Originally posted by guitarman
Pretty sure we can't move the CD. Isn't it that way for most projectors?

Here's some charts using the one-eye this morning with the HP screen.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h793kcie2.jpg

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h793krgb.jpg

Unfortunately, yes, most projectors don't allow you to adjust the color decoder. The 12K lets you set different values using different memories, making it possible to have perfect color decoding for all sources. The 12K I had possessed dead-on accurate SMPTE-C color decoding, and the image was simply stunning.

What colorspace is that triangle Tom? NTSC, HDTV, SMPTE-C?

Either my H79 is screwed up, my Progressive Labs colorimeter is in desperate need of calibration, or my display chain is completely wacked out, because my reds are way outside the SMPTE-C triangle. My eyes tell me red is oversaturated on my H79 and your H79 seems to be okay, so perhaps my HTPC isn't setup properly.

Tom, regarding that red tracking, are you using "Native" mode? I ask because when Kevin Anderson was calibrating my H79 with the OpticOne/Accupel we noted some non-linear behavior by red resulting in a similar set of graphs as you, but only while in the "16:9" mode. Switching to "Native" nicely corrected the red mistracking on my pj.

The gamut we got in those initial calibrations (with a new bulb and using a Hoya FLD) showed red near the desired coordinate. Subjectively reds don't appear out of whack to me but I haven't directly compared with a "right-on" 12000 as Thirdkind has.

Dan

but only while in the "16:9" mode

Is this something that Optoma can fix in the firmware? I like to stretch the video game content coming form my HTPC...

Frank

It is possible to get a flat greyscale in native mode provided you know where red's limit is, and you don't raise red any further than that when useing 80 and 30ire to make your adjustments. I'll be surprised if the aspect ratio control has any control over the colour balance. I achieved a flat greyscale with my H77, and judging by the similar gamma tracking hump in the higher ire range, it seems both H77 and H79 are probably identical except for the DMD, and everything else is probably the same.

Gary.

Originally posted by bdavidson
Your gray scale readings explain why your fc and contrast numbers are higher than Scotts.

Boosting blue and green like that are going to make your most of your light meters numbers suspect.

Can you not calibrate to the limiting red?

Brad

Actually you can't go on past numbers posted. This is a new run just to see what the one-eye does facing the HP screen.

Drapp, yeah I missed putting the pj in native not only that the Tosh defaults to 480p and I forgot to click up to 720p. I just posted the CIE to show thirkind another CIE chart. I have a few saves from different tunes and all the CIE look pretty much the same.

Frank, the effects while gaming wouldn't be significant IMO, but I'd be sure I was in native while doing critical viewing.

We were surprized, too, that the 16:9 setting seemed to affect red tracking specifically. We'll see how red tracks when I recalibrate after the bulb ages and I (probably) take the Hoya FLD off, and do some comparison graphs in 16:9 and native modes.

Dan

ftlee: FYI, I have confirmed touchdown on the H79.

Hi Dan,

Did you recalibrate after changing from 16:9 to native? There's no chance that going from one to another has different settings, so you effectively lost the calibration by going to native?

Scott,

Hurry up, I'm getting impatient. :)

Gary.

Here's some records for the H79

The first CIE chart/ you'll see it looks about the same.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79cieright.jpg

Over the weekend I tried the FLD filter and didn't get good results CR wasn't increased was still at 2700.1 plus I didn't like the dimmer image the filter adds.

Ok so I was just over 100hrs now and removed the filter and retuned back to D65k using the limiting color method. Last time I tuned I let green stand pat and got 2710.1 I think.

Anyway after the 100hrs mark using the limiting method I got the highest CR so far.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79100hrs1.jpg

Service area is stock, user rgbs looked like this -
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79100hrs2.jpg

I used the Tri-chromat here, colors in video looked excellent afterwards also.

Well I took the plunge, just ordered the H79 and chief mount from Jason. Should have it by the end of the week.

Cali

Gary, we were in 16:9 through a series of grayscale runs trying to get red to track linearly but couldn't get rid of red dipping in mid IREs then peaking around 70 and then dipping again as it went higher. We got luminance and RGB graphs very similar to guitarman's in post #504 above and were happy enough. We changed to native primarily to fix 1:1 pixel mapping and found incidentally after going back immediately with another grayscale run that red was now much more linear and proceeded to calibrate in that mode. I don't believe we lost settings going from 16:9 to native.

Even now going back to 16:9, which has the effect with DVI input of slightly expanding the size of the image by a couple of inches on the screen, one might not notice the difference with most material.

Dan

Originally posted by guitarman
Anyway after the 100hrs mark using the limiting method I got the highest CR so far.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79100hrs1.jpg

I don't think this one means much. With 0.01 for your black level your margin of error is huge. If that had ticked over to 0.02 your CR would have shown 1652:1. If the real CR is 2700:1 then with a reading of 33.2fL there is no black reading that would be you there. Only 3305:1 or 1652:1. You need to do something to get the black level up (like move things closer to the projector) if you want accurate numbers.

I decided to try the method I suggested earlier of measuring 20 IRE and 0 (or 7.5) IRE near the projector and 100 IRE and 20 IRE near the screen and then multiplying the two ratios and seemed to have very good success. In both cases I tried with one projector the number I got was inside the range I had determined by applying a plus or minus one to the least significant digit for the black level reading with the traditional 100 IRE and 0 IRE. In one case with the traditional method, my meter was toggling between 0.17 and 0.18 for one black level reading. So, I calculated the resulting CR with both. Then when I used the (100IRE/20IRE * 20IRE/0IRE) method the number I got was between those.

--Darin

I've only ever used native, but I'm surprised there's a difference between the settings. That's something I might have to look into.

Gary.

Originally posted by darinp2
I don't think this one means much. With 0.01 for your black level your margin of error is huge. If that had ticked over to 0.02 your CR would have shown 1652:1. If the real CR is 2700:1 then with a reading of 33.2fL there is no black reading that would be you there. Only 3305:1 or 1652:1. You need to do something to get the black level up (like move things closer to the projector) if you want accurate numbers.

I decided to try the method I suggested earlier of measuring 20 IRE and 0 (or 7.5) IRE near the projector and 100 IRE and 20 IRE near the screen and then multiplying the two ratios and seemed to have very good success. In both cases I tried with one projector the number I got was inside the range I had determined by applying a plus or minus one to the least significant digit for the black level reading with the traditional 100 IRE and 0 IRE. In one case with the traditional method, my meter was toggling between 0.17 and 0.18 for one black level reading. So, I calculated the resulting CR with both. Then when I used the (100IRE/20IRE * 20IRE/0IRE) method the number I got was between those.

--Darin

Right the meter was left back at the screen where I tuned the 65k. I was reading over at Andrea's site when they used the Tri-chromat to measure CR they put the meter at exactly 4' back from the PJ lens. They tuned back at the screen though. Seems the new guy Giani likes the Tri-chromat and Andrea is a die hard One-eye user. :)

"What colorspace is that triangle Tom? NTSC, HDTV, SMPTE-C?

Either my H79 is screwed up, my Progressive Labs colorimeter is in desperate need of calibration, or my display chain is completely wacked out, because my reds are way outside the SMPTE-C triangle. My eyes tell me red is oversaturated on my H79 and your H79 seems to be okay, so perhaps my HTPC isn't setup properly."

thirdkind, that was using DVI with Toshiba HDMI progressive player.

Even now going back to 16:9, which has the effect with DVI input of slightly expanding the size of the image by a couple of inches on the screen, one might not notice the difference with most material.

How much does it overscan the image?

Frank

Scott,

Please post what the lumens are for the H79 in both "eco" and "high" lamp modes.

Thanks,

Frank

scotthorton

maybe you missed ftlee's saga - he sold his SP7205 nib because Infocus lowered the price on him before he used it.

Calibrated contrast measures at D65 are not as different as marketed contrast would have you believe. You get the fair trade-offs between brightness/contrast with most of the contrast depending on the DMD generation.

scotthorton

You need an M1DA DVI adaptor. They support this super set that includes USB for firmware updates and menu mousing. Idea being no need to run USB cables - but all the cables I have seen are of the octopus sort - so not sure how much an advantage that is over a bundled cable and extra port!

froogle it or your Infocus vendor should have it - there are many others at the fine AVS alliance cable vendors

M1 to USB/DVI cable

http://store.infocus.com/escalate/store/DetailPage?pls=infocus&bc=infocus&pc=SP-DVI-D&tab=desc&clist=017080322b69:017080322b6b&ret=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters&pls5catname=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters

M1 to DVI adaptor

http://store.infocus.com/escalate/store/DetailPage?pls=infocus&bc=infocus&pc=SP-DVI-ADPT&tab=desc&clist=017080322b69:017080322b6b&ret=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters&pls5catname=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters

M1 to HDMI

http://store.infocus.com/escalate/store/DetailPage?pls=infocus&bc=infocus&pc=SP-HDMI-ADPT&tab=desc&clist=017080322b69:017080322b6b&ret=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters&pls5catname=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters

10m M1 DVI

http://store.infocus.com/escalate/store/DetailPage?pls=infocus&bc=infocus&pc=SP-M1-10M&tab=desc&clist=017080322b69:017080322b6b&ret=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters&pls5catname=Accessories-Cables+and+Adapters



Unless you are using HTPC I recommend using component and checking out the goods on the TrueLife menu - especially the exclusive 48Hz feature!

Originally posted by krasmuzik
maybe you missed ftlee's saga - he sold his SP7205 nib because Infocus lowered the price on him before he used it. Yeah, I did, sorry. THis one is pretty spiffy though, I'm loving this brightness (7205). Just need to think of something dark to watch and see if the elevated blacks bother me.

ftlee: I will measure the H79 is brite and econ modes. If I didn't, I meant to already have the cubbyholes built on the spreadsheet so I don't forget.

S

Originally posted by ftlee
How much does it overscan the image?

Frank

You need this aspects overscan for TV edge garbage, a must for Fox-480p. Overscan is a typical 3 to 5%. Anytime you need zero overscan you use native, like for HDTV, Digital DVD or HTPC.

" Just need to think of something dark to watch and see if the elevated blacks bother me "
Watch Men In Black II Superbit. Then watch it on either the H79 or an HT1000.

thirdkind

When my Spyder1 went south - it had the characteristic of tilting the gamut so greens were yellow, reds oversaturated, and blues desaturated. Maybe your sensors filters age the same way. I though guitarman had a pretty close gamut before.

Originally posted by krasmuzik
You need an M1DA DVI adaptor. Apologies for the OT hijack. But I guess it has some relavance since others are looking at the same decisions, maybe. re the M1 adapter, OUCH. $40-45 plus shipping. I won't be getting one of those for now. Bad enough mfgrs are only putting one DVI, but to put a bastard DVI (i.e. practically NO DVI), tsk, tsk.
Unless you are using HTPC I recommend using component and checking out the goods on the TrueLife menu - especially the exclusive 48Hz feature! [/B] I'll be using component for my tests for sure now. Thanks for the links anyway, if I order a 7210, I'll get the doodad then. Seen a 7210 in person yet?

Originally posted by Craig Peer
" Just need to think of something dark to watch and see if the elevated blacks bother me "
Watch Men In Black II Superbit. Then watch it on either the H79 or an HT1000. Thanks Craig. I have it and have never watched it. Was saving it, sounds like nows the time. Thanks very much for the tip.

scotthorton

Infocus designs for 24ftL on a target 1.0 gain screen of 100" diag in low power - which is between TV and movie brightness. It has the advantage that at lamp half life it is down to movie brightness - or like ftlee was doing you can get a gain screen and go for plasma TV. Throw on a ND2 filter (threaded for 72mm - Hoya HMC is a good brand) to get the brightness down to match those other projectors that are half as bright.

scotthorton

Of course that is MSRP - I am sure one can do better froogling a cable vendor.

Negative on the SP7210 - other than the DC3 was used to improve contrast at same lumens. Word is the SP7205 will last the year to keep something at that $5K price point

In your testing - you are calibrating with DVE - are you clipping WTW/BTB or making it visible? There are some that say WTW/BTB should be visible - but all this does is lower the contrast/brightness signficantly for the majority of DVDs - clipping is the way to go for a projector review.

Originally posted by scotthorton
THis one is pretty spiffy though, I'm loving this brightness (7205). Just need to think of something dark to watch and see if the elevated blacks bother me.
If I wanted to be cruel I would suggest "AVP: Alien vs Predator". ;)

--Darin

" Infocus designs for 24ftL on a target 1.0 gain screen of 100" diag in low power - which is between TV and movie brightness. It has the advantage that at lamp half life it is down to movie brightness - or like ftlee was doing you can get a gain screen and go for plasma TV. Throw on a ND2 filter (threaded for 72mm - Hoya HMC is a good brand) to get the brightness down to match those other projectors that are half as bright. " -

I know that's the theory, but after seeing two 7205's, I can't agree. There really is no substitute for high contrast. And as far as the high contrast projectors not being bright enough down the road - just change the bulb sooner. For an excellent picture I really don't care if I change the bulb after 500 hours and sell the old one on eBay for $ 50.00. If you figure the thousands of dollars people spend on scalers, upconverting dvd players, Mosquito noise reducing devices etc., whats a bulb once a year or 500 hours - whichever comes first? I've thrown dinner parties where the wine cost as much or more than a bulb - for 10 people!

darinp2

I thought HellBoy-HD fared pretty well on the SP7205 - I used a CPL filter equivalent to a ND3 on a 60" HCDM. I need to add another ND2 to get down to movie levels though!

Craig Peer

That is why I am also an NEC dealer :D

You cannot have both brightness and contrast! You would be amazed how many people insist on putting their expensive HD projectors in their white walled living room lit up by the kitchen though! Everything has it's place.

Holly split Batman! Kras just said the IF needed black level help. Thought I'd never live to see the day. :)

" You cannot have both brightness and contrast! You would be amazed how many people insist on putting their expensive HD projectors in their white walled living room lit up by the kitchen though! Everything has it's place. " -

That is I suppose true. To each his own!

Originally posted by krasmuzik
thirdkind

When my Spyder1 went south - it had the characteristic of tilting the gamut so greens were yellow, reds oversaturated, and blues desaturated. Maybe your sensors filters age the same way. I though guitarman had a pretty close gamut before.

It's been just over a year since I bought it, so maybe it does require recalibration. I used it only a couple months ago on a Panny plasma though, and it was perfectly fine (reds looked pretty good and more in line with what I remember from the 12K). Hard to believe it could go downhill so quickly.

Tom's CIE chart does show much more accurate reds than I'm getting. Tom, if you could tell me exactly what colorspace you're calibrating to--NTSC, HDTV, or SMPTE-C--I could set Progressive Labs to the same colorspace and compare.

Still, the reds are so oversaturated on the Sim2 and my H79 as to be blatantly obvious. Even without calibration software, I can see that they're pretty far off.

Tonight I'm going to play around some more, using both the RP62 connected via component and my HTPC connected via DVI. If both show exaggerated reds according to Progressive Labs, it has to be either the projector or the probe then.

Originally posted by krasmuzik
I thought HellBoy-HD fared pretty well on the SP7205 - I used a CPL filter equivalent to a ND3 on a 60" HCDM. I need to add another ND2 to get down to movie levels though!
That ND thing just seems like such a waste in general to me with DLPs (although I have used them). This is why I value the variability in the Sharp 11k. Going to 1/3rd the lumens triples the CR instead of leaving it constant. If you really need all those lumens from the InFocus there isn't much that you can do unless InFocus decides to provide a solution that increases CR as lumens go down though.

--Darin

Of course on a 12' CinemaScope screen one would not need to filter the SP7205 down.

An IRIS is a nice solution - but then there is a reason Sharp MSRP is way more than Infocus. Of course you have to calibrate D65 for iris positions as it does have an impact.

guitarman

I have posted the numbers in my .sig review for SP7205 since it came out last year - where have you been?

I think InFocus made a big mistake not incorporating an adjustable iris into the 7210. If the 7210 could halve the lumens and double the contrast, it would be a pretty outstanding performer for both black level junkies and lumen freaks.

The 12K's MSRP is extremely misleading. Street prices are much, much lower.

thirdkind

Does the PDA mkII have an IRIS - or is it just a variable lamp?

Don't know. I've never had the pleasure of playing with one.

Craig Peer

I wish all customers would understand that lamps have a half life and they should replace frequently to maintain a bright image.

One only need read the forum that most people do not realize that and consider it highway robbery that it cost $500 to restore their projector to their former glory. Even in the budget projector forum with $300 lamps people complain about it. Extend that to the general public that does not read AVS - and consider how many dealers do not mention lamp half lifes....

