Well, I finally pulled the trigger on a H78DC3. I'll be upgrading from an infocus LS-110. Will arrive tomorrow. Yippee!

I'm also rennovating my room, which is very multipurpose. (The upstairs of my house is one open loft-like area.) I always knew intellectually that the off-white walls were hurting contrast, but we repainted this weekend to a dark red, and wow what a difference, even with the old PJ. It really highlights how little contrast the old PJ has. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince the wife to do dark ceilings.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to take some good comparative picks of the difference in PQ from the two projectors before I take down the old one. Should be interesting to compare a two generation jump and put it in absolute terms.

Well, I finally pulled the trigger on a H78DC3. I'll be upgrading from an infocus LS-110. Will arrive tomorrow. Yippee!

I'm also rennovating my room, which is very multipurpose. (The upstairs of my house is one open loft-like area.) I always knew intellectually that the off-white walls were hurting contrast, but we repainted this weekend to a dark red, and wow what a difference, even with the old PJ. It really highlights how little contrast the old PJ has. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince the wife to do dark ceilings.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to take some good comparative picks of the difference in PQ from the two projectors before I take down the old one. Should be interesting to compare a two generation jump and put it in absolute terms.

good call on the red walls, it sounds tacky to people when you tell them, but i always get compliments when they see it.

It's a multi-layered, really rich Chinese red. Makes my wife happy, which in turn allows me to get new toys! ;-)

I just got a replacement H78 on Saturday. It's amazing how bright it is. I had sent it in because it had gone suddenly dim at about 100 hours. I had forgotten the lens cap when I first set it up, and thought " gee that looks a little blurry, but it sure is brighter than before". After removing the cap it was even that much brighter. It's at least 4x brighter. They never did tell me what was wrong with the first one. I guess it was more than a bulb since they replaced the whole thing.

I see in various pictures that the exaust on the H78 is on one side toward the rear. Where is the air intake, and is there a filter that requires cleaning?

Also, anyone know the distance from the bottom of the projector to the center of the lens?

Well, I finally pulled the trigger on a H78DC3. I'll be upgrading from an infocus LS-110. Will arrive tomorrow. Yippee!

walls were hurting contrast, but we repainted this weekend to a dark red, and wow what a difference, even with the old PJ. It really highlights how little contrast the old PJ has. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince the wife to do dark ceilings.
.

Talk her into a flat black ceiling or even the same red in a flat finish. Any light reflected in the room causes massive issues in quality of the percieved image. I went to the H78 from an NEC XG CRT and I am very happy.

I see in various pictures that the exaust on the H78 is on one side toward the rear. Where is the air intake, and is there a filter that requires cleaning?

Also, anyone know the distance from the bottom of the projector to the center of the lens?

Intake is on the bottom center, large door with extra filter coverage that needs to be cleaned after 6months or 3months if dusts a problem. The optics are sealed, the filter is just extra protection. Look up the measurments in the manual at Optoma's website, lens is dead center so substract by half.

I had a plexiglass shelf at one time. I used 18.5" double rail pueter color system that looked nice. I tried to mount the PJ at head level to use all the High power screens gain but it just couldn't get it to work right with the Panamorph. The shelf would hit in me in the head at the right level. All well not a biggie. However, it did look nice with the plexiglass. It made the PJ really stand out. Some people think the Optomas a ugly but I think they are nice looking. The white color works well in "my" room. I suggest 1/2" plexiglass to do want you want. I just doubled with two sheets of 1/4".

http://www.msu.edu/~hagenmi1/IMG_0501.jpg

I ended up back wall mounting mine with these cable brackets from the Container Store. I took a 3/4" MDF square & painted it the dark red color of the room. It looks slick. I may end up doing Plexiglass eventually.

Cable bracket (http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?PRODID=60615&CATID=13395&searchId=2322768&itemIndex=2)

No way, no how Mike. That's not a battle I could win, and one of the secrets to staying married is knowing which battles to pick. ;-)

Cool idea none-the-less...

Somwhere's in here I thought I read a post that implied that the H78DC3 includes a HDMI DVI converter? Is that so or was I just smokin' crack ?

Mine came with a DVI to HDMI converter.

So that's a male DVI to female HDMI adapter (so that a normal male to male HDMI cable can plug in) ?

I seem to have lost all RED when I input a signal via DVI (H79). Component is fine. Is this possible? When I display a color pattern all I get is yellow/white/blue/black. Is there someway to reset everything back to factory settings (besides the menu items)? Thanks.



EDIT: Looks like I'm having a cable problem..... Thanks.

So that's a male DVI to female HDMI adapter (so that a normal male to male HDMI cable can plug in) ?

Exactly right.

Somwhere's in here I thought I read a post that implied that the H78DC3 includes a HDMI DVI converter? Is that so or was I just smokin' crack ?

Yes, mine came with a male DVI to female HDMI converter.

Well, dern, I ordered an extra from BetterCables. I guess I'll let the order stand and keep it in my back pocket. PJ arrives today, I'm all tingly. :-)

My biggest worry is that I'm relying on a 50 foot HDMI cable, and I'm petrified a 720P signal is not going to carry.

Are any image/cropping problems introduced on the H78 when using the 'digital' lens shift at maximum? My unit will be at the minimum of the zoom range as well, due to mounting restrictions.

AVS guys, the details for the AVS special for the H78? I can't seem to get a reply.

Edited by me.... IF any AVS folks such as Jason/Dave/Daniel see this please respond via email/PM

Will a single-link dvi-d to dvi-d cable work for this projector from a PC with the nvidia 6600 which has a dvi output?

CartBaby: I hope so, I have that exact same setup that I'm in the process of putting together, my DVI-D cable shipped yesterday.... Both manuals say that they support the digital DVI connection, so I assume it will work, anyone actually done it?

Bubba,
Not sure what you mean by "digital lens shift" There is the power (physical) lens shift and then you can probably "shift" the image on the panel electronically ... which yes would cause you to crop part of it.

Is the H78's lens shift optical (physical)? I thought that I'd read it was digital.

In any case, are there any image issues when using the shift at the extreme, and would using minimum zoom cause any problems combined with maximum lens shift?

What sucks if if you are an H79 owner, and become an H78DC3 owner by changing bulbs :).I wanted a bright picture back and froogled for a new bulb for my H79, and chose the least expensive one listed as a replacement for the H77/79. No doubt it's the same one as found in the H78DC3. It looks fine, quite bright, at least as bright as when I first got my H79.

Dan

I just got my H78DC3 a week ago, and am fairly happy with the projector except for the overall softness of the image quality. I spent a couple hours setting contrast, brightness and tones, etc. to where I like it, and am really impressed with the image quality in relation to white and black levels, color and hues, trueness of skin tone and some pretty breathtaking images where landscapes are the image on the screen.

But one thing I am disappointed in, is the overall softness of the image. No matter what I do, the image is too soft for my (or most of my friends) liking. I had a bunch of friends come over on the weekend, and they all commented in the fact that the picture looks too soft (almost leaning towards being a tad on the blurry side). I got the focus set the best I can get, and the Sharpness turned to 4 (5 is too high as it starts to show a lot of pixeling).

I think this softness of image may be inherent to Optoma projectors. Before I purchased the H78, I went to a local Optoma authorized dealer to see the H79 in action. My immediate reaction to the picture quality was... too soft. I said to the salesperson/tech "Why is the picture so soft looking... it almost looks a tad on the blurry side". He told me that Optoma projectors have a softer image than most other projectors to give the image a more film like look.

I assume the softness of the H78 or H79 picture is possibly in the optics of the lenses they use.

Although the H78 has some real strengths in its picture quality, I "personally" find the softness of the image to be a personal drawback to me, and is hard to get use to.

If all my friends made similar comments that the picture is too soft, then I know my eyesight isn't going... at least not yet! I know some people (maybe most people) like the soft image of the Optoma.

Odd, I have owned many PJs ( (pana 300u, 500u, and Sanyo Z2)and my h78 is plenty sharp. In fact I defocus slightly and I even use a panamorph lens to boot. I do use a HTPC with theaterTek and FFDshow. Interesting....

The optics are fine, fine, fine. It's easy enough to stand right next to the screen and use the power focus until you can see each and every pixel distinctly.

Any softness you percieve would be in the signal processing. Just got mine today, but fed a 720p signal it is pixel perfect, so the softness is either in your source, or in the scaling. Is the PJ doing the scaling, or your source?

I did notice that 1080i channels are a little softer than I would like ... but since my cable box is doing the scaling, it kind of has to take the blame. (At least until I can try switching it to 1080i and letting the H78 do the scaling.)

Boohoo for me. I'm getting minor sparklies from a 50' BetterCables HDMI cable from my Comcast HD box (DVI adapters at both ends.) I was afraid of this. Can't realistically find a better cable, so I;m going to wait until my OPPO player arrives to see if it's signal is a little stronger.

Boohoo for me. I'm getting minor sparklies from a 50' BetterCables HDMI cable from my Comcast HD box (DVI adapters at both ends.) I was afraid of this. Can't realistically find a better cable, so I;m going to wait until my OPPO player arrives to see if it's signal is a little stronger.

Joe,
The day I connected my H77 to my D* HDTIVO and saw sparklies, I was very bummed. I needed to build hours for a calibration, so I left it and went into the other room. I came back and the sparlies were gone. I get them with the D* every time I start the projector, but they go away after a few minutes. Must be something in the electronics "improves" as it heats. Here's hoping your's go away too.
I have a cheapie 30' cable and I never have a problem with my Oppo, just HDTIVO.

I watched for over an hour and the sparklies stayed. I can use component for the HDTV, so as long as the OPPO is hot, I'm ok. I was really hoping to only have one cable, though.

Boohoo for me. I'm getting minor sparklies from a 50' BetterCables HDMI cable from my Comcast HD box (DVI adapters at both ends.) I was afraid of this. Can't realistically find a better cable, so I;m going to wait until my OPPO player arrives to see if it's signal is a little stronger.

i heard about a fiberoptic dvi cable that is supposed to do a better job for long runs, kinda expensive though (about half the cost of the high end audio quest silver wires)

Yeah, $600 for a cable is not in my budget right now.

:(

Heard a loud pop this morning while my wife was watching something on our 4 month old H79. Turned out the lamp exploded after only about 100 hours of usage.

When I first received my H79 it was DOA. Had to wait a week for a replacement. Now this.

Am I just unlucky or does Optoma have a quality problem? I ran my Runco CRT for 5 years with no problems. Granted, the Optoma has better PQ, but right now I have NO PQ.

Another question. I paid for Optoma $$ for the extra warranty. I thought this gave me advance replacement shipments (they send the replacement part before they receive the defective one). Didn't work for the lamp. Had to fork over $400 to get them to ship out the new one. Supposedly, they will give me a refund when they receive the busted lamp.

Hope you all have better luck with your projectors.

Sorry to be negative in the happy forum.

Merry Christmas,
Mark

Mark,
I had a run of bad luck with bulbs with my previous (Infocus) PJ. And then I had one that lasted almost double as long as intended. Bulbs are finicky, It's most likely not Optoma related.

:(

Heard a loud pop this morning while my wife was watching something on our 4 month old H79. Turned out the lamp exploded after only about 100 hours of usage.

When I first received my H79 it was DOA. Had to wait a week for a replacement. Now this.

Am I just unlucky or does Optoma have a quality problem? I ran my Runco CRT for 5 years with no problems. Granted, the Optoma has better PQ, but right now I have NO PQ.

Another question. I paid for Optoma $$ for the extra warranty. I thought this gave me advance replacement shipments (they send the replacement part before they receive the defective one). Didn't work for the lamp. Had to fork over $400 to get them to ship out the new one. Supposedly, they will give me a refund when they receive the busted lamp.

Hope you all have better luck with your projectors.

Sorry to be negative in the happy forum.

Merry Christmas,
Mark


i think the standard waranty for the h79 is 6 month hot swap, and 3 year parts but i would doubt the bulb would be part of that

joe12south,

You had said earlier that you had a 106" Da-Lite screen, and the H78DC3. I'm about to order a screen of the same size, and can't decide between the standard Cinema Vision and Cinema Vision High Contrast. How is yours looking? Is it bright enough on that size screen too?

-Nate

Nate,
I've only spent a few hours with it now, but it's demonstrably brighter than my LS-100 was (which is supposed to be 300 lumens brighter) on the same screen. I really, really appreciate deep blacks, so personally I would go with the HCCV no question. My room has very dark walls, as well, so I'm not getting much reflection.

I just got my H78DC3 a week ago, and am fairly happy with the projector except for the overall softness of the image quality. I spent a couple hours setting contrast, brightness and tones, etc. to where I like it, and am really impressed with the image quality in relation to white and black levels, color and hues, trueness of skin tone and some pretty breathtaking images where landscapes are the image on the screen.

But one thing I am disappointed in, is the overall softness of the image. No matter what I do, the image is too soft for my (or most of my friends) liking. I had a bunch of friends come over on the weekend, and they all commented in the fact that the picture looks too soft (almost leaning towards being a tad on the blurry side). I got the focus set the best I can get, and the Sharpness turned to 4 (5 is too high as it starts to show a lot of pixeling).

I think this softness of image may be inherent to Optoma projectors. Before I purchased the H78, I went to a local Optoma authorized dealer to see the H79 in action. My immediate reaction to the picture quality was... too soft. I said to the salesperson/tech "Why is the picture so soft looking... it almost looks a tad on the blurry side". He told me that Optoma projectors have a softer image than most other projectors to give the image a more film like look.

I assume the softness of the H78 or H79 picture is possibly in the optics of the lenses they use.

Although the H78 has some real strengths in its picture quality, I "personally" find the softness of the image to be a personal drawback to me, and is hard to get use to.

If all my friends made similar comments that the picture is too soft, then I know my eyesight isn't going... at least not yet! I know some people (maybe most people) like the soft image of the Optoma.

