appear twice: one for the Ceiling mount mode, and the other for Desk mode. I had to adjust each color twice for each mode and the adjustments were not the same.

2. I could see banding in individual color screens as well while they were flickering. More so in the blue color compared to others.

One other question: I have firmware 1.03. Do I need to upgrade it to 1.05? Are there any advantages? I just got the projector about a month back and it has only 45hrs of lamp use. I dont like to fix things unless they are brocken...

Thanks for your advise!

Mercator

kukken

02-02-05, 12:25 PM

Originally posted by mercator
TraderGordo,

I had severe banding on my image from PT AE700. I called Panasonic service, and that guy said that adjusting the flicker might get rid of it. But he said he was not 100% sure about it. He did not give me any directions on how to do it either.

I followed your directions and adjusted the flicker. The banding problem seems to be gone now! I only tested it breifly though. I am also now turning the projector off completely after I am done.

A couple of odd observations:

1. When I went in to the flicker menu, the RGB screens appear twice: one for the Ceiling mount mode, and the other for Desk mode. I had to adjust each color twice for each mode and the adjustments were not the same.

2. I could see banding in individual color screens as well while they were flickering. More so in the blue color compared to others.

One other question: I have firmware 1.03. Do I need to upgrade it to 1.05? Are there any advantages? I just got the projector about a month back and it has only 45hrs of lamp use. I dont like to fix things unless they are brocken...

Thanks for your advise!

Mercator

yes you need to upgrade to the new firmware 1.05

best regards karsten

audiomaniac

02-02-05, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by kukken
yes you need to upgrade to the new firmware 1.05

best regards karsten

Well if you look in the Consolidated thread it seems that version 1.07 is in the wild.

bradbissell

02-02-05, 12:55 PM

Kongfan-
I used the CC40R because in Video mode you have to remove both a high level of blue and about half as much green. You can do this with a magenta filter to remove cyan (blue/green) and a yellow filter to remove the excess blue. However, magenta + yellow = red. (My roommate is a photography major so she helped with the filter addition, since I knew what I needed to do, but not the method to do it by.) I went with the strongest Red filter I had on hand to make the blacks blacker. In the end this might not be the exact filter I want to use, but I'll have to wait until I can run SmartIII to see how close I am. I should have time tonight to run the calibration. I'll report later...

mell02000

02-02-05, 01:47 PM

New Firmware!

Hey I got a email from Panny to send in my AE700 to have the new firmware applied.

has anyone sent theirs in yet? what exactly does it solve?

kukken

02-02-05, 02:31 PM

Originally posted by mell02000
New Firmware!

Hey I got a email from Panny to send in my AE700 to have the new firmware applied.

has anyone sent theirs in yet? what exactly does it solve?

hi

the new firmware 1.05 whil fix the white flash over hdmi
and som other small problems

karsten

kukken

02-02-05, 02:35 PM

Originally posted by kukken
hi

the new firmware 1.05 whil fix the white flash over hdmi
and som other small problems

karsten

here its is

3) FIRMWARE. Panasonic has released new firmware. Version 1.05 and higher fix several known problems. You can check your firmware version in the service menu under 'Self Check'.

The service menu differences between firmware 1.03 and 1.05 are underlined below:
FREEZE MSG (on)
HD OVERSCAN (off)
RUNTIME PRT (on)
FAN FULLMODE (off)
AUTO SETUP (normal)
SELF CHECK
SERVICE MODE
FLICKER ADJ
SD LEVEL (c)
525p OS (off)
HDCP1 (a)
HDCP2 (on)

Here's what the 1.03 menu looks like (Japanese model

:4) Flicker tweak. This tweak is a response to vertical banding (VB) problems. VB consists of translucent vertical lines across your screen (like jail bars). They are often more noticeable when the content you are projecting consists of large, lighter, solid colors. In movies, VB could become apparent in a scene where smoke, fog, or sky fills the screen.

Look for "FLICKER ADJ" in the service menu. Settings vary unit to unit, but several people have experienced improved (lessened) VB after LOWERING the default flicker values even if you do not see flickering on them in this service menu. Make sure you adjust for the mode you are using, or all modes (desk/ceiling). My settings are Red&Blue=23, Green=26.

You can further reduce VB by switching the power off on the unit when you are done using it instead of leaving it in standby. Several theories have been proposed to explain why cutting the power lessens or eliminates VB, but no one is 100% sure why it works. I have hard wired my projector to a wall switch for this very purpose.

Several people have suggested scenes in movies to test your unit for VB problems. I have found nothing better/simpler than projecting a full screen solid color - several colors are good for this, I use a bluish gray, RGB=58/110/165

[NOTE: Many users have reported that "flicker" and also "VB" stabilize over time. After 200 hours I can confirm similar observations on my unit. There is less flicker and less VB now than when the unit was newer.]

5) Overscan is a problem for both VGA and HDMI inputs but can be easily eliminated with tweaking on the VGA input, and possibly eliminated on the HDMI input IF you have firmware version 1.05 or higher(?) - early reports say this is not the case however.

the marshal

02-02-05, 04:11 PM

Thx "Aussie Bob" for explaning a bit about those filter :)

I might as well try one of those filter myself... just have a few question remaining...

Ppl are talking about CC40R and CC30R, they are type of color correction filter you can get from diferent brand if I did understand right. What's exactly is the Lee Filters Light Salmon #109 filter then... one of those corect correction filter ?

Right now I am using my pj with natural mode with color temp -1. When I switch to normal the image is brighter. Most ppl seem to aply those filter using the video mode... so with video mode + a filter what will the image be about as bright as the natural mode or even lower ?
I using the low lam mode right now would like to keep it that way if possible.

Thanks !!

rwestley

02-02-05, 05:00 PM

They are now installing 1.07 firmware. Does anyone know the changes between 105 & 107?

patxitron

02-02-05, 05:19 PM

I used my canon powershot A95 as a cheap colorimeter much like Aussie-bob did with his digital camera.

First I've set the camera to sunlight colour correction and I've taken a photo of a gray scale projected by my AE700 in natural mode with colour temp. -1. I've observed the photo with photoshop and all the R G and B levels of gray values were balanced. This allows me to assure that my digital camera in sunlight mode is an appropriate (not for proffessional use) indication of a good colour reproduction.

Later I've set the projector to video mode and I taken a photo with a totally white image projecting over a sheet of colour samples from a local painting store. I painted a screen with the colour that balancing more the RGB components (a dark pink) and the result is incredibly good. Using my camera and settinf the panny in video mode, the color balancing is acceptable with no calibration done in pj (similar to natural mode with colour temp -1 but with much more contrast and better black level). To my taste the picture is too much red (as in natural mode with colour temp -1 over a white screen) so I raised colour temp to +1.

Now I think if I paint my room with a complementary colour (a sort of blue) the influence of the light reflected by the walls in the projected image will be very little.