Don't forget to have guitarman over again with the ColorFacts when you get a new lamp after it burns in - they are all different and you need to recalibrate!

I think Runco uses that strategy to half the half-life on their lamps so they have to be bought more frequently. Combine that with a standard ISF fee on each lamp replacement and a dealer can earn a cool $1K every 500 hours. Sounds like a good racket to me!

How does ProjectionDesign Action One have such a high lumens output and a great contrast ratio to go along with it? Too bad it does not have lens-shift...

Frank

htprojectors.com

has the PDAmkII at
41.28/0.06 nits or 688:1

and the SP7205 at

29.46/0.05 nits or 589:1 (white peaking OFF)
79.13/0.07 nits or 1130:1 (white peaking ON)

These numbers are about half what I am getting - makes one wonder how they calibrated - did they leave the lights on - did they not clip BTB/WTW, did they move the sensor closer for black?

For comparison their Mitsu (Optoma clone) rates

40.20/0.05 nits = 804:1

Their contrast numbers are way low compared with other reviews I have read.

You can also see how two decimal places in black nits is insufficient accuracy - the Mitsu/PDA measures are very close.

Also don't take these brightness as relative measures - different reviewers in different setups.

See you tomorrow - I'm going home and watch Enemy at the Gates with my neighbor Bob ( not a wife movie ) and see how the combo of the H79 and the SVS PB10 sub do ( along with a good glass of barbera and a nice Montecristo cigar )!
That is what this whole obsession is all about - watching movies and blowing away your friends with your setup ( and sometimes it blows you away too )!!:)

Craig

That is a good war movie -sadly WAF banned them all from the Netflix queue. I need to do an acoustically isolated build so the bullets can fly and the mortars can fall without having to hear - "why are you watching that ****"

Originally posted by krasmuzik

In your testing - you are calibrating with DVE - are you clipping WTW/BTB or making it visible? There are some that say WTW/BTB should be visible - but all this does is lower the contrast/brightness signficantly for the majority of DVDs - clipping is the way to go for a projector review.

I think I see your point - you increase the brightness to elevate black and make BTB visible, and do the reverse for contrast and WTW. So, by doing this are we elevating the black level and reducing the white level and therefore reducing the CR? Or are the ultimate black and white levels still the same?

I think I'm in the 16 to 234 camp of clipping at those levels at the moment, as elevating black on a digital seems to just highlight image artefacts so is another reason to shy away from BTB, but making WTW visible might not be such a bad thing.

I think I now understand why the THX Optimiser seems to be specific to the DVD it's on - that particular DVD might have BTB and WTW info on it, so the Optimiser will ensure you're seeing the detail they want you to see, and aren't clipping it. Sound feasable?

Gary.

Im jumping in a little late but Tom great pictures. This thing looks like a million dollars.

Gary Lightfoot

I agree clipping BTB/WTW is the way to go - though others might disagree. I just don't think digital projectors should give up brightness/contrast just to see some overange data. Whole other argument already with long threads elsewhere on the forum. For reviewing a projector you certainly want to use max dynamic range - so I always use the HTPC desktop (not video overlay) with Colorfacts over the DVI so as to remove these video variables.

Some projectors might have a Video DVI setting for digital inputs - Infocus does not and you compensate with RGB gain/offsets (66/39)rather than brightness/contrast. With component just adjust as normal.

I think THX Optimizer is supposed to be at the 16/235 points consistently - but sometimes it is not. AVIA, AVIA PRO, and DVE is correct for white/black reference levels.

It's 3D Alan. Time to watch American Idol & House with the Family, it's a family affair. We use ours as a giant boob tube. :)

Another thing, as you can guess I've taken quite a few screenshots ;) But never have pictures come out so good as with the H79. It's the projector.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79glad4.jpg

Originally posted by krasmuzik
I agree clipping BTB/WTW is the way to go - though others might disagree. I just don't think digital projectors should give up brightness/contrast just to see some overange data. I know this a whole different discussion as you said, but just wanted to say that I think WTW is actually incorrect (and therefore incorrectly implies your overrange comment). I believe the levels are Reference White (235) and Peak White (254 or 255). So, maybe WTRW (Whiter Than Reference White) would work, but it doesn't quite support crushing things above as well. :)

When you give lumens and CR numbers it sounds like those are usually with things above 235 in video space crushed. Is that right? I now tend to calibrate with a little bit of space left for things just above reference white, but not all the way to peak white. So, my numbers will usually reflect that.

--Darin

Kras,

Interesting comment about making use of the video desktop - WinDVD6 can do this I think, so by using the desktop and not the overlay it's using 0 to 255? Do you get any image problems such as banding at eaither end or is there no noticable difference? I think that's something I definiately must try!

Tom,

great pic as usual. :)



Gary.

guitarman

Is it the clip or are your whites blown out - the white scarf is missing detail.

I tried out screen shots and they got panned or no comments and it looked nothing like what the eyes see- it is certainly a skill some people have and some people do not!


Thus I would rather post calibration charts!

Naah, it's a mother beautiful screen shot. :)

Gary LightFoot,

With DVD using PC DVI does give banding issues because it is stretching 16/235 to 0/255 - but for calibration most projectors over DVI still expect PC levels - so 0/255 works just fine!

I just saw TheIncredibles DVD on my friend DaGamePimps tweaked HTPC who has perfected the Video DVI (sRGB) using VMR9 and the latest DVD filters - that was one smooth greyscale (ISF'ed by yours truly to exceed manufacturer specs :D). Made me want to start tweaking the 18mo old HTPC - but apparently it is not quite a plugNplay road to travel!

I rcently took some screen grabs of Avia needle pulse tests and the DVE SMPTE chart, and although they looked fine on the overlay, the whites and blacks crushed when viewed from within a paint program (couldnt see the bars or boxes). I wonder if something similar is happening with screen shots maybe??

Gary.

Gary

Sounds like Component to RGB conversion issues in the screen grab. I have no doubt that cameras muck things up though.

Kras,

Another can of worms for me is overlay and VMR9 - if I use Zoomplayer it plays back WMV files and DVDs correctly (can't remember what filters it;s using tho). If I use WinDVD 6 it crushes blacks on WMV files though DVD is fine (I check with Avia needle pulse test). I think WinDVD is using DX9 and/or VMR9 but I don't understand why the black level gets crushed for hi def files and not DVD. Any ideas on that?

Gary.

Gary LightFoot

therealgeno and BrianIAm are struggling with the latest HTPC tweaks in the SP4805 thread - they are ahead of me! It is just so complex and in flux - I stopped reading the HTPC forum after I completed my build! Sometimes - "Don't Worry, Be Happy" applies!

I'll have a look there - thanks for the pointer.

Glad to see I'm not the only one!

Gary.

OK ftlee, soccer was cancelled so I'm early :). Here's the measurments as promised.

Scotts PJ shootout measurments (zipped .xls file) revision 1 (http://www.msws.org/misc/PJshootout.zip)

I was a little surprised at a couple things, not so surprised at others:

1) the off reading (0 IRE) is higher on the H79 than the Marantz (HD2+). My screen is visibly brighter with the 79 than the S3, maybe due to the new bright bulb, dunno.

2) My subjective perception of the H79 is that it's not any brighter than the Marantz although the numbers show it is. The S3's colors look better subjectively to me from the very little HD I watched on the 79, but I'll do some more A/B testing there tomorrow if I can. The 79 is a little brighter, but it's bulb has about 2 hours on it, the S3 has over 100, so I bet when the 79 gets some time, they will be very close. I won't know because by the time my chosen buld has hours on it, the other 2 will be long gone.

3) The optics on the H79 and S3 are opposite on which area of the screen they make "hotter". The S3 is brighter at the bottom, the H79 is brighter at the top. That blows any theory kras had :) Both PJ's were measured in their upright (not hanging upside down) modes. I don't know if that would reverse if they were flipped or not.

4) 79 is no where near the brightness of the 7205, not even in high gear.

So there you have it. The objective numbers. My meter obviously is no where near Tom's measurments, nor is the OpticOne reading which the developer says should be correct since it was calibrated against a PR850? But in this case, for these 3 projectors that can be a moot point for comparision sake. All one has to factor in here is the newness of the bulbs to compare the relative brightness of these 3. All 3 PJs were set identically, using the same patterns, same source, with the same fixed meter location, from the same distance, on the same projected image (screen) size, with the same meter. Can't get any closer that that.

Now to watch it (them) some.... Hope this helps Frank, I'm still on the fence :(

Cheers,
Scott

Wow, your's and Tom's lumens number are drastically different.

Tom had:

573 lumensin eco-mode
743 lumens in high-mode

You have:

443 lumens in eco-mode
595 lumens in high-mode

Why are the numbers so different?

Thoughts?

Frank

My meter is brand new, Tom's was used if I remember correctly, not sure. That's my best guess. I may trade mine in for a NIST certified meter, but it's and extra 100 so maybe not. I don't really *need* it :). The 7205 Lumen output is probably readliy avail somewhere, maybe use it as a comparison to my #?

And, to add to the issue, Tom's has a bunch of hours on it (bulb). That ought to make it dimmer which increases the gap in our results.

Originally posted by scotthorton
OK ftlee, soccer was cancelled so I'm early :). Here's the measurments as promised.

Scotts PJ shootout measurments (zipped .xls file) revision 1 (http://www.msws.org/misc/PJshootout.zip)

I was a little surprised at a couple things, not so surprised at others:

1) the off reading (0 IRE) is higher on the H79 than the Marantz (HD2+). My screen is visibly brighter with the 79 than the S3, maybe due to the new bright bulb, dunno.

2) My subjective perception of the H79 is that it's not any brighter than the Marantz although the numbers show it is. The S3's colors look better subjectively to me from the very little HD I watched on the 79, but I'll do some more A/B testing there tomorrow if I can. The 79 is a little brighter, but it's bulb has about 2 hours on it, the S3 has over 100, so I bet when the 79 gets some time, they will be very close. I won't know because by the time my chosen buld has hours on it, the other 2 will be long gone.

3) The optics on the H79 and S3 are opposite on which area of the screen they make "hotter". The S3 is brighter at the bottom, the H79 is brighter at the top. That blows any theory kras had :) Both PJ's were measured in their upright (not hanging upside down) modes. I don't know if that would reverse if they were flipped or not.

4) 79 is no where near the brightness of the 7205, not even in high gear.

So there you have it. The objective numbers. My meter obviously is no where near Tom's measurments, nor is the OpticOne reading which the developer says should be correct since it was calibrated against a PR850? But in this case, for these 3 projectors that can be a moot point for comparision sake. All one has to factor in here is the newness of the bulbs to compare the relative brightness of these 3. All 3 PJs were set identically, using the same patterns, same source, with the same fixed meter location, from the same distance, on the same projected image (screen) size, with the same meter. Can't get any closer that that.

Now to watch it (them) some.... Hope this helps Frank, I'm still on the fence :(

Cheers,
Scott

I have the same extech meter. I do my measurement with the white disk in the middle and at a distance were I read 2.00 Lux for 0 IRE. With that method I got an on:off of 2600:1 with an H77 . Mine wasn't calibrated with colorfact or Opticone. By using color filters that comes with Smart3 I did find that red was the limiting color. Contrast on red was below 2000:1 while blue and green was around 3000:1. It's possible that to get the projector well calibrated you need to reduce contrast by quite a bit. That would explain the low on:off number you have for the H79.

Bruno

scotthorton

Should have saved your time and read HTmags HD2+ shootout last summer - they'll take the projector with the IRIS contrast of the Sharp, the optics of the Marantz, and brightness and calibration of the Infocus.....

It is possible hotspot is not in center - I guess it depends on chosen offset of lens. Thus the reason for the 9pt ANSI method - who wants to trouble themselves for that!

I think guitarman is still pushing Cyan at 100 IRE which pops the numbers - I lose tracks with all his calibration posts but seems like last one still had loss of Red.

I would expect the Infocus to exceed 880 lumens low power - yet you got 700 if I read your data properly? I got 1100 on a new lamp even in low power - dead center with a throw that resulted in 3.5' image. Though that was with HTPC over DVI - maybe component input needs the ADC tweaked to get maximum dynamic range.

scott

So are you by chance the soccer coach - sorry kids the coach has more important matters to attend to!

:D

I think guitarman is still pushing Cyan at 100 IRE which pops the numbers - I lose tracks with all his calibration posts but seems like last one still had loss of Red.

Guitarman,

I thought that you had all of the issues addressed before you took the new measurements. Was this still an issue?

Frank

Anyone have any issues with the interface on the H79?

I was doing the greyscale (again) last night, and every time I touched the blue bias control, the entire greyscale would shift heavily towards green. I had to switch inputs and re-synch to get the proper greyscale back.

Should have saved your time and read HTmags HD2+ shootout last summer - they'll take the projector with the IRIS contrast of the Sharp, the optics of the Marantz, and brightness and calibration of the Infocus..... So which one was it? I know, the Action MK3.... I don't have a way to "borrow" any more PJ's. And no room to place them either :D. I really need to choose one of these and be done with it, maybe...:D
It is possible hotspot is not in center - I guess it depends on chosen offset of lens. Thus the reason for the 9pt ANSI method - who wants to trouble themselves for that!Yep, I thought it was interesting that different optical designs produced opposite results in this regard. But in all the cases, the center meas was about the average of the upper and lower, so center is a good place to test IMO.
I would expect the Infocus to exceed 880 lumens low power - yet you got 700 if I read your data properly? I got 1100 on a new lamp even in low power - dead center with a throw that resulted in 3.5' image. 3.5' wide or diag? Let me know and I'll take a reading there. I have no explanation for the dimmer measurments other than the meter possibly being off. Extech says these meters (all of them) aren't very accurate at below 2Fc so that could affect the off measurments. I may get a NIST certified meter jsut to appease my curiosity. If I order one today, it will drop ship from the factory and still take a few days to arrive. I'll have to give up the H79 before then, and I know Frank's in a hurry, so I'm afraid swapping meters won't be a help for this shootout. Meanwhile the OpticOne has even lower measurments for luminosty, can't explain that, either. I can dispel any fears that's it's bad technique. I'm a scientist by education (mechanical engineer), IT by vocation, so I'm definately capable of making good test runs with test equipment. I've been almost anal about the setup. Meters placed in identical positions, orientations, etc. PJ,s setup identically except for amount of lens shift (becasue they are stacked), etc. But in any event, even if the meter is off, I'm comfortable it's relative measurments (difference between measurments) between the PJ's is reasonably accurate. Though that was with HTPC over DVI - maybe component input needs the ADC tweaked to get maximum dynamic range. Maybe, don't know how to check that. I'll plug DVI up to the H79 tonight if I have time and test. That will take component out of the pic (no pun intended).So are you by chance the soccer coach Not this year. I did the soccerroos a season ago (4 yr olds), Now I'm letting the real coaches do it and I just have to cheer on the now 5yr old.

Cheers,
Scott

Originally posted by bgosselin
I have the same extech meter. I do my measurement with the white disk in the middle and at a distance were I read 2.00 Lux for 0 IRE. With that method I got an on:off of 2600:1 with an H77 . Mine wasn't calibrated with colorfact or Opticone. By using color filters that comes with Smart3 I did find that red was the limiting color. Contrast on red was below 2000:1 while blue and green was around 3000:1. It's possible that to get the projector well calibrated you need to reduce contrast by quite a bit. That would explain the low on:off number you have for the H79.

Bruno Bruno: I'm pretty sure I have at least the Optoma optimized for red. I found it the most difficult to set to D65, it was way off. The other 2 were close out of the box. THe Marantz was as folks had reported, almost dead on. I think I gave it one click on blue.

For the 79, I used OpticOne (O1) to first find that red was the limiting color. I turned red up bright as it can go. Then I locked it in (didnt' change it). Then I adjusted B & G to balance to D65. I did this at IRE 100. I found then IRE 80 was off. I tried the balance at 80, and that of course puts 100 off. It appears to have a hump. So for the purposes of measuring brightness consistently, I set the 100IRE pattern to D65 and took the measurments. So my point is, I have the contrast as high as possible to get D65. I suppose I could dim it more, but that's gonna kill brightness. They way I did it is my understanding of what the correct way is. But I'm no expert there, althought by the time I pick a PJ I might be :(

As for the low end, I used the DVE pattern with the 3 black bars, outer bar being blacker than black. I adjust until the BTB bars just disappear. That where I set the brightness level. The 79 had much more light leakage than the M-S3. If the S3 is this dark, I bet the S4 is bad to the bone. But that's for a Marantz thread..