Not soft, I got complaints on some of my screen shots being too sharp.
H77
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h77dragon1.jpg

Contrast effects sharpness, set it to the max with Avia. Try an Oppo Digital DVD player at 720p with it's sharpness set at low or medium and you'll see sharp. Too sharp, you'll see every zit an actor ever had. :)

Another thing could be the hand picked parts vs not so hand picked.

....
I think this softness of image may be inherent to Optoma projectors...


What is the source and how is it connected? My H79 is very sharp when fed HD via DVI. If you are seeing a soft image with an H79 it is probably due to using an analog source rather than taking advantage of the digital input.

Could be just tuning with Avia would help.

I get sharp images with sharpness at 1 and over component and ofcourse DVI.

This D-theater shot is over component at 1080i and aspect set at native.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79dtheater1.jpg

This superbowl shot is also over component and comcast box set at 1080i.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79superhd2.jpg

That's very nice contrast, probably why we're all so happy. Do we need a better HD image than this? ;)

:(

Heard a loud pop this morning while my wife was watching something on our 4 month old H79. Turned out the lamp exploded after only about 100 hours of usage.

When I first received my H79 it was DOA. Had to wait a week for a replacement. Now this.

Am I just unlucky or does Optoma have a quality problem? I ran my Runco CRT for 5 years with no problems. Granted, the Optoma has better PQ, but right now I have NO PQ.


Sorry to hear about your bulb Mark. Hopefully you'll be glad to know you're not the only one. In the last week my bulb has significantly dimmed to the point that it is now unwatchable even on a Da-lite high power screen. I borrowed a light meter and measured a whopping 10 lumens on the 100 IRE field in Avia. That's 30 lumens on the high power :eek:. My bulb only has 360 hours and I have always been very careful with it.

I'm going to complain to Optoma but I doubt they'll do anything for me. I have a new bulb on the way. Possibly something is wrong with the pj which I'll know when I stick in the bulb. The thing I'm worried about is the new bulb looking just as bright as it should but this happening again because of something wrong with the pj such as improper ignition voltages or something.

Very disappointing. I'm thinking about starting a thread or even one with a poll for H77,78DC3,79 owners and this issue to see if there is indeed a reliabilty problem with these bulbs. I'm also worried that the high heat due to the low fan noise on these units may be the culprit.

Brent

Do we need a better HD image than this? ;)

If you've seen a Ruby you'd know the answer to that question is YES!

Guitarman, can you comment on your bulb history, brightness compared to new and at what hours you've noticed any changes? Thanks.

Brent

Brightness plus contrast is oh so very important. :)

Actually I just ran a test on the 1200hrs 250UHP bulb vs new.

17.75ftc when new 8.25ftc after 1200hrs. I can get up to 10.50ftc by going to bright mode. The 17.75ftc equates to about 585lumens on a 106" 1.0gain screen.

Hopefully just joined the Happy H78DC3 club as my order is processed and will probably be in on Monday. Props to John at Integrity Home Theaters.... Great to deal with knowledgeable and part of AVS... What more can you ask for.... OK the projector here today but oh well :-)

Hoping to marry the projector to a New Denon 1920 and a D__H Ne____K 942 HDTV DVR receiver.... Both also here on Monday.....

Smile is big now will be huge on Monday as I have that day off :-)

Could be just tuning with Avia would help.

I get sharp images with sharpness at 1 and over component and ofcourse DVI.

This D-theater shot is over component at 1080i and aspect set at native.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79dtheater1.jpg

This superbowl shot is also over component and comcast box set at 1080i.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/h79superhd2.jpg

That's very nice contrast, probably why we're all so happy. Do we need a better HD image than this? ;)

That I Robot shot does not even do the h-78/JVC5u justice imo....looks more like sd dvd than dvhs ;)

Must be the parts difference :D

Well, I couldn't take it anymore...the H78DC3 was sitting in its box, begging for me to open it...so I finally broke down and did. I love this projector. It looks great! I am a little bit unfamiliar with DVI / HDMI though, so, please forgive me if what I'm about to ask is a dumb question...

What is the difference between RGB and YCrCb over DVI / HDMI, is one better than the other? Which should I set my DVD player to output? I had an image displaying over an HDMI to DVI cable (and a 35' cable at that! No image breakup! YES!!) but couldn't figure out what the difference was between the two output formats. Could someone help me out here?

Hopefully just joined the Happy H78DC3 club as my order is processed and will probably be in on Monday. Props to John at Integrity Home Theaters.... Great to deal with knowledgeable and part of AVS... What more can you ask for.... OK the projector here today but oh well :-)

Hoping to marry the projector to a New Denon 1920 and a D__H Ne____K 942 HDTV DVR receiver.... Both also here on Monday.....

Smile is big now will be huge on Monday as I have that day off :-)

Congrats on your purchase! If you notice the crawling blocks in your dark scenes and solid colors, don't fret. There's nothing wrong with your projector, it's the DVD player. The Optoma will show the macroblocking bug that the Denon (and all the other)Faroudja upconverting players have.

Had a little bit of time to play with the PJ this weekend (but mostly rennovating, not watching ... boohoo.)

Oppo player over DVI is freakin' gorgeous. Almost zero calibration needed.

HDTV over component (Comcast/Motorola) is a bit of a mess. Very over-saturated, very dark. (Both black crush and gamma.) Unfortunately I get sparklies over DVI. (But not from the Oppo, the signal from the Motorola box must be weak.)

Since I don't have any way to reliably calibrate the cable box (no patterns) anybody have any guidance or little tricks? I seem to remember that the component inputs are universally this way?

I hope to soon join the ´happy H79 owners society´ since I also ordered a H79. Too bad the delivery date is somewhat uncertain here in Sweden and from where I ordered, but they think it will be here sometime during the first two weeks of January. I sold my BenQ 8700+ yesterday so now I'm going to spend the Chrismas holidays sadly without Donald Duck on the big screen :( I will use a Denon DVD3910 with DVI cabling just like I have done with the BenQ. I am very happy with the picture using DVI on the 3910, especially with the new firmware (6609-B I think it was?). Now I will go into suffering until January, wake me up when it's here... :o

Welcome volvo guy, I'm a Saab guy. :)

Joe,
Set the Motorola cable box to either 720p or 1080i w/480i overide. I found 480i overide makes SDTV sharper. The H79's pixelworks chip does the best job at scaling. For all video I start with Cinema gamma 1, Image color temp 2 and TV. You'll have to use your eye for contrast and brightness. Each machine will be different mine happen to be at -12 for contrast and 10 for brightness, these were tuned with the Accupel. Color is at zero, sharpness at 3, since this is TV I also set white peak to 6.

I have advanced numbers done with colorfacts probably won't help you but here goes -

R-contrast -4
G-contrast -8
B-contrast -8
R-brightness-11
G-brightness 0
B-brightness 3

I got the h78dc3 last week and put it on a shelf about 17 feet back. The picture is great and color is improved from my 4805, i.e. grass is like grass now. Also hd matieral is watchable now, like the new superman trailer.

My problem is i get eye fatigue with new projectors/new bulb after only 2 hours. Is there anything i can do about that? I had an ND2 filter for the 4805 and that helped. Is there something similar I can do with the h78?

Thanks, Tom. That will give me a good starting point.
I can't deal with waiting for the sync-lock with 480i override ... besides, I don't care if the crappy channels look like crap. ;-)

I have advanced numbers done with colorfacts probably won't help you but here goes -

R-contrast -4
G-contrast -8
B-contrast -8
R-brightness-11
G-brightness 0
B-brightness 3

With a new bulb in my H79 and using a Spyder2Pro 2.0, I got quite similar results with respect to overall ratios of cuts and gains. Although it relates to the H77, Ursa/Bill's attached pdf is a very nice description of calibrating:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6471368&&#post6471368

Dan

...Each machine will be different mine happen to be at -12 for contrast and 10 for brightness, ....I also set white peak to 6.




Tom,

Are you sure those numbers are right? They seem a little upside down to me with Contrast so low and brightness so high. Is that because you have the white peaking up to 6? I had peaking at zero, maybe that's why:confused:?

Tom's numbers would make sense. My highlights were blown out, shadows completely swamped, and crazy saturation. This is only the component input (RCA) though ... over DVI it was almost dead on with the defaults.

Dang, I don't know what machine you got from Optoma:eek:!!!

Thanks Tom,

I am looking forward to getting a lot of great tips on how to set up the H79 picture ;) I used a BenQ 8700+ for 1½ years along with a Denon DVD-3910 (firmware 6609-B) projecting through DVI on a Dalite 1.1 gain "greyish" screen (but mostly white-ish though) ;) and I have been VERY satisfied with the picture. The 8700+ had been tweak with Takisots values through the service menu. Altough I was happy with the picture, the 1300 hours on the lamp and the quite high noise level of the pj made me sell it this weekend. So after a lot of research I ordered the H79 and I hope I will like it as much as I did the 8700+ but I worry about calibration. The 8700+ I had was REALLY great and I want just as good and preferably better with the H79. There are no ISF calibrators nearby (havent heard of any at all in Sweden actually..) so I will give my trusty old eyes a go at it :D Some tips on basic settings though would be great, where and what to start with and so on. I will only use the pjs DVI connection at 720p. Thanks for any tips.

Edit: Didn't read the thread all the way through, now I see there are a few calibration tips :o

Hey, you pay for the flight to Sweden and I'm there dude:)!!!

Hey, you pay for the flight to Sweden and I'm there dude:)!!!

Hehe, if I had unlimited funds I would not hesitate for a moment to do that! ;)

Dang. I thought I might have a free vacation out of this deal:(!!!

Look up Spatz as a user name here. He's in Germany and may be able to help you out.

Look up Spatz as a user name here. He's in Germany and may be able to help you out.

Thanks, I will give that a try.

I got the h78dc3 last week and put it on a shelf about 17 feet back. The picture is great and color is improved from my 4805, i.e. grass is like grass now. Also hd matieral is watchable now, like the new superman trailer.

My problem is i get eye fatigue with new projectors/new bulb after only 2 hours. Is there anything i can do about that? I had an ND2 filter for the 4805 and that helped. Is there something similar I can do with the h78?

Well, if you're having problems with eye fatigue from using a new bulb, send me the new low hour bulb from your H78DC3, and I'll be happy to replace it with the bulb from my H78DC3 once I've put a few hundred hours on it. That should make both parties involved happy. Lol...just kidding of course.

How big is your screen? I tend to get eye fatigue as well when watching a screen size that is "too large" for my field of vision, because I'm constantly tracking my eyes across the screen to see everything on screen at once, but again, this could just be me. I'm planning on using a 106" screen size from 16' projection distance with my H78DC3. Initially I had considered 119", but it was just too large for me. You could try zooming the image smaller and watching a movie, to see if it has any effect on your eye fatigue problem.

My problem is i get eye fatigue with new projectors/new bulb after only 2 hours. Is there anything i can do about that? I had an ND2 filter for the 4805 and that helped. Is there something similar I can do with the h78?
Well, you could start with the ND2 again. I know that personally, even though the H78 has a faster color wheel than my old LS-110, I see more rainbows because of the much increased contrast.

My H79 produces outstanding definition from cable HD signals. On the down side the lamp is turning off with red and blinking blue light on. I only have 390 hours on the lamp. Is this normal for a lamp going out or is there something else wrong.

Used a screen research perforated 126" screen with H79. It is really a specially woven cloth. Unbeatable combination if you want your LCR speakers behind the screen and great HD

I have started searching for my dream pj since summer. I thought I would get the H78. I am having a change of heart after reading all the reviews of the latest DLP and LCD pj. I am resolving to order the Epson Cinema 550 just because of the cost difference of $2000 Canadian.

Also, to buy a 720p at this time, I figure I could use it for a couple of years then the price of 1080p pj will come down and perhaps I can trade up then. I am sick and tired of the waiting game.

I still think the H78 is the best in performance, maybe when the 1080p comes out in spring, its price will come down . My hesitation is, will it come down to about the price I pay for the
Epson Cinema 550 ,ie . $2500 Canadian.

Anyone trying to talk me into waiting again.
By the way, I plan to have the Optoma Graywolf screen (Gray 106").

Si

Just a quick calibration query.

I have the pioneer 989 (79avi) and to get it to pass Pluge i have to set it to 7.5IRE.

Now it has two RGB settings, one is RGB and the other is full range RGB.

Now if i set it to full range RGB and on the DVD player back the brightness down by one point, ie -1 i then it no longer pass BTB with DVE. however if i use the resync button on the H79 it then still passes black., if i sync using the DVI button to digital RGB then i will only pass black if i raise the DVD players brightness to 0 or +1 onward.
With full range RGB i get such better colour saturation its beautiful.

I get the same kind of issue with the S97 as well, if the player is set for "0" for brightness it wont pass black via digital RGB on the H79, but if i go just +1 it then passes black fine.

Is there any reason for this, or is it just the way it is?

the 989 realy gives the s97 a real whoopin as far as overall pic goes though.

When you hit resync on the H78 it sets the DVI levels to pc from video. When you hit DVI it will set them back to video. It's likely that Full Range RGB is pc levels and RGB is video levels.

When you hit resync on the H78 it sets the DVI levels to pc from video. When you hit DVI it will set them back to video. It's likely that Full Range RGB is pc levels and RGB is video levels.

What is the resync-botton, when is it used?

Tom,

Are you sure those numbers are right? They seem a little upside down to me with Contrast so low and brightness so high. Is that because you have the white peaking up to 6? I had peaking at zero, maybe that's why:confused:?

Dave,
Right usually contrast is higher than brightness but not in this case for this signal (HDTV). This morning since the Accupel can test 0 or 7.5 brightness levels I re-tuned for 7.5, here contrast was higher than brightness. But the blacks are severly crushed. I went back to the other zero/black tuning. Confirms with the Motorola Comcast box YPbPr 0-black is needed.

volvoguy,
Resync takes you to PC-level brightness. You should try to avoid this becuase you can't use the Image advanced RGB adjustments with PC/level, we get colorshifts when tuning these.

With Video level brightness which is what you get when first hitting the DVI-button, we can use the Image Advanced adjustments with no problem. So if you use PC try to set the PC to output Video level brightness.