Aussie Bob

02-02-05, 06:47 PM

Aard better get this right, 'cause aarm talkin' ta a Marshall...

The Lee Filters #109 "Light Salmon" filter is a pink filter: a base color of magenta and some yellow added. It is not designed as a camera or projection filter. It's a "lighting gel" (clear, thin, transparent plastic with a color coating applied to both sides). In other words, it's designed to be placed over film lights - on a movie set - to change the color temperature of the light being photographed, in this case to make things look "warm and friendly", kinda like the light used in butcher shops to make to meat look fresher (which, when you think movie "love scenes" in a warm light, is what the director wants his actors to look... fresh and tasty). As such, it's regarded as "disposable" by lighting gaffers on sets around the world, but its optical qualities are actually pretty good.

Since the gel filter is not officially a photographic filter (i.e. it's not intended for critical use in photography), purists will say you shouldn't use it for projection either. I disagree. In use, it would be placed so close to the lens that any imperfections in the coating would be out of focus. As long as the filter is free of creases, it's fine for projection purposes. It doesn't even have to be flat... curvature is OK because it's so thin. However, the more perpendicular you have the filter gel to the optical axis of the lens, the less reflection you'll get, hence the light loss from reflection will be minimised.

The good thing about specifying a Lee Filter is that you can get a free sample swatch from Lee Filters that contains a 1 x 2.5 inch piece of "Light Salmon" (and about two-hundred other interesting colors as well). Actually, if you get two sample swatches, you can use one to muck around with, testing, and the other to provide a nice, fresh sample for when you've figured out which filter you want to use. That's what I did. These sample pieces can be cut out from the swatch book and are plenty big enough to cover the image area when placed close to or directly on top of the AE700's lens.

A CC filter will set you back dollars, and if it isn't the right one, then you'll be forking out more dollars until you come up with something that does the job.

A note about "CC" values... Each unit in a CC value is 1/30th of a stop. So, a CC30 anything (R,G,B,C,M or Y) reduces luminance by 30 thirtieths = 1 stop i.e. it reduces the light to 50% of whatever it was before. A CC40 filter reduces light by 1.33 stops (40 divided by 30), i.e. it reduces the light to just under 40% of whatever it was before. The formula is: 1/(2^(CC/30))

CC30 and CC40 filters are both pretty dense, when the projector is "light challenged".

The Lee Filters "Light Salmon" reduces light by 2/3rds of a stop, to about 63% of whatever it was before... not so drastic.

However, you're using NATURAL mode. I reckon you've picked just about the darkest mode available with the AE700 projector. In my opinion, NATURAL mode is only included so that you can have a reference to return to when your tweaking's gotten out of hand and you want to know what your un-tweaked, direct-off-DVD origin point was. I have trouble believing that Panasonic actually intended it to be used for projecting a picture on any reasonably-sized screen. It leaves most large screen sizes with an image that looks like midnight in a coal mine with just a Bic lighter to stumble around with. It wouldn't even put Count Yorga, Vampire off his lunch, it's so dim.

What I mean to say is, you can improve on NATURAL mode in the brightness stakes with almost any other mode.

There's been a lot of anal, purist talk on this forum about achieving perfection via. Avia disks, colorimeters etc. Cine4Home (these are anal Germans: about as finickerty as you can get) claim that CINEMA1 mode is the most perfect... perfect, that is, if you don't mind going blind from eye strain. NATURAL or CINEMA1 modes... they're both about as dark as each other. Arguing the toss between them is like swapping deck chairs on the Titanic (or claiming that "democracy" has come to Iraq all of a sudden).

Even Cine4Home suggested using VIDEO mode, with a filter similar to the one we're discussing here (although they didn't disclose the precise properties of the filter because they were making money calibrating punters' projectors with it).

I've tried DYNAMIC, with a souped-up signal from the DVD player (I only use the projector for video purposes), modulated a little by a dimming pot on the Y channel of my YUV cable. I reckon it's fine to the eye. Who's to say my picture is anally linear to suit a purist? Not me. But I do know that the blacks are richer, the colors vibrant (without being tacky), and that I have a pretty bright picture to play with on a 115 inch wide screen.

An extra note to my long post from yesterday: three other methods of increasing brightness occured to me.

1. Turn off DYNAMIC IRIS. I know this sounds like heresy but, using the filter (whose job is to increase contrast), the resultant contrast is so good that you hardly need DYNAMIC IRIS (which is just a trick, a kludge to get the last ounce of performance out of old technology).

2. Turn you lamp power to HIGH. This provides a few extra percents of brightness.

3. Before you laugh, read this through... Move your projector closer to the screen (for those who can) and use zoom to restore screen width. The wider the angle the projector is working at, the brighter the picture for any given size. For a set screen width of 115 inches, the maximum and minimum distances that the AE700 can be used at are 13.3 feet (zoom set to maximum wide angle) and 25 feet (zoom set to maximum narrow angle). If you want to work maximum and minimum throw distances out for yourselves, there's a formula on page "60-ENGLISH" of the manual.

Example: At 13.3 feet the f-stop of the AE700's lens is f1.9. At 25 feet it's f3.1. At the short throw (13.3 feet) a 115 inch picture is 230% the brightness of a 115 inch wide picture projected from 25 feet away. That's way more than DOUBLE the brightness. I'm projecting my 115 inch picture from 15 feet. Even just moving my projector the extra 1.7 feet closer to the 13.3 feet minimum distance (for that 115 inch screen size) would increase my screen brightness by 11%. A totally free lunch, that is if I didn't have to demolish my living room to do it (and get a divorce). But if you can relocate your projector go ahead and do it. You'll get a much brighter picture (all other things being equal).

Offer: I have a spread sheet that performs the necessary calculations. If anyone's interested, send me a PM and I can send you a copy of it so you can work out your own zoom-factor vs. throw vs. width light performance. You might be surprised at just how much more you can get out of your projectors by simply relocating them closer to the screen.

tsteves

02-02-05, 07:24 PM

Aussie Bob - I do wish you'd post more often. Always interesting and humerous.
Anyone know a good source for these filters in the U.S.? Last time I tried, the filters were free but shipping was something nutty like $50 for 2 weeks.

tvted

02-02-05, 08:36 PM

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
A note about "CC" values... Each unit in a CC value is 1/30th of a stop. So, a CC30 anything (R,G,B,C,M or Y) reduces luminance by 30 thirtieths = 1 stop i.e. it reduces the light to 50% of whatever it was before. A CC40 filter reduces light by 1.33 stops (40 divided by 30), i.e. it reduces the light to just under 40% of whatever it was before. The formula is: 1/(2^(CC/30))

CC30 and CC40 filters are both pretty dense, when the projector is "light challenged".