I dont' trust CR measurments becasue I don't believe the numbers for low IRE are reliable. I say this because I called Extech myself and asked, they said below 2Fc or so, they wouldn't count on them. I may speak to them again today.

One other note. thirdkind (I think) mentioned seeing reds too saturated. The OpticOne I have (new, Nov calibration) also shows on the CIE chart that red is off the chart - well, I mean out of the triangle. And that's with the HD colorspace selected. The SD (SMTPE-C?) colorspace which has a smaller triangle just makes it worse (measured farther out of triangle). There is no way to adjust this AFAIK. The rest of the colors were pretty close except: out of the box, magenta was _way_ off to the left. After my adjustments to D65, the magenta pulled back pretty close to where it was supposed to be. In contrast to this, and as a reference, the S3 CIE colors were dead on. every color, every point. I thought it was showming me the target values, not the measured ones, until I measured the other PJ. THe O1 shows this measurment in real time. Pop up a red pattern and zzzzzzzz.... the little pointer moves to the red point measurment, pop up cyan, and zzzzzz.... the pointer smoothly swings to the cyan spot on the CIE image. Pretty cool really, but I digress. Point is, I saw the same red error that I think thirdkind described. That is if "oversaturated" means red falls outisde the triangle (a pretty good ways). I dont' know if this is a big dal or not.

HTH,
Scott
Edited for clarity and typo. I can speel but cant; typo <smile>

No problem tuning here. I've been using the user advanced RGB's because I want to leave the factory service levels at stock.


Hey Frank, take all the measurements with a grain of salt. Mostly anything posted can have flaws and gets discounted in some way.

I'd go with known facts from past usage of different projectors.

Figure what you want - low contrast/high brightness/ combo of the two and pick your favorite from general reviews.
good luck

I'll tell you one thing I can't take the H79 on a High Power screen even with the PJ ceiling mounted. I started getting eye strain last night while watching HDTV. First time this ever happened to me with all the projectors I've had. I switched out to the HT1000 which is guite dimmer and things were much better.

High Power is great for the HT1000
HP imo is not good with a fresh H79 even in econo. Mat White was much better. Looks like it's ND filter time for the 79.

Originally posted by scotthorton
One other note. thirdkind (I think) mentioned seeing reds too saturated. The OpticOne I have (new, Nov calibration) also shows on the CIE chart that red is off the chart - well, I mean out of the triangle. And that's with the HD colorspace selected. The SD (SMTPE-C?) colorspace which has a smaller triangle just makes it works (measured farther out of triangle). There is no way to adjust this AFAIK. The rest of the colors were pretty close except: out of the box, magenta was _way_ off to the left. After my adjustments to D65, the magenta pulled back pretty close to where it was supposed to be. In contrast to this, and as a reference, the S3 CIE colors were dead on. every color, every point. I thought it was showming me the target values, not the measured ones, until I measured the other PJ. THe O1 shows this measurment in real time. Pop up a red pattern and zzzzzzzz.... the little pointer moves to the red point measurment, pop up cyan, and zzzzzz.... the pointer smoothly swings to the cyan spot on the CIE image. Pretty cool really, but I digress. Point is, I saw the same red error that I think thirdkind described. That is if "oversaturated" means red falls outisde the triangle (a pretty good ways). I dont' know if this is a big dal or not.

Exactly what I measured. I saw it with my eyes first, and the colorimeter confirmed it.

I'm also seeing the same hump you are at 80 IRE. It seems like the only way to get 80 IRE correct is to cut red at 100 IRE.

I use the SMPTE-C triangle because the monitors the studios use when mastering all their material are still based on SMPTE-C phosphors. HDTV does have a wider color gamut, but HD is still being mastered on SMPTE-C monitors, so a calibration to SMPTE-C is a great catch-all for both NTSC and HDTV content (this comes from previous conversations I've had with Stacey Spears and Guy Kuo when I first started using Progressive Labs on my displays).

After spending time with so many DLPs, I've come to realize that they're certainly not all basically the same, which many people seem to think.

The H79 is a good projector, but it's not great. It's obvious there was little done to the H77 except for dropping in the new DMD. The label in the service menu even says "H77" on mine--nice. That probably explains why the street price of the H79 is so low.

I love the solid, nearly dither-free image presented by the H79, but I'm a stickler for color correctness, and it looks like proper colors simply aren't possible on this machine. Flesh tones are unnaturally red and red objects like sports cars and evening gowns appear absolutely crimson.

I know it seems like I'm harping endlessly on the H79, but I can't help it. The H79 comes so close to being great, then blows it because of poor engineering or lack of common sense.

They design a case without light leakage, then slap a big blue flashlight on the side that literally lights up my screen in my darkened theater.

They produce a DLP with an image as solid as any LCOS projector I've seen with hardly any dither at all, but then screw up the color decoding.

They give you full control of the biases and gains (as you would expect), but you can't achieve a flat greyscale. With the 12K, I could set it to D65 at 100 IRE, and it would track nearly flat all the way down to 0 IRE. Some minor bias adjustments and it was nearly perfect.

I really wish Sharp had thrown their hat in the ring with a DC3 machine. They would've nailed it.

thirdkind: If color accuracy is your thing, see the S3(or presumably the S4). Damn thing is spot on. It's just too damn bad they control distribution and cause the prices to stay unreasonably high. I know a dealer who might resell them (with a decent good-customer discount) but they won't give him the dealership because a local boutique shop already has the line. Forget the fact that the local shop only displays and pushes Runco. So in that case, Marantz effectively guarantees no one in that dealers area can buy (see) a Marantz PJ, or at least unless they go and specificaly request one be ordered in. Is it worth $4000 to have a more accurate red, I don't know. One can always tape the blue LED off suppose. Maybe I should and remeasure the low light level you ask... (actually I did ;)).

Actually, the 12K, with its configurable color decoder, has been my reference point for the past year. I was able to tune it to perfect SMPTE-C response with Progressive Labs.

The issue with the S3 is my requirement of the long-throw lens. That's why I never tried one. The cost is prohibitive.

The S4, while more reasonable in terms of street price thanks to the new lens options, is still $4K more than the H79. I think my death at the hands of my fiancee would render any image quality improvements moot ;)

Anybody interested in a very lightly used H79 (12 hours) should feel free to make an offer. I think I might just go back to the trusty 12K. Don't know yet.

" I love the solid, nearly dither-free image presented by the H79, but I'm a stickler for color correctness, and it looks like proper colors simply aren't possible on this machine. Flesh tones are unnaturally red and red objects like sports cars and evening gowns appear absolutely crimson.

I know it seems like I'm harping endlessly on the H79, but I can't help it. The H79 comes so close to being great, then blows it because of poor engineering or lack of common sense.

They design a case without light leakage, then slap a big blue flashlight on the side that literally lights up my screen in my darkened theater. " -

I don't know about your H79, but flesh tones look as good and natural on my H79 as on my H76 which was just tuned by Tom with Colorfacts. And I like the big blue LED - I can barely see it inside my projector soffit so I know it's on or when its going off - it's great ( for my set up ). Put a frigg'n piece of black electrical tape over it for crying out loud! With all these projectors, just like Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say - " it's always something "....................

scotthorton

Marantz is in distribution thru AVAD (the custom installers distributor) - so your smaller non-retail installers can get it now. They still need to get authorized and they will get tracked that they don't do online sales. But it should give the retail store with a lock on Runco/Marantz some competition.

But you probably still will not be able to see one - most custom installers/calibrators don't carry demos - very expensive!

scotthorton

Now I do 2.5' wide instead of 3.5' wide (not diag)- had to move closer to measure the SP4805 contrast! Just get a small stock foam board makes it handy to size out your sensor location - then you multiply your ftl (or ftc) by sq ft of image size. Pick a size that gives you stable significant black level readings for accurate contrast without overloading your sensor.

scotthorton

When I did my NEC HT1100 review - I found that exporting the ColorFacts CIE chart to Excel useful - then I could compare all the tons of color calibration modes it had.

I used a RGBCMY star plot from the white point rather than the usual triangle - this really demonstrates that your white point can cause error in your secondary colors - as well as error in the desaturated primary colors. So your magenta being more towards blue was because the white point was more blue.

The reds being too intense could be the new lamp - it took 10% life on my SP7205 before they relaxed and became natural. I have not compared CIE chart to see if it actually moved the red point because I swapped from Spyder1 to Spyder2 - and my Spyder1 had a serious overdone red tilt.

Originally posted by Craig Peer
" I love the solid, nearly dither-free image presented by the H79, but I'm a stickler for color correctness, and it looks like proper colors simply aren't possible on this machine. Flesh tones are unnaturally red and red objects like sports cars and evening gowns appear absolutely crimson.

I know it seems like I'm harping endlessly on the H79, but I can't help it. The H79 comes so close to being great, then blows it because of poor engineering or lack of common sense.

They design a case without light leakage, then slap a big blue flashlight on the side that literally lights up my screen in my darkened theater. " -

I don't know about your H79, but flesh tones look as good and natural on my H79 as on my H76 which was just tuned by Tom with Colorfacts. And I like the big blue LED - I can barely see it inside my projector soffit so I know it's on or when its going off - it's great ( for my set up ). Put a frigg'n piece of black electrical tape over it for crying out loud! With all these projectors, just like Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say - " it's always something "....................

I posted two CIE charts that looked very good. Actually colors/tones looked great OTB. Best projector I've had so far.

On the Infocus 5000 (cheap LCD projector) you can adjust brightness, contrast and gamma for each color. With the Optoma you can adjust only brigthness and contrast. How can I play with gamma? Can we switch the degamma table in the service menu instead? Does degamma change gamma for each colors the same? Maybe Tom as different result because he use a different Degamma table to start with.

Bruno

Originally posted by ftlee
Wow, your's and Tom's lumens number are drastically different.

Tom had:

573 lumensin eco-mode
743 lumens in high-mode

You have:

443 lumens in eco-mode
595 lumens in high-mode

Why are the numbers so different?

Thoughts?

Frank

Scotts numbers at 2 hours compare very well with my H77 numbers at 60hours:

389 lumens in eco-mode
510 lumens in high-mode.

Expect further losses with age of course.

Gary.

Originally posted by bgosselin
I have the same extech meter. I do my measurement with the white disk in the middle and at a distance were I read 2.00 Lux for 0 IRE. With that method I got an on:off of 2600:1 with an H77 .
Bruno

I also got 2600:1 on my H77 but that was calibrated with a filter. Using a combination of fl-day and 81b filters I could get 2700:1, but it was a little too dim. Take the filters away and I have an uncalibrated machine that's probably not much diferent to yours.

Seems 2600:1 is a reasonable figure for the machine, though I was getting 2300:1 out of the box. Maybe we were using different settings for those readings which could account for the extra 300:1.

Gary.

Gary,

Didn't Optoma say that there was increased brightness between the H77 and H79? Did they say how much?

Frank

Originally posted by thirdkind
Anyone have any issues with the interface on the H79?

I was doing the greyscale (again) last night, and every time I touched the blue bias control, the entire greyscale would shift heavily towards green. I had to switch inputs and re-synch to get the proper greyscale back.

Yes I've had exactly the same thing but on my H77 which I mentioned in the H77 thread. I thought it happened to me when I touched the green brightness though.

Anyon got any ideas why this could happen??

Gary.

Originally posted by thirdkind
Anyone have any issues with the interface on the H79?

I was doing the greyscale (again) last night, and every time I touched the blue bias control, the entire greyscale would shift heavily towards green. I had to switch inputs and re-synch to get the proper greyscale back.

Yes I've had exactly the same thing but on my H77 which I mentioned in the H77 thread. I thought it happened to me when I touched the green brightness though.

Anyone got any ideas why this could happen??

Gary.

" Didn't Optoma say that there was increased brightness between the H77 and H79? Did they say how much? " -

10% brighter over the H77.

"443 lumens in eco-mode
595 lumens in high-mode "

If the H77 was around 510 in bright, then these numbers seem about right, eh? once again, it's probably like the HT1000 - it appears brighter due to the contrast.

Craig,

If Scott's numbers are right, why are guitarmans so far off?

Frank

Can't say really Frank. I find my H79 plenty bright but I do like a dimmer movie theater like image. For Monday Night football I might experiment with white peaking on ( never tried that setting yet ). HDTV shows like that are brighter than movies anyway. But, the H79 is supposed to be 10% brighter than the H77 - and those numbers of Scotts should be about right. In bright mode I have in theory 17.5 fl on my 2.35:1 screen and 20 on my 1.78:1 screen - and more than 12 fl either way on low power. So no problem here.

That's probably 10% in the same uncalibrated state where they quote 900 lumens. The difference is probably more like 7% at best I would think.

Gary.

Originally posted by guitarman
Best projector I've had so far.

Every projector you see is the best projector you've had so far.

Here's the pattern I see in your review threads:

1. You post a new thread with screenshots and generally glowing impressions of Projector X.
2. People get excited and start placing orders.
3. Noobs get theirs first, project it onto an eggshell wall, declare it the best thing they've ever seen, and bolster your positive opinions.
4. Experienced owners start offering their opinions/criticisms after some thoughtful review time.
5. You deny the existence of any problems noted by other members and post a screenshot to further bolster your claim that Projector X is the best projector ever.
6. Noobs, now armed with other people's criticisms, see the flaws posted by others.
7. You acknowledge said flaws, but dismiss them as insignificant.
8. Company replaces Projector X with Projector Y, or you acquire some other new projector, and you promise a review shortly.
9. See #1.

I think it's just your enthusiasm for the hobby, and that's to be commended, but reviews without criticism aren't very valuable to those mulling over a big purchase.

I'm happy to rip the flavor of the month to shreds even if it ruffles the feathers of happy new owners. If a buyer is secure in his purchase, then he shouldn't be upset by others who post criticisms of a projector's flaws.

Originally posted by Craig Peer
I don't know about your H79, but flesh tones look as good and natural on my H79 as on my H76 which was just tuned by Tom with Colorfacts. And I like the big blue LED - I can barely see it inside my projector soffit so I know it's on or when its going off - it's great ( for my set up ). Put a frigg'n piece of black electrical tape over it for crying out loud! With all these projectors, just like Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say - " it's always something "....................

If Scott's Progressive Labs results are identical to mine and my eyes tell me the reds are completely overblown based on comparisons to a dialed-in Sharp 12K and Panasonic 7UY plasma, then I have to go along with that. If you're fortunate enough to have a better unit, that's wonderful, but it doesn't say much for Optoma's consistency.

Some of us have expectations based on what competitors are doing in the same price range. Other DLPs in the $10K MSRP range have no problems achieving great greyscale and accurate colors. Should I expect less from Optoma?

I've praised Optoma where they deserve it. Their internal processing is fantastic. I flipped through a couple HD channels last night and marveled at the detail. The H79 takes 1:1 pixel mapping without issues; some big manufacturers still have problems with something this basic. The lens shift and throw range are very flexible and make setup easy. Dithering is basically non-existent and the image is smooth and solid.

The H79 has a lot going for it. However, a thread such as this one would be worthless if we were to discuss only its positive attributes, no matter how much some people might want to portray the H79 in the best possible light.

I'm interested in making the most of what my projector has to offer. That includes identifying flaws and exploring potential solutions. If you're happy with yours, great. Enjoy :)

I like nitpicking. People like me are one of the reasons we have so many fine products to choose from today.

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
Yes I've had exactly the same thing but on my H77 which I mentioned in the H77 thread. I thought it happened to me when I touched the green brightness though.

Anyone got any ideas why this could happen??

At least I know I'm not crazy now.

This is a very frustrating bug when you're trying to calibrate greyscale.

Every projector I see, get outta here. :)

I gave a bad review on the Z9000 I got from Free, it was dim and lacked contrast. The Z90 I had at the same time was better. Maybe I got sold a bad Z9000, it just had 900hrs on the bulb. I dumped it in a week.

The ones I really liked was
Seleco HT200
Sharp Z90
Optoma H30
Low res jobs though.

NEC HT1000
Optoma H77
Optoma H79

Didn't like the Z9000 and Pany AE100.

Where did I call it wrong here.

I think your wound up too tight for reality. Sell your H79

I may have to join in with Fishooks call on the latest trend here. Just read back a bunch of pages.

"It's a mad house! A mad house!
lol

Back to your favorite station. :)

thirdkind:

krasmusik's idea that the reds being too intense could be the new lamp - it took 10% life on my SP7205 before they relaxed and became natural. I have not compared CIE chart to see if it actually moved the red point because I swapped from Spyder1 to Spyder2 - and my Spyder1 had a serious overdone red tilt.