Also a BTB question. On DVE if i get the DVD player to pass pluge so that the 3rd outer bars disappear (set via the DVD players brightness control), if i were to then raise brightness via the projector should i only see two bars because the DVD player is correctly set to BTB (and of course you can see it)?.

My H79 produces outstanding definition from cable HD signals. On the down side the lamp is turning off with red and blinking blue light on. I only have 390 hours on the lamp. Is this normal for a lamp going out or is there something else wrong.

This is a warning that your bulb is about ready to die....according to the manual.

Tom:

When I get my H79 hooked up to the Denon DVD3910 at 720p using DVI-DVI, what should be the basic settings I should use on the PJ? My room has white walls and ceiling, but is totally dark when curtains are drawn. Screen is a 90" Da-lite 1.1 gain white but somewhat "greyish". Colors might be hard to get perfect? Do you have any default values you think I could begin with? I have looked around but there are NO calibrators available nearby at all so that option is out for me. Must calibrate to the best of my ability and try to trust my eyes. I will buy the DVE PAL calibration disc though and give that a go.

In the Picture menu set -
Cinema
gamma 1

In the Image menu
zero white peak
color temp 2
TV

Tune the brightness and contrast & color in the picture menu with DVE.

"Some tuning tips for all displays that have advance RGB-adjustments for grayscale.

Look for a graysteps pattern in DVE.

If it's not dead on grays to white make final changes with the Image menu's user advanced adjustments.

Example - you see red/pink tint in the light gray/white. Leave red at zero and increase the G/B till the light grays look gray to white

R-contrast 0
G-contrast +2
B-contrast +2

If you see green in the dark grays/black increase R/B
R-brightness +2
G-brightness 0
B-brightness +2

Go back and re-do the contrast and brightness in the Picture menu.

Thanks! I will do that as soon as I get the pj. I did some tweaking in the service menu on my BenQ 8700+. It really helped the picture a lot, I used Takisots values for the servicemenu. Are there any basic settings to enter in the service menu of the H79? (sorry I didn't real all this thread through yet, maybe this has already been covered :))

Just burned out my lamp at less than 500 hours. Anyone else had short lamp life. My brand new H79 installed first week of June.

Just burned out my lamp at less than 500 hours. Anyone else had short lamp life. My brand new H79 installed first week of June.

Did you get the blue and red light warning at start up before this happened?

Lamps are the most fragile, frustrating part of front projection systems. I keep my fingers crossed everytime I hit the power button.

The H78 is so quiet that the first time I powered it up I was afraid I had a bum machine because you could actually hear my old LS-110 striking the lamp, and always gasped an extended whine when it kicked in.

You can do everything with the user menu.


jdcates, 1200hrs and still going that's bad luck. It's bound to happen to me but so far with oh about 10 DLP projectors no blow outs, YET. :(

No doubt that lamp replacement is part of pj ownership and anything can happen.....but my blue and red light came on twice now at start up...suggesting my bulb is also about to go.
I started with a Gray Wolf screen which I could not use for dark material at just over 200 hours because the lamp lost so many lumens....then I bought a hi power which now is actually looking quite dim on dark movies.
My 78 has always been turned off with the remote...has 2.5 inches of clearance for the intake,has had its filter cleaned twice and its sits on a tv wall stand that sticks out from the wall on 1-1/4" thick rubber coated cork board spacers for under the feet...and always ran in low power mode.

I have never been as careful with my other pj's as this one.....yet my bulbs about to say bye bye at just under 600 hours and less than 4 months of ownership.

With the amount of early bulb life failure on these pj's....I am starting to wonder if theres not a high price to pay for the quiet db's.

I love this pj's picture....but if (and its obviously yet to be determined)I have to buy 3 bulbs a year....its not going to be quite the bargain I thought it was at 4k.

My two prior pj's that both had front exhaust(Infocus) and were both mounted in the exact same way....but shut down with the power switch by my kids many times with no fan to cool the bulb never had a bulb go bad or dim as fast as this one.
First pj bulb lasted over 2k...second pj was sold with 1379 hours on it. with plenty of lumens left.
This one....I put my foot down as far as the kids touching it at all....and my bulb has a premature life....go figure :rolleyes:

Earz, I feel your pain. I had a similar experience with my old LS-110. I went through a couple of bulbs in short order. Then I had two last about 4000 hours. It's frustratingly random.

For the record, turning off the power and not allowing the fan to run will not shorten bulb life. All the fan does is shorten the amount of time before you can re-strike the bulb.

Earz, whats wrong. is it raining on your parade?

muncey

Earz, whats wrong. is it raining on your parade?

muncey

Not really...just bad timing with christmas vacation here.....now back to the cheap pj section for you :D

Earz
Better order that bulb quick or no movies for christmas. no wonder they are giving out free bulbs with them now. Jason just called, my 3000 is shipping today and will be here for christmas, at half the price of a H79 with a rebate.
bye bye.

muncey

Yeah, and at half the quality, hehehe;)!!! (Just kidding of course. The 3000 is a VERY nice unit...for the money:D)

Someone asked me about the 3000 I was questioning since it's 768 that it will scale 720p from the upscaling players everybody likes to use. So no 1.1 pixel match. A PC user could setup a pixel match res. Also new fire for the Bravo custom resolutions. The Optoma H72 will have the same problem.

About helping the bulbs? I've always used the fan power down, I wonder if using Bob Williams (Infocuses engineer) recomendation of hard power downs (no fan) would make the bulbs last longer, or stay brighter longer? Bob had some engineering reason to why having the fan cool the bulb would shorten it's life.

The H77 I had I put 1400hrs on it. The bulb at that point was on the dim side and I had to use bright mode.

[Close up shots on my H78dc3 look really good like the one that you posted from the superbowl. Wide shots , like the overhead shot of all the players before the ball is snapped, do not look nearly as sharp. I am not sure if this is the fault of the projector or the origional signal. Source is Comcast via motorola 6412 using dvi.

I don't think you'll notice appreciable improvement in bulb-life either way. Allowing the bulb to slow by unaided convection is slightly less harsh than force cooling it down faster, but really, unless you are cycling several times a day I wouldn't worry about it.

P.S. xbox 360 looks delicious on this thing!

Bob is one looks clear and the other blurry, it's the source.

X360, just missed two available at my local Kmart this morning. :(

Thats what I thought. It is frustrating that the signals vary so much. Some games look incredible, some look like upconverted sd etc. Can't wait until everything is true HD. I did my part - when will the network's do theirs?

Thats what I thought. It is frustrating that the signals vary so much. Some games look incredible, some look like upconverted sd etc. Can't wait until everything is true HD. I did my part - when will the network's do theirs?

With ota hd via LG 4200...the games look great on Fox as well as CBS and ABC :)

DVHS via JVC 5u looked fantastic,Xbox 360 looks fantastic,Onkyo sp 1000 looks fantastic,Oppo looks close to fantastic...but not when theres MB ;) ...only one place to go from here....h-80 and BR :D

With ota hd via LG 4200...the games look great on Fox as well as CBS and ABC :)

DVHS via JVC 5u looked fantastic,Xbox 360 looks fantastic,Onkyo sp 1000 looks fantastic,Oppo looks close to fantastic...but not when theres MB ;) ...only one place to go from here....h-80 and BR :D


I have been thinking about a tuner for a while, to compare to Comcast. Just been to lazy to run the cable to antenna etc. I would be interested to see if there was a difference. I have heard about the compression etc , but have also seen some really good material form HBO and Cinamax through the 6412.

Any tuner recommendations ?

I have been thinking about a tuner for a while, to compare to Comcast. Just been to lazy to run the cable to antenna etc. I would be interested to see if there was a difference. I have heard about the compression etc , but have also seen some really good material form HBO and Cinamax through the 6412.

Any tuner recommendations ?

I have not kept up on tuners...but as of a couple months back...the LG 4200a was the king of all ota tuners.

I have 90ft trees all around my house and get a signal all year long. :)

Once in a while...CBS will broadcast there early Sunday game in sd "stretch o vision"...which looks nothing like hd...but other than that...its all good.

When the 4 mpeg boxes have a dvr and are reasonable priced...I may have to rent a chainsaw at that point for hd via satelite:D

I threw a new bulb in my H79 and got these measurements.

15ftc in econo and 20 ftc in bright mode.

This gives me 597lumens in econo on a 1.0gain 106" diag screen and 15ftl off the screen.

796lumens on the same screen with bright mode and 20ftl off the screen.

This is very similar to day one on the old bulb so this H79 is staying pretty consistent.

Consistenly bright :)

a good projector!but money。。。。

I've noticed that a seemingly large number of people seem to be having issues with rather short bulb life on these projectors...as an H78DC3 owner who hasn't started to make full use of the projector (I'm waiting for my house to finish construction) this does make me a little nervous...

...I was wondering though...everyone who has powered up this projector knows how unbelievably quiet they are, i.e. they don't move a ton of air over the lamp to cool it. I was wondering though, what would be the effect on the long term lamp performance if the projector was run without the top panel (the lamp access panel). Is it possible to even do that, or does the projector have a sensor that tells it when the cover is open? I figure that this could only have a positive impact on helping heat escape the projector, unless it changes the airflow for the exhaust system considerably. Anyone have any input on this idea?

Is it the voltage to the bulbs on the H79 and H78 which accounts for the brightness difference between the two. Since they use the same bulb and are essentially the same projector why not run up the voltage on the H78 to match the H79. Perhaps this is too simplistic a solution or the projectors don't work quite this way with respect to the brightness. Just a question that I was wondering about.

btw. just got HD Cable installed - really just to see how it will look on the H78. Very impressive - very sharp and detailed.. anyone concerned about the H78 being 'soft' I think will be pleasantly surprised when they go to HD or HD-DVD comes around.

Finally installed my H78DC3 on Friday and started running. Looked great for about 45 min. then with a loud "pop" the lamp burned out.

When I called Optoma today, they said they would replace, but not ship until Jan. 3. Anyone have thoughts on how to get a lamp faster?

I've noticed that a seemingly large number of people seem to be having issues with rather short bulb life on these projectors...as an H78DC3 owner who hasn't started to make full use of the projector (I'm waiting for my house to finish construction) this does make me a little nervous...

...I was wondering though...everyone who has powered up this projector knows how unbelievably quiet they are, i.e. they don't move a ton of air over the lamp to cool it. I was wondering though, what would be the effect on the long term lamp performance if the projector was run without the top panel (the lamp access panel). Is it possible to even do that, or does the projector have a sensor that tells it when the cover is open? I figure that this could only have a positive impact on helping heat escape the projector, unless it changes the airflow for the exhaust system considerably. Anyone have any input on this idea?

i am guessing since this pj has a ton of filtration, that taking off the cover would allow dust to bake on to the bulb, ie dim dim dim

The projector has two fans inside, one large one near the bulb and a second one down the line. If you want to hot rod air, a fan on the bottom intake and side outtake would be more practical, but ugly.

The projector has two fans inside, one large one near the bulb and a second one down the line. If you want to hot rod air, a fan on the bottom intake and side outtake would be more practical, but ugly.

not to mention noisy.
but how about a cool box i have read a little about them, i guess they are just a sealed box for the pj w/ a ton of fresh air vented from another room and exhausted into yet another room or out side, this setup also includes a remotely mounted fan.
i guess we dont have enought to do already how about rebuilding the whole hvac system

The projector has two fans inside, one large one near the bulb and a second one down the line. If you want to hot rod air, a fan on the bottom intake and side outtake would be more practical, but ugly.

Yes, fan noise is definitely something to avoid. I've ordered two supposedly quiet 80mm 12V fans that I plan to use as you suggested, 1 on the intake, and 1 on the exhaust, to help keep the projector cool, I'm also going to use a wire mesh rack instead of a standard shelf, to allow for more airflow to the intake, which as I understand it is on the underside of the projector, and includes some type of filter? (I didn't really mess around with mine the first time I powered it up. I just turned it on to make sure it worked, and that there were no compatibility issues with my components, and then packed it back up after letting it cool down for a while.

Hopefully my efforts will be rewarded with a long, bright lamp life...

I am a newbie...sorry.

I have a couple questions since I am considering the H78DC3 for my living room:

1. Will the H78DC3 work well at an 11 foot throw distance onto a 92" Screen...This means I will be at pretty near Max Zoom if not at Max zoom? Anyone doing this?

2. Will an Optoma Greywolf or other Grey Screen with gain allow me to watch sports and other brighter material with some ambient light...not direct sunlight but dimmed over head spot lights aimed away from the screen?

3. If I feed an 720P Signal from my PC via the Component Input does the Projector display the full 1280x720 image natively or is there overscan? Basically does it do a 1:1 Pixel mapping or does it process the image?

Thank You,
John

I have a brand new H78 that came with a dim light. I switched it with a new lamp and it made all the difference.

1. most likely, mine is 14' back from a 106" Graywolf and I can zoom out a little further. Check exact numbers in the specs at Optoma's site.

2. Most defintely

3. Absolutely, there's a native aspect for 1.1/zero overscan

I have a brand new H78 that came with a dim light. I switched it with a new lamp and it made all the difference.

Did you have to purchase a new lamp, or did Optoma replace it under warranty?

1. most likely, mine is 14' back from a 106" Graywolf and I can zoom out a little further. Check exact numbers in the specs at Optoma's site.

2. Most defintely

3. Absolutely, there's a native aspect for 1.1/zero overscan

Thank You Tom

According Optoma the Min Distance to do 92" is 10/7 feet, but my question is more along the lines of wheter the image will get distorted or lose sharpness if I am at or near the full zoom. Anyone know this or tried it?

John

Just curious guys, how many of you H78/79 owners are looking to upgrade soon and towards which path: 1080p LCOS (like the Ruby), 3-chip 720p DLP, or 1080p DLP (H81?).

Just curious guys, how many of you H78/79 owners are looking to upgrade soon and towards which path: 1080p LCOS (like the Ruby), 3-chip 720p DLP, or 1080p DLP (H81?).