The Lee Filters "Light Salmon" reduces light by 2/3rds of a stop, about 63% of whatever it was before... not so drastic.
[/B]

Your math may be a little off. :D
I've LEE filters CC filter book in my hands.
For the RED CC30 exposure is lowered by 2/3 of a stop; for the CC40 it is only 1 stop.
So no need to be so pessimistic.

For a GREEN or CYAN CC40 it is only 2/3 of a stop so something is wrong there.

See LEE FILTERS CC filters pdf here (http://www.leefiltersusa.com/PDFs/Camera/CamPdfIndex.html#)

Did you go with the salmon over the RED CC because of cost or was it what you felt was more accurate for your PJ?

For those who proceed with mylar based material rather than glass, be aware that these materials fade over time with heat and light hitting them. The degradation would not be as great as they might be with studio lights but they will fade nonetheless.
Bob's idea of putting it behind a clear glass filter is brilliant and should be considered.

ted

Aussie Bob

02-02-05, 10:42 PM

Interesting point, ccted,

I've noticed that with Lee Filters' numbers before: some of them don't conform to formal specifications.

For instance, you pointed out the discrepancy in the CC30R filter where the PDF file said the dimming factor was only 2/3rds of a stop (not 1 full stop as I predicted in my post). But take a look at the CC40B and CC50B filters: they're spot on the money as far as my calculations are concerned, 1.33 and 1.67 stops respectively. Other CC values (e.g. all the cyan CC values from 05 to 25) have the same filter factor. That just ain't so in reality! It's more likely that light meters usually aren't calibrated in anything finer than 1/3rd of a stop increments. Lee don't want to confuse the public too much by splitting hairs in a brochure. They know no cinematographer is going to take their word for it anyway!

The whole idea of the "CC" numbering system is to give an accurate and predictable numbering system to apply to filter fators that means what it says. When you see "CC30" something it's supposed to mean exactly one stop (half) the brightness, not some empirical approximation. If manufacturers want to start empiricising the "CC" filter system, then that's their business, although it makes me wonder why they're bothering to call them "CC" filters at all, if they don't conform to standard. Do I detect marketing hype here? Wanting to offer CC filters because the film school graduates are asking for them are we, Mr. Lee?

So, my math isn't off. It's Lee Filters who, I suggest, are fudging it a bit. My math conforms to an accurately manufactured CC filter (like the original Kodak Wratten series filter gels), not Lee's "suck it and see" approach.

Also, the light loss varies greatly with color temperature. Obviously, looking at a red sunset through a CC40R filter you'd get very little loss at all. Looking at a blue sky you'd probably lose a little more than 1.33 stops. I take your point about the discrepancy, but it's not my math that's off...

A 1/3rd of a stop error doesn't mean much with film, but it is a 25% margin, and can mean a lot to someone who's voluntarily locked themselves up in a dark, airless room to watch movies on a projector that just makes it brightness-wize like the AE700. That poor sap is gonna need all the light he can beg, borrow or steal, especially if he's putting dark red glass in front of his lens, and especially if he likes NATURAL mode because its colors are accurate (they might still be awful dim and flat, but they are accurate, I hear tell).

Hey! That sap's us!

I chose the salmon filter because, on my first night of serious AE700 viewing it performed the best, and still does (at least out of the freebies available from Lee swatch book). That's the other reason: it's cheap. Even a metre wide sheet from Panavision only cost $19 Australian. It must be the only thing for which Panavision doesn't demand your cojones (or worse), bottled, as the asking price. So I bought two sheets, one "pale", one "light" salmon. The "light" works better for me.

As to your implied question - am I sure there's nothing better? No, I'm not. But there comes a time when you just have to stop mucking around, fiddling, and start enjoying your purchase. 200 filter samples and Light Salmon did it for me. I didn't wanna look no more. Almost every single thing I (and everyone else) says on this site is checked, cross-checked and triple-checked by a host of kibbitzers who seem to be more concerned with finding fault (viz. VB, white-flashes, cropping, software version, over-sharpening, Avia disks, screen goo, HDMI etc. etc. etc. complaints, on and on and on and on like broken records) in what's a very sub-professional, inexpensive, domestic toy projector compared to what 20 grand will get ya nowadays, than in getting some fun out of their $1500 worth. I suppose that's to be expected (after all, we're all enthusiasts), but I truly think some here are trying too hard to get blood out a stone with this projector. Maybe that's what made America great: concentration on the details (is that why you have Marching Girl Academies?). But for the rest of us, we can see the trees enough to avoid breaking our skulls on low branches, but we like the forest more.

Does a crappy movie entertain any more on a perfectly calibrated AE700 that conforms to the directors intent when making the film, rather than one that's close enough, gives joy where joy is merited and let's you know pretty quick you're watching a stinker just as well as it's well-manicured and lovingly tweaked brother? To me there are limits on how far I want to go checking, endlessly checking on whether something could be just that little bit - not even "better" - more like "linearly set up" or some other such cold hearted phrase.

It's not you, ccted. You just got me thinking.

(And my math was still correct).

Now here's a REAL complaint: why, oh why, can't we go directly from SHUTTER-OFF to normal display mode without getting MENU garbage all over the screen?

I've been reduced to putting a piece of cardboard in front of the lens to hide gawky DVD menus and the word "Overture" scrawled all over the screen by some crazy with a Chyron when attempting to mount a dramatic presentation, ... for "auteur" junkies, definitely NOT as ANY director EVER intended... "Press any button" to un-shutter the screen to a darkened theatre black and your "dramatic effect" is ruined by a whole list of Panasonic menu items, right in the middle of the pre-fade-up black, that you DON'T want to do right now.

Keep your white flashes whining to yourselves. I want a PROPER method of exiting SHUTTER OFF. Dare I suggest that a fade from black to picture (bypassing MENU display) would be a killer feature?

Update: one hour later... oops, just noticed, ccted. Oh well, "American", "Canadian", they're all the same thing, right?

pinkfreud55

02-03-05, 01:45 AM

Hey. Wondering how others are using the fan modes on the 700:

In option: theres

Fan control: normal vs high

In ext options: there's

Fan FullMode: off vs on.

What are the recommended settings for these. I'm finding that my Pj gets fairly hot to the touch, and may be the cause of my blanking of video that I experienced recently? Having the fans on certainly cooled the PJ down.

I wonder if my temp is normal.

PF

BTW wjat os WSS: It is grayed out in my options menu.

PF

KongFan

02-03-05, 03:55 AM

jmatt, bradbissel, AussieBob:

Sorry for the delay, just checked in.

Jmatt, or other interested parties: Here are the "AussieBob" dynamic settings I used with my "Light Salmon" Lee filter.

PICTURE MENU

PICTURE MODE: DYNAMIC
CONTRAST: +4
BRIGHT: 0
COLOR: -4
TINT: 0
SHARP: -4
COLOR TEMP: 0
DYNAMIC IRIS: ON

ADVANCED MENU

GAMMA HIGH: 0
GAMMA MID: +3
GAMMA LOW: +3
CONTRAST R: -10
CONTRAST G: 0
CONTRAST B: 0
BRIGHT R: -5
BRIGHT G: 0
BRIGHT B: 0

(If AussieBob is reading this, please pipe in if I'm unaware of any updates to this that you've posted)

Bradbissell: Thanks for the input. I'd be interested to see your results for myself.

AussieBob: Oh, I DO think you're a complete maniac. I just don't think that's a bad thing.

How can I ever thank you enough for making that AMAZING tweak so simple for us lower forms. It's sobering to think of the hordes of 700 users who won't stumble across this info, never knowing of the dramatic improvement that is mere moments & pennies away. Not ONE hapless victim who has had to endure my infamous before/after demo has felt there is any debate whatsoever. And how could they? But people need to see it to believe it.
I'm interested to experiment with your last point (you maniac, you) on boosting brightness, and wondering how much, at close proximity, the resulting greater angle of light dispersion works against it. I'd placed my 700 as far back as possible (without hitting the extreme limit of the zoom, to minimize anomolies) in pursuit of the minimally dispersed reflection of the light, but now I'll reconsider that. I'll wait to experiment until my new Draper M2500 screen material arrives (the reasonably-sized sample they sent me was easily the hands-down winner in my setup). It's relatively high-gain, so we'll see how that plays into it. But, and it's a stupid thing to ever think, my filtered setup has me once again wondering "How could it get any better?"

Thanks, again. I shudder to imagine life without having learned of that tweak.

Ewww, I just imagined it. Bleccchhhh!

KongFan

KostaVan

02-03-05, 06:59 AM

Hey Kongfan and AussieBob,

It's so great to have people like yall who find something great and share it with everyone else. Sounds like AussieBob discovered something special.

I just received my new 700 :) and have done flicker tweak (all at 26-green still flickers a bit though) and set my settings to Natural and Color temp to -1 as suggested by cine4home - I would like to know what benefits the Light Salmon filter and your settings have shown. I am using a 106" Dalite HCCV screen and have mounted the projector as close as I can to the screen per AussieBob's suggestion.

Where can I acquire a Lee Light Salmon filter?

Thank you greatly. I love this forum :)

beocop

02-03-05, 08:09 AM

Lee filters information can be obtained from http://www.leefilters.com. The US site is http://www.leefiltersusa.com. Look up the closest dealer in your area. I found nearby dealers that I can buy from or order from. You can ask for a free filter swatch book from Lee or any Lee dealers and they'll send it to you for free. I got the swatch book but it didn't have Light Salmon, only Pale salmon. A sheet (18"x18"??) of Light Salmon #109 was $5.50. You only need a tiny portion of that sheet. I also bought a 77mm Cokin adapter and filter holder for ~$13 on ebay.

I've played around using my own settings in Video mode and will post results. Video mode has been great so far. Dynamics looks like a monster that needs serious taming. I'll try Aussie Bob's settings and see if I like it.

Thanks guys for your efforts. Now, if we can get some one to do Smart or Colorfacts with this filter...........

Aussie Bob

02-03-05, 08:21 AM

What a plug! Thanks KongFan.

Your settings look pretty OK. The non color-associated ones like contrast, brightness, sharpness etc. will vary from movie to movie. Your color tweaks look pretty solid in the minus-R departments. They'd be the last ones you'd change or vary. Who's to say if the finer nuances are "right" or "wrong"? In the home straight, the last few yards, at the end of the day and when the final push is on, it boils down to what turns you on: you might like your colors a little warmer, or a little cooler than the next guy (as long as the next guy isn't one of those Avia-armed wallahs trying to prove that reality can be described as a series of straight llines; who's always telling the World there's only one way to watch movies... in the dark, with all the lights out, including the projector's... pure black at last, and the flattest gamma curve you ever done seen).

I jest.

Moving the projector closer really does quite dramatically improve brightness. In order to fit in my new anamorphic lens, I moved the projector back one foot, from a 15 to a 16 foot throw. My spreadsheet proves that the light loss is only 94% as bright, for just one foot in 15! Move it another foot back and the new brightness becomes 88%. Three more feet (to the end of the bench I use) and its a dismal 73%. Remember: this is keeping the picture size the same. The more you narrow the projection cone to maintain a constant picture size, the less efficient the lens becomes. And vice versa.

For example, if you halve the vertical and horizontal dimensions by zooming from one end of the zoom scale to the other, you'd think that the picture would be 2-squared times (4x) brighter. But it's not.

Here's why: at max wide angle your aperture is f1.9. At minimum cone it's f3.1. That's a 1.2 stop shift. The difference between max cone and max skinny cone is 2:1: the full zoom range of the AE700's lens. Your apparent gain of 4x in the brightness (using the "Inverse Square" rule... "double the size, quarter the brightness; halve the size, quadruple the brightness") has to be offset by 1.2 full stops: 44%. That means multiplying your expected 4x gain by 44%. 44% of 400% is a shockingly low number: 176%. So, by halving your picture dimensions, you're not increasing brightness by 4x, but only by 1.76x. Who'da thought it?

I first noticed this when I set up my projector as a trial in our upstairs living room. There was nowhere convenient except the very back of the room to place the projector. This was 25 feet away from the screen. Downstairs I'd had it about 15 feet away. Same screen size, yet the picture upstairs was dim, dim, dim. I was terribly crestfallen. Thought I'd bought a lemon, until I remembered something about loss of efficiency in narrow projection cones. I found the spot in the manual (near the top of the Specifications page, ENGLISH-56, "Lens" section) that sets out the bad news in black and white: the aperture diminishes as you narrow the cone, from f1.9 to f3.1. By moving my projector back from 15 to 25 feet and zooming to maintain full screen size upstairs, I was killing my brightness to a mere 54% of what it was downstairs. Just by using the zoom lens.

My spreadsheet tells no lies. You enter three parameters only: current screen size, current throw, and proposed new throw. The spreadsheet then tells you in plain English how much brightness you lose or gain from the relocation. As the examples above show, it's quite stunning how much efficiency you can lose (or gain) from just a small move.

Move the pj a couple of feet closer if you can, because you have the contrast enhancing filter disable dynamic shutter, switch to high lamp mode, use DYNAMIC or VIDEO MODE, increase contrast rather than decrease brightness when cutting out the pink from the filter, use the souped-up output from your DVD player and you've turned night into day. No more munching carrots to keep the optic nerve up to the photon challenge.

Add in that turbo screen you're talking about and you'll be wearing shades to shield your eyes from the light. It'll put Abraham and the burning bush to shame.

I've tested my theoretical calculations empirically with my very accurate spot meter. It's all true. As I said in an earlier post. If anyone wants the (free, of course) spreadsheet, drop me a PM. See for yourselves what I'm talking about.

Here are the results of my test, using a 75% gray in NATURAL mode as a starting point. The results are organised this way:

"TWEAK (INDIVIDUAL EFFECT%),RUNNING TOTAL BRIGHTNESS... [Comment]":

NATURAL (100%), 100%... [we always start off at 100%]
PINK FILTER (55%), 55%... [the filter has darkened the image to 55% of its original brightness]
DYNAMIC MODE (327%), 179.85%... [179.85% = 55% x 327%... positive territory already!DYNAMIC mode increases brightness past the original brightness, even with the filter to contend with]
ADJUST COLORS (118%), 212.22%... [by increasing contrast of complementary colors B and G instead of darkening R]
HIGH LAMP (115%), 244.06%... [not much increase here, as we all know]
MOVE 2 FEET CLOSER (113%), 275.78%... [increase in brightness is more than you'd expect from the "Inverse Square" rule, due to greater efficiency of lens as you use zoom to make the picture larger]

... and all verified with my trusty Pentax spot meter.

I didn't bother to tweak the DVD's output, but that would add a lot of brightness too. Also note that moving the pj 2 feet closer is almost equal to going from LOW to HIGH lamp mode. Adjusting the colors is greater in affecting brightness (at least in this instance) than changing lamp modes.

So, from NATURAL mode to DYNAMIC, filtered, tweaked, color corrected with all the trimmings we get an increase of 2.79 times in brightness. Add a bit more in for disabling Auto Iris (which I couldn't do because of the test pattern I was using), say 15%? Total then would be 2.79 x 1.15 = 3.15. That is, with the filter added, in DYNAMIC mode the picture is still over 300% brighter. The figure is about the same for NORMAL to DYNAMIC, slightly less for VIDEO to DYNAMIC, and is well over 500% for any of the CINEMA modes (over 600% for CINEMA-1). The CINEMA modes turn out to be abysmally dark.

Hey! And I thought NATURAL was a turkey.

If you want to work out any individual factors, use the numbers in parentheses as the increase/decrease coefficient for that factor.

The BIG improvement came from using DYNAMIC mode. That, at a 327% increase coefficient over NATURAL (and more like DOUBLE that for the CINEMA modes), was more than all the other tweaks put together (they compounded to a mere 176% increase, about half the change to DYNAMIC).

DYNAMIC's a bit crass and gaudy, but it can be tamed. The test I did wasn't as scientific as I'd like. Oh, the measurements were done carefully and soberly, but there are other factors relevant to an alive, moving image that don't really get tested with a gray scale. Take this experiment as a guide to indicate that there's plenty of gold in the Panasonic hills.

Good night.

Toml2001

02-03-05, 09:11 AM

Beocop: The cokin adapter you bought...was that the P series filter holder with 77mm adapter ring?

beocop

02-03-05, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by Toml2001
Beocop: The cokin adapter you bought...was that the P series filter holder with 77mm adapter ring?

Yep. I just look on Ebay and found one for sale.
Search for ebay item number 3871605845.

The 77mm ring fits exactly to the AE700 and the filter holder slides onto the ring.

Toml2001

02-03-05, 09:44 AM

Thanks! I just ordered :)

bradbissell

02-03-05, 09:50 AM

I can officially say that a CC40R is to drastic a filter to use in this application. While the blacks are much much blacker, the color offset is inversed. Red has the highest output, followed by 23% less of blue and 40% less of green. Thus the projector is severely green limited with a CC40R. With this filter I was able to attain a contrast ratio of 1400:1. Not bad, but I know I can do better. I'll have to get the Lee salmon filter and give that a try. I'm also thinking that a CC20R might do the trick. I'll contact the SmartIII guys and see what they are saying. I know Steve had his hands on a AE700 this past weekend and he might be of some help. Overall, the AE700 is a hell of a lot easier to calibrate than my old HS10 which needed the CC40R to be even close to 6500K. :)

Aussie Bob

02-03-05, 10:12 AM

Somehow Brad, your post makes me feel better.

CC40 sounded too much to me. I found more green than blue, but neither were real awful. Hence the pinker, slightly lighter filter.

jmatt

02-03-05, 10:39 AM

Just a quick question, as I am relatively new to all of this. I have read, prior to the most recent posts in this thread, that for the brightest picture on the 700 it is best to have it as far back as possible so that very little zoom is used, so that the light cone reflects at a more direct return angle to the viewer. Now Aussie Bob has calculated that that is not the case, and that it is brighter if the projector is closer to the screen. Just confused on how these two philosophies relate to each other?

KostaVan

02-03-05, 10:44 AM

So Aussie Bob...

You are saying I can drastically increase brightness by using the filter and Video/Dynamic instead of Cinema-1 and still maintain equal or better contrast ratio and colors?

So I need the ring and Light Salmon filter...

Aussie Bob....do you suggest the settings stated by Kongfan or have you find better settings by adding more blue and green instead of subtracting red. Thanks.

-KostaVan

jaysoffian

02-03-05, 11:34 AM

Originally posted by jmatt
Just a quick question, as I am relatively new to all of this. I have read, prior to the most recent posts in this thread, that for the brightest picture on the 700 it is best to have it as far back as possible so that very little zoom is used, so that the light cone reflects at a more direct return angle to the viewer. Now Aussie Bob has calculated that that is not the case, and that it is brighter if the projector is closer to the screen. Just confused on how these two philosophies relate to each other?

EDIT: see my followup - my reasoning is flawed in this message. As you move the PJ closer, you decrease the focal length of the lens, hence increasing its brightest f/stop

It is the nature of zoom lenses that the more you increase magnification, the less light you get. Look at the zoom lens on any camera and you'll see it has a range for it's fastest f/stop (most light passing ability). For example, on my 28-135 Canon, at 28mm the lens is rated at F3.5 while at 135mm it is rated at F5.6. The reason for this is that the f/stop is a ratio of the diameter of the aperture of the lens to its focal length. So as you zoom the lens, you change its focal length, but the aperture can only get so wide.

This means that as you zoom the lens you affect the amount of light that it passes. The more you magnify, the less light you get on the other side. The lens on the AE700 ranges from F1.9 to F3.1. That means that at full magnification (2x) you are at F3.1 At least magnification (1x), you are at F1.9.

This should intuitively make sense since at full magnification you are spreading out a fixed amount of light over a larger area.

As you move the projector away from the screen, you effectively magnify the image and so you need to use less zoom to generate the same size image. The lens is passing more light in this case, but you're spreading it out over a larger area. Other than the whole light cone thing, it should be a wash.

So I concur, I'm confused with Aussie Bob's message. I don't see how moving the PJ closer and zooming the lens more would make any difference to the amount of light reaching the screen.

j.

mrjag

02-03-05, 11:44 AM

The ring isn't even necessary, it's just for a more polished mounting. You can get away with tucking the rectangle sample filter into the focus cylinder. (sorry, i don't know what the technical name for it is).

AVWH

02-03-05, 01:06 PM

Originally posted by jaysoffian
It is the nature of zoom lenses that the more you increase magnification, the less light you get.

So I concur, I'm confused with Aussie Bob's message. I don't see how moving the PJ closer and zooming the lens more would make any difference to the amount of light reaching the screen.

j.

I'm not positive about the physics, but isn't it possible that, by moving the PJ closer to the screen, the additional zoom required is not 100% proportional - therefore, you do get more brightness for the same size image?

That just seems intuitively right to me. Maybe Aussie Bob's image size/throw calculator gives us the answer?

bradbissell

02-03-05, 01:27 PM

Yes, by using the Video setting and a filter you can obtain a much higher contrast ratio and overall brightness while maintaining accurate colors. Without a filter and in Normal/Cinema1 the highest contrast ratio I've measured is 900:1 even with the dynamic iris. In Video mode with a filter you can reach 2000:1 as per Cine4home.com's calibration.

beocop

02-03-05, 01:34 PM

Aussie Bob's explanation makes sense. With the screen size fixed, at maximum zoom (farthest distance) the lense aperture is smallest. Thus, less light can leave through the aperture. Whereas, at minimum zoom (closest distance), the aperture is fully opened (max), allowing the most light to pass. Furthermore, Aussie Bob indicated that he verified his theory by measuring luminance with his Pentax spot meter.

Edit: Don't take my word on this.

jaysoffian

02-03-05, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by AVWH
I'm not positive about the physics, but isn't it possible that, by moving the PJ closer to the screen, the additional zoom required is not 100% proportional - therefore, you do get more brightness for the same size image?

That just seems intuitively right to me. Maybe Aussie Bob's image size/throw calculator gives us the answer?

Nah, I've got it exactly backwards since I'm used to how a camera lens works. With a zoom lens on a camera, you get more magnification by increasing the focal length. But a projection lens is like an enlarger lens ... by decreasing the focal length you get more magnification. e.g, look at the formula here:

http://www.navitar.com/buhl/support_faqs.html

Look at the example on that page that gives a 211mm lens. Now half the projection distance from 24,384mm to 12,192mm and see that the needed focal length is 106mm. So by halving my projection distance, I only need a lens with half the focal length

In our AE700 case, it means that by moving the PJ as close as possible, you decrease the focal length, hence increasing the f/stop to a faster value (more light).

Sorry for the confusion.

j.

JimP

02-03-05, 01:38 PM

jaysoffian

02-03-05, 01:59 PM

Originally posted by beocop
Aussie Bob's explanation makes sense. With the screen size fixed, at maximum zoom (farthest distance) the lense aperture is smallest. Thus, less light can leave through the aperture. Whereas, at minimum zoom (closest distance), the aperture is fully opened (max), allowing the most light to pass. Furthermore, Aussie Bob indicated that he verified his theory by measuring luminance with his Pentax spot meter.

For those that care, here's how I arrived at an INCORRECT conclusion:

- As you increase the projection distance, the image gets larger.
- Since the image gets larger, you need to perform less magnifcation with the lens.
- Performing less magnification = decreasing the focal length
- Decreasing the focal length = larger lens aperture.

That reasoning is obviously flawed since it leads to an incorrect conclusion. Obviously with a projection lens, "performing less magnification = increasing the focal length." Stated another way, a shorter focal length lens (wide-angle) creates a larger screen image than a longer focal length lens (tele-photo).

j.

niloc

02-03-05, 03:21 PM

Originally posted by rwestley
They are now installing 1.07 firmware. Does anyone know the changes between 105 & 107?

Just called Panasonic Canada and they confirmed upgrading now to 1.07. They mentioned it fixing vertical banding.

They have a two weeks delay (at the local Montreal/Lachine office) and they don't take appointments. Grr. I would rather wait 2 weeks with my PJ at home instead of it sitting on a shelf at Panasonic. They could really be a bit more flexible.

If someone could get their hands on those damn firmwares & flash procedures...

jaysoffian

02-03-05, 04:14 PM

jaysoffian

02-03-05, 04:19 PM

Originally posted by JimP
Most of the cheaper zoom lenses have variable light transmitting ability depending on where in the zoom range it is set.

In fact, I think this is the case with all zoom lenses:

- f/stop is a ratio of focal length to aperture
- all lenses have a maximum aperture
- zooming is changing the focal length

Hence as you zoom any lens, it's maximum light transmission (smallest numerical f/stop) will vary.

What you might be confusing this with is that more expensive zoom lenses will keep the f/stop constant as you zoom them by also changing their aperture assuming you don't reach the aperture limits of the lens. Cheaper zoom lenses may not do this, so zooming will change the f/stop.

j.

rwestley

02-03-05, 04:56 PM

Has anyone got their firmware updated yet? I will be sending my unit in next week. I know it fixes the white flash issue but does it also help the cropping and VB problems? Panasonic USA service did not know?

JimP

02-03-05, 05:08 PM

Originally posted by jaysoffian

What you might be confusing this with is that more expensive zoom lenses will keep the f/stop constant as you zoom them by also changing their aperture assuming you don't reach the aperture limits of the lens. Cheaper zoom lenses may not do this, so zooming will change the f/stop.

j.

Indeed, that might be the case. I was thinking that they use more exotic glass whose properties are better than the cheaper stuff.

Aussie Bob

02-03-05, 07:48 PM

A lot of "intuition" used here, most of it wrong I'm afraid. Jaysoffian got it right eventually with his "enlarger lens" analogy and his discussion of how f-stop numbers are calculated.

To recap: f-stop value is equal to Focal Length divided by Aperture: F/A. "Aperture" means "diameter of the lens at its narrowest point". In the case of the AE700's lens, the aperture remains constant, irrespective of zoom factor. Given a fixed throw, if you use zoom to make the picture smaller, the Focal Length gets bigger, therefore the f-stop number, F/A, gets larger, therefore the lens becomes LESS efficient at that higher focal length than it was at the smaller focal length.

Now let's consider two methods of making the image half the size in each dimension (i.e. quartering its area)

Picking up the projector and moving it closer to the screen:
If you halve the size of the image by moving the projector to half the throw distance (leaving the zoom untouched), the new, smaller image will be four times as bright as the old, larger image. The ratio of the old area to the new area is 4:1 (4xy/xy = 4/1). No mitigating factors here. The calculation is straight-out simple optics.

Keeping the throw distance the same and using zoom:
However, if you keep the same throw distance and instead use zoom to halve your image size, the new, smaller image is not quite 4 times as bright... nowhere near it, in fact. This is because the lens is less efficient at the new size beacuse of the larger focal length required, hence a larger f-stop. In fact, from the manual, the f-stop at the original size is f1.9. The f-stop at the smaller size is f3.1: 1.2 stops difference. 1 stop difference would mean the efficiency was halved. 1.2 stops comes out to 44% as efficient (1/(2^1.2) = 1/2.3 = 0.44 = 44%). So we have to multiply our eagerly anticipated 400% increase in brightness (due to quartering the area) by 44% due to loss of efficiency. This comes out to (as stated in an earlier post) only 176% brighter (0.44 x 4 = 1.76): an astonishing loss of efficiency (if you're just relying on your intuition, that is).

Don't believe Aussie Bob: go to your projector, zoom to maximum image size, check the brightness with your eyeball, and then zoom to minimum image size and compare. Is the smaller image 4 times brighter? Ah ha! Now you see what I mean...

What this boils down to is: the closer you place your AE700 projector to the screen, the brighter the image for any given image size.

If you can locate your projector closer to the screen and use zoom to achieve the image size you want, THEN DO THIS! The shorter the throw, the brighter your image size will be, for any screen width, compared to using a longer throw to get the same width. The projector is quiet. Take advantage of this feature to get a shorter throw, thus negating the optics problem.

A note on preparing for the arrival of your new projector (for those who haven't received theirs yet): don't stress too much about pre-designing a hard-wired HT room. Get the projector first and experiment with placement, convenience and viewing factors (such as the brightness factor discussed on the last couple of lages in this thread). If you committ before you've seen the thing in action, and properly comprehended its foibles, you might spend a lot of money and time for nothing on a folly that will make your wife hate you... and your kids... and the dogs too. You might achieve the trifecta and get the whole house to walk out on you.

Lastly, a reiterated bugbear of mine: does anyone share my (earlier expressed) annoyance at the how you have to put up with menu garbage on-screen when exiting SHUTTER_OFF mode? Why not just flick firectly back to picture, rather than going through a menu that you don't want? Even better, why not a fade up from black? That would be cool.

DV8

02-04-05, 03:25 AM

Originally posted by Aussie Bob

Lastly, a reiterated bugbear of mine: does anyone share my (earlier expressed) annoyance at the how you have to put up with menu garbage on-screen when exiting SHUTTER_OFF mode? Why not just flick firectly back to picture, rather than going through a menu that you don't want? Even better, why not a fade up from black? That would be cool.

Yes, yes, the fade up from black would be cool, I agree. Yes, yes, it would also be better if you didn't have to go thru the menu to get back to picture.

Not sure what we can do about either of those things but it is nice to see we support each other pet peeves.

jaysoffian

02-04-05, 09:24 AM

Originally posted by DV8
Yes, yes, the fade up from black would be cool, I agree. Yes, yes, it would also be better if you didn't have to go thru the menu to get back to picture.

Not sure what we can do about either of those things but it is nice to see we support each other pet peeves.

Geez, I never even use the shutter mode. Out of curiosity, what do you guys use it for?

My biggest annoyance is the lack of discrete on/off IR codes. I've tried the trick of:

on: power, right, select
off: power, select

Which in theory should always work. And yet I find my Logitech (nee Harmony) remote still powers the darn thing off when switching activities sometimes.

j.

burkheart

02-04-05, 11:18 AM

Originally posted by jaysoffian
Geez, I never even use the shutter mode. Out of curiosity, what do you guys use it for?

My biggest annoyance is the lack of discrete on/off IR codes.

I tried to use shutter when I use my IR distribution system (USB-UIRT) to switch between my SDTV and the Projector. While watching some SDTV show on my TV I don't anything displayed on my projector. Because the shutter function is not reliably progammable in my system, I am abusing the Composite Video input channel as my shutter function. Don't have any inputs for that hence it will show a black screen with a blinking green status at the top right.

Bottom-line I agree with you biggest annoyance. If I had discrete codes I would not have this problem and the following one ... I am unable to reliably switch between Component and PC input channel, because sometimes the PJ would interpret the PC mode button twice and switch to HDMI :-( Reducing the duration of sending the signal will then have the similar opposite effect.

kg2kg

02-04-05, 01:40 PM

I really appreciate learning while I do a project. You folks have helped me understand and learn a great deal - and I thank you all. Bob I love your passion for tweeking.

Here is a follow up, how does the lens shift work in the projector? The manual states "Generally, the maximum picture quality is obtained when the lens is moved to the center (horizontally and vertically). How is the lens shifted and why does it degrade the picture quality?

In calculating for a ceiling mount, I would have to have the lens shifted down 57% for my 88" tall room. Wondering what image degradation I would introduce for a brighter picture than a rear room shelf mount? Any ideas?

Thanks, Kevin

DV8

02-04-05, 01:52 PM

I would like to use the shutter mode more (if itoperated without going thru all the menus) purely for video geek show and tell. Have everyone settled intheir seats for movie with dark screen being projected. Dim the lights, dark screen (shutter mode) fades away and the movie to be shown comes up in its glorious presentation that the AE700 can give. Hacking thru menus to get shutter off destroys the carefully planned choreography above. Pet peeve only.

Now that you have me going though, I also have a pet peeve with the lack of discrete codes for the projector. This happens most frequently when switching from compnenet to HDMI for me when the projector toggles next input and gets it wrong more often than not. I am also using a Harmony (Logitech) remote and the AE700 is the ONLY component that the Harmony has difficulty with, primarily due to the aforementioned lack of discrete codes in the projector.

AVWH

02-04-05, 02:17 PM

Originally posted by DV8

Now that you have me going though, I also have a pet peeve with the lack of discrete codes for the projector. This happens most frequently when switching from component to HDMI for me when the projector toggles "next input" and gets it wrong more often than not. I am also using a Harmony (Logitech) remote and the AE700 is the ONLY component that the Harmony has difficulty with, primarily due to the aforementioned lack of discrete codes in the projector.

ANY universal remote will have this problem, won't it? The lack of discrete codes causes it - it's not a problem unique to the Harmony remote, right? How about changing the delay to toggle "next unput" - would that help?

Or are there other universal remotes with learning capability that can overcome the lack of discrete codes?

jeffmcc

02-04-05, 04:30 PM

Just got off the phone with Heartland. They read me the email they got with the firmware upgrade.

The upgrade consists of two loads, 1.05 and 1.07.

1.05 fixes the HDMI flash issue.

1.07 per the panasonic documentation it addresses and corrects the "computation process of color management" (what that means, I have no idea)

Anyway, the guy at Heartland said that the they have a 1 to 2 day turnaround and usually 2 day ship out. So, within a week you should have your Panasonic back....

Just thought people would like to know.

Aussie Bob

02-04-05, 04:45 PM

Yes ! Yes! Yes! DV8,

I'm the same. When watching an old roadshow epic (Spartacus, Ben Hur, Lawrence Of Arabia etc. and many more) - all of which have Intermissions and overtures before each act, you don't want the word "Overture" accompanied by a cheesy graphic plastered all over the screen. You want your "theatre" (even if it is really just your living room) dark to set the mood, with the music running around 6 speakers and building atmosphere... dare I say it?... just like the director intended.

These roadshow presentations were the thing that inspired my initial interest in cinema, from the tender age of 7. And I've looked forward to being able to present films I've loved for decades in exactly the way I first saw them. Instead we get crappy freeze-frame slides saying... d'oh... "Overture" with Kirk Douglas (in the case of Spartacus) starting out at you from a position of extreme discomfort atop a crucifix for a couple of minutes. Ahem... excuse me for saying it, but this wrecks the return to the second half of the movie.

All this is simply because the DVD's producers seem to believe that movie fans all over the world would be up straightaway, floundering around in the dark, tripping over their kids and the family dog, checking their cabling for intermittents if they were ever exposed to the shocking experience of hearing some music unaccompanied by a picture. It's the Home Theatre equivalent of the McDonald's warning: "Contents of this coffee cup may be hot."

Generally, many of the menus today are simply awful, and it'd be nice to be able to get rid of them, to present a blank page, a black screen, on which will be written the story of the film. You wonder who dreams up these abominations. Particularly galling is the Dolby "Helicopter" promo at the beginning of Lawrence Of Arabia. You're expectantly waiting for the start of the overture by Maurice Jarre with its menacing opening Arab drums, a precursor to a fine film experience, and instead you get an animated helicopter with raucous, loud and completely over-the-top guitar twanging about 10dB above the film's sound level scaring you half to death, as it starts so suddenly and aggressively. Sheesh! What an insult! That Ray Dolby guy makes some good products, and has some great ideas, but his monumental ego sure gets in the way, and at all the wrong times.

So, a fade up from black to image would be a good thing. Instead we get the stunning non sequiter, "MENU 1.Keystone, 2. Picture... etc".

An RS-232 control port would also help, so that the electronically empowered among us could build little Pic processors that synchronised the pj to various things about the place like unmuting sound, turning off lights or (gulp) even opening curtains.

On Widescreen.Com there are some sample cue sheets for projectionists of roadshow presentations. They outline the exact way that a film should be shown, especially at the beginning, the transition from reality to suspension of disbelief. There are instructions for timing the opening of curtains, modulating volume in various scenes, dimming house lights and so on. Quite fascinating. All gone now, of course. Nowadays we're lucky if the guy in the bio-box even checks focus.

John Ballentine

02-04-05, 05:13 PM

Quote from Projector Central:
"For those whose rooms allow options on projector placement, a longer throw distance is the better choice. That is because you want to create a narrow cone of projected light so that the light strikes the screen from edge to edge as close to perpendicular as possible. This will produce a more even reflection of light from the screen."

Aussie Bob:
What do you think about this statement ? Of course they don't mention anything about a reduction in brightness w/ the longer throw.

Spiky

02-04-05, 05:21 PM

Originally posted by jaysoffian
Geez, I never even use the shutter mode. Out of curiosity, what do you guys use it for?

My biggest annoyance is the lack of discrete on/off IR codes. I've tried the trick of:

on: power, right, select
off: power, select

Which in theory should always work. And yet I find my Logitech (nee Harmony) remote still powers the darn thing off when switching activities sometimes.

j.
Why should you be worrying about discrete power with a Harmony? It should know what mode your PJ is in natively without any exotic programming. Or are you using a different remote in the same room?

GKMad

02-04-05, 05:27 PM

After taking 4 months off the forums to USE my 700, I come back to realize I (may have) made a mistake in mounting it 22 feet away, on the back wall. It's a 135" screen.

So moving it up to 12 feet away and ceiling mounting it should greatly increase brightness?

Does it really make that much difference? Why wasn't such a fact proclaimed from day 1?

ianken

02-04-05, 06:48 PM

Originally posted by niloc
Just called Panasonic Canada and they confirmed upgrading now to 1.07. They mentioned it fixing vertical banding.
...
If someone could get their hands on those damn firmwares & flash procedures...

Ya know mine used to have NO VB at all. Then one day it did, and bad. The flicker tweak fixed it but only for that session. Next power up it was back and the flicker tweak is needed.

Aussie Bob

02-04-05, 07:03 PM

GKMad
You can't shift forward to a 12 foot throw and maintain a 135" screen. The range where it's possible to run a 135" screen is 15'7" to 31'5".

The closest you can go and keep your screen width is 15'8" (give or take a few inches). At that shorter throw, your screen brightness (if nothing else changes ) would be 140% brighter than your old one. A 40% improvement is a pretty good improvement.

Hypothetically, if you wanted to move forward to 12 feet awa from the screen, and accept some diminuition of screen size, here are some things to ponder...

>>> Your maximum screen size at 12 feet will be 104".

>>> If you zoom to the widest to achieve this 104" screen at 12 feet, it would be more than DOUBLE (235%) the brightness of your current 135" image from 22 feet. Another pretty big increase.

Why hasn't this been discussed since the beginning of the thread? Nobody asked.

John Ballentine's Projector Central Paradox
Projector Central's rule makes sense, especially if you're using a directional screen. You want the narrowest cone possible with a directional screen.

But there are pitfalls...

A real life example: I was pleased when I tried the AE700 upstairs in my house, as I could easily locate the projector 25 feet away and get a clear throw at the screen, while maintaining 115" screen size. But I started thinking twice about it when I saw how dim the picture was. As noted above, dimmer by a lot. Only about 50% as bright. Too dim.

Who wants a narrow cone but an unwatchably dim picture? You have to make a trade-off somewhere.

The screen I use is not directional. It's a piece of blackout cloth 3.5 x 1.5 metres (11 x 4.6 feet) in size. Cost $40, plus some dowel to string it from. Rolls up. Pure white. I'm happy. And it doesn't matter whether my cone is wide or narrow.

If you follow Projector Central's "PC" recommendation you'll have a screen closer to being illuminated by "infinity focus" rays, but which may be dimmer than the Bat Cave. If you follow my suggestion, you'll have sweetness and light, but maybe (if you use a directional screen) uneven illumination for those at the peripheries of your seating arrangements.

Me? I'll go for brightness every time. This projector's no light cannon and any lumens it has need nurturing, and protecting.

But that's just me.

The reason Projector Central don't make a comment on the light loss issue is that their's seems to be a general statement, not particular to any one brand or model. Some projectors have long throw prime (i.e. non-zoom) lens options (i.e. substitute lenses), so there would be no loss due to zooming. We don't know how old that staement is. It might harken back to the days when you absolutely needed a hi-reflectance, hence directional screen, because the light output from the projector was so way low. Hence, their recommendations might have assumed a special screen (which needed a narrow cone) was being used. All sorts of reasons.