You know Kevin may have something there. I wonder how much the bulb will settle? I woudl think this woudl be a trend on this type bulb that would be common knowledge. Reds could tame some as it ages. But it's gonna get dimmer along withthat effect, too. Unfortunately I'm not going to know the answer unless I buy it. Lost some of my britches on the H77 so now I'm gun shy wanting to make a choice to last (longer). Need that crytal bulb, I mean ball.

Cheers,
Scott

Originally posted by thirdkind
Every projector you see is the best projector you've had so far.

Here's the pattern I see in your review threads:

1. You post a new thread with screenshots and generally glowing impressions of Projector X.
2. People get excited and start placing orders.
3. Noobs get theirs first, project it onto an eggshell wall, declare it the best thing they've ever seen, and bolster your positive opinions.
4. Experienced owners start offering their opinions/criticisms after some thoughtful review time.
5. You deny the existence of any problems noted by other members and post a screenshot to further bolster your claim that Projector X is the best projector ever.
6. Noobs, now armed with other people's criticisms, see the flaws posted by others.
7. You acknowledge said flaws, but dismiss them as insignificant.
8. Company replaces Projector X with Projector Y, or you acquire some other new projector, and you promise a review shortly.
9. See #1.

I think it's just your enthusiasm for the hobby, and that's to be commended, but reviews without criticism aren't very valuable to those mulling over a big purchase.

I'm happy to rip the flavor of the month to shreds even if it ruffles the feathers of happy new owners. If a buyer is secure in his purchase, then he shouldn't be upset by others who post criticisms of a projector's flaws.



If Scott's Progressive Labs results are identical to mine and my eyes tell me the reds are completely overblown based on comparisons to a dialed-in Sharp 12K and Panasonic 7UY plasma, then I have to go along with that. If you're fortunate enough to have a better unit, that's wonderful, but it doesn't say much for Optoma's consistency.

Some of us have expectations based on what competitors are doing in the same price range. Other DLPs in the $10K MSRP range have no problems achieving great greyscale and accurate colors. Should I expect less from Optoma?

I've praised Optoma where they deserve it. Their internal processing is fantastic. I flipped through a couple HD channels last night and marveled at the detail. The H79 takes 1:1 pixel mapping without issues; some big manufacturers still have problems with something this basic. The lens shift and throw range are very flexible and make setup easy. Dithering is basically non-existent and the image is smooth and solid.

The H79 has a lot going for it. However, a thread such as this one would be worthless if we were to discuss only its positive attributes, no matter how much some people might want to portray the H79 in the best possible light.

I'm interested in making the most of what my projector has to offer. That includes identifying flaws and exploring potential solutions. If you're happy with yours, great. Enjoy :)

I like nitpicking. People like me are one of the reasons we have so many fine products to choose from today.

I agree with everything you said. Every time I read Tom saying the panning problem on the H77 are exaggerated it make me bit my lower lips. It's true that you can see panning issue with other 1 chip DLP but the H77 is worst at it. I have seen the H79. But Guitarman review makes it simply the best DLP out there. I like to read what make the difference between the sharp XV12000, Marantz, Infocus 7205 and 7210 etc. It make my decision easier and I know what I'm getting into.


Bruno

<snip>
8. Company replaces Projector X with Projector Y, or you acquire some other new projector, and you promise a review shortly.

<insert on>
8a. Advise posters of objective negative data to buy competing brand (go away)
<insert off>

9. See #1.


Heehee. Pardon muwa, senior noob found mucho humor in quoted thread.

While we're going mad, here's the few CIE charts I took.

First one, when I left green stable and tuned red & blue to 6500k
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79cieright.jpg

Second, when I tuned using red as limiting color.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h793kcie2.jpg

Just for kicks the H31 also,
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h31cie.jpg

Nothing that awful with the color charts here, I didn't falsify them. :)

And I'm not that sensitive the 1chip dither motion or I would have brought it up with the HT1000. The HT1000 does worse for the LOTR dark journey clip which is the worst known dither clip around. So glad I found it. ;)
Still imo no big deal

guitarman

Wow - that was interesting looks like Optoma needs to take the red segment of the H79 - push it just a bit more - then get the blue/green from the H31 and it will be perfect! Any hack job swaps possible?

Try switching the CIE charts to the 1976 CIE Luv or Lab version (right mouse on chart to bring up properties)- it increases red/blue areas at expense of green to match how your eye sees color diffs. Last issue of Widescreen review had a plasma review done both ways - there really is a noticeable difference.

" I agree with everything you said. Every time I read Tom saying the panning problem on the H77 are exaggerated it make me bit my lower lips. It's true that you can see panning issue with other 1 chip DLP but the H77 is worst at it. I have seen the H79. But Guitarman review make it simply the best DLP out there. I like to read what make the difference between the sharp XV12000, Marantz, Infocus 7205 and 7210 etc. It make my decision easier and I know what I'm getting into. " -

It is good to be a realist for one, and nothing beats seeing these machines in person. On the other side of the coin however, there are a few individuals around here that are never happy with any projector. That's too bad too. And equally unrealistic. Plus, everyone has to remember to compare these machines within the machines price point. Otherwise, they all totally suck anyway compared to a 3 chip DLP, eh?

Originally posted by krasmuzik
guitarman

Wow - that was interesting looks like Optoma needs to take the red segment of the H79 - push it just a bit more - then get the blue/green from the H31 and it will be perfect! Any hack job swaps possible?

Try switching the CIE charts to the 1976 CIE Luv or Lab version (right mouse on chart to bring up properties)- it increases red/blue areas at expense of green to match how your eye sees color diffs. Last issue of Widescreen review had a plasma review done both ways - there really is a noticeable difference.

Yes the chart for the H31 looks very good. But I wouldn't swap the H79 for the H31, no way, no how.

I'll have to run the CIE for the H77 also. The H77 cie chart from laaudiophiles review looks extremely good. But I wouldn't swap the H79 for the H77, no way and not for the better dither clips either. :)

Ah I got his H77CIE on my hard drive, hope he doesn't mind.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h77cies.jpg

Originally posted by scotthorton
You know Kevin may have something there. I wonder how much the bulb will settle? I woudl think this woudl be a trend on this type bulb that would be common knowledge. Reds could tame some as it ages. But it's gonna get dimmer along withthat effect, too. Unfortunately I'm not going to know the answer unless I buy it. Lost some of my britches on the H77 so now I'm gun shy wanting to make a choice to last (longer). Need that crytal bulb, I mean ball.

Only the Sim2 models possess reds this hot out of the box, and it's what they're known for.

If these bulbs shift that much, it's news to me, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Does Optoma use a different bulb type than other manufacturers?

Think how worthless D65 out of the box on the Marantz S4 would be if the bulb shifted so much after only a hundred hours or so.

Scott, what source are you using? It seems like ColorFacts users are reporting slightly undersaturated reds, but you and I, who are both using OpticONE (Progressive Labs CA-6X in my case), are seeing pumped reds. I'd like to identify all the variables. I'm using an HTPC connected via DVI, and it's set up to pass below black and above white.

For the record, I don't doubt your CIE charts Tom. There must be some expalanation for these discrepancies between your results and ours. Since Scott and I both have new bulbs, it's possible they need to "settle".

Originally posted by Craig Peer
" I agree with everything you said. Every time I read Tom saying the panning problem on the H77 are exaggerated it make me bit my lower lips. It's true that you can see panning issue with other 1 chip DLP but the H77 is worst at it. I have seen the H79. But Guitarman review make it simply the best DLP out there. I like to read what make the difference between the sharp XV12000, Marantz, Infocus 7205 and 7210 etc. It make my decision easier and I know what I'm getting into. " -

It is good to be a realist for one, and nothing beats seeing these machines in person. On the other side of the coin however, there are a few individuals around here that are never happy with any projector. That's too bad too. And equally unrealistic. Plus, everyone has to remember to compare these machines within the machines price point. Otherwise, they all totally suck anyway compared to a 3 chip DLP, eh?

I have no problem with someone being happy with his purchase. And I could have been easily please with the H77 with out the panning issue. I have a few clip that look worst then the LOTR clip. Far worst.

What I'm saying is that nobody should dismissed somebody else opinion. I never saw any rainbows. But I will make sure to mention it to newbie. It's not because I don't see it that it doesn't exist.

I think the H79 must be really good. But I don't want to switch my H77 yet until I can know for sure there is no panning problem with it. At least not as bad. I hope it can be fix for the H77 via firmware. But if it's not fix with the C17 version then upgrading is my only solution.

I don't mind the color to be off. I am not sensitive to it as much. But I don't doubt it's there.

You and Tom are really enthusiastic about your purchase. No problem there. But if someone is not as happy it shouldn't be dismiss. I know I can't buy the H79 based on your opinion because you don't seem to be sensitive to the panning problem that bothers me a lot.

Bruno

Maybe there's something off with the Optic one? vs CF's techique. When I ran the first chart I had about 80hrs, I'm at about 130 now.

Wing was telling me something about the 250watt bulbs they use yesterday. Saying these are bulbs that are used in 2000 lumens presentation models. But the HT design of the 77 and 79 tame them down for better HT presentation. Still very bright but not too bright to elevate the blacks, which they didn't want.

Originally posted by bgosselin
I have no problem with someone being happy with his purchase. And I could have been easily please with the H77 with out the panning issue. I have a few clip that look worst then the LOTR clip. Far worst.

...

You and Tom are really enthusiastic about your purchase. No problem there. But if someone is not as happy it shouldn't be dismiss. I know I can't buy the H79 based on your opinion because you don't seem to be sensitive to the panning problem that bothers me a lot.

I'm very sensitive to panning artifacts and saw them on the H77 immediately--not just in the typically quoted offending scenes, but all over the place. Whenever I saw motion, basically.

I can assure you that if your only issue with the H77 is the panning artifact, you'll be very pleased with the H79. It's the best DLP I've seen in terms of motion processing.

Originally posted by guitarman
Maybe there's something off with the Optic one? vs CF's techique. When I ran the first chart I had about 80hrs, I'm at about 130 now.

I think it's more likely an issue with the source or projector than the calibration software. I've had no problems in the past getting correct reds (or fairly close to correct) on other displays with the OpticONE package (the developer claims the colorimeter is superior to the one included with ColorFacts). The reds on my H79 are so obviously oversatured that I knew they were off just by eyeballing them.

" You and Tom are really enthusiastic about your purchase. No problem there. But if someone is not as happy it shouldn't be dismiss. I know I can't buy the H79 based on your opinion because you don't seem to be sensitive to the panning problem that bothers me a lot. " -

I never spent enough time with Toms H77 to really see the panning issue if it was there for me. I have an H76, which is not the same beast, and the H79, which is also not the same beast. I don't see it on either of those. Projectors are like women ( or visa versa for you ladies out there ) - they're all exciting when you first see them, but it really takes some time to get to know their strengths, weaknesses and what makes them tick. Which is one reason I continue to like my HT1000 the more I use it ( yes, I still use it even with the new H79 in da house )! I couldn't find any fault picture wise last night watching Enemy at the Gates that wasn't related to the dvd itself. That's just about where its at for me.

I just talked with someone about the Optic one which he tried. He said he found the Optic one too fast on it's readings and it wouldn't be as accurate because of the speed. He said he would get better readings if he took the third reading, so he would wait between each reading.

It could be effecting the CIE readings also. Is there anyway you can slow down the reading when running the RGBW for CIE?

Originally posted by Craig Peer
" You and Tom are really enthusiastic about your purchase. No problem there. But if someone is not as happy it shouldn't be dismiss. I know I can't buy the H79 based on your opinion because you don't seem to be sensitive to the panning problem that bothers me a lot. " -

I never spent enough time with Toms H77 to really see the panning issue if it was there for me. I have an H76, which is not the same beast, and the H79, which is also not the same beast. I don't see it on either of those. Projectors are like women ( or visa versa for you ladies out there ) - they're all exciting when you first see them, but it really takes some time to get to know their strengths, weaknesses and what makes them tick. Which is one reason I continue to like my HT1000 the more I use it ( yes, I still use it even with the new H79 in da house )! I couldn't find any fault picture wise last night watching Enemy at the Gates that wasn't related to the dvd itself. That's just about where its at for me.

I asked about the H77 timings just a minute ago. We know it's the RGB/RGB + 2 Dark greens and the HD2's mirror timings that effect the dither speeds. He said they're at about the limit on timing adjustments for the H77 but at home base they're still learning and testing other ways to improve the 77. It won't be a miraculous fix like with the H79 but it may be better.

The mirrors on the 79 are much much faster and timings were easy to match the new color wheel.
I guess if you're looking for the best (Bruno) you may want to check one out.

Originally posted by guitarman
I just talked with someone about the Optic one which he tried. He said he found the Optic one too fast on it's readings and it wouldn't be as accurate because of the speed. He said he would get better readings if he took the third reading, so he would wait between each reading.

It could be effecting the CIE readings also. Is there anyway you can slow down the reading when running the RGBW for CIE?

It's the speed of the OpticONE probe that makes it superior. It can take more readings per second than the ColorFacts probe (6 readings vs. 2.5 readings for the ColorFacts colorimeter), and when these readings are averaged, they provide a more accurate result. It's possible to take one reading at a time, but it's better to set it to "Auto" and let it continuously. The RGB meters settle down quickly and results are very accurate.

Originally posted by thirdkind Scott, what source are you using? It seems like ColorFacts users are reporting slightly undersaturated reds, but you and I, who are both using OpticONE (Progressive Labs CA-6X in my case), are seeing pumped reds. I'd like to identify all the variables. I'm using an HTPC connected via DVI, and it's set up to pass below black and above white. I'm using a denon 3910. Measurments and calibrations were all done with component so I could compare apples and apples as much as possible. I prefer to upscale via DVI (that's why I got the 3910) but 1) the S3 won't allow aspect changes on DVI at 720p, and #2 the dumbxxx's at IF decided to put a nonstd DVI port on the 7205. So component it was. I have no color changes on the Denon at all, bone stock. Good point about the S3 bulb, HTH, Scott

Originally posted by thirdkind
I'm very sensitive to panning artifacts and saw them on the H77 immediately--not just in the typically quoted offending scenes, but all over the place. Whenever I saw motion, basically.

I can assure you that if your only issue with the H77 is the panning artifact, you'll be very pleased with the H79. It's the best DLP I've seen in terms of motion processing.

I'm waiting for the official C17 release. I doubt it would make any difference but It would be to dumb switching now when it's only a week away. I would prefer keeping the H77 without panning then spending more for the H79. With the difference of money I could buy Colorfact or Opticone.

But thanks for your comments.

Bruno

Thanks Scott. My original suspicion was incorrect levels via DVI, but you're not using it, so scratch that. I also observed the pumped reds on my RP62 connected via component, but I wanted to check with you to be sure.

I place a great deal of trust in the Progressive Labs/OpticONE results, so I'm hesitant to blame the software. It seems we're left with a bulb that needs to break in, a batch of H79's that were miscalibrated from the factory, or a consistent problem with the OpticONE software.

I also place a great deal of trust in my eyes, which tell me that the reds on my H79 are just plain wrong. That's the primary reason I tend to trust our calibration results and suspect the projector is the problem (whether it's the bulb or factory miscalibration).

Originally posted by guitarman
I asked about the H77 timings just a minute ago. We know it's the RGB/RGB + 2 Dark greens and the HD2's mirror timings that effect the dither speeds. He said they're at about the limit on timing adjustments for the H77 but at home base they're still learning and testing other ways to improve the 77. It won't be a miraculous fix like with the H79 but it may be better.

The mirrors on the 79 are much much faster and timings were easy to match the new color wheel.
I guess if you're looking for the best (Bruno) you may want to check one out.

I would like to see the H79 by myself. But they are difficult to find in Montreal. A member is coming to my home tonight to see the H77 in action. He will have the chance of seeing one before buying. A luxury I don't have.

I try with 48hz that should make the speed of the color wheel 4x instead of 5x. You can ear the colorwheel slowing down. But there is not amelioration. That would be an ok fix for me. If they could slow down the colorwheel at 4x do reduce or eliminate panning. That should give the mirror more time to filp. I'm not sensitive to rainbow anyway.

Bruno

thirdkind

Track the reds down - see if it is component vs. DVI issue.

I seem to recall something similar with the SP7205 on component vs. DVI that reds came in less saturated (actually this happened with all the projectors in my shootout - cheap JVC DVD player) I thought maybe it could have been a voltage loss though that would require ADC correction or color decoder. I have never fooled with ADC/CWI menus for lack of training on what test patterns or measures to use to make sure they are right (I think ColorFacts covers it in their training seminars at tradeshows now)

Maybe DVI defaults to HD and component defaults to SD matrix?

If you pass BTB/WTW from the HTPC do you adjust the projector to clip BTB/WTW for max contrast/brightness measure?