H-80 and B/R baby ;)

The successor to my H79 will likely be a H80 - or H81? - or a Ruby, in a year or so. That plan will change if a 3-DLP 1080p is streeting in the $10-15K range, in which case I might save up for a while longer.

Dan

Thank You Tom

According Optoma the Min Distance to do 92" is 10/7 feet, but my question is more along the lines of wheter the image will get distorted or lose sharpness if I am at or near the full zoom. Anyone know this or tried it?

John

I believe I was told that you always want to mount the projector towards the farthest end of the throw range, not all the way at the end, but about 10 to 20 percent short of the longest throw spec. Maybe someone else can explain better, but it has to do with wanting to have the projector beam come through the smallest opening in the lens.

Did you have to purchase a new lamp, or did Optoma replace it under warranty?
Under warranty.

Does the H79 provide a HORIZONTAL lens shift option, and if so, how much can you shift it by? I'm assuming that if the H79 does, than the upcoming H81 will as well.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the H81 from CES. If I wind up going that route, I'll need the horizontal shift for sure to avoid having to remount my Chief universal base off-center to compensate for the position of the lens.

Does the H79 provide a HORIZONTAL lens shift option, and if so, how much can you shift it by? I'm assuming that if the H79 does, than the upcoming H81 will as well.Negative. I saw no sign of same on the new one (H81) at CEDIA. I seriously doubt if their mechanicals have changed much.

Does the H79 provide a HORIZONTAL lens shift option, and if so, how much can you shift it by? I'm assuming that if the H79 does, than the upcoming H81 will as well.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the H81 from CES. If I wind up going that route, I'll need the horizontal shift for sure to avoid having to remount my Chief universal base off-center to compensate for the position of the lens.

You can simply use one of these with your existing Chief mount when you switch to Optoma....

http://www.chiefmfg.com/product_display.asp?id=4311

You can simply use one of these with your existing Chief mount when you switch to Optoma....

http://www.chiefmfg.com/product_display.asp?id=4311

Thanks for the reply. Yes I am aware of that bracket, however, I didn't think 3" shift it provides was enough to compensate for the lens being located at the far edge of the pj. For example let's say the H81 is about 16" wide like the H79. With the lens on the H81 near the far edge of the pj, I would think you'd need at least 6" of shift... ?

I was able to get several inches of lateral shift out of the universal mount itself, so with the adapter that would be even more.

PSB, I am planning a H81 upgrade when it is available. I will be selling my H79 for a great price and probably with an extra lamp (I usually have one for backup). I have had the H79 now for about 3 months and am looking forward to their next flagship model (also 1080p).

PSB, I am planning a H81 upgrade when it is available. I will be selling my H79 for a great price and probably with an extra lamp (I usually have one for backup). I have had the H79 now for about 3 months and am looking forward to their next flagship model (also 1080p).

The rumour is that the 80 is the same as the 81....with th the 81 adding a two box set up with an outboard processor.

The rumour is that the 80 is the same as the 81....with th the 81 adding a two box set up with an outboard processor.

Any guess as to whether the H80 will offer the same processing, just internally instead of outboard?

Regarding the H81 - how would that two box setup typically work? One HDMI between the outboard box and the pj, and then all inputs run directly from components over to the outboard box? That would be pretty sweet.

OK,,, NOW I am a Happy H78DC3 owner.... :-) Everything is installed and working well.... I do need to hang my head in shame as ihave done very little tweaking..... (have not even gone through the user calibration using DVE or Avia)...

So far the D*** N******* 942 looked awesome...... The Denon 1920 upconverted to 720P also looks great......

I will provide some more info later...... Happy New Year ALL!!!

PS.... Only partially a Happy New Year for me because my 942 died last night and earliest i can get the new one is tuesday..... Also the HDNET concerts tonight will now no longer be recorded in HD..... :(

Does the H79 provide a HORIZONTAL lens shift option, and if so, how much can you shift it by? I'm assuming that if the H79 does, than the upcoming H81 will as well.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the H81 from CES. If I wind up going that route, I'll need the horizontal shift for sure to avoid having to remount my Chief universal base off-center to compensate for the position of the lens.

The H80 won't have lens shift. There will be an offset, how much I don't know yet. I prefer an offset because you can have the projector flush mounted which looks better to me.

The H80 won't have lens shift. There will be an offset, how much I don't know yet. I prefer an offset because you can have the projector flush mounted which looks better to me.

Do you mean no VERTICAL lens shift? It will be a fixed offset? I hope not. I thought the days of fixed offsets like the Infocus 7200 had were way behind us... ? Doesn't the H79 have veritcal offset? If so, why would they drop this on the H8x?

I prefer an offset because you can have the projector flush mounted which looks better to me.Hmm, I would rather look at the screen than the projector :D

Sorry to give you a hard time Tom but it will really irk me if no lens shift turns out to be true (and the case design suggests it probably is true). There's a classic example of style over function. The perfect projector is proving elusive once more....

Having seen DarinP's set up I am convinced that shelf mounting (just behind and above head) and a retro-reflective screen is the way for many reasons:

- high gain (improved ANSI contrast from white walled room, ambient light rejection, ND filter to compensate for lamp dimming over time, etc)
- inexpensive screen options (HiPower or even a GreyWolf if one can handle the "dirt")
- no hot-spotting
- easy set up (no ceiling mount, short video cable runs, etc)
- more aligned with optical axis (better lens performance ?)

AFAIK, lens shift and offset are not mutually exclusive. "All" a manufacturer needs to do is increase the range of the shift beyond +/- 1/2 screen height to get into "offset" territory. Perhaps one can have one's cake an eat it too (unless fixed-offset lenses are be optomised in some way (non-symmetrical ?) for fixed offset operation that precludes lens shift ?)

Brent

The DLP manufacturers have become quite accustomed to exagerated profit margins due to the previous generation of LCD's 'shortcomings.' As such, they have been remiss about designing in usefull features such as lens shift, because they do cost more to engineer (initially) than fixed lenses.

If this is true that the H78's replacement will not have lens shift, and if the offset/zoom range is as prohibitive as other Optoma non-flagship models like the upcoming H72, then Optoma has in effect taken a step backward from their market position today.

Holey Moley....

We finally got our room to where I could put in the projector. It may be my lack of experience, but this looks awesome.

I did the "easy" tweaks suggested by guitarman a page ago and have not had a chance to put AVIA in but out of the box I'm very happy. We went with the Studio Tek 110" screen, with the lights on there is some washing out, but even watching football we have the lights out so not a big deal.

The HD football games look fantastic, the only issue I've seen is using a borrowed samsung "HD" dvd player, and using the DVI ouput in 720p the image of war of the worlds looked grainy, using the rca output the image looked clear and sharp. I have a HTPC waiting to be hooked up along with the 360 I'm dying to hook up...

I'm very pleased :)

So if its true that the H81 will have a fixed offset, does that mean that there is only one fixed height position that the pj can be in? Or does this mean that the lens just has to be within the screen area. If it means the first one that this would be a deal breaker for me.

Fixed offset sounds like a fixed angle of projection with no lens shift. Can be a bit fiddly to get the image perfectly aligned height wise, but I too prefer that because I currently have the H78 14ins from the 7ft ceiling, and the previous pjs were almost flush. I have to walk round it so it's not ideal, but as it's still behind the seating position it's out of sight when watching a movie.

Gary

Too bad. If there H81 offers only a fixed offset with no len shift, the choice for me to go with the Ruby instead will be a LOT easier to make.

rks1789,
WotW *is* very grainy ... it's the effect the filmakers were going for (similar look as "Saving Private Ryan".) That may be what you're seeing ... the better quality of the DVI connection revealing the film grain. I don't have the Samsung, but I do have the Oppo digital, and WotW looked very good on my H78DC3. (The HD version Comcast has on demand should look even better!)

Too bad. If there H81 offers only a fixed offset with no len shift, the choice for me to go with the Ruby instead will be a LOT easier to make.

This should make your decision a lot easier;)!!!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6833511&&#post6833511

I bought a Sony HS51 over the summer and am still a very happy camper, but now my brother wants to do his "cave" as well. He has 2 young boys so he's not as likely to be able to sit in a dark room and watch without at least a lamp on. While my HS51 can handle a single lamp in the room it is not terribly light tolerant, so I'm doing some digging here to see if maybe a DLP projector might make more sense. I've read that DLP usually has higher light output than LCD, or at least compared to my PJ.

So that leads me to the real question.. are the H79 and H78DC3 BOTH current models? I get The Perfect Vision mag and they have the HS51 and the H78DC3 as their recommended picks in the category, but I've also been told the H78 has been discontinued. As that mag was only about a month or so old (yes I understand publication lag) I was surprised to hear the 78 is discontinued. So waddup wit dat?? :confused: :p

Thanks!

The H78DC3 and the H79 are essentially the same machine. The H79 costs much more for the supposed benefit of "hand-picked parts."

You can find some very good deals on the H78DC3 while available.

Your statement that "DLP's" are brighter isn't really true. You *can* say that they usually have higher contrast, which does indeed make a big difference in rooms without total light control. (Especially in conjunction with a high contrast screen.)

Holey Moley....

We finally got our room to where I could put in the projector. It may be my lack of experience, but this looks awesome.

I did the "easy" tweaks suggested by guitarman a page ago and have not had a chance to put AVIA in but out of the box I'm very happy. We went with the Studio Tek 110" screen, with the lights on there is some washing out, but even watching football we have the lights out so not a big deal.

The HD football games look fantastic, the only issue I've seen is using a borrowed samsung "HD" dvd player, and using the DVI ouput in 720p the image of war of the worlds looked grainy, using the rca output the image looked clear and sharp. I have a HTPC waiting to be hooked up along with the 360 I'm dying to hook up...

I'm very pleased :)

I have an LG hd dvd player and i thought war of the worlds looked grainy also, i just figured tit was the mastering of the film. Most of my other dvds look great, hoping to get an oppo very soon, i understand it is the most bang for around $200 w/ the next step up dvd player being $1000 or more

Too bad. If there H81 offers only a fixed offset with no len shift, the choice for me to go with the Ruby instead will be a LOT easier to make.It will be an unfortunate step backwards if Optoma has eliminated the lens shift. The only way to overcome this would be for the H80/81 to be a true torch putting out at least 1000 lumens calibrated with the new bulb not having any undesireable quirks such as premature or excessive dimming.

Barring another H80/81-like pj with good performance becoming available in '06, it looks like the Ruby will be next up for me.

Dan

At first I thought that the film(Wotw) was supposed to be grainy, just the effect the filmakers were going for, I'll have to try to fire up some other sources tonight when I get home.

I have MCE and theater Tek on the way to replace the borrowed hardware, Next week sometime I will have time to get the HTPC up and running and do some comparisons there.

Anyone use TheaterTek/FFDshow/Dscalar or any other software with one of the Optoma's? Any suggested settings?

I bought a Sony HS51 over the summer and am still a very happy camper, but now my brother wants to do his "cave" as well. He has 2 young boys so he's not as likely to be able to sit in a dark room and watch without at least a lamp on. While my HS51 can handle a single lamp in the room it is not terribly light tolerant, so I'm doing some digging here to see if maybe a DLP projector might make more sense. I've read that DLP usually has higher light output than LCD, or at least compared to my PJ.

So that leads me to the real question.. are the H79 and H78DC3 BOTH current models? I get The Perfect Vision mag and they have the HS51 and the H78DC3 as their recommended picks in the category, but I've also been told the H78 has been discontinued. As that mag was only about a month or so old (yes I understand publication lag) I was surprised to hear the 78 is discontinued. So waddup wit dat?? :confused: :p

Thanks!


I bought a used HS51 over the weekend, it's a nice projector but the H78/H79 is allot better. You should try a cheap Optoma Graywolf screen for better contrast during the daytime. It works

EOL/H78 I heard rumors of that also. The new lineup might be -

H80
H79
H72

The H72 might just be a killer budget machine. It's going to have brightness because I think there's a RGB(W)RGB colorwheel, plus it will have brilliant color and Faroudja deinterlacing. We'll know more after CES.

Well, I have mounted my H79. I put it on a 12x24 inch piece of MDF, hung by four threaded rods for easy adjustment. Need to cable-wrap and tidy up, but this was a good setup for my needs. Picture link: http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c27/robertmeldrum/PICT2604.jpg
I was looking into various screens, and read a link in AVS on a DIY screen using a 4x8 foot sheet of "Do-able." I bought it at Home Depot, and it looks fantastic! I have a completely light-controlled room and have noted that with the lights on the screen washes out significantly, but in the dark it looks as good as anything I have seen in stores. Has anyone else tried this? http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c27/robertmeldrum/PICT2602.jpg
I need to calibrate the H79, will do that in the next few days. Full report and pics on the HT setup in the appropriate forum later. Final note: Costco.com now offers the H78DC3 model at a nice price. Rob

I bought a used HS51 over the weekend, it's a nice projector but the H78/H79 is allot better. You should try a cheap Optoma Graywolf screen for better contrast during the daytime. It works

EOL/H78 I heard rumors of that also. The new lineup might be -

H80
H79
H72

The H72 might just be a killer budget machine. It's going to have brightness because I think there's a RGB(W)RGB colorwheel, plus it will have brilliant color and Faroudja deinterlacing. We'll know more after CES.


Thanks, Tom. I had seen that screen at Best Buy's site and actually had mentioned it to my brother. While you definitely get what you pay for, that screen seems to be appropriate to the task. If his 3 year old sticks his fingers on a $300 screen it's alot easier to get over than if he does it to a $1000 screen!

Well, I have mounted my H79. I put it on a 12x24 inch piece of MDF, hung by four threaded rods for easy adjustment. Need to cable-wrap and tidy up, but this was a good setup for my needs. Picture link: http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c27/robertmeldrum/PICT2604.jpg
I was looking into various screens, and read a link in AVS on a DIY screen using a 4x8 foot sheet of "Do-able." I bought it at Home Depot, and it looks fantastic! I have a completely light-controlled room and have noted that with the lights on the screen washes out significantly, but in the dark it looks as good as anything I have seen in stores. Has anyone else tried this? http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c27/robertmeldrum/PICT2602.jpg
I need to calibrate the H79, will do that in the next few days. Full report and pics on the HT setup in the appropriate forum later. Final note: Costco.com now offers the H78DC3 model at a nice price. Rob

I mounted mine almost exactly the same as yours. I used a 24" square shelf so I'd have room for my anamorphic lens. I am curious why you put the PJ upside down? I have mine with the feet down.