Originally posted by thirdkind
It's the speed of the OpticONE probe that makes it superior. It can take more readings per second than the ColorFacts probe (6 readings vs. 2.5 readings for the ColorFacts colorimeter), and when these readings are averaged, they provide a more accurate result. It's possible to take one reading at a time, but it's better to set it to "Auto" and let it continuously. The RGB meters settle down quickly and results are very accurate.

I think what he meant was the first read is in-accurate due to the speed and he would wait a couple more timings to the third read till it settled down to be more accurate (I assume auto) He did say the Colorfacts Tri-chromat was working better for him. So I asked about the effect on the CIE's, he thought the quick readings could effect the CIE read also. Is there a way to slow the timings when reading the RGBW? A longer exposure feature.

Originally posted by krasmuzik
thirdkind

Track the reds down - see if it is component vs. DVI issue.

...

Maybe DVI defaults to HD and component defaults to SD matrix?

If you pass BTB/WTW from the HTPC do you adjust the projector to clip BTB/WTW for max contrast/brightness measure?

It really doesn't matter which color matrix I choose during calibration. They all show a pronounced red oversaturation.

I do clip the below black bar. My understanding of calibrating black levels on digital displays is to lower brightness until the BTB bar just disappears.

I adjust RGB gains so that all colors are as high as possible at D65 without clipping the above white info.

Originally posted by guitarman
I think what he meant was the first read is in-accurate due to the speed and he would wait a couple more timings to the third read till it settled down to be more accurate (I assume auto) He did say the Colorfacts Tri-chromat was working better for him. So I asked about the effect on the CIE's, he thought the quick readings could effect the CIE read also. Is there a way to slow the timings when reading the RGBW? A longer exposure feature.

I'm not really sure what he was doing then. OpticONE allows you to click once for a single measurement or set it to Auto, which takes 6 measurements per second and averages them over time. The Auto method provides the most consistent results.

I don't believe there's a way to slow down the readings.

thirdkind

if your WTW is visible - then when you use the 100IRE test pattern for contrast you are not getting your max brightness/contrast that you would get with a max WTW field (what is it 105IRE?)

That seems to be the compromise consensus I am seeing though - use Video DVI and clip BTB but let some WTW thru the display - I would not do that for a projector review though - but maybe have some presets allowing it depending on the DVD.

BTW ColorFacts allows any exposure default for any operation - different sensors have different defaults but you can change them. I think there is such a thing as measuring too fast and getting noise, or conversely measuring too slow and loosing your mind! While it does not have a running average beyond the average in the exposure - the histograms let you see the noise trends if your exposure is too fast.

Originally posted by thirdkind
Thanks Scott. My original suspicion was incorrect levels via DVI, but you're not using it, so scratch that. I also observed the pumped reds on my RP62 connected via component, but I wanted to check with you to be sure.
I'm gonna double check my result was not with DVI. I'm pretty sure it was not, but I do hav ethe DVI cable plugged in the 79 IIRC. WHen I test tonight, I'll check. RIght after I watch "Lost", Went to the eye Dr. today for annual checkup, forgot about the dilating thing Can't see squat right now grrrrr. May have more typos than normal , can't tell:)

Originally posted by guitarman
I think what he meant was the first read is in-accurate due to the speed and he would wait a couple more timings to the third read till it settled down to be more accurate (I assume auto) He did say the Colorfacts Tri-chromat was working better for him. So I asked about the effect on the CIE's, he thought the quick readings could effect the CIE read also. Is there a way to slow the timings when reading the RGBW? A longer exposure feature. Tom: YOu can actually make the thing take an average of as many as 50 averaged readings. If you got one or even 10 out of 50 wrong, the result woudl still be a normalized, averaged output. Or you can take one. Very flexible here. It uses a FILO buffer (first measurment in last measurment out) so it'a a"rolling average", which in addition to the faster speed, also increases it's accuracy by eliminating any effects of a "bad" reading. But you have to know to set it I suppose. While it does not have a running average beyond the average in the exposure - the histograms let you see the noise trends if your exposure is too fast.. Kevin: The O1 has a runing average, and it's adjustable see above. This method would stastically toss out a bad measurment IMO. No as to the accuracy of the O1's sensor, it's my understanding it's made by the same company as CF's, it's just the never version of it. I can only presume it's more accurate, they say it is, who knows.

Well, for what it is worth, I bought the Sim2 300E. I hope it works out!

Frank

I hope it does too Frank, considering it cost almost twice what a H79 does. If not, there's always a 3 chip Qualia ...................

The street price of the 300E isn't twice the street price of the H79. Going from the H79 to the 300E isn't really any more than going from the H77 to the H79.

I stand corrected then. I was going by what the person in this thread -
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=518430
said, which was almost 11K. I paid just over 1/2 that for the H79. Sorry.

He probably bought it from a boutique shop or something. Poor guy ;)

Originally posted by scotthorton
Let me know and I'll take a reading there. I have no explanation for the dimmer measurments other than the meter possibly being off. Extech says these meters (all of them) aren't very accurate at below 2Fc so that could affect the off measurments. I may get a NIST certified meter jsut to appease my curiosity. If I order one today, it will drop ship from the factory and still take a few days to arrive.


Just an fyi here - I am currently working with Extech to resolve an apparent issue with their calibrations. I purchased an "NIST traceable" certified meter in January and it arrived reading 10 percent low. That might explain some of the different readings people have been getting.

William

Originally posted by MichaelZ
One other complaint, is I see rainbows somewhat more often than I ever did on my Marantz S1. I believe it is due to the brighter/more contrast image. No one else in my family sees them but "Sky Captain" about drove me crazy until I raised the brightness, which lessened them to a point where they were not noticeable. You might want to try a neutral density filter or a gray screen.

--Darin

Originally posted by wm
Just an fyi here - I am currently working with Extech to resolve an apparent issue with their calibrations. I purchased an "NIST traceable" certified meter in January and it arrived reading 10 percent low. That might explain some of the different readings people have been getting.

William So if it was NIST traceable, I presume they compared it to a NIST certified meter in their possesion. If it arrived to you wrong, then that means it either a) changed on the way b) wasn't checked properly before leaving or c) their reference is wrong to start with. No? Something else?

I'm very interested to hear the outcome William. One related note though... Cliff feels strongly the FtL reading from his OpticOne probe is very accurate, also tied to his calibrated Photo Research instruments (PR850?). Do you have an opinion about the accuracy of the FtL reading of the current OpticOne software/probe? Specifically when using the diffusor plate and measuring a front projector? I ask becasue it's reported measurment is lower than my Extech. So if I had a incorrect Extec, that is already reading low, that would make the (my) OpticOne probe's measurment even more different.

When I spoke to them (Extech) the other day, they recommended a different meter for low light reading - the 401036. The specs are similar in regards to accuracy and range, but that particular meter dosen't say anything about using the "human response curve". Since I'm measuring white/gray only, maybe that's not a factor. Other than the shape of the diffusor, I couldn't see any other differences. Do you have a [Extech] meter recommendation since you are obviously working with them?

Thanks William, help much appreciated as always.

Scott

I made one more attempt at calibrating the greyscale on the H79 last night. I must be getting better at it because I achieved pretty good results this time around with very accurate colors. Progressive Labs/OpticONE doesn't offer the handholding ColorFacts does, so you pretty much have to figure things out on your own.

The H79 must be automatically selecting the HD colorspace when receiving a 720p signal, which is what I send from my HTPC (mapped 1:1). All primaries and secondaries except for red line up almost perfectly using the HD colorspace triangle. Red is still oversaturated, but not as much as it was with my previous calibration.

This may sound like a good thing, but in this age of scalers and upconverting DVD players, a display shouldn't really assume material received at 720p or 1080i is within the HD colorspace. I would recommend Optoma include an option in the future for manually selecting the color decoder settings used for certain signals and inputs. They wouldn't have to include full decoder controls, just the option to switch between SD, HD, and maybe SMPTE-C.

I can't slam Optoma for this though because many displays do the same thing. It just means colors for DVDs upconverted to 720p or 1080i aren't quite right, unless the studio creates the DVD master from an HD master and doesn't adjust the colorspace properly (which some do).

I really need to get my hands on an Accupel so I can set up the component input, which is what I'm using for HD from my cable box. I watched the last 45 minutes or so of The Hunted last night. The DVD transfer of this film is one of the best I've seen, and the HD transfer did not disappoint. The H79's brilliant HD processing revealed tons of detail, but the tight pixel structure and almost complete lack of noticeable dithering kept things smooth at the same time. I felt like I was watching film. The H79 looks so good with a 1080i source that I probably wouldn't feel the need to upgrade to a 1080p display when HD-DVD and BluRay finally arrive.

I put my H79 up for sale, but now that the colors are almost in order, I might be able to tolerate some slightly oversaturated reds in exchange for everything else the projector offers.

I'm still tempted by that S4 though. While I might be able to swallow the extra cost, I'm not sure I could afford the 24 hour bodyguard to protect me from my significant other.

The biggest mystery is why two members CIE readings are off using the Opti-one. You really should talk to Cliff about it. Colorfacts has been around for a while now and I don't think there's been concerns on how accurate it can do a CIE chart.

This morning I put the H79 back to factory and ran the tests.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79factorycie.jpg

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79factoryrgb.jpg

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79factorygamma.jpg

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79factorytemp.jpg

Just for giggles CIE done with the 1eye, the other were with the Tri-chromat.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79factory1eyecie.jpg

If there's something off with the optic ones it's too bad because I think it already influenced Frank to buy the nice but dimmer projector for a couple of K extra, plus he'll probably need to look at a silverstar also.

I also took another stab at mine last night. I was set to watch Lost (hadn't seen the rerun) on HD but Damn comcast feed has hosed on that channel. Wife said "why did't you just watch it on the regular [SD] channel?" Honestly I was so focused on seeing the HD version, I forgot I could have. Oh well. So anyway, that left me with some time to fiddle. I couldnt' get mine in any better although I did manage a couple more clicks on contrast (had a little more red to work with than I thought). It didn't change my fc measurments appreciably. I am using component, reds still seem a at least little oversaturated when watching HD. I watched some of Alias (feed came back up apparantly right before Lost was over :( ) and faces were clearly reddish. I'll see how I do with DVI tonight if I can. My player won't upscale on component (none will I think), so my test pattern images I suppose are gonna get SD colorspace treatment, but the 1080i images are going to get HD colorspace, not sure.

But you know as I type this I remember something from the extensive H77 fiddling I did. I deduced that unlike some of the other PJ's, the H77 had a different set of parameters for not only every input (i.e. DVI/Component) but also for every resolution that hits it from the respective input. If I'm right there, that would mean I haven't made any adjustments that will affect the HD signal I saw that looked too red. So there may not be a problem thre at all (other than needing a way to get test patterns at 1080i so I can adjust), I'll try to verify that theory to be sure....

Cheers,
Scott

Tom, it would help our investigation if you could tell us what colorspace you're using in those CIE charts. Is it SD, HD, SMPTE-C?

Originally posted by guitarman
The biggest mystery is why two members CIE readings are off using the Opti-one. You really should talk to Cliff about it. Colorfacts has been around for a while now and I don't think there's been concerns on how accurate it can do a CIE chart.
never any concerns: Ignorance is bliss.
If there's something off with the optic ones it's too bad because I think it already influenced Frank to buy the nice but dimmer projector for a couple of K extra, plus he'll probably need to look at a silverstar also. [/B] Tom, think about all that was said here regarding the 300E and the H79 specifically. EVERY piece of data offered suggested the 79 was:
a) brighter (than the one I measured),
b) had panning issues cured per the critical objective review by thirdkind,
c) was WAY quieter per me,
d) was less expensive per anyone,
e) and IF there were any red issues (which is under study), the only one that was ever worse was the 300E.

Which piece of that do you thing influenced his decision? It definately wasn't anything related to the O1. It is apparant that whatever influenced that particular decision, logic would imply that it wasn't from the data provided, at least not from thirdkind or myself.

In defense of the 300E which I don't mean to dog, the only thing in that list above that is of any question in my mind (which I have always pointed out) is brightness. The unit I had, or at least the way it was setup, measured dimmer that what others are seeing. One member looking at a 300E recently e-mailed that he measured it brighter than the Marantz S3 so there's at least one objective datapoint that is different than what I measured. Anyway, point is, nothing I said (nor thirdkind IMO) would have driven someone to a 300E. Maybe a Marantz, but not the 300E. And that's only IF there was/is a red issue, which is being studied by some...

Ah these are all with DVI player set to 720p.

Tom, I need to know the colorspace you're using in ColorFacts--the triangle in your charts above.

NTSC, HD, SMPTE-C, etc. all have different primary/secondary coordinates on the CIE chart. In order for us to make a meaningful comparison, we should all be using the same colorspace in our measurements.

I'd be surprised if ColorFacts didn't let you choose a colorspace, but if it doesn't we need to know what colorspace the software is using.

I think it already influenced Frank to buy the nice but dimmer projector

Guitarman,

I have been told that the Sim2E is brighter than the Optoma H79 when both are calibrated to D65. Even when the H79 is in high-lamp mode.

(Using Scott's lumens numbers)

Frank

Originally posted by thirdkind
Tom, I need to know the colorspace you're using in ColorFacts--the triangle in your charts above.

NTSC, HD, SMPTE-C, etc. all have different primary/secondary coordinates on the CIE chart. In order for us to make a meaningful comparison, we should all be using the same colorspace in our measurements.

I'd be surprised if ColorFacts didn't let you choose a colorspace, but if it doesn't we need to know what colorspace the software is using.

Sri for the delay I had to rerun the CIE test, colorspace options show up at the end of the test. All the charts I've posted are HDTV.

Here's the latest one with an early RGB calibration.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79ciehdtv.jpg

Frank,
I hope it's as bright. Just from past experience the Selecos were on the dim side. I know Alan is using a Silverstar with his. What is the bulb type and wattage for the 300e?

About our cheapo light meters, read wm's post above.

"I put my H79 up for sale, but now that the colors are almost in order, I might be able to tolerate some slightly oversaturated reds in exchange for everything else the projector offers."

thirdkind
better yank that for sale sign, you'll be sorry. :)
Keep working with the Opti-1

Glad you liked the HDTV image. I just watched Deadwood this morning, very good black and color cinematography.

Scott,

It could be that the probe went out of calibration in shipping, but that would mean it doesn't hold its calibration very well. As I said, they are looking into it.

I have not checked the readings on the OpticOne I have yet, so nothing to report there.

Let's wait and see what Extech comes up with. There are lots of things that can go wrong with calibrating a device like this - a small change in the setup of the test equipment can make a significant difference that the operator often does not understand.

I've asked them to provide me with the service documentation for the meter. One solution for me might be to simply recalibrate using my reference Lightspex.

William

Originally posted by wm I have not checked the readings on the OpticOne I have yet, so nothing to report there. Very interested to see what you find when you can.
Let's wait and see what Extech comes up with. There are lots of things that can go wrong with calibrating a device like this - a small change in the setup of the test equipment can make a significant difference that the operator often does not understand. I understand. I'm returning my original meter. I was gonna order a NIST certified one. I would like to wait for your resolution. Do you have a feel for the timeframe to resolve?I've asked them to provide me with the service documentation for the meter. One solution for me might be to simply recalibrate using my reference Lightspex. Lightspex not an option for me. Which model meter are you using or planning to use from them? Thanks, Scott

Originally posted by scotthorton
Which model meter are you using or planning to use from them? Thanks, Scott

From Extech? I bought a 403125. The Lightspex is a Gretag unit, spectroradiometer, worth about $10k. Calibrated twice a year, at about $800 a trip.

To be polite, should we start a separate thread for this?

William

Originally posted by wm
To be polite, should we start a separate thread for this?
William You are right of course. I just set it up here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5306451#post5306451

Thanks,
Scott

Originally posted by thirdkind
I can't slam Optoma for this though because many displays do the same thing. It just means colors for DVDs upconverted to 720p or 1080i aren't quite right, unless the studio creates the DVD master from an HD master and doesn't adjust the colorspace properly (which some do).

I also think an SD or HD selection would be nice, but I believe some DVD players (like the Momitsu V880) do convert the colorspace to HD along with upconverting.

--Darin

I watched Alias last night and noticed that reds looked pretty hot on my H79 too, but they didn't look oversaturated on other HDTV shows, nor on 5th Element or Enemy at the Gates. Skin tones on those dvd's looked natural. The dead littering Stalingrad looked pasty just like they should. But the black sweaters and other blacks objects on Alias looked so super black on my HCCV screen, they just edge out the HT1000's black levels which were outstanding!!

guitarman

Optoma sure likes to pop the gamma at 80IRE and blow out 100IRE - what is up with that? I like to see things tracking all the way otherwise highlites look wierd. Is there service menu gamma adjustments for this?

scotthorton

If you see red faces - that is not an oversaturated red primary. It is red push in the video decoder to compensate for blue greyscale. Should go away with DVI.

Originally posted by krasmuzik
scotthorton

If you see red faces - that is not an oversaturated red primary. It is red push in the video decoder to compensate for blue greyscale. Should go away with DVI. What about red cars that almost glow? What woudl oversaturated reds look like?

There are a ton of gamma tables in the service menu, but I haven't had the time to explore and measure each and every one.

The hump at 80 IRE is annoying. If there's a "flat" curve in the service menu list, I'd love to know what it is.

kras,

I'm using DVI and the red primary is outside the triangle on NTSC, HD, and SMPTE-C colorspaces.

scotthorton

red cars that glow could be oversaturated red primary - or red clipping (as often seen in toms RGB tracking at 100IRE)

Depends if you have red detail or not which one it is. I would describe the SP7205 red as a dark neon - after 10% lamp it became more of a brick red.

Originally posted by thirdkind
kras,

I'm using DVI and the red primary is outside the triangle on NTSC, HD, and SMPTE-C colorspaces.


Did you talk to Cliff about that? How about the CIE chart I posted this morning? It was with the one-eye. Red was the color that was dead on.

http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79ciehdtv.jpg

I did contact Cliff. Haven't heard back from him yet.

guitarman,

Since we do not know how either of these individuals have actually calibrated their displays we can not assume anything as to the accuracy of the calibrations. We do not know any of the settings which were selected by the users in the calibration which may be influencing the final measurements of the calibration. We do not know if the values which are being displayed in the CIE graph are in fact incorrect according to your statement as we have no basis for comparison against a reference analyzer.

"The biggest mystery is why two members CIE readings are off using the Opti-one. You really should talk to Cliff about it. Colorfacts has been around for a while now and I don't think there's been concerns on how accurate it can do a CIE chart." Unless a user has access to a more accurate reference instrument such as a PhotoResearch PR-650, Gretag MacBeth LightSpex, Minolta CS-1000 or other quality spectroadiometer they would have no way of knowing how accurate or inaccurate the data they were looking at really was. Do you know for certain how accurate your instruments are guitarman ?

I can appreciate your enthusiasm for reporting all of the information which you collect to other forum members as some if it may be considered valuable to some readers. I do feel that misleading people due to your lack of knowledge or a complete set of facts related to your comments are in poor taste.

I can state that the probe which we provide is certainly as accurate as the Colorfacts device in every respect without getting into a discussion on who's analyzer is better. I do not wish to get into a long discussion as to the differences in each of our products. Anyone that is interested in learning the facts on either product is more then welcome to contact the respective manufacturers for additonal information.

On another discussion:

I'm looking to match a new dvd player to my H79 and have a quick question. I'm interested in, foremost, the best video quality & would prefer a cd playback machine that is of high quality as well. I will go separate if I must but would prefer a multi-player. I do want a quality piece, not interested in a real cheesy $100 dvd player that only works half the time.

I am plenty aware of the emerging technologies of the HD-DVD but I know from past experience that it will be at least 2 years until there is an agreed apon technology, an abundance of new release software & hardware prices down to at least current mid-level DVD prices. So I want my good dvd now to enjoy with my new H79 the next few years.

My thought is to buy a Denon 3910 tomorrow unless those in the know think this is overkill or achievable in a better way for my needs. Please give me some feedback and clue me in to what you are using & happy with.

Cheers,
-Dave

Can't help you Dave as I'm using a vintage RP56 with SDI. Man O man, watched Dark City for the first time tonite - what a bizarre movie. It looked pretty darned good on the H79. Thank goodness for high contrast with that movie!

Just wanted to suggest that people try DegammaTable04 in the H79 service menu. No more hump at 80 IRE and the projector measures D65 plus or minus about 150K from 20 to 100 IRE. Not as ruler flat as the Sharp 12K, but not too shabby.

Kras, to address something you mentioned earlier, the only way I can clip above white is to push green and blue. With 100 IRE at D65, red is the limiting color and the above white bar in Avia PRO is still visible. Only by pushing green and blue and ruining D65 can I clip above white.

Cliff, I'm at a loss as to why red is oversaturated according to our measurements with Progressive Labs/OpticONE. I've achieved a fairly flat greyscale at D65, with green, blue, cyan, and yellow pretty much lined up with their proper coordinates. Red and magenta are outside the triangle, with magenta pushed a bit towards blue.

Yeah Craig, I'm on vintage DVD players as well. Just as I got into front projectors (Nov) my trusty old used-to-be-high-end Sony bit the dust & I've been stuck with a 4 year old Panasonic DVD recorder via 480i component as my main source right now. I had a 2910 at the house for a short time & liked what I saw but that was with my starter projector (IF 4805) and that looked good with any 480i player I threw at it. Of course, now I'm dying to feed it a progressive DVI or component connection.

Originally posted by sotagear
My thought is to buy a Denon 3910 tomorrow unless those in the know think this is overkill or achievable in a better way for my needs. Please give me some feedback and clue me in to what you are using & happy with.
How about an iScan HD+ with SDI modded player? Somebody reported that 48Hz mode worked.

Craig,

Have you tried 1280x720@48Hz? Basically, setting the framerate in the output setup for the iScan HD+ to lock at 48Hz after selecting 1280x720@60Hz for the output resolution above. At one point I thought 48Hz worked on my 11k, but I can't get it to work now.
Originally posted by thirdkind
Kras, to address something you mentioned earlier, the only way I can clip above white is to push green and blue.
Are you trying to clip things above reference white (235)? If so, I hope you don't use a screen that is over 1.0 gain, since that is a whiter than white screen. ;)

--Darin

Originally posted by sotagear
On another discussion:

I'm looking to match a new dvd player to my H79 and have a quick question. I'm interested in, foremost, the best video quality & would prefer a cd playback machine that is of high quality as well. I will go separate if I must but would prefer a multi-player. I do want a quality piece, not interested in a real cheesy $100 dvd player that only works half the time.

I am plenty aware of the emerging technologies of the HD-DVD but I know from past experience that it will be at least 2 years until there is an agreed apon technology, an abundance of new release software & hardware prices down to at least current mid-level DVD prices. So I want my good dvd now to enjoy with my new H79 the next few years.

My thought is to buy a Denon 3910 tomorrow unless those in the know think this is overkill or achievable in a better way for my needs. Please give me some feedback and clue me in to what you are using & happy with.

Cheers,
-Dave

I have the 3910 to a H77 combo and love it . 3910 also has top notch
2 channel audio performance.

sotagear:

I have the 3910 and overall I'm happy with it. I considered downgrading becasue it has way more than I need. I just wanted an upscaling DVD player that had DVI. I tried the Bravo D2 and while the picture was fine with it, it had some little ergononic bugs that I couldn't stand. One note of caution. I've been following the huge 3910 owners thread for some time. It appears that pretty much anyone who got a machine with a build date of sometime in Aug forward has a machine that won't pass blacker than black. Some Aug builds do, mine does. Some are reporting a green push on component, but I haven't seen it, but I haven't looked for it either. There's a Panasonic some seem to like I think it was a 59avi or something like that, dont' know squat about it (obviously).

HTH,
Scott

Hi Cliff,
One thing to say is CIE is a simple test and I ran the test with two different color meters and both read a similar way, display checked calibrated and not calibrated they didn't alter too much.

Scott and thirdkind didn't post up a view of the CIE so we could compare, but my main concern is thirkind was ready to sell his 12hr old projector do to the reading he was getting. I would feel a little responsible being the enthusiastic one :) that made him give it a shot. Before he does that I'd hope all possible errors could be checked or worked out.

thirdkind, could u post a CIE picture so I could see how different they are? Just thought of something didn't a member here Drapp have an ISF tune his 79 with optic-one and get a similar CIE as I got? Maybe we should ask him what he did different.

thirdkind, don't sell your projector just yet.

Tom, that's right. Kevin Anderson used the OpticOne with Accupel as signal generator and the gamut was very similar to yours. He defaults to the HD triangle with the Accupel. Unfortunately, he didn't save that gamut but we're looking into redoing the calibration before too long. Not knowing all the settings Kevin was using versus others here I can't say what he may have done different.

Dan

Tom, don't trouble yourself. I'm a big boy, and I made the purchase. You shouldn't feel any guilt if I decide the H79 isn't for me.

What I really need is an Accupel. One thing I'm always nervous about is the output of my HTPC. There are so many things to configure on an HTPC that it would be very easy to mess something up. It could be a driver issue, or the colorspace conversion performed by my video card could be less than stellar.

Scott's results with a 480p DVD player connected via component lead me to believe that my HTPC is working just fine though. I ran through my 480p component setup very quickly, but I remember reds being just as oversaturated.

Just so it's on the record, I'm using my HTPC connected via DVI and running the latest patched version of TheaterTek (2.1 I believe). RGB levels are correct (BTB and above reference white both pass). I use the color field patterns from Avia PRO for color calibration.

Tom, I'll run through it again late tonight and generate the CIE chart.

I didn't really want to spend $1300 on an Accupel, but having a device that puts out a solid reference signal would eliminate my sources as problems. It might be time to just suck it up and get one.

Anybody here use DisplayMate test patterns? Does it support proper video RGB levels over DVI?

guitarman,

You are missing my point ! Posting a CIE graph to compare against will not help anyone determine how the two displays have been calibrated. They will certainly show that the primaries are not located in the same positions relative to each display. What I wanted users to understand is that without listing what all of the settings internally in each of the projectors are we have no way of knowing what is wrong with the calibration performed (if anything is in fact wrong). We can not simply state that the color analyzer used and the graph of the collected data is incorrect. We have not listed what the signal supplied to the display was to perform the calibration with, was it a calibrated pattern generator or a DVD test disc ? Could the error in fact have been caused by the source used for the calibration ? If it was a DVD disc what kind of DVD player was it used with and was the players software set up correctly ie gamma adjustments etc.

There are a number of variables which are missing and these are the points which should be discussed to determine if some other factor is playing into the calibration of this display. It would be more useful to see the actual xy points which have been logged for the displays to compare how the two calibrations actually measure and then review the selected settings of the displays software to determine what may be the cause of the error.

Here's my CIE. HD colorspace... See my previous link for the details of the test. I didn't record the settings that produced this. I will for the next one. My graph has x-y I think :)

zipped M$ word doc:

Scott

" Yeah Craig, I'm on vintage DVD players as well. Just as I got into front projectors (Nov) my trusty old used-to-be-high-end Sony bit the dust & I've been stuck with a 4 year old Panasonic DVD recorder via 480i component as my main source right now. I had a 2910 at the house for a short time & liked what I saw but that was with my starter projector (IF 4805) and that looked good with any 480i player I threw at it. Of course, now I'm dying to feed it a progressive DVI or component connection. " -

Having my RP56 modded with SDI and using the DVDO iscan HD to feed 720p to my H79 ( making sure the H79 is set to native ) has resulted in the best picture I've seen in my theater!!

" Craig,

Have you tried 1280x720@48Hz? Basically, setting the framerate in the output setup for the iScan HD+ to lock at 48Hz after selecting 1280x720@60Hz for the output resolution above. At one point I thought 48Hz worked on my 11k, but I can't get it to work now. " -

I haven't tried that. Tell me again what quality advantage picture wise that might give me?? Thanks.

Originally posted by thirdkind
Just wanted to suggest that people try DegammaTable04 in the H79 service menu. No more hump at 80 IRE and the projector measures D65 plus or minus about 150K from 20 to 100 IRE. Not as ruler flat as the Sharp 12K, but not too shabby.

What user gamma setting are you using? 1, 2, 3...

Has anyone solved the red push problem when using the 16:9 mode instead of native?

P.S. I want to buy a light meter so that I can measure the Sim2 when it gets here. I don't want to spend a fortune. Any recommendations?

Frank

A post from WSR comes to mind regarding this topic (from a 8700 review),

"Accurate colorimetry measurements of highly saturated colors is difficult. Data reported on some Internet forums have shown this projector to have a blue primary that is grossly in error and a greatly reduced color triangle. My results show excellent colorimetry and I observed a beautiful color picture on a variety of sources."

I have noticed that in many reviews, comparing Colorfacts CIE to other sensors, (factor in the experience of the calibrator), leaves Colorfacts with much to be desired regarding color accuracy. I also believe that WSR uses u, v axis vs. x, y axis ..........although I do not recall the reason for this.

Mark had an offer relating to widescreen review also.

http://www.milori.com/articles/widescreen_review.asp

Originally posted by scotthorton
Here's my CIE. HD colorspace... See my previous link for the details of the test. I didn't record the settings that produced this. I will for the next one. My graph has x-y I think :)

zipped M$ word doc:

Scott

The RGB small triangles are your points right? Red is off and blue looks a little off the chart if also. Wonder how thirdkinds point spots where in comparison.

Originally posted by bdavidson
What user gamma setting are you using? 1, 2, 3...

Gamma 3, but that's just because that's where I had it originally. I still need to measure gamma and find the ideal user menu setting. The image is a bit too contrasty right now, so I suspect the gamma is well above 2.2.

All the user menu gamma settings seem to do is raise or lower the overall gamma based on the curve defined in the service menu degamma tables. It's the degamma tables that determine the uniformity of the gamma curve (the default degamma table has that hump at 80 IRE, but table 04 is more uniform).

Hi tk,

I found Gamma 3 in the pj gave a gamma of 2.49, and Gamma 4 gave 2.37 (or there abouts). So Gamma 5 might bring us to 2.2(ish). That's without adjusting the gamma in the service menu.

Great find btw - how did you decide on that particular service menu gamma setting? Or did you just try a few and do a greyscale for each one?

Gary.

Originally posted by Craig Peer
[BI haven't tried that. Tell me again what quality advantage picture wise that might give me?? Thanks. [/B]
More natural pans and movements. Film is 24Hz, so when it is displayed at 60Hz it cannot be done with a constant rate. It needs to display 3 frames for every 2 in the source. At 48Hz it can just display 2 for 1 (or basically each frame twice) and not have that extra judder.

--Darin

What am I dis-owned? What about a light-meter recommendation...

Frank

Not dis-owned even if you bought a Seleco :) .

It's just the low priced meters have been found to be faulty (per wm). The minolta 100 is very good an very pricey. I'm not up on any others. Plus the Extech company, if one is bad it's put a dim light on the rest.
No punn intended

Originally posted by guitarman
Not dis-owned even if you bought a Seleco :) .

It's just the low priced meters have been found to be faulty (per wm). The minolta 100 is very good an very pricey. I'm not up on any others. Plus the Extech company, if one is bad it's put a dim light on the rest.
No punn intended Agreed. One bad (different) apple spoils the trust at least. Frank, the only meters in the 100-200 range are the Extech. See the recent thread referenced just a little ways back for more info. If you want absolute numbers (that is, accurate) you may be SOL. If you want to compare and are using the same meter then you have some decent numbers to compare with. Extech recommended their EZRead datalogging version (401036?) for low-light reading but even then said it wasn't real accurate below 2Fc. Apparantly nothing under $10K is. I don't want to know that bad.

Guitarman,

What meter do you have?

Frank

Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
Great find btw - how did you decide on that particular service menu gamma setting? Or did you just try a few and do a greyscale for each one?

I went back and forth looking at the different degamma options while displaying a greyscale step pattern and picked the one that looked the most correct by eye.

I'll probably run through the other degamma options this weekend to see if one of the other tables works better.

"Film is 24Hz, so when it is displayed at 60Hz it cannot be done with a constant rate. It needs to display 3 frames for every 2 in the source."

Isn't it that for every pair of frames from a 24 f/s source, one will be displayed twice and the next three times?

Originally posted by noah katz
"Film is 24Hz, so when it is displayed at 60Hz it cannot be done with a constant rate. It needs to display 3 frames for every 2 in the source."

Isn't it that for every pair of frames from a 24 f/s source, one will be displayed twice and the next three times?
Sorry, you're right. It is 5 for 2. 5 frames out of 2 (like you said) for 24Hz source at 60Hz and 4 frames for 2 at 48Hz.
Originally posted by scotthorton
Agreed. One bad (different) apple spoils the trust at least. Frank, the only meters in the 100-200 range are the Extech.
What about the AEMCCA813 here (http://www.atsi-tester.com/products/aemc/ca813/) for $165?