I mounted mine almost exactly the same as yours. I used a 24" square shelf so I'd have room for my anamorphic lens. I am curious why you put the PJ upside down? I have mine with the feet down.

i thought that pj looked like the lense was on the wrong side

Costco.com now offers the H78DC3 model at a nice price.


That's something. Optoma is really trying to move these things selling them at Costco. What I thought was even more interesting is that right next to the H78 on the same web page is the Sharp 10K and that one is going for $5499. That's almost 50% more money for 50% less machine :eek:

Poor average Joe Costco would probably buy the 10K since it must be better due to the higher price right? Looks cooler too. He don't know it's old news now. Sure is nice to be "in the know." Thank you AVS!

... the H78 on the same web page is the Sharp 10K and that one is going for $5499. That's almost 50% more money for 50% less machine :eek:


Right you are, and being liberal with that 50%. Man, would I like to get 50% of $5499 for my Sharp 10K. Heck, I'd even throw in a new bulb! :D

I bought a used HS51 over the weekend, it's a nice projector but the H78/H79 is allot better. You should try a cheap Optoma Graywolf screen for better contrast during the daytime. It works

EOL/H78 I heard rumors of that also. The new lineup might be -

H80
H79
H72

The H72 might just be a killer budget machine. It's going to have brightness because I think there's a RGB(W)RGB colorwheel, plus it will have brilliant color and Faroudja deinterlacing. We'll know more after CES.

Whats missing from the H72 relative to the H79? Seems to have better 'specs' and the 'brilliantcolor' thing. Ive been told the H79 is discontinued as well. Is this true?

EDIT: Nevermind, found the thread. :)

Welcome volvo guy, I'm a Saab guy. :)

Joe,
Set the Motorola cable box to either 720p or 1080i w/480i overide. I found 480i overide makes SDTV sharper. The H79's pixelworks chip does the best job at scaling. For all video I start with Cinema gamma 1, Image color temp 2 and TV. You'll have to use your eye for contrast and brightness. Each machine will be different mine happen to be at -12 for contrast and 10 for brightness, these were tuned with the Accupel. Color is at zero, sharpness at 3, since this is TV I also set white peak to 6.

I have advanced numbers done with colorfacts probably won't help you but here goes -

R-contrast -4
G-contrast -8
B-contrast -8
R-brightness-11
G-brightness 0
B-brightness 3


sorry to rehash an old subject but now that it applies to me i am suddenly very interested. I am going to purchase a calibration dvd and I am leaning towards the avia, but the one i have found for a good price i noticed is full screen will this mater for calibrating my h79, also if i were persuaded to purchase the dve, i assume i would need the ntsc version, but what about the hdtv version? any help on what brand and model to buy for best calibration of my h79 and my pioneer plasma, would be greatly appreciated.

My H79 hangs about 24 inches down from the ceiling, just near the top of my screen. When I have it right-side up the picture throws on the ceiling, and using the adjustments I can get it about half-way down the wall (not enough). My inelegant solution was to flip the PJ and put is on four foam cushions to allow air underneath it. It's all dialed in and looks great on the screen, and slightly strange sitting upside-down. Is there something I can do?

I love the H79, but the user pamphlet (not fair to call it a manual...) is pretty thin. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

No one commented on the Do-able screen, I guess no one hear has tried it...? Let me know if you want more information. Rob

Hmmm. Seems like your lens shift must be sticking. You should be able to have the PJ mounted anywhere between the bottom and top of the screen either right side up or upside down. Mine is also just below the top of the screen, but right side up with no problems. You have found a good solution though.

Right you are, and being liberal with that 50%. Man, would I like to get 50% of $5499 for my Sharp 10K. Heck, I'd even throw in a new bulb! :D

Remember when I offered you $3800 for your 10K when the 12K came out? I'm glad you said no. :p

Brent

Costco.com now offers the H78DC3 model at a nice price.

The Costco deal at 3999 is not that great, right ? VA is selling for 34xx. Good thing with Costco is you can return anytime if you are not happy.

Remember when I offered you $3800 for your 10K when the 12K came out? I'm glad you said no. :p

Brent

LOL. No regrets, actually. The 12K wasn't a good upgrade for me (too dim) and I was still quite satisified with the 10K. After seeing the Ruby I am no longer at all satisfied with the 10K. I figure its worth a grand with a brand new bulb I have. We'll see. Please make a note to make me a compelling offer for my upcoming Ruby when the Ruby 2 comes out. :D

<embarassed> I didn't use the manual lens shift on the top (when right-side up) of the H79, forgot it was there. Turned it over, played with it, moved the unit ever-closer to the ceiling, until I nailed the sweet spot. Thanks to all of you for helping with the selection and setup of this. We're going to the Media Room in fifteen minutes to watch some DVDs!

Rob

Man I love this thing (the H78 that is). After having auditioned many of the 2.5 to 5.0K projectors I finally decided on the H78 given its price/performance ratio for me was tops. I have been trying to watch as much content as possible for multiple reasons. I want to get many hours on the bulb during the warranty period so that if it is going to fail prematurely I will be covered. I also have watched often so i can speak/type from experience and not from (I Think). The H78 has been a real joy. Most of my viewing has been somewhat light controlled due to the fact that it has been late night viewing and the new house has no blinds in the (Cave). Even the brief viewing with ambient lighting on a 118" Behr Ultra Pure White DIY screen has been very good. For those wondering 118" is very do-able for the H78 since i am running in Low mode on the lamp and it still looks good. I did find that the difference between High and Low is noticable it is not significant with the exception of fan noise. I find the projector noise to be very accceptable but not completely quiet in low mode. Colors (post user calibration) are stunning. Very good saturation with subtle tone/intensity changes easily distinguished.

One thing of note (I am sure this is the same for most 720P and > projectors). This projector has a very nice and accurate image. This is both a blessing and a curse. Content quality of SD and even HD from channel to channel/show to show changes dramatically. Having a crisp accurate display will show you both the good and the bad in the content delivery. It is likened to a good pair of speakers where you can now hear the finger drag on the strings of the guitar or the poor voice transition of your favorite singer. Poor quality speakers will often not allow you to hear these things. This is the same with the H78's image, it will show you what is there.

Hope this helps some of the folks that are still sitting on the fence....

"I am going to purchase a calibration dvd and I am leaning towards the avia, but the one i have found for a good price i noticed is full screen will this mater for calibrating my h79, also if i were persuaded to purchase the dve, i assume i would need the ntsc version,"

Get Avia on Amazon for under $40. It doesn't matter that it's 4.3 your projector will still stretch it for full screen for using the patterns. DVE is good but you'll have a very hard time moving around in it. Avia is 100 times easier to use.

"Thanks, Tom. I had seen that screen at Best Buy's site and actually had mentioned it to my brother. While you definitely get what you pay for, that screen seems to be appropriate to the task. If his 3 year old sticks his fingers on a $300 screen it's alot easier to get over than if he does it to a $1000 screen"

Check the screens area people are getting the graywolf for $150. This low priced screen adds richness to any projectors image, HS51, HT1000, H30, H79 all of them.

i ended up buying the avia, which i must say if you buy it used make sure it comes w/ the filters, they are very important, mine was new w/ filters, but i didnt realize how important that was. any way, some of the adjustments on avia are confusing, because they dont cross match w/ h79's menu, i will do it again tonight and write down the adjustments i cant figure out and ask tomorrow.

I go to the choice just after basic adjustments, basic is mainly for CRT's but you use color/tint and sharpness there.

Go first to the video adjustments just below the basic group. There go to grayscales & levels then black and white levels, use the two choices on the top, the right side is the all black bar pattern, the left side is the all white bar pattern. When you finish here go to the basic choice and use the Sharpness and color patterns.

When using the blue filter not only look for the flashes to settle down but balance the shade tones at the bottom of the pattern corrisonding to the flash boxes you're looking at. Like as you move saturation or tint foward this will darken the lower box on the right side while lightening the box on the left side. Find the balance for saturation and Tint. Don't worry too much about tint on most displays it's only available for s-video or composite.

Now you're an Avia digital PJ pro. :)

Also posted in the H79 review thread... A little help needed here. My H79 is all dialed in and looks great with HDTV or DVDs. Watching some SD channels, I have a 2-pixel wide stripe at the top of the screen. Any ideas how to get rid of this? Details: Comcast Motorola 6412 STB feeding component into a Denon 3806 feeding HDMI into the H79. Thanks in advance! Rob

Are you in Native mode on the PJ? If you are you could switch it into 16:9 which has a small amount of overscan. This should hide that line.

ok.. like a dummy I accidentally hit the 'lamp reset=on' setting and now the bulb registers 0 hours.. great.. is there anyway to tell how much REAL usage the bulb has? picture looks a tad dim and wondering when to start ordering a new bulb.. now have no idea of how many hours it has!

Appreciate any help!

Thank you.

H78 crashed!

It happened twice. While fiddling with the Optics +/- Zoom the screen freezes and will not respond to the remote or onboard controls. Has this happened to anyone?

H78 crashed!

It happened twice. While fiddling with the Optics +/- Zoom the screen freezes and will not respond to the remote or onboard controls. Has this happened to anyone?

Yep, been there. Had to unplug the projector to get it back. Only happened
the one time since I've had my H79 (Mar 2005).

Happened to me once too.

Seems to only happen when zooming with the remote, but not with the controls on the pj itself - unless someone knows different?

Gary

ok.. like a dummy I accidentally hit the 'lamp reset=on' setting and now the bulb registers 0 hours.. great.. is there anyway to tell how much REAL usage the bulb has? picture looks a tad dim and wondering when to start ordering a new bulb.. now have no idea of how many hours it has!

Appreciate any help!

Thank you.


in another thread guitarman listed how to get in to a special menue with some extra settings for calibration, i believe there is a lamp meter in there and, when i checked it , i think it showed different hours than my lamp life on the main menue, not sure though.

Time of use is in the service menu.

Looking from the back of the PJ to the front, the four buttons in a row, hit the left two and right button at the same time once. Don't fool around in the service menu if you don't know what you're doing. Exit at the bottom using the remote cross buttons/enter.

I received my h78dc3 yesterday, upgrading from a nec lt240.

I calibrated with Avia and everything works fine except for one problem : The color control is messed up, it's like the range is shifted. It is still too saturated even at the minimum (-50), at +15 it's at the maximum possible, and it wraps around to the lowest saturation at +16, up to +50 where saturation is about the same as -50. I'm using a panasonic RP82, components output at 480p, on the RCA inputs

Anyone else had this problem ?

thanks,

nevermind, I figured it out from posts in the h79 thread, I shoudn't have looked around in the service menu, it's the magenta calibration that messed it up.. curiosity kills :o

The magenta field from Avia was not helping, but it worked with a standard color bar, mayby it found the magenta bar by itself, or maybe I'm just lucky :)

I guess you didn't save your original numbers. Re-tune it with the graysteps patterns in Avia and the advanced RGB in the Image menu. I put a couple of how too's in the firat post of a few review threads, H31, H77, not sure about H79.

Best thing would be to get a hold of someone with colorfacts and a sensor, maybe even an Accupel. ;)

Had a fun night last night NOT!!

I went to the cave or TZ (testostorone Zone) as my wife calls it to watch some TV. Everything had a severe GREEN push. I was a little bit concerned since whenever this happened before all i had to do was re-seat the hdmi cable at the Dish 942 and all would be fixed. That did nothing :(. I tried again and nothing again. I then tried the HDMI cable at the PJ, still nothing. About this point was real worried. I tried the re-seat trick again at the 942 and while holding my left hand pointing at venus and my right pinky pointing toward the moon and my toes crossed. It worked. I got to tell you the smart guy who created the hdmi interconnect (loose term (pun intended)) should be shot. Or at least dipped in boiling oil. :)

Me no likey HDMI!!

Could be some oxidation in the chain. Try a little of the Deoxit D5 spray they say it works miracles.

They're a pain, I find it a hassle to just get them to fit.

DeoxIT #D100S-2, this one looks even better it's 100%.

thanks Tom,
No I didn't save the numbers, after all I was "just looking", I tought the calibration options would bring up another menu or somehing, heheh. It took hours but now my grey ramp is very clean, to the eye at least. The only thing left to solve is the low gamma, I now have a gamma of 1.9 with Gamma-1 I don't think it's normal, I hope to get to 2.2 later.

thanks again,

I've had my H79 for about a month now and it is a great projector. For reference, I am projecting on a 120" diag Studiotek screen (1.3 gain) in a light controlled room painted dark blue and grey. I have all my video connections running to the projector on a single DVI connection. I have three sources: HD Tivo, Panasonic S97, and an oppo 971 DVD player. I calibrate using Avia on the Oppo (which has the latest firmware).

I've read through both this thread and the H79 review thread (as well as some helpful stuff in the calibration forum) and have gotten a lot of information, but I've come to the conclusion that I stink at calibration. I have avoided the service menu and tried to only calibrate using the basic user menus and the best results I have gotten have been with the settings that Guitarman provided in his first post of his review for the H79 (thanks so much for sharing your vast experiences with calibration BTW!).

Maybe I'm doing something wrong here, but the way I was calibrating was by using Avia.

I start with the basic video adjustments and dial in contrast and brightness. Contrast I set by not crushing the moving vertical bars and watching for color shift. Brightness is pretty easy as well by not crushing the black moving bars. I find I like to bump up the brightness by one beyond where the "almost black" moving bar disappears.

I've never really understood how to do sharpness well. Here I've been using 2 as a setting as that seems to be the general consensus on this setting for the H79 (told you I'm bad at this).