--Darin

Frank, I have the same meter the other guys have. It's the one Smart sells for his product. Extech 403xxxx something.

thirdkind, I'm glad you're working it out. Wing told me today since you have a calibration system and you probably wrote down all the original factory numbers. You could use the auto-cal black and auto cal white but don't use the Magenta.

He said in Taiwan they tune the PJ's with a high speed high caliber tuning setup. But the tunings are relative to the reference data from the product they use. So you can compensate for your different devices by using the auto-cal's. He also mentioned the Spoke light on feature in the service area also, stating it maxes out the DMD chip and could be used when setting the 100IRE limiting colors tune up. After using it you should turn it back to Spoke light off.
More stuff for you to fiddle with. One thing for sure the extensive tweaking items in the H79 make it a tweakers delight.

Just in case -
The way you use the auto/black/white is by putting up an corresponding pattern with Avia then hit the auto cal. The PJ goes into an automated tuning mode for blacks and white per your device. The ADC numbers will be changing and in turn the service picture numbers will be changing.

T2 Extreme looked mighty fine on the 106" wide scope screen tonite with my H79!:)

Craig's now hooked on high res. Do you watch some HDTV on your 79? The Comcast HD/pvr is pretty handy. I got Return of the King, Master/Commander, Falcon and the Snowman saved to take a look in HD.

guitarman

Have you watched them yet? Just going by memory when I first saw it on StarzHD - but HellBoy-HD looked softer once it was PVR'd!

I took quick looks at ROTK & Master Commander and they looked excellent in res and sharpness, Underworld also was very good. I'll have to exchange the box though because I'll get white streaking horizontal line flashs with a 6' component run to a 50"dlp rptv I use sometimes. Plus is won't pass DVI HDCP either to that TV.

Try to compare the PVR version when it comes on HD again - tough catching HellBoy - it was on a 7am last time! I am not convinced that ComCast is passing full HD yet! In addition I think their DVI is softer than component! So I think they are shaving bits to save on memory.

If it does pass true HD - then the idea is to figure out how to hack the box and get some HD test patterns on the PVR (somehow!)

" Craig's now hooked on high res. Do you watch some HDTV on your 79? The Comcast HD/pvr is pretty handy. I got Return of the King, Master/Commander, Falcon and the Snowman saved to take a look in HD. " -

What the hecks a PVR - some sort of HD hard disk recorder from Comcast? I was lucky to get them to bring the correct box for HDTV ( took two tries ). I switch back and forth watching HDTV on the H79 one day and on the HT1000 the next. Tonite it's a Starwars party with friends after dinner ( they're slowwwwwly building a home theater )!

Tom,

How exactly do I measure light output of the 300E? Do I stand with the meter in the light path or, do I need a tripod in the light path? How far way from the projector? Any other tips?

Frank

We were exactly back at the screen, you center up and aim at the PJ lens. Keep the sensor steady.

My distance was 14' and calculation was for a 92"wide 52"high screen.

My meter gave a strong reading 17.25ftc which made it 572lumens in econo and 7xxlumens in bright.

Problem is we don't know exactly how off each meter is. Did you get your 300e? How is it looking?

You should swap your basic HD box for the PVR at Comcast. The charge is $5 extra a month I think. A must hv imo.

Gentlemen:

Apologies for jumping in but.... have run into problems wih my Sony HS50 and amnow considering options...difficult for me to compare different projectors sidy by side.

Notwitstanding the price difference (a little less than twice) is there, in your view (and yes, as owners you may be bised) other DPL projectors that I should be considering at this (or near this) price point. In responding please note the following;

-- I have a Stewart FireHawk 92" diagonal (80" horizontal) screen.

-- I have complete light control in the room.

-- I will be sitting 13 to 14 feet from the screen.

-- I will be feeding it a scaled 1280 x 720 signal over an DVI/HDMI conenction via a TMA VSM 2048 scaler.

-- I will be viewing mainly DVDs and HDTV.

And lastly -- I am very frustrated as I have not had a HT for over 5 months while waiting for the HS50!

Yoru responses are greatly appreciated.

Joel

Quick question for you H79 owners: If the H79 is ceiling mounted, will the lens shift allow you to have the projector ABOVE the screen or only equal to the top of the screen. I know the literature says it only allows equal to the screen, but I thought someone with the H77 said there was enough flexibility to get the projector about 8" above the screen. If so, maybe they used the same design on the H79. Thanks.

Joelc

Your screen and viewing angle is fairly small - I would say it is just the right gain for a 480P Optoma H31 - maybe a bit bright for a Infocus SP4805. You really are not taking advantage of HD resolution at that viewing angle - are you sure you want to spend the bucks on 720P DLP? Most anything will work though as your lumens requirements are <500 to maintain above movie brightness for lamp life. The Optoma H79 and H77 are all plenty bright for that screen.

I'm about ready to put this buggy piece of junk through a wall.

Once again, for no apparent reason, I can't touch any of the RGB bias or gain controls without the entire color temp shifting way out of wack. I tried shutting it off and starting it up again with no effect on this problem.

I can hit the re-sync button on the remote, which gets things back to normal, but as soon as I touch one of the RGB controls, things shift again.

This has made any attempt at greyscale calibration completely impossible.

I think I'm done with the H79, as well as Optoma in general.

thirdkind

Is the menu hitting the sensor in between adjustments? Maybe that is confusing the heck out of your sensor. It took me three hours to do an Optoma because of that damn menu and having to wait for the sensor to get over it's panic attacks.

No, it's not the menu confusing the sensor.

This is a very obvious shift from grey to green/red/blue. Huge, huge shift. Touch red bias, and a grey 20 IRE window pattern turns dark green. Re-sync, touch blue bias, and a grey 20 IRE window pattern turns purple.

Originally posted by A. Vandelay
Quick question for you H79 owners: If the H79 is ceiling mounted, will the lens shift allow you to have the projector ABOVE the screen or only equal to the top of the screen. I know the literature says it only allows equal to the screen, but I thought someone with the H77 said there was enough flexibility to get the projector about 8" above the screen. If so, maybe they used the same design on the H79. Thanks.

For and Idea, my screen is 92"wide 106"diag, PJ is back 14' and the lens shift PJ inverted and bring the image 6" further down to line up video with the top of the screen.

Originally posted by Joelc
Gentlemen:

Apologies for jumping in but.... have run into problems wih my Sony HS50 and amnow considering options...difficult for me to compare different projectors sidy by side.

Notwitstanding the price difference (a little less than twice) is there, in your view (and yes, as owners you may be bised) other DPL projectors that I should be considering at this (or near this) price point. In responding please note the following;

-- I have a Stewart FireHawk 92" diagonal (80" horizontal) screen.

-- I have complete light control in the room.

-- I will be sitting 13 to 14 feet from the screen.

-- I will be feeding it a scaled 1280 x 720 signal over an DVI/HDMI conenction via a TMA VSM 2048 scaler.

With your setup you'll notice a super larger improvement in brightness, contrast should appear way better also. I'm not talking a little improvement here the intensity should be pretty obvious. Your screen is excellent at that size matched with the H79.

-- I will be viewing mainly DVDs and HDTV.

And lastly -- I am very frustrated as I have not had a HT for over 5 months while waiting for the HS50!

Yoru responses are greatly appreciated.

Joel

Guitarman:

Many thanks for the feedback..funny though how you and krasmuzik have different views...but, that said, it does appear as though you have a wealth of experience with the H79.

Joel

Originally posted by krasmuzik
Joelc

Your screen and viewing angle is fairly small - I would say it is just the right gain for a 480P Optoma H31 - maybe a bit bright for a Infocus SP4805. You really are not taking advantage of HD resolution at that viewing angle - are you sure you want to spend the bucks on 720P DLP?

Huh? A 92" Firehawk screen at 14' is not good for taking advantage of HD? Wow that's a weird response if I've ever heard one. It seems from reading many people's setups in this forum & from personal experience that a 92" screen at 14' is indeed a great size for HD, ED or any D. I'm baffled by that one. :eek:

Kras is just saying you could get by with a low res machine. But you're here and are coming from an HD projector so I figure you have the money and want to get the best you can.

thirdkind, just checked for you and mine has no shifts in gray fields when moving bias controls a click or so. You mentioned this before did it go away? Rysync I guess you've ruled out the source? Call into the tech area on Monday. They'll probably do a quick swap since it's under 30days.

Could be part of what was making your CIE chart foul up.

The original Star Wars looked spectacular on the H79 last night. Best I've ever seen it. I think my 106" x 45.25" scope screen is as large as I'd ever want to go at about a 13' viewing distance. Any bigger would be dizzying!!

Tom, this problem popped up once before, but I thought it was a fluke. If you look back a few pages, Gary Lightfoot mentioned that he saw the same thing on his H77.

I'm going to fire up the projector tonight for Deadwood, so hopefully it will be fine this time, but a restart didn't help last night. I hope you're correct regarding Optoma support and a quick swap is all it will take. Even if it's okay tonight, that doesn't mean it'll be fine a month or a year from now.

I can't believe she's okay with it, but my fiancee and I discussed it, and I now have the go-ahead to move up to the Marantz 12S4. I need to think about that though. Quite a bit more money.

Thirdkind:

Does she have any sisters? Marry that woman as soon as you can.

Joel

thirdkind,

Why are you not looking at the Sim2 300E for 2K more instead of the Marantz 12S4 at 4K more?

Frank

Originally posted by thirdkind I can't believe she's okay with it, but my fiancee and I discussed it, and I now have the go-ahead to move up to the Marantz 12S4. I need to think about that though. Quite a bit more money. [/B] FYI, I'm looking at the Marantz now. It appears to have the same red error over component that the H77 saw. I'll try to post the test results later today.

re: The color shift you discussed earlier... My H77 did it too. I'm pretty sure I discussed it deep in the H77 thread. But at any rate it did it. I found if I used the service menu only, I didn' get the problem. I haven't been into the svc menu on the 79 though.

S

One of the reasons that I am going with the 300E over the H79 is because of the color-shift that happens if you use 16x9 mode as opposed to Native mode. Has anyone figured out this problem yet?

Frank

Joelc

The seating limit of a 480P projector is 2xW. The seating limit of 720P projector 4/3xW (W=ScreenWidth). Many people hang out in the expensive projector forum never realizing that there are good HT projectors in the cheap forum. I try to let people know the PROS and CONS of their setups. If you trialed a 480P display for a 2x seat against a 720P display - you would indeed find the 480P display a better value - even if you still make the rational decision that you want the better resolution. With the 720P display you can sit even 5' closer and still be happy - with the 480P display you would not.

I do not at all disagree with guitarman - 92" FH is a sweetspot size screen for the H79 in terms of brightness over lamp life.

Originally posted by ftlee
Why are you not looking at the Sim2 300E for 2K more instead of the Marantz 12S4 at 4K more?

I had a Domino 30H for a brief time and wasn't terribly fond of its colors. Sim2's interpretation of the color red is like something out of a bad acid trip.

Originally posted by scotthorton
FYI, I'm looking at the Marantz now. It appears to have the same red error over component that the H77 saw. I'll try to post the test results later today.

re: The color shift you discussed earlier... My H77 did it too. I'm pretty sure I discussed it deep in the H77 thread. But at any rate it did it. I found if I used the service menu only, I didn' get the problem. I haven't been into the svc menu on the 79 though.

That's odd because word on the S4 is that it nails D65 out of the box. I would think their color decoding would be spot-on as well. What colorspace are you using? HD?

I've tried both the user menu and the service menu on the H79. Same shift, different day ;)

Originally posted by thirdkind That's odd because word on the S4 is that it nails D65 out of the box. I would think their color decoding would be spot-on as well. What colorspace are you using? HD? It's a S3 I'm looking at. I used SD colorspace, tried DVI and Component. The other day (when I didn't record it of course, and after no setting changes) I remembered it as nailing every spot on the chart. I'm discussing the possibilities with Mr. O1 as the the casue. I'll have to return the PJ before I could buy an accupel to confirm it's not a source problem :(

Note the pre and post are reversed in one or both of these. These are just quick runs at it, nothing to judge by..

Originally posted by krasmuzik
Joelc

The seating limit of a 480P projector is 2xW. The seating limit of 720P projector 4/3xW (W=ScreenWidth). Many people hang out in the expensive projector forum never realizing that there are good HT projectors in the cheap forum. I try to let people know the PROS and CONS of their setups. If you trialed a 480P display for a 2x seat against a 720P display - you would indeed find the 480P display a better value - even if you still make the rational decision that you want the better resolution. With the 720P display you can sit even 5' closer and still be happy - with the 480P display you would not.

I do not at all disagree with guitarman - 92" FH is a sweetspot size screen for the H79 in terms of brightness over lamp life.

Kris:

Thanks for the clarification...I started in the less expensive forum with a Sony HS50/51 but ran into problems...watch an awful lot of HDTV and have my heart set on a 1280x720 projector.

Joel

Even older movies look great on my H79 ( especially with the SDI - iscan HD - H79 combo ). My wife loves musicals so I bought her Bye Bye Birdie. That looked pretty good last night on the 2.35:1 screen. Close ups especially were very crisp and detailed. But Star Wars, A New Hope still looked the best I've ever seen it on Sat. night. The wife was very impressed with the picture - those exploding planets on a jet black starfield are most awesome looking ( the surround sound system didn't hurt either )!!! The H79 is a most excellent projector picture wise.

Originally posted by Craig Peer
Even older movies look great on my H79 ( especially with the SDI - iscan HD - H79 combo ). My wife loves musicals so I bought her Bye Bye Birdie. That looked pretty good last night on the 2.35:1 screen. Close ups especially were very crisp and detailed. But Star Wars, A New Hope still looked the best I've ever seen it on Sat. night. The wife was very impressed with the picture - those exploding planets on a jet black starfield are most awesome looking ( the surround sound system didn't hurt either )!!! The H79 is a most excellent projector picture wise. FYI, and honestly to my surprise, I find the scaler in the H79 superior to the other PJ's I've tested. In particular on SD TV from a Comcast STB, the H79 has the smoothest picture of all of them. My wife even noticed it, the other PJ's tend to look very grainy, the H79 does not. So Craig's missing out on that, I don't know if the Iscan is better or not on SD upscaling and processing. Maybe you can test that craig?

But the slow syncing still stinks if you like to channel surf!

I only use the iscan HD for DVDs, I use pass through for the Comcast box, so I'm using the H79's scaler for TV and HDTV. I have a very complicated set up that is feeding two projectors! Admittedly I don't do much channel surfing except on the HDTV channels, but my H79 doesn't resync once I'm watching TV of any kind. It only resyncs if I switch from the Comcast box to the DVD player.

Hmmmm, this raises an interesting question (at least for me). How good is the scaler in the H79 and is it worth it to pair it to an upscaling DVD player. At first I looked at the 3910 but figured that was too pricey given the fact that HDDVD and Bluray arre promised at year's end (even if only a few titles). Now I'm looking at the Panny s97 with the Faroudja 2310 chip. Is this chip/player a better scaler than the Optoma's? Is this a good match at all? Should I be barking up an entirely different tree?

Originally posted by Craig Peer
I only use the iscan HD for DVDs, I use pass through for the Comcast box, so I'm using the H79's scaler for TV and HDTV. I have a very complicated set up that is feeding two projectors! Admittedly I don't do much channel surfing except on the HDTV channels, but my H79 doesn't resync once I'm watching TV of any kind. It only resyncs if I switch from the Comcast box to the DVD player. Hmmm. Sure? Mine has to resync in 3 places:
1) SD channel to HD channel (480i to 1080i) or vice versa
2) Either of above to DVD (4801 or 1080i to 720p) or vice versa

It's the SD to HD channel resync that's most annoying. If you are in a HD (or SD) channel and accidentally go one channel too far (and land in the other format), it has to resync, then when you correct the surfing error, it has to do it again.

You may be right. I virtually never watch SD tv on a projector, only HDTV and usually only specific shows ( like 24 tonite ). That's probably why I think I use mine a lot and only put 350 hours a year on the bulb!

That's also why the superior picture and contrast of the H79 and the HT1000 for that matter makes changing bulbs after 800 hours worth it to me rather than watching a 7205. Sure, the 7205 will be brighter longer, but the blacks still look poor and the picture just isn't as good. I'll just change bulbs more frequently - so what! I could make out every detail in Dark City when I finally got around to watching it last week - amazing!!