At this point I move from the basic video calibration that Avia walks you through as I have not seen a color or tint setting on the DVI input and I move to grey scales. I use the advanced RGB setting to try and dial in the colors by using the RGB contrast to remove any push on the light grey bars (I see a red push here) and use the RGB brightness settings on the low end.

Then I go back and redo brightness and contrast as they are affected by the changes to the RGB settings.

I thought "Wow, I know what I'm doing." But the moment I go back to any real video source the picture looks really....flat. The colors look muted and the image has very little "pop" to it. Part of this could be that I think its easy to see a red push, but green is a tough to see well and I think I may be leaving a green bias to the colors.

At this point I gave up on doing it myself and went through all the other users settings and found that if I use Guitarman's setting from his first post on the H79 review without his service menu values I get a pretty nice image out of it, but there is some red push in the light grey bars. if I try and remove it I end up with a flat image. My settings at the moment are:

User area
Cinema
Contrast 4
Brightness 3
Sharp 2
gamma 1

Image mode
White peak zero
CT 2
Image TV

Advanced Adjustments
R contrast 9
G contrast 6
B contrast 2

R brightness -10
G brightness 0
B brightness 0


OK, so after all of that here are where my questions come in. I notice that guitarman has posted several different settings for the H79 that are pretty different. Is this because of the bulb aging? More accurate calibrations after his initial on in the H79 review?

Secondly, I'd like to get better at this. I know that doing it by eye is never going to get perfect results, but is my basic methodology good? I just need practice here? Anything I'm overlooking? Will I always fall short on calibration if I avoid the service menu?

Also, I have read people talk about needed to adjust their gamma. Is this something that can be done without instruments? If so, how?

I realize I can look into ISF calibration, but I'd like to get better at doing some basic adjustments on my own as I know the values will change over time with bulb age.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks Tom,
No I didn't save the numbers, after all I was "just looking", I tought the calibration options would bring up another menu or somehing, heheh. It took hours but now my grey ramp is very clean, to the eye at least. The only thing left to solve is the low gamma, I now have a gamma of 1.9 with Gamma-1 I don't think it's normal, I hope to get to 2.2 later.

thanks again,


When you grayscsale tune with the RGB's the gamma is effected greatly. Mainly becuase the overall brightness and contrast is changed. This is why we go back and re-do the basic blacks and whites. After a couple of runs you should be able to get close to 2.2

Here's a strange one. I started to calibrate using DVE. The very first calibration, brightness, there should be three vertical bars on either side of the center stack of grey-scale rectangles. The vertical bars are visible during the explanation piece, but when the pluge pattern comes up, there are no vertical bars visible! The DVE narrator says that some equipment will block the bars out since they are below the black threshold. I am using a Toshiba upscaling DVD player. Do you think it is doing this, or could it be the Denon 3806 that feeds my H79? Thanks in advance for your help! Rob

Try the Toshiba straight to the H79 and see if it does the same. Then you'll know if the Denon is having an effect. Raising the brightness will make them visible if they are there.

We're fixing black crush with the players brightness control, that's if the Tosh has one. Most of the new players do have this. Also there may be a control in the Toshiba's menu system, something like Normal/ or Enchanced. Choose Normal

Another way is to hit the resync button after hitting DVI on the projectors remote. This gets you to PC brightness level which will probably uncrush the blacks, the bars will be visable. We have one problem with using the resync feature in that we can't use the advanced RGB adjustments on some machines. There will be a color shift back to video brightness level when you move one of these RGB levels. You'll know if yours does this, you'll see any graybars pattern turn red.

To gain the control over the RGB adjustment we need to send video brightness level by using the players Normal mode or adjusting the players brightness control. See what you can do.

I thought "Wow, I know what I'm doing." But the moment I go back to any real video source the picture looks really....flat. The colors look muted and the image has very little "pop" to it. Part of this could be that I think its easy to see a red push, but green is a tough to see well and I think I may be leaving a green bias to the colors.

At this point I gave up on doing it myself and went through all the other users settings and found that if I use Guitarman's setting from his first post on the H79 review without his service menu values I get a pretty nice image out of it, but there is some red push in the light grey bars. if I try and remove it I end up with a flat image.
I had exactly same problems as you. When i bought Panny S97 i wasn't able to get my H78 look good on DVI input. Picture look very flat and colors were muted. It took me a while to get DVI look as good as progressive component did. There are still some problems but pq is much better now.

About red push you say you see in the light grey bars, i think you may have same problems as i had. In my case there wasn't too much red when light greys looked reddish, it was actually red running low on 100 IRE bar making 80-90 IRE bars looking too red. Take a look at this thread, it may help you some
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=577561

Movieguy2001, here's a link that may help out some in explaining what you're seeing:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_12_4/optoma-h79-projector-11-2005-part-2.html

Dan

Big Lebowski and drapp1952 - thanks for the links. I'm slowly learning this and I can see myself getting lost in calibrating my system. Putting those two links together has really given me some things to think about.

Its probably obvious to the experts on the forum, but one thing that just clicked with me is the compromise between accurate grayscale and contrast ratio. I never really thought about it, but the review that Drapp pointed to really gets into that compromise. Now that it clicked it seems so obvious....

Big L - in the thread you referenced, you were able to calculate Guitarman's SM values based on taking the differences in his advanced RBG settings in the H79 review and applying them to the SM values from that config? If so, what is the benefit of one set of settings vs. the other? Maybe an advantage in contrast ratio? It sounds like the service menu settings and the advanced settings doing exactly the same thing, just in different places. So that would mean that you could get optimal color balance with just the Adv. RGB settings I would think.

For kicks, I think I'm going to try both sets of settings and see what they look like. I'm very curious at this point. Hopefully, I can find a set of settings that works with the oppo, the panasonic, and my HD Tivo.

The settings I'll try are (calibrating for contrast and brightness using Avia after):

Set one (from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=577561):
R-contrast 20
G-contrast 14
B-contrast 11

R-brightness -1
G-brightness 8
B-brightness 10

SERVICE MENU
Picture
Red contrast = 166
Green contrast = 147
Blue contrast = 145
Red brightness = 118
Green brightness = 121
Blue brightness = 123


Set 2 (from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=507075&page=73&pp=30)
R-contrast 9
G-contrast 6
B-contrast 2

R-brightness -10
G-brightness 0
B-brightness 0

SERVICE MENU
Picture
Red contrast = 155
Green contrast = 139
Blue contrast = 136
Red brightness = 109
Green brightness = 113
Blue brightness = 113

Big L - in the thread you referenced, you were able to calculate Guitarman's SM values based on taking the differences in his advanced RBG settings in the H79 review and applying them to the SM values from that config?

Yes, i read some H7x threads and i found out what his original service menu RGB settings were, but i used user menu settings to input values. I think when swapping setting from unit to unit it is important to know what default service menu RGB values are and then calculate difference and finally use user menu RGB settings to adjust values. That way i believe it is possible to swap values succesfully in many cases.


If so, what is the benefit of one set of settings vs. the other? Maybe an advantage in contrast ratio? It sounds like the service menu settings and the advanced settings doing exactly the same thing, just in different places. So that would mean that you could get optimal color balance with just the Adv. RGB settings I would think.

Benefit from different settings are of course contrast ratio and better looking colors. It seems that DVI input is much trickier to make look good on H7x. Component input didn't need anywhere near that much adjusting.

I'm still testing different settings with my H78 since i still sometimes feel that DVI from S97 is lacking punch in colors.

User menu advanced settings and service menu RGB values are same thing. Only difference is that you need to know what are original service menu values in both machines before you try settings from other machine. While most of H7x machines seems to have same original service menu values there may be differencies. Like in my case my SM values were 145, 141, 139, 119, 113, 113, while Guitarman's values were 146, 133, 134, 119, 113, 113. Looks like RBG brightness values are always same but contrast values may be different.


For kicks, I think I'm going to try both sets of settings and see what they look like. I'm very curious at this point. Hopefully, I can find a set of settings that works with the oppo, the panasonic, and my HD Tivo.

Please let me know how those settings worked for you, and if possible post your SM RGB values.


These are latest values i've been testing:
Contrast=14
Brightness=0

Advanded Adjustment
Red contrast = 2
Green contrast = -8
Blue contrast = -5
Red brightness = -6
Green brightness = 0
Blue brightness = 0

SERVICE MENU
Picture
Red contrast = 147
Green contrast = 133
Blue contrast = 134
Red brightness = 113
Green brightness = 113
Blue brightness = 113

Well, I had a chance to try out both of the settings that I posted earlier, plus the ones Big Lebowski posted and I have to say I found the following settings to provide the best balance of colors AND best color saturation:

Contrast 0
Brightness -2

R-contrast 17
G-contrast 11
B-contrast 8
R-brightness -1
G-brightness 8
B-brightness 10

SERVICE MENU
Picture
Red contrast = 166
Green contrast = 147
Blue contrast = 145
Red brightness = 118
Green brightness = 121
Blue brightness = 123

I originally had the advanced user contrast RGB settings to 20 14 10, but found that it was crushing whites no matter what I did with the contrast setting. Green seemed to be causing the problem and when I lowered that by 3 I was able to see the moving white bars in the white test pattern. I moved red and blue down by the same amount to keep the same balance.

The other two configs just had a flatter image in the end. Anyways, I'm quite pleased with the image I'm getting out of the projector now! Thanks for the help.

One last question. When I went to enter the service menu I didnt realize that if you are already in the menu system and hit the two left buttons it calls up a menu of some sort. I didnt do anything with it, but I was wondering if anyone knows what it does. Also, when you first enter the service menu the curor is over input settings or something like that. If you hit select nothing happens (I think). I'm just asking becasue I did hit select before realizing that the settings I wanted were further down on the menu so I'm hoping I didt muck anything up. Didnt seem like it.



Big Lebowski - my original serice menu settings were:
Red contrast = 155
Green contrast = 139
Blue contrast = 136
Red brightness = 109
Green brightness = 113
Blue brightness = 113

Stange that they were one of Guitarman's settings after tweeking.

Now that I've broken the bulb in a bit I'm planning trying another calibration with the SpyderPro and Rader's spreadsheet. I also have GetGrey's calibration disc.

Can someone give me some guidance on when I should use an RGB contrast control and when I should use the RGB brightness control. Does it matter what control I use so long as get a flat color response.

Thanks.

Well, I had a chance to try out both of the settings that I posted earlier, plus the ones Big Lebowski posted and I have to say I found the following settings to provide the best balance of colors AND best color saturation:

Contrast 0
Brightness -2

R-contrast 17
G-contrast 11
B-contrast 8
R-brightness -1
G-brightness 8
B-brightness 10

SERVICE MENU
Picture
Red contrast = 166
Green contrast = 147
Blue contrast = 145
Red brightness = 118
Green brightness = 121
Blue brightness = 123

I originally had the advanced user contrast RGB settings to 20 14 10, but found that it was crushing whites no matter what I did with the contrast setting. Green seemed to be causing the problem and when I lowered that by 3 I was able to see the moving white bars in the white test pattern. I moved red and blue down by the same amount to keep the same balance.

I also think that these settings provide punchier picture with best colors in my unit. Maybe low IRE area is a bit too greenish, but it may also be that i happend to like a bit too reddish picture.

I had exactly same crushing whites problem with green contrast as you described. I solved that by lowering Panny S97 contrast setting to -1. I quess method you used work as well.

Can you please confirm what are your service menu values after you changed RGB contrasts down by 3 clicks? I bet they are now 163, 144, 142, and those you listed are ones before that. User menu RGB settings work 1:1 with service menu RGB's. And the service menu values are the ones we want to match when swapping values between units. We only use user menu RGB to change values, because it is safer that way.


One last question. When I went to enter the service menu I didnt realize that if you are already in the menu system and hit the two left buttons it calls up a menu of some sort. I didnt do anything with it, but I was wondering if anyone knows what it does.

I have no idea what menu is opened if service menu call buttons are pressed when you are already in menu. Can you remember what kind of a menu was opened? Maybe there are more secret service menu items available.


Also, when you first enter the service menu the curor is over input settings or something like that. If you hit select nothing happens (I think). I'm just asking becasue I did hit select before realizing that the settings I wanted were further down on the menu so I'm hoping I didt muck anything up. Didnt seem like it.

I was once in that menu also. Luckily nothing happened.
Other service menu items may do harm (like gamma, never go there), so better only use those we know what they do.


Big Lebowski - my original serice menu settings were:
Red contrast = 155
Green contrast = 139
Blue contrast = 136
Red brightness = 109
Green brightness = 113
Blue brightness = 113

Stange that they were one of Guitarman's settings after tweeking.
I bet they are actually same as Guitarman's original values when you first set all user menu RGB's to 0 and then go to service menu. All user menu RGB's set to 0 should read 146,133,134,119,113,113 in the service menu, which are the default values in most H79 machines.

I had exactly same crushing whites problem with green contrast as you described. I solved that by lowering Panny S97 contrast setting to -1. I quess method you used work as well.


Interesting. I decided to make the change at the projector so I wasn't crushing other sources that are coming over the DVI connection (i.e. the HD Tivo)


Can you please confirm what are your service menu values after you changed RGB contrasts down by 3 clicks? I bet they are now 163, 144, 142, and those you listed are ones before that.


You are correct! I forgot to go back in and check, but just as you described - when changes are made to one area of RGB (service menu vs. advanced user) to change shows up one-to-one in the service menu.


I have no idea what menu is opened if service menu call buttons are pressed when you are already in menu. Can you remember what kind of a menu was opened?

Don't remember, but I'll check tonight. It was nothing as detailed as a full menu. It was a toggle for some "feature" which I didn't touch.


I bet they are actually same as Guitarman's original values when you first set all user menu RGB's to 0 and then go to service menu. All user menu RGB's set to 0 should read 146,133,134,119,113,113 in the service menu, which are the default values in most H79 machines.

You are exactly right. Thanks for catching that. I forgot I had the advanced settings at 9,6,2,-10,0,0 when I looked at my original values. After 0'ing out the advanced settings the SM values are what you described.

I think I'm going to try and sit back and enjoy the projector for awhile now that I have a picture I'm happy with :D

Can someone give me some guidance on when I should use an RGB contrast control and when I should use the RGB brightness control. Does it matter what control I use so long as get a flat color response.


The RGB contrast controls will affect the lighter bars on a gray scale pattern (i.e. white and light grays) while the RGB brightness controls affect the low end of the grayscale (blacks and dark grays). I THINK I read in this thread that if you are using spyder pro you'd calibrate at 80 ire using the RGB contrast and at 20 ire using the RGB brightness.


There is a lot of great advise that goes into more details throughout this thread and the H79 review thread that may give you some more details.

Whoops you got that twisted. RGBcontrast effects the white or lighter gray. But you know that, didn't have your coffee yet? :)

Interesting. I decided to make the change at the projector so I wasn't crushing other sources that are coming over the DVI connection (i.e. the HD Tivo)

I will try same trick as you did and lower RGB contrasts 3 clicks and return S97's contrast setting back to 0 to avoid compressing picture.

When you look at gray scale pattern using these new settings do you see similar redness in the high IRE are as i described in this thread (see attached picture)?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6169025&&#post6169025


Don't remember, but I'll check tonight. It was nothing as detailed as a full menu. It was a toggle for some "feature" which I didn't touch.

OK. Could that feature have been color wheel speed setting? I remember hearing that Mitsubishi HC2000 which is pretty much same as H77 has setting that allows to choose 4x/5x color wheel speed when certain keys are pressed.


I think I'm going to try and sit back and enjoy the projector for awhile now that I have a picture I'm happy with :D
Enjoy, it's a great projector :)

My bulb just died :rolleyes:

H79 is little over 1month old and i turned it on and no picture, so i looked the leds and there it was blinkind blue light and LAMP led is red. Lets see, lamp had over 300hours and waranty is 300hours/3months. So no X360 games tonight and this sucks ***. :(

But I like your style, 1month 300hrs. Try to talk them into just sending you a bulb and not sending the projector in.
Better luck

Ops :o

Thanks for the catch Guitarman - contrasts = white level, brightness = black level. I'll use the coffee excuse.....

Big Lebowski,

I do still see some red in the upper range of the grayscale, but that may be explained by your theory of running out of red at 100 ire. Either way, it doesnt bother me in casual viewing.

At some point I may purchase SpyderPro and do a real calibration. But I'm not ready for that yet....

BTW - are you using DVE for your grayscale? I'm using the ones in Avia which look much different. There are 10 bars vertically in the Avia ones, not the double grayscale pattern you show. Just curious.

Big Lebowski,

I do still see some red in the upper range of the grayscale, but that may be explained by your theory of running out of red at 100 ire. Either way, it doesnt bother me in casual viewing.

Interesting to hear that you got very similar results with your H79 as i got with my H78. Looks like RGB settings are interchangeable in some cases. I believe that taking account in service menu values and match those between different units is the key for success.

I'm using DVE. Getting some calibrating equipment has been on my mind lately too, but it has always been postponed once i have found satisfying settings.

Can anyone post their complete settings (color, service, etc...)list for thoses that use a HTPC through DVI? Seems all the settings here revolve around the Panasonics issues.

Can anyone post their complete settings (color, service, etc...)list for thoses that use a HTPC through DVI? Seems all the settings here revolve around the Panasonics issues.
Basically same settings should work with HTPC too if it is outputting 16-235 video levels and there are no gray scale settings been done on HTPC side.

Sweet thank you!!!!! I'll give it a try shortly.

Ok, I'm a bit new to the whole digital video interface world, so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I figured that since there were so many knowledgeable people on this site that someone would be able to help me out fairly easilly...

On my Denon DVD-1920, there is a setting for both colorspace format (Y,Cr,Cb and RGB) and black level (Normal and Enhanced)

On my H78DC3 there is also a setting for colorspace format.

I'm using an HDMI to DVI cable to carry video to the projector, and the sources that I'm using are my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR, and the Denon DVD-1920.

What settings should I be using here? RGB or Y,Cr,Cb and Normal or Enhanced black level?

-Nate

I'm in the happy H79 club even though I have the following problem. My PJ is ceiling mounted 4" below top edge of a 100" GrayHawk screen. The blue blanking image does not exactly fit the 16:9 screen and the bottom image edge has a slight upward curve.
Left and right borders are approximately 1" too wide when top to bottom are matched.
Bottom edge of image has a slight upward curve about 1" at the apex from center of lower screen edge.
Lens shift does not affect the curve.
Entire image makes a slight hop when changing diection of the focus motor.

I'm speculating that something has come loose in the lens assembly. Has anyone else experienced something like this? Is it likely that I can fix it without sending the PJ back?

Thanks,
Eric

On my Denon DVD-1920, there is a setting for both colorspace format (Y,Cr,Cb and RGB) and black level (Normal and Enhanced)

On my H78DC3 there is also a setting for colorspace format.

I'm using an HDMI to DVI cable to carry video to the projector, and the sources that I'm using are my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR, and the Denon DVD-1920.

What settings should I be using here? RGB or Y,Cr,Cb and Normal or Enhanced black level?

-Nate
You should get best results by using HDMI Y,Cr,Cb but i'm afraid it wont work with H78. So far i've hear only one person succeed to feed Y,Cr,Cb to H78 and it was with signal generator. Never heard anyone been able to use DVD player to do that, but give it a try and please let us know how it worked. My Panny S97 automatically detects DVI input and only allow to select RGB output.

About black level setting, you should use normal. In that case you are able to adjust your H78 gray scale and you don't need to remember press resync everytime. If you decide to use enhanced black level you have to press resync to put H78 in enhanced mode. Enhanced black level with resync trick works pretty well with Panny S97 + H78.

I'm in the happy H79 club even though I have the following problem. My PJ is ceiling mounted 4" below top edge of a 100" GrayHawk screen. The blue blanking image does not exactly fit the 16:9 screen and the bottom image edge has a slight upward curve.
Left and right borders are approximately 1" too wide when top to bottom are matched.
Bottom edge of image has a slight upward curve about 1" at the apex from center of lower screen edge.
Lens shift does not affect the curve.
Entire image makes a slight hop when changing diection of the focus motor.

I'm speculating that something has come loose in the lens assembly. Has anyone else experienced something like this? Is it likely that I can fix it without sending the PJ back?

Thanks,
Eric
All sounds normal.

1. I never measured how much too wide left and right borders are but i'd say it is around 0,5 to 1 inch.

2. Bottom edge when my projector is right side up has slight curvature upward, i never measured that either but it is around 0,5 to 1 inch.

3. I never tested but i noticed that picture seems to move it bit to left or right depending on lens shift position. I've seen other H7x doing same.

4. This is normal for H7x too. I've seen other H7x doing same.

I'm very suprised to hear that it's "Normal" for the H7x PJs you've seen. Curvature on one of the image edges and non 16:9 throw doesn't seem like it should be normal. I searched for other H7x posts regarding this distortion and didn't find anything. I can't believe that with all the discerning analysis and attention to detail that this PJ has recieved, a distortion like this wouldn't have been a hot topic. If this is normal, I would consider it a pretty notable design flaw.

Regards,
Eric

A few days ago I put up an overscan test pattern on my H78 to make sure the PJ was correctly aligned to the screen. Once I corrected a couple of minor physical alignmnent problems by adjusting the mount, the 16:9 test pattern filled the 16:9 screen edge to edge with no curvature or distortion.

A few days ago I put up an overscan test pattern on my H78 to make sure the PJ was correctly aligned to the screen. Once I corrected a couple of minor physical alignmnent problems by adjusting the mount, the 16:9 test pattern filled the 16:9 screen edge to edge with no curvature or distortion.

Thanks mraub. Does your image shift at all when changing direction of the focus motor? I'm curious because mine does and it may indicate that the optical assembly has somehow come un-together.

Regards,
Eric

Deepblue,

Does the bottom edge slope up on one side or is it in the middle?

My H78 was perfectly square on a 16:9 sceen and doesn't have the curve you mention. If the slope is on one side then it could be that your pj is an inch or two off center and has been rotated slightly to fit the image to the screen. You don't have any keystone correction active do you?

Gary.

If it does it is so minor as to be inperceptical.


Thanks mraub. Does your image shift at all when changing direction of the focus motor? I'm curious because mine does and it may indicate that the optical assembly has somehow come un-together.

Regards,
Eric

Deepblue,

Does the bottom edge slope up on one side or is it in the middle?

My H78 was perfectly square on a 16:9 sceen and doesn't have the curve you mention. If the slope is on one side then it could be that your pj is an inch or two off center and has been rotated slightly to fit the image to the screen. You don't have any keystone correction active do you?

The curve peak is at the horizontal center of lower screen edge. It is not a keystoning issue. Lens center is aligned to horizontal center of the screen.

I think I'm going to pop the cover off tonight and see if it's something obvious.

Thanks,
Eric

If it does it is so minor as to be inperceptical.

Thanks, I this all points to something being out wack with the lens assembly.

Basically same settings should work with HTPC too if it is outputting 16-235 video levels and there are no gray scale settings been done on HTPC side.


I tried some of the settings posted. The results were terrible. I had a badly washed out image with way too much green push. My 78DC3 has firmware C17. I went back to my old settings that were much better.

C= -1
B= -1

Picture
146
133
134
119
113
113

I forgot to write down the advanced menu values.

I tried some of the settings posted. The results were terrible. I had a badly washed out image with way too much green push. My 78DC3 has firmware C17. I went back to my old settings that were much better.

C= -1
B= -1

Picture
146
133
134
119
113
113

I forgot to write down the advanced menu values.
Is your HTPC outputting 16-235 (video) or 0-255 (PC) levels? Those settings posted are for 16-235 (video levels). For example if you are using overlay your HTPC is most likely outputting 0-255, those settings probably will not work, result would be just like you described.

Originally Posted by deepblue
Thanks mraub. Does your image shift at all when changing direction of the focus motor? I'm curious because mine does and it may indicate that the optical assembly has somehow come un-together.

Regards,
Eric


If it does it is so minor as to be inperceptical.
Mraub

If you go near screen, lets say your eyes are about one or two feet from focusing icon and look at that icon and use focus motor +/-, it really doesn't move at all?
If course if it moves lets say more than 0.1" then it is something to worry about.

I've seen several H7x doing so, sounds very hard to believe such high failure rate if they all were broken.

Curvature on one of the image edges and non 16:9 throw doesn't seem like it should be normal.
I measured bottom edge slope up last night and it was about 0.4". Projector (H78) is right side up and lens shift is almost all the way down.

About 16:9 throw size. Have you measured both screen and pj picture size and calculated which one is wrong? I've heard that screens are not always exactly 16:9.

I measured bottom edge slope up last night and it was about 0.4". Projector (H78) is right side up and lens shift is almost all the way down.

About 16:9 throw size. Have you measured both screen and pj picture size and calculated which one is wrong? I've heard that screens are not always exactly 16:9.

Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing. The distortion I am seeing is a lower edge curve with the highest point at horizontal screen center. Not a trapazoid from keystoning or a linear slope from PJ roll. You can tell the distortion is optical because the bottom row of pixels are contiguous and track the curve.

My screen measures to an actual 16:9. It's a 100" Stewart GrayHawk.

The shift as you focus is normal. I've seen so many H77's lately and they all do this. What you do to get perfect focus is pick a direction, like to the right and stop at crisp pixel focus. I've become an expert at this ;)

As far as bending on the bottom, is your screen frame prefectly flat on the bottom? The Optoma's can be aligned perfectly square on a 92"X52" screen.

The H79 gets hot, has anyone added an extra fan to their unit? Is there any way to increase the fan speed by the service menu?

Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing. The distortion I am seeing is a lower edge curve with the highest point at horizontal screen center.
Yes we are talking about same thing. This never actually bothered me since i have allowed picture to go on black edges to create some overscan, because S97 seem to be underscanning picture from left and right a little bit when H78 is set to native aspect ratio. Also this way lower edge curvature is hidden.

I've seen so many H77's lately....
Can you please comment those service menu gray scale settings i and movieguy2001 talked about on page 23 of this thread? Are those service menu settings anywhere near calibrated values?

I've noticed that factory default settings are very similar on most machines if we are talking about DVI, because ADC settings have no effect then, have you noticed same thing?

The shift as you focus is normal. I've seen so many H77's lately and they all do this. What you do to get perfect focus is pick a direction, like to the right and stop at crisp pixel focus. I've become an expert at this ;)

As far as bending on the bottom, is your screen frame prefectly flat on the bottom? The Optoma's can be aligned perfectly square on a 92"X52" screen.

I was only asking about the image shift during focus incase it was an indicator that something is loose. Other than that, focus works well. As you've stated the shift does not cause a problem.

Yes the screen edge is flat and square. The curve is pronounced enough that a reference line is not needed to see it (you can see the same bow if lens shift is adjusted so bottom edge of image is at screen center). The top image edge does not have a bow or curve.

Have you ever opened one of these PJs up? If so, does it seem possible that the lens assembly could shift relative to the DMD?

Can you please comment those service menu gray scale settings i and movieguy2001 talked about on page 23 of this thread? Are those service menu settings anywhere near calibrated values?

I've noticed that factory default settings are very similar on most machines if we are talking about DVI, because ADC settings have no effect then, have you noticed same thing?


Hey Mr. Big,

I do believe we've met before on an HT1000 or a Sanyo PLV 60 thread, but I could be mistaken.
Here's my advice, send your projector to Tom or buy measurement tools to calibrate.
iI had Tom calibrate my H77 and it looks better than all of my calibrations put together.
I've run AVIA numerous times and "done it by eye" but once I had it done with measurements
I was done tweaking. Some of the best $$ I've spent on my theater. I once had an RPTV calibrated
and felt like it was a waste of $$ but this is totally different. I would do it again in a heartbeat
and I'm a tweaker, but it is now not necessary.

Hope this helps!!!

Hey Mr. Big,

I do believe we've met before on an HT1000 or a Sanyo PLV 60 thread, but I could be mistaken.

Your name sounds familiar, but i can't remember exactly either, probably we've met on some Optoma related threads.


Here's my advice, send your projector to Tom or buy measurement tools to calibrate.

Sending pj to Tom is something i would have done right away if it would be possible, but unfortunately i live outside USA.
Measurement tools is also something i've been planning to purchase but CF or similar price is just not reasonable for hobbyist like me who needs to calibrate just one display and that's it. Spyder on the other hand sounds interesting but is it really reliable and nice to use, like entering manually values to Excel spreadsheet?


iI had Tom calibrate my H77 and it looks better than all of my calibrations put together.
I've run AVIA numerous times and "done it by eye" but once I had it done with measurements
I was done tweaking. Some of the best $$ I've spent on my theater. I once had an RPTV calibrated
and felt like it was a waste of $$ but this is totally different. I would do it again in a heartbeat
and I'm a tweaker, but it is now not necessary.

Hope this helps!!!
I've also tried doing by eye calibration many times, but i always end up too flat and washed out looking image while gray scale looks very good. Then i've tried settings listed on different threads here and some of them work incredibly well producing punchy and well colored image. Latest values i'm using are 163, 144, 142, 119, 121, 123. It would be interesting to compare these values to someones calibrated values if they would match or not.

The shift as you focus is normal. I've seen so many H77's lately and they all do this. What you do to get perfect focus is pick a direction, like to the right and stop at crisp pixel focus. I've become an expert at this ;)

As far as bending on the bottom, is your screen frame prefectly flat on the bottom? The Optoma's can be aligned perfectly square on a 92"X52" screen.

Does this pixel focus technique also apply to the H78's?

Does this pixel focus technique also apply to the H78's?
Yes.

Optoma apparently updated the website and in the process dropped the link to the H7x universal remote control files. They used to have my files loaded on the US site under the H77, but do not now as far as I see. Back in the bowels of Tom's H77 and H79 review threads these links exist somewhere but people are having a hard time finding them.

I've had several emails lately looking for the files. To try to bulk answer those emails, I'm posting the link to the universal remote files here and in the other big H7x threads (excuse cross posts please for those subscribed to all/many). I created these IR files from the Hex codes supplies to me by Optoma engineering, and some necessary reverse engineering of the stock remote. They are not "learned" IR codes which are unreliable IMO.

NOTE: The link below is to my AV-RS232 site where I have the factory IR files loaded. If you are a AV-IR232 user DO NOT use the files in this link as they are not for a H7x controller, but for direct IR control of a H7x PJ without a AV-RS232.

It's a zip file containing a Home Theater Master .mxd file (for a MX700, MX800/850, MX-3000, etc) and a .ccf file (for Pronto users). The pronto file isn't a pretty graphic, it's just the core files needed with the H7x buttons respective IR Hex codes. I suppose one could use the files as is, but that was not my intention when I made them. These codes just replicate the factory remote. I use a MX-850 now and I can't recommend it enough. That remote combined with these codes is a big improvement over the stock remote. It still does not give the discretes that a AV-RS232 does, but it's a free upgrade (if you have the remote) that is a significant improvement over the stock remote.

http://www.av-rs232.com/factory/h7XfactoryremoteIR.zip

Activity is pretty much gone on my AV-RS232 site. I am about to list my H79 for sale, so with those 2 things, I may be taking down the AV-RS232 site in the future. Point is if you want the remote files linked above, get'em while they are hot and save them.

Cheers,
Scott

I just purchased a H78DC3 along with a 92" Da-Lite Cinema Contour Da-Mat screen. I mounted the projector 4" below the top of the screen to allow a little play with the lens shift.

I too am suffering from screen bending (arcing) from midway to the bottom of the screen. I roughly measure it at 5 pixels higher in the middle vs. the edges. This is my first projector so I'm concerned that if this is not the norm I need to make Optoma aware of a possible problem projector.

Can the 'experts' conclude this should not happen with this projector? I'm a stickler with geometry because once I see it that's the only thing I see. Luckily I don't see rainbows.

The frame lines on the Optoma's can be perfectly straight. Try shinning the projector on something else to take the screen out of the equasion. How about a sheet of white paper held flat on a book. See if you see any bending.

I too am suffering from screen bending (arcing) from midway to the bottom of the screen. I roughly measure it at 5 pixels higher in the middle vs. the edges. This is my first projector so I'm concerned that if this is not the norm I need to make Optoma aware of a possible problem projector.

I have spoken with Optoma Tech Support. They agreed that image bowing and aspect ratio distortion should not occurr and that the PJ needed to be sent back for repair or replacement. I popped the cover last night In the hopes that I could avoid sending it in and either dealing with down time for repair or losing my ISF calibration and run-in through infant mortality from replacement. The problem was not obvious. I suspect the DMD has somehow shifted relative to the lens, but to fix this would be far to involved for a PJ still under warranty. So back it goes.

Bottom line, yours probably needs to go back too

Hi Guys. I just got My H79. I am mounting it in basement home theater it has no windows. Room Size is 20'-24'. Thinking about a Firehawk. I want to be able to have some light on just to see beer or snacks. lights are on side walls. Will the H79 be brite enough in econ mode for 100 to 106 diagnal screen. Is it better to mount (on ceiling) it close as posible to screen or farthest back to fill screen . So you dont have to zome it one way or another. What size screens are You guys using.

H78 at 14' on a 118" in economode and i still get a very acceptable image.

Hi Guys. I just got My H79. I am mounting it in basement home theater it has no windows. Room Size is 20'-24'. Thinking about a Firehawk. I want to be able to have some light on just to see beer or snacks. lights are on side walls. Will the H79 be brite enough in econ mode for 100 to 106 diagnal screen. Is it better to mount (on ceiling) it close as posible to screen or farthest back to fill screen . So you dont have to zome it one way or another. What size screens are You guys using.

As far as lights on viewing goes, my opinion is a dimmer is mandatory. I'm running the H79 with a 110" Fire hawk in a light controlled basement. I have sconce lights on either side wall in a 12'x 24' room. For my setup, if the lights are dimmed to 40-60%, the picture still looks good with 'brite mode' off. This setting also allows enough light for me (or the wife) to do other things in the room and still see. Of course for critical viewing the lights should be off for best effect. My setup is ceiling mount towards the front of the allowable mounting range. If I were to do it again, I'd lean more towards the rear of the range to allow more flexibility for zooming. I would buy the Firehawk again, it's a great screen, (but maybe a bit bigger next time :) ).

H78 with a 106" using the very nice Optoma Graywolf screen. With this screen I could actually watch daytime baseball in HD without it washing out as I have three very large rectangular windows 30 feet away on the other side of the living room.

With the shades down no matter how sunny, it's a none issue. A Firehawk is of course a much more significant investment. Don't know how much differential it can add but it's highly rated.

Having a dimmer to control the lighting sounds very important. You'll be happy you did that.

how do firehawk screens compare with carada screens?

I have spoken with Optoma Tech Support. They agreed that image bowing and aspect ratio distortion should not occurr and that the PJ needed to be sent back for repair or replacement. I popped the cover last night In the hopes that I could avoid sending it in and either dealing with down time for repair or losing my ISF calibration and run-in through infant mortality from replacement. The problem was not obvious. I suspect the DMD has somehow shifted relative to the lens, but to fix this would be far to involved for a PJ still under warranty. So back it goes.

Bottom line, yours probably needs to go back too
Interesting. Please let us know how your repaired or replaced projector works.

I have one of those real hand picked H78's and it does have some image bowing. Not that it really bothers me since all H7x i've seen were just like mine, i may want to get it fixed if it is not normal condition.

When you opened your pj did you look at optics if they were completly sealed to prevent dust getting in or not?

Thank You Guys. I do have dimmer on lights. Anyone try Visage by screen innovations with H79?

Hey, I saw a few of you guys have panamorph lenses. What is ther purpose, are you happy w/ yours, are they needed for the h79??

Is anyone using a Logitech Harmony remote with one of these projectors? I haven't yet figured out how to make it send 2 IR impulses to shut off the projector. Is there any way to get rid of the screen that makes you choose between off and standby when you toggle the power switch off?

Thanks.

Is anyone using a Logitech Harmony remote with one of these projectors? I haven't yet figured out how to make it send 2 IR impulses to shut off the projector. Is there any way to get rid of the screen that makes you choose between off and standby when you toggle the power switch off?

Thanks.

i think you can do this in the special menue by pushing the 4 buttons on the back of the pj simultaniously. buyer beware

Hey all,

Quick Question... I have a Dish 942 receiver wih OTA reception for local ABC station. The HD channel comes in well and looks really nice (mostly). This being the channel that the Superbowl is on and the fact that I am hosting this year... How do i remove a slight overscan at the top of the image. Go figure that this is the only OTA channel that is having this problem.

I have looked in the standard menu and so far I do not see where to fix overscan... Is this a service menu option only?

Do I set this up for this channel during the superbowl and then revert back after?

Do you think switching from native to 16:9 will fix this? (from other threads and not yet tested).

Just want to have the best image possible for the party.

I get that when a non 16:9 image (SD) comes over the digital HD channel. When a true HD 16:9 show is on it's gone. If you still get it with HD you could just adjust the lens shift so that the top edge falls off your screen area.

But you got to have a black frame screen for this to work.

Throwing on a very well prepped DIY screen without borders at the moment. Too many things all coming in at once since b4 Christmas and I have not had time to complete a full setup.

Trying hard this week to remedy this but still very limited on time (newborn baby girl ;-)

I too am scrambling for the superbowl thing. It looks like all the h79s might be busy that night, hmm go figure. However i am not fortunate enough to have an abc affiliate with enough generousity to either broadcast their hd signal full strength or pass through to sat, they are however nice enough to pass it through to cable, whom does not service my rural location. I also appealed for awaiver, to no avail. So I am scrambling to get the equipment rack built , painted and installed in the ceiling (yes in the ceiling), but if it all comes together, it should be sweet even w/o hd superbowl.

I'm not a H79 owner yet but should be very soon. 3 weeks to go. This is the waiting time to get this device in Europe.

I have a question: I would like to connect my future H79 to my laptop via the VGA for slide show presentations. Now I found that the H79 doesn't have a VGA connector (15pin) as my H30 had before. Can I use a standard VGA/DVI converter adaptor on the H79, to get it to work? My Dell D505 has no DVI output or SVideo available.

Use a VGA to BNC RGBHV cable and i think you will get the best results....

Hi Guys . My H79 will not turn on. No power led nothing . Took bulb out and replaced still nothing. Any ideas? Tryied outlet with light it works.

Just wanted to let You know I got it to run. Panel You take off to replace bulb was not engaging switch all the way.Their is a switch that it engages. I had to bend the prong on the switch.

Use a VGA to BNC RGBHV cable and i think you will get the best results....

Thanks for the answer. Add least I know it can work. I remember our first PC 21" monitors were using the same type of VGA/BNC cables.

Yay! I finally got my new theater set up. I'm so blown away by the H78DC3.

Only one thing is confusing me at this point...

I connected my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD to my Denon AVR-3806 using HDMI, and then ran an HDMI to DVI cable to the Optoma. My cable box told me that my HDTV is not HDCP compliant, and that I cannot use DVI. What the heck is this mess? I know the H78DC3 is HDCP compliant, and the Denon too for that matter. Even the cable is supposed to pass along the copy protection. Am I the victim of yet another one of Time Warner's shortcomings, or is there something I'm missing here???

By the way, HD still looks great over component. Luckilly for me, the AVR-3806 can upconvert all inputs to HDMI, so I didn't have to run another cable (Ugh...that would have been terrible...)

Any ideas on my HDMI dillemah?

-Nate

Hai,

starting info : I got a H77 in europe end of 2004, was the first one shipped, it was later updated to the H78 not not the DC3. Now about 1500h later it started to have a problem in ceiling mode it would work perfect in table mode. Tom had the same problem and figured it was a loose wire or connection inside.

I send it to optoma europe and they could not fix it. So what did they do they send me a whole new projector with a new bulb ! (infact i also ordered a new bulb that they canceled since they figured i didn't need one now). Very good news projector >1 year old, 1500h on bulb (they knew that). And they gave me a new H78 compleet with bulb great support !!.

But (there is always one). I want to know what they send me, since the H78 (europe) has only shipped for a few weeks somewhere aug/sept 2005 before being replaced by the H78DC3 and then the H79 (no H78 is sold anymore in europe).

Unlike in the states the themescene H78/H78DC3 have no external way of seeing which is which. So anyone know how i can find out if i have a H78 or H78DC3. Software is the normal H77 c17 (like all h78,h78dc,h79) and the ser. number starts with : T81E-448AAA

Anyone ?

Daniel.

I know this has been asked before, but how does the H78DC3 differ from the H79? I mean, if you were shopping around, which one would you buy and why?

So anyone know how i can find out if i have a H78 or H78DC3. Software is the normal H77 c17 (like all h78,h78dc,h79) and the ser. number starts with : T81E-448AAA

I don't know if this helps, but i believe that 448 indicates manufacturing date which in this case is week 48 year 2004. What was beginning of serial no. of your old H77? My H78 is T81E-452AAA...

I also have one question. I just tried feeding interlaced component signal (SD TV) and colors looked quite bad. Way too green. Anyone got calibrated numbers for interlaced signal?

I don't know if this helps, but i believe that 448 indicates manufacturing date which in this case is week 48 year 2004. What was beginning of serial no. of your old H77? My H78 is T81E-452AAA...

I also have one question. I just tried feeding interlaced component signal (SD TV) and colors looked quite bad. Way too green. Anyone got calibrated numbers for interlaced signal?

Thanks for the info, the old one started with T81E444AAA that would mean my old H77 was created 2004 week 44, that would be very close to the date i got it. The new number is 2004 week 48 would mean that my new one was created 4 weeks later and yours again 4 weeks later. These are than all upgraded H77's since the H78 was not created for 6 more months. Anyone of the H78DC3 owners want to post the start of the ser. numbers.

Can't help you with the signal, i use a external scaler (dvdo vp30).

Daniel.