Originally posted by Craig Peer
That's also why the superior picture and contrast of the H79 and the HT1000 for that matter makes changing bulbs after 800 hours worth it to me rather than watching a 7205. Sure, the 7205 will be brighter longer, but the blacks still look poor and the picture just isn't as good. I'll just change bulbs more frequently - so what! I could make out every detail in Dark City when I finally got around to watching it last week - amazing!! [/B] Yeah, I'm headed to the change bulb as needed camp now. Wishing the street prices on the Marantz S4 and Yamaha 1200 were less controlled. The Yamaha got a nice writeup in this months WSR. And more than one person has mentioned it's ultimate adjustability, similar to or better than Sharp as I understand it. But as it is, the difference between either would buy a case of H79 bulbs :D:D

But boy is that 7205 nice on HD material. You can see all the detail, it's just not as black. For that matter I'd say you can see more detail becasue of it. But for bright stuff, pow, that sucker is bright and pretty. But it spills light from every side except the back like it's been in battle. I even found spillage indirectly through the lens yesterday from where the bulb meets the rest of the guts. And gotta mention noise, it's got some. Turn on the '79 and you have to look for the LED (headlight) glowing on the side wall (20 ft away) to tell if it's on.

Of course since your PJ's are in an outbuilding attached to your ceiling, I guess noise isn't as much of a factor even if you didn't mind the blacks ;)

S

Messing around with colorfacts and the one-eye this morning, tuning to a Denon 1600 I picked up.

There is no shift in the color numbers (I use the three large cylinders of color w/% levels above) when flipping from native to 16.9, no shifting at 80 or 30IRE. Plus the CIE chart matched the last one I did where red is exactly at the mark. No problems when changing shade levels during the tune-up either, I use the Use RGB's.

Thought I should check it out for you again.

Originally posted by scotthorton
Hmmm. Sure? Mine has to resync in 3 places:
1) SD channel to HD channel (480i to 1080i) or vice versa
2) Either of above to DVD (4801 or 1080i to 720p) or vice versa

It's the SD to HD channel resync that's most annoying. If you are in a HD (or SD) channel and accidentally go one channel too far (and land in the other format), it has to resync, then when you correct the surfing error, it has to do it again.

If Craig has his cable box set to a fixed output (720p or 1080i), then the H79 doesn't have to re-sync as he changes channels. The box is doing all the processing. Considering the excellent processing in the H79, this is a less than optimal setup.

I have my box setup to pass through any incoming signals as they are, so SD channels come through in 480i, most HD channels come through in 1080i, and a few HD channels (ABC, FOX, ESPN) come through in 720p. The projector has to re-sync whenever I flip to a station that's in a different format from the one I'm currently viewing.

I agree that the sync times on the H79 are unusually long--much longer than any other projector I've seen.

Originally posted by thirdkind
I have my box setup to pass through any incoming signals as they are, so SD channels come through in 480i, most HD channels come through in 1080i, and a few HD channels (ABC, FOX, ESPN) come through in 720p. The projector has to re-sync whenever I flip to a station that's in a different format from the one I'm currently viewing. I don't believe my motorola will allow me to upconvert the SD stuff. It's not in the menu anywhere I can tell. I can have it output all the HD stuff at 1080i which I do. If it had to resync between different HD channels that would be more than I could take.

Cheers,
Scott

" If Craig has his cable box set to a fixed output (720p or 1080i), then the H79 doesn't have to re-sync as he changes channels. The box is doing all the processing. Considering the excellent processing in the H79, this is a less than optimal setup. " -

I have the box set to output 720p. Considering that I can see every whisker on Kiefer Sutherlands face ( and every detail on the lovely Jennifer Garner on Alias ), and beads of sweat on Monday Night Football players from 13' away - on either my HT1000 ( which I still use ) and my H79 - I don't see that I'm missing anything really. I may be missing something, but here is the bottom line - the picture looks absolutely stunning to me just the way it is. Now if Comcast or ABC could fix the audio screw ups I'd be 100% satisfied!!

" Of course since your PJ's are in an outbuilding attached to your ceiling, I guess noise isn't as much of a factor even if you didn't mind the blacks " -

I have come to hate projector noise. It got to the point where my once quiet HT1000 was too loud. That's why I built that soffit ( and for the cool built in custom movie theater look ). They should all be as quiet as the Optoma.

I have come to hate projector noise. <smip> They should all be as quiet as the Optoma. I hated it before I knew what it was. A thousand posts or so back in the H77 thread I was complaining about it. That was before I heard the alternatives. If I don't go with the H79 I'll be building an outbuilding for my ceiling too :).

I need an out building on the ceiling - there's 2 projectors and component + DVI cables to each one ( not to mention power cords and the plugs with surge suppressors ) - needed to hide all that crap somehow! The upper tier still gets a dark purple velvet valance that matches the one in front hiding the two electric screens - just for fun!

Tom,

Did Optoma build you a H79 SE? Your projector is 21% brighter than anyone elses. You do not have color-shift when changing between 16x9 and native modes. And, you do not have color-shift when calibrating the machine. Admit it, Optoma built you a special machine...

-ftlee

We know for sure that all H79s have color shift when switching between native and 16:9?

I think that's part of the problem--inconsistent behavior during normal adjustments.

Originally posted by Craig Peer
We know for sure that all H79s have color shift when switching between native and 16:9?

No not for sure, mine doesn't using colorfacts. The color levels like I said just sit in the same place. Anyone else using colorfacts with the H79 seeing color shifts when switching the aspect ratio?

I thought of a test, you could note the service numbers to see if there's any difference when changing aspect ratios. See if the color numbers change like when you send a different signal. I'll take a look also.


Yeah Frank, don't you know they cherry pick my machines, lol

I don't know how generalizable the following observations are, but I'll post them anyway in case they help someone else (like thirdkind?). There may be some variable I haven't accounted for - like a intermittently glitchy Bravo D1 video output section, for example - that's causing the problem.

Last night I decided to do some eyeball adjustments prior to an official calibration tomorrow. I also was curious about a subtle noise in reds that did contribute to a slightly oversaturated look. Using the regular AVIA DVD on my Bravo D1 I noted some weird grayscales - 30 IRE was darker than 20 IRE, and in a grayfield there was notable distortion at the lighter end that looked sort of like a bad colorwheel synch problem; the cw was set at 29 which is default. I could watch this distortion creep offscreen and go away as I turned down DLP red contrast, in the service menu, down to 43 or so. This also fixed the grayscale abnormalities. The picture looked a little dark but I figured I could adjust that today.

Today, with DVI input and AVIA I decided to center all regular menu contrast and brightness settings and go back to see how the problem presented again. I used picture mode cinema, gamma 1, image mode film w/ color temp 2, native mode. It turned out that centered brightness and contrast in the regular menu gave pretty good needle pulse tests for contrast and brightness. Back in the service menu I then was able to turn DLP red contrast up to default 50 without any distortion in the grayfield or altered grayscales. I didn't get apparent color shifting going to 16:9 from native this time. I did some minor tweak in DLP brightness - turning down red a bit and blue less. The picture does look good (still) but the subtle noise is gone and red does look less pronounced because of it.

Tomorrow I'm having the pj officially recalibrated and I'll see if I can replicate the grayfield distortion and grayscale oddities somehow with an AccuPel generator. I'd like to blame the easy-to-blame Bravo D1 but similar things happened with the AccuPel input when I had it calibrated before.

Dan

Originally posted by scotthorton
Hmmm. Sure? Mine has to resync in 3 places:
1) SD channel to HD channel (480i to 1080i) or vice versa
2) Either of above to DVD (4801 or 1080i to 720p) or vice versa

It's the SD to HD channel resync that's most annoying. If you are in a HD (or SD) channel and accidentally go one channel too far (and land in the other format), it has to resync, then when you correct the surfing error, it has to do it again.

WhoHoo! I fiddled with my Comcast Motorola STB tonight while testing the H79. If I turn off 480 override it apparantly scales for me because the PJ didn't go through it annoing resync. So off I go to surf then DOH!! I see the the motorola's ability to upconvert sucks. I mean it looks like the Marantz ;). So it's good SD via H79 scaler, ummmm smooooth pictures..... OR no resync and DOH! graaaainy picturrrres. Damn, got all excited over not so much. Tom: Ask Wing to fix the syncing. It appears it's actually OK (that is, syncs for a sec) then blanks again it does an extra scan (auto). If we could just TELL it what input type was inbound on it's ports, or better yet give us a DISCRETE to tell it, then it wouldn't have to go around the signal block looking fo the right box. They almost got it when they at least allowed us to lock to one input search, but let us lock i tto one input type on that input. OR get a better algorithim to do it.

BTW, it's STILL time for discrete aspect's and discrete ON/OFF. Can ou see if there's any progress there? Maybe the 79 has them and they just didn't tell us yet (wishful thinking).

Cheers,
Scott

Just thought I'd ask if anyone else with an H79 has a problem with the remote. My H79 remote I have to push sometimes 5 or 6 times before it recognizes a command. I even pointed it a few times right at the ir window on the H79 & occasionally it took multiple attempts to work. I haven't tried another set of batteries yet but used the ones that came with the projector. Figured they had to be pretty new since the projector is as well. Is this just possibly a bad remote?

I've also found the remote frustrating to use. Sometimes it doesn't seem to respond at all, sometimes I'll press a button once and it'll go through twice, like when navigating up and down within the menus.

re: remote. I've found you have to pause a sec between keypresses, and about 2 secs when exiting the last (main) menu screen. If I do these pauses, then mine works consistently. H77 was identical. I'm considering a RS232 to IR converter so I can send the H77 commands via RS232. It *appears* there is more flexibility there, not sure.

For the H79, would it hurt the CR and black level if switched to bright mode? I have a big screen and may need to use the bright mode from the beginning.

Also, from the review of H77 by projector Central, it said using 480p source tends to produce more brightness than using DVI source. Does that also apply to the H79?
Thanks,
Frank

Originally posted by kaka
Also, from the review of H77 by projector Central, it said using 480p source tends to produce more brightness than using DVI source. Does that also apply to the H79? No one who had a H77 ever agreed with that review's statement. My DVI was identical in brightness regardless of source when set even basically (i.e. with Avia contrast and brightness). And I don't see (or measure) any difference on the 79 either. HTH, Scott

CR isn't affected by using the bright mode. Blacks will look less black but whites are brighter to the same degree. Low APL or generally dark scenes are where there'll be a subjective hit. I see no brightness drop going to DVI from component 480p.

How big is your screen, Frank? If it's bigger than 110" diagonal there may be a need for the bright mode with a 1-1.3 gain screen, especially after bulb aging. Here's (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5320226#post5320226) some ideas on screen choice (see "Recommendations") .

Dan

Dan, my screen is about 1.5 gain at 130" diagonal (16:9). I rather replace the lamp earlier than changing the screen. I figure by the time I use the second lamp it should be time for upgrading my PJ. I only watch DVDs on the HT which is a dedicated light control room with the screen built in. So if the bright mode dose not hurt the overall PQ too much then I can make up my mind with the H79.
Frank

Frank,

What is the 1.5 gain screen material you are using? Which ones did you compare?

Thanks!

Pete

Frank, also remember that bright mode will at least double your fan noise - to a level that is maybe about what my BenQ 8700 was. This shouldn't be too much of an issue unless you're still expecting a super-quiet pj.

Dan

I have a 300E on the way for evaluation. Guess I'll be doing my own little mini-shootout this weekend.

Any requests?

Yes tell me if it's brighter than the h79? Are you ready for the crimson reds ;)

I'm sure the Sim is better - it costs a lot more. Once again one must remember to compare machines in the same price point. The 300e has an actual street price 30% more than the H79's street price. No matter how good it is, I've reached my spending limit :eek: ! But do let us know how you like it.

Actually, I don't think the reds on the H79 are all that different from the Sim2 30H I had previously.

I've been using Progressive Labs on every DLP I've had over the last year. Now that I think back, every single one measured hot on red. Every one. The plasma I measured (Panasonic 42PWD7UY) also had hot reds--again, according to Progressive Labs. The only reason the 12K measured as perfect is because it offers direct control over the color decoder, so I could lower red saturation individually to bring it in line.

Either I'm doing something wrong (very possible), a good number of the projectors on the market push red, or there's an issue with Progressive Labs. I'm tempted to purchase ColorFacts to see if its results are the same as Progressive Labs.

Originally posted by thirdkind
I have a 300E on the way for evaluation. Guess I'll be doing my own little mini-shootout this weekend.

Any requests? I'd like to know how bright it is compared to the 79 if you have a meter (I forget). Of course set to D65 and wiht same meter. The one I had was way dimmer (measured not subjective) and all indications were that the one I measured may have been a fluke unit since without any exception that I know of, I was the only one who saw that.

Most do push red. I don't believe the Colorfacts will make a difference, but if you have 30 days no reason not to satisfy your curiosity.

Tim

The purpose of trying Colorfacts is to determine if it provides the same results as Progressive Labs. If Colorfacts registers everything as normal but Progressive Labs shows the projectors pushing red, then we have a mystery to solve.

Originally posted by MichaelZ
I don't understand why some of you here who need to calibrate their PJ with a meter and software. <SNIP> They don't call it AV Science for nothing :)

MichaelZ

That is the point - generally projectors do not allow you to edit the primaries. And even if they do - there are limitations and side effects.

Compensating it with video decoder service menu adjustments or video saturation are potential workarounds with other impacts on the image.

Digital media is mastered using equipment with defined RGBW points. If your display points are incorrect - none of the colors are correct. The Director of Photography if he came to your house would say - you ain't watching the film I shot.

If the Matrix is Green and Zion is Blue - I want to see it the way the director intended. I can only do that with a cailbrated display. I don't want a Blue-Green Matrix!

And if somebody goes to a lot of effort to properly color correct their nature documentary - I want the clouds to just like the ones outside. They should not look Cyan.

Like jamin said - this IS AV Science afterall!


And don't worry about the colormeters - they have filters/integrators in them that simulate the reference eye response. So you don't have to worry about your calibrator being color blind or popping pills that make you see blue. The calibrators color sensor can see the DLP just fine (unless the sensor has gone out of calibration - thus some cross matching to verify!)

Originally posted by MichaelZ
A DLP has a rapidily flashing light of different colors and I am not sure how any generic meter would respond to those flashing lights. I know what red looks like and I know what blue and green and other colors should look like

First, all you know is what you think red, green, and blue should look like.

If I showed you two different shades of red, could you tell me which was "red" and which was "not red"? Of course not. I bet I could take two very different shades of red and show them to you a day apart, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Even your mood affects how you perceive color. What looks good to you one day might not on a different day, even with the exact same material.

Second, I would hardly call the calibration packages being used here a "generic meter". Some of us spend more on calibration equipment and software than a lot of people spend on their projector. Trust me, our tools are up to the task of measuring these "rapidly flashing lights".

In terms of colorimetry, for a given colorspace--HD, for example--there is a correct coordinate for red, a coordinate for blue, and a coordinate for green. These colors serve as a reference for all the other colors in the spectrum. If these primaries are off, so are the other colors.

If you want to adjust your displays so they look the way you feel they should, that's just fine. It's your money. We all have our preferences. My preference is accuracy, yours is...well, whatever it is. I prefer to know that what I'm watching is as close to the creator's original intent as possible. To me, anything less is a waste of many thousands of dollars in playback and display equipment.

I've read plenty of posts where people "calibrate" their displays so the colors "look like real life". I can't remember ever seeing a film with colors that accurately represented real life. Film just doesn't look like reality, and if you're adjusting your display so it does, then you're not seeing the film as it was meant to be seen.

Do you at least use a calibration disc such as DVE or Avia to get your colors somewhat correct, or do you tweak the colors based on the various material you watch? You're guaranteed to get results all over the map doing that.

Quite honestly, I'm stunned that someone would spend the kind of money on a projector like the H79 and not properly calibrate it or hire someone to do so.

I understand where MichaelZ is coming from in some regard. I bought, use & love the H79 & come here daily to read other people's experiences, comments, questions, while enjoying the main reason you buy a projector like this - to watch movies. That's not to say that everyone wouldn't like to get their projector calibrated better, and get some help in doing so, but I think it just gets to be a bit much to come to the H79 thread & read mostly what amounts to things related to Colorfacts & meters. I think, other than myself, Craig, Tom & a few others, most of the talk rarely gets around to how much we enjoy the projector, which screens look best with it, which dvd players to use, etc. You know - how enthusiasts are enjoying & getting the best out of it in practical terms.

Not to piss anyone off further but maybe there should be 2 threads for each popular projector - one for questions & talk about using & enjoying it & one for all the calibrating equipment tech-feast stuff for it.

Yes, AV Science is the name of the site, but in case you all didn't notice, this is also "the" place that everybody from all walks comes to find out about the latest home theater gear. It's just as important for some to get it close & enjoy it to the fullest as it is for others to struggle for weeks looking for perfection. And no one should be lambasted for doing either, there's room for everyone here.

Oh - I'm gonna be popular after this one. :rolleyes: