Hitachi PJ-TX200 MSRP $3,999 [Text View] - Page 2

tpknomad

12-06-05, 10:54 AM

Having owned the AE700 and being totally blown away by the performance I had a very hard time committing to the Hitachi over the 900. I seen the 2 projectors at 2001 Whitby and the TX looked better but at 2001 in TO the 900 looked better.

Well I picked up the TX200 yesterday and was up all night with is last night….
Have it in a 4:3 screen temporarily – seating is 14ft – installing 110” screen today.
Here is what I think so far-

The HD picture on the TX is much sharper/cleaner – less noise than the Panasonic. I think mostly due to the soft screen approach that Panasonic uses. However, the TX needs tweaking and without it, the picture does not seem as punchy as the Panasonic.

The TX fan noise for me is drastically better than the AE700. My projector is overhead about 1-2 feet in from of the seating area. During quite scenes the 700 would become noticeable with the TX I do not hear a thing in whisper mode and even on high this unit seems equal to or better than the 700.

The flicker reported on the TX must be a settings issue, as I could not reproduce it…

The slow Iris does present itself on Auto 2 but in Auto1, it is much better. I have seen the issue show itself 3 times in 30 sec and asked my wife sitting next to me if she noticed anything and she did not….. I think after you know its there you tend to notice it more…. Adjustments seem to reduce the affect to a respectable level…
This did not seem to be an issue with the 700 but the Panasonic Iris was so fast when it had to adjust full extreme it would click as it hit the end of its motion and I found guests looking at the projector to see what the noise was… If you see the TX at 2001 have them select “Sports” on the presets and then change the Iris to Auto 2. This will give full brightness and attempt deep blacks causing the issue to appear at its worst…

The Panasonic with soft screen and de-interlace features, seems to have an edge on the TX for reproducing 480i. I have the Rogers HD PVR and this unit provides up scaling for all signals but the 480i signals from my FTA box always seem out of focus. I have not had a chance to tweak with the 3-2 pull down Film/TV settings or sharpness to see if this can be improved but I think that a Iscan or scalier of some type is in order for Christmas…

I have a Toshiba 5970 DVD. I’m not using the HDMI because the HDMI is used on the Rogers PVR, and I do not have HDMI switching on the Harman Kardon only RGB switching.
The DVD 480p out from the Toshiba 5970 on RGB looks great.. As good as or better than the AE700 on HDMI… still have some tests to do with DVD on HDMI with the Hitachi… YES I know the Toshiba is on recall--- I am going to return this unit as soon as I get time… its got to be the worst HDMI DVD out there… I got caught up on the free HDMI cable offer and chose this unit over the Denon… will not do that again….

The second iris is really nice. This gives you more control over the projector. It opens all kinds of doors for tweaking that are not available with Panasonic and only available to Z4 users that want to clime up to the projector and do a manual adjustment. This feature and the extra lumens were my main reasons for not going to the Z4. From what I have read the 480i is no better and maybe not even as good as the TX…

CPC- I have the unit on the ceiling now and will hopefully get the new screen today… once I get set up I will take you up on your offer…. I would like to see the IScan on the FTA box. If it does well I will have to look into getting one.. I should be able to get a DVI to HDMI patch from work, if you want to try and see if the HDCP is going to be an issue…. I will check my email later today and send contact info… talk soon… Terry

Murilo

12-06-05, 01:08 PM

TpK how is the brightness on this projector?

Also you mention it does not seem as punchy without tweaking, punch is something I look for in a projector, have you been able to reproduce it with the tx-200 after tweaking?

tpknomad

12-06-05, 04:28 PM

there is more than enough brightness with this unit and I have been able to bring out the colour and contrast to the level of the 900.
I have only had last night with it so
Im just getting used to the controls... it is also hard to say witch is better without
having them side by side....
When looking at the 900 is seems it may be oversaturated at times… maybe that’s just me, not sure.

I sold the 700 in Sept thinking that I would get the 900 in Oct....little did I know
I would soend the next 8 weeks trying to find Hitachi reviews....

I will be able to tell more after I get the new screen up tonight...
I can say that for all my worry about moving from the comfort of knowing the AE700 and seeing waht the 900 could do... I think overall I am going to be more
pleased with the TX... and thats from someone that sold the 700 with the intention of going to the 900... I just happened on the Hitachi at 2001 and was
taken by surpriise....

shelly

12-06-05, 06:24 PM

The second iris is really nice. This gives you more control over the projector. It opens all kinds of doors for tweaking that are not available with Panasonic and only available to Z4 users that want to clime up to the projector and do a manual adjustment. This feature and the extra lumens were my main reasons for not going to the Z4. From what I have read the 480i is no better and maybe not even as good as the TX…
Terry

There's a button to control the manual iris on the Z4 remote.

Shelly

cpc

12-06-05, 09:28 PM

tpknomad,

Ok sounds good. I emailed you. We can go from there.

Looks like the TX200 is proving to be a decent unit.

David Mendicino

12-07-05, 01:06 AM

Is it the case that the tx200 is devoid of VB altogether?

ravenous

12-07-05, 08:37 AM

I was disappointed to learn that the TX200 does not allow vertical shift on the HDMI input. This is important on 2.35:1 movies that have subtitles in the bottom black bar. Without shifting the picture up, the second subtitle line cannot be read without squeezing the picture and making everybody look fat. I was seriously considering this projector until I learned of this omission.

One way around this is to use the component input, but it would be nice to use the HDMI input (especially with the new HD and Blu-Ray DVD's coming out soon). Maybe these new DVD players will have the ability to put the subtitles into either the video portion or the bottom black bar.

I use the TX200 with a panasonic S97 over HDMI. On the S97 you can adjust the position of the subtitles.

So this should solve your problem.

Iamjcl

12-07-05, 08:54 AM

As I stated in an earlier post, the unit I had for a week or so had zero VB. I probably put 12 hours of viewing on the unit during that time, including test patterns. Anybody else see any VB ?

This PJ would probably keep me from buying the Ruby if only it had less SDE - the black level and perceived contrast is really pretty good (not Ruby, but its alot less money, too).

- Chris

jeffropaige

12-07-05, 09:44 AM

Hey ckl did you ever finish the review of the pj-tx200? I was just wondering as i have (along with many others) enjoyed your great reviews. thanks for the reviews and keep up the good work.--- jeff

Liquid

12-07-05, 11:06 AM

I've had my HDPJ-52 for 10 days now. With approx. a dozen hours I haven't seen the slightest hint of V.B. SDE disappears at 1.1 to 1.2 times my screen width. Very happy so far.

jeffropaige

12-07-05, 08:10 PM

liquid how are the absolute blacks? up to par with the hs51?

mwan

12-08-05, 08:28 AM

Just a thought wouldn't this thread do better in the under 3500 forum... since that is where the z4 and A900 reside?

cpc

12-08-05, 10:28 AM

The cutoff between forums should be changed to MSRP of $4000 or $5000 USD. Too many projectors come out at over $3500 MSRP and then their price drops and the projector is in the wrong forum. Besides, all of these projectors are competeing against one another, Epson, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic and Sanyo and they are in different forums. I think that is kinda messy that way.

Liquid

12-08-05, 10:38 AM

Sorry Jeff, this is my first projector. All I can compare it to is the Panny 900 which was demoed at the same dealer. The Hitachi just looked better to me, it was just as bright and the blacks were slightly better. The only advantage for the Panny was no SDE at all, while the Hitachi's disappeared at 1.1X the screen width. No problem for me as I sit 1.4X my screens width. In Canada, the Hitachi is priced the same or even lower than the 900, so it was an easy decision for me.

fidalgoisland

12-08-05, 10:51 AM

What screen would you use for the HDPJ52? I have a new (just starting with bare stud walls) dedicated room with no windows. Looking at 90-100" size with viewing about 12-15 feet. Thanks.

Yogibear

12-08-05, 11:11 AM

Can't decide between Epson Powerlite 550 and Hitachi HDPJ52. Did any one compared those two prjectors?

Liquid

12-08-05, 12:24 PM

I found a 106" Draper on sale at my dealer($400) to go with my HDPJ-52. I sit 14' away and it looks great. Down the road I'll upgrade to a fixed screen, but the Draper should hold me over for a year or so.

my_pacman

12-09-05, 08:57 AM

I have written a review of the Tx200 and at the same time I measured it with Colorfacts 5.5 and a Trichomat-1 lightsensor.

The modes "6500K", "7500K", "8500K" and "High Bright" measured 7200, 8590, 11788 and 8103 (green tint) Kelvin @ 70 IRE.

Here is the RGB-history with the preset "6500K"-mode
http://www.component.se/articles/images/artbild-hitachitx200_10.jpg

...and after my calibration
http://www.component.se/articles/images/artbild-hitachitx200_11.jpg

Here's the entire review, it´s in swedish so it is basically totally worthless for u guys but there are some pictures and numbers that you might recognize (it´s very "WSR-like"). So here it is if you want to have a look. :) U will find some contrast-numbers, (1668:1 @ D65 with iris Auto1/4 for example), greyscale temp and deltaE and luminancehistory-graphs for all gammamodes.
Tx200-review (swedish) (http://www.component.se/docs.php?page=artikel-hitachi_tx200.php)

cpc

12-09-05, 10:30 AM

Is it just me or is it becoming a problem that really good detailed lcd projector reviews with measurements and serious evaluations are only originating from non-English European countries ala cine4home.de and the above link etc? Why are there no comparable North American reviews? We are left with thin, glossed over write-ups that leave us relying more on specs and marketing sales hype. We need more in depth nitty gritty reviews in Canada and the US!

Murilo

12-09-05, 12:17 PM

Cpc it is becoming a huge problem, I cant even find a swedish to english translation tool.

Pacman can you just mention how colors and brightness are? I am really looking for something brighter with more vibrant colors then my current projector.

Also if you could mention how dvd viewing is?

Thanks.

dalewg

12-09-05, 04:54 PM

I've had an X1 for about 2 years now hav ereally enjoyed it. When I saw th HDPJ52 at this price I had to follow up. 2001AV has these on sale for much less than MSRP in canuck bucks too. Would this be a worth while upgrade at this price. What would an X1 with 600 hours on it be worth to sell privately?

cpc

12-09-05, 06:03 PM

I cannot hazard a guess how much an X1 would go for used, but I think the J52 would be a good buy at the Canuck prices that can be had at places like 2001. I am also considering getting my next PJ in Canada this time, perhaps at 2001 or another local or semi local hi-fi av dealer. I haven't decided, but I am thinking about it. Japan is good too, and you save money, but buying in Canada more than likely means faster service, and service more often without paying for lots of shipping if you have bad luck and repeated problems. Its a matter of personal choice I guess.

I really don't like DLP myself, so I cannot say how the J52 compares exactly. I think it would be safe to say that it would be an upgrade of sorts. If you want to sell your X1, you can do so here on AVS, or on any of the Home Theatre Forum, Canuck Audio Mart, Redflag Deals...eBay...the list goes on. Put it up for best offer or search for posts of people selling X1's and see what they are going for locally.

uognarf

12-09-05, 10:37 PM

New to the forum. Just ordered a hdpj52, hopefully here by next week.

Wanting to know what screens will go well with this pj. Would Do-Able or Polywall be any good?

Anyone using this pj with a DIY screen?

my_pacman

12-10-05, 09:05 AM

Pacman can you just mention how colors and brightness are? I am really looking for something brighter with more vibrant colors then my current projector.

Also if you could mention how dvd viewing is?

Thanks.

I will try, I´m really not that good at english so please ignore the sometimes crappy english. ;) Here is a mini-review for u guys:

One of the best things about Tx200 is that it has a good Autoiris. "Auto1" gives us better blacks and on/of contrast-ratio, not much iris delay effect (IDE) and no brightness compression, greyscale variations or "strange" gamma curves.

Auto2 gives us awesome on/off-contrast (>6000:1) but way to much IDE and sometimes an almost flashing picture(when scenes change from dark to bright). Also, dark images was to dim, I think it depends on no/to little gamma-compensation. When the iris closes you have to increase the signal levels in order to maintain the brightness, this is what I call "gamma-compensation". When I watched the stars in star wars, Auto2 lowered the black level of the sky but it also lowered the brightness of the stars => the image contrast in any given picture has NOT improved.

Gamma-compensation usually gives us brightness compression in some scenes but the Tx200 NEVER compressed whites, that is ofcource a good thing but I just wish they have added some (or more) gamma-compensation in order to improve "ANSI-contrast" in dark-scenes.

Brightness depends on lensiris-setting (1-10), in Whisper-mode I measured about 370 lumens with the lensiris fully open. For my small 81" screen (Da-Lite material, gain 1.0) i preferred lensiris at "4" or "5", that gave me 9 or 12 fL from my screen. Contrast was 1668:1 or 1484:1 with a black-level of 0.005 or 0.008 fL.

In "whisper", I had to lower "contrast" to -8 in order to get a good greyscale all the way up to 100 IRE (delteE 3, as you can see in the review). In Normal-mode, Red behaves totally different and Red follows Green and Blue even with the contrast set to +13. That gives us lots and lots of light while maintaining D65-greyscale, almost 650 lumens. Awesome.

I preferred Gamma-Low, it gives us a gamma of about 2.28, Because of this, the depth in mixed bright scenes was really good.

As you can see in the CIE-diagram the colors measured rather good and the shows with real material. For most of the time I thought the colors looked saturated and vivid. The only thing I have to complain about was that in darker pictures, the image became somewhat less saturated than optimal.

Regarding dvds, scaling and A/D conversion was not "perfect" so you will get the best results over HDMI @ 720p. If you connect with hdmi, use YCbCr, not RGB, since that allows you to force colorspace in the projector (cool "hitachi-only" feature). For most of the time, "Rec601" is the one to use for SDTV-materials.

Inverse telecine deinterlaceing was sub par but for videobased materials it did an ok job, Tx200 uses per-pixel motion adaptive deinterlaceing so sports etc from a set-top box works quite well.

Connected to a pc, I got perfect 1:1 pixelmapping.

I think that the Hitachi tx200 i the best D5-projector out there, it combines a fairly good autoirismode (Auto1) with lots of D65 brightness, clever functions (lensiris, force colorspace(rec601/709), gamma-EQ, etc), and a silent fan in Whisper-mode. I have seen all other and D5s and measured the Sanyo Z4 (review coming up) and based on that I have to say that Hitachi has designed the best D5-projector.

On the other hand, Sony HS60 looks better overall, mostly due to a better autoiris (lower blacks and the right amount of gammacompensation), but I don´t think anyone can beat Hitachi "D65 brightness".

John Meno

12-10-05, 11:30 AM

Will the TX200/HDPJ52 be able to do a 25% horizontal shift without degradation?

griffine

12-10-05, 12:06 PM

I'd like to know the same thing, but for the vertical shift. I've asked this question on a number of different threads but can't seem to get a reply. I need to place the projector as high above a 106" screen as possible without affecting PQ. The manual implies that it's possible to go up to 25% above but at the expense of PQ. Somebody have an answer?

Thanks!

Gregg

Murilo

12-10-05, 10:38 PM

Pacman I own a htpc, so I would not rely on the hitachi for deinterlacing and scaling, would you say this will produce a good dvd image from the hitachi?

Also is it possible to force that color space with a htpc?

John Meno

12-11-05, 02:21 PM

Griffine, I think according to the manual, it can do a 33% shift. I know you should never use the lens shift near the max. I'm using a slight vertical shift of a couple inches. I'm hoping the Z4 can do it.

REWJR

12-11-05, 04:53 PM

Can't decide between Epson Powerlite 550 and Hitachi HDPJ52. Did any one compared those two prjectors?

The Epson 550 $ 2495 MSRP ( 3000:1 CR 1400 ANSI ) is not in the same league as the Hitachi TX200 ( 7000:1 CR 1200 ANSI) a more valid comparison would be between the EPSON PRO 800 ( 5000:1 CR 1600 ANSI ) and the Hitachi TX200 .

The Epson 550 claims a contrast ratio of 3000:1, lower than some competing LCD projectors and higher than the lowest cost DLP competitor. Note that like the other LCD projectors, the Epson projector relys on a number of technologies including an auto iris to improve black levels, but the DLPs still have the edge. On the other hand, the Epson's setup does create very good looking dark scenes, even if ultimate shadow detail is not up to, say the BenQ PE7700.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/epson/cinema550/imagequality.asp

http://www.projectorcentral.com/epson_cinema_550.htm

I must admit pricing will have alot to do with your decision but up here in Canada
I can purchase the Hitachi TX200 for the same price as the Pan AE 900 and since most posts seem to favour the TX200 ...

The EPSON PRO 800 is $5495 Cdn MSRP and I can purchase the TX200 in the sub $3K range .

John Meno

12-12-05, 01:34 PM

REWJR, the 2 reviews I've read about the 550 both state the contrast ratio is way understated. They both seem to think the contrast is as good or better than the Sanyo Z4 or the Panny 900 which both have contrast ratios similar to the Hitachi. As you can see, the Epson also has a higher Lumens than the Hitachi so that would also make them comparable. I think the Epson 800 is in a class by itself.

Are there any Hitachi 52/200 owners that can tell me about the lens shift? I need a 20%-25% horizontal shift and a very slight vertical shift of maybe an inch or so. I would love to know if the Hitachi would suit my needs. I really like what I read about this pj.

beke

12-12-05, 02:42 PM

Yogibear

12-12-05, 07:12 PM

REWJR,
I agree with John Menoni. Epson's contrast ratio is undervalued. I think Epson 550 is more closer "apple to apple"comparision with Hitachi's TX200 than Epson 800. Regarding Lumens I think Epson kicks out more brightness but I have not seen any Lumen numbers in different modes of setting for Hitachi's TX200 yet.

Moreover Epson offer 2yrs warranty where as Hitachi offer only 1yr warranty. I don't know about customer service rating for Epson.

John Meno

12-13-05, 12:10 PM

Yogi, from what I've read, the Epson has great customer service. They are known for getting you a new unit if something is wrong ASAP. This is why I'm considering the Epson ove rthe Z4.

xboy360

12-14-05, 02:30 PM

ed_t

12-14-05, 04:00 PM

One question, where in Canada can I even buy the Hitachi? I'm in BC, and they only have the previous model (TX100)!

And now I'm split between TX200 and the 550! How to decide really?

I'm leaning towards Epson right now, only cause it uses a "E-Torl Lamp"...Any other projectors do a similar thing?

I don't know where you can get the Espon 550/800 in Canada. But I found a couple of places which sells TX200, though not in BC. I was orginally looking at the Epson pjs because of the higher lumen output but finally given up on the search for a seller in Canada. I think there are a few places where you can get them in US.
Sent me an email and I'll reply with the TX200 sellers website.

xboy360

12-14-05, 05:40 PM

I found out where I can buy the Epson's locally, and for a good price too! There's a few places in BC. I'm sure there are a few places in Ontario too. I just went to epson.ca and searched for authorized dealers..

Which still makes it that much harder to decide, Epson 550 or Hitachi HDPJ52?

The Hitachi is about ~$300 more than the Epson 550. But which one has more lumens after D65 calibration??

That criteria will probably be my decision.

dragonbud0

12-14-05, 08:23 PM

xboy360,

got same dilemmma about epson and hitachi. which is a us model vs. grey market, tx200 or hdp52?

xboy360

12-14-05, 09:09 PM

dragonbud0,

The NORTHAMERICAN model is going by HDP-J52. Retailers in Canada will not know it by any other name.

The TX200 model name is for the rest of the world. :)

I really wonder if someone would be able to do a shoot out between the Epson 550 and Hitachi HDP-J52?

uognarf

12-14-05, 09:16 PM

Currently am purchasing one of these gray market imports. So far satisfied with my interaction with the dealer. PJ should arrive in the next 2 days.

uognarf

raminolta

12-15-05, 01:53 AM

Hello Guys,
I only discovered this thread this evening while already having purchased my TX200 and it is now on its way! Originally i decided to buy either Panny 900 or Sanyo Z4. I even purchased Sanyo Z4. Then i read in Projectorcentral that Z4 needs more tweaking and effort to gain color accuracy with it and SDE is more visible with Sanyo. Since i am going to install the projector in a small room, i thought SDE should be of great concern sitting close to the projector. I am also going to look many photos with the projector so color performance is important too. Then i read all those positive review in Projectorcentral about TX100 and thought well then, TX200 should be even better hence decided to go for it. Last week, i was not even aware of this whole site when i made the purchase. I have learned a lot here within the last three nights. Many things are now clear to me.
I asked the seller if i can switch to TX200 for a little bit more and he accepted the new deal!
This is going to be my first ever projector alongside with an Optoma H76 both bought at the very same price! After comparing the two, i will decide which one to keep and which one to sell. My screen will be made by me and with the help of a friend!

Thanks for the great information provided by many people here. I already know about the best setups even before having the projector.

Ramin (from Montreal, Canada)

Yogibear

12-15-05, 10:28 AM

xboy360,

got same dilemmma about epson and hitachi. which is a us model vs. grey market, tx200 or hdp52?
dragonbud0,

The NORTHAMERICAN model is going by HDP-J52. Retailers in Canada will not know it by any other name.

The TX200 model name is for the rest of the world. :)

I really wonder if someone would be able to do a shoot out between the Epson 550 and Hitachi HDP-J52?

I am also in the same boat. Just waiting for a comparision between Epson 550 and Hitachi HDPJ-52. Also I don't know why EPSON 550 is selling at MSRP? Generally, the street price is always lower than MSRP.

xboy360

12-15-05, 12:22 PM

Also I don't know why EPSON 550 is selling at MSRP? Generally, the street price is always lower than MSRP.

There's a place here in Vancouver, BC that isn't selling much much less than MSRP...so definitely worth considering if it can do the same or more for much much less $$$.

And is it true that Epson doesn't want any of the 550s from selling from online stores?

But unfortunately, that same store doesn't sell Hitachi so I can't compare :p

DarkScreen

12-15-05, 08:13 PM

I happened to see an HDPJ52 in the local (Silicon Valley) home-theater store today. Just out of the box. In fact it was set up ON the box for a quick demo. Fed by component cables from a DVD player, it looked most excellent while playing The Fifth Element superbit. It was hard to believe it wasn't HD. Bright, very good contrast, nice punch, and a quiet fan...especially in "whisper" mode. No VB. SDE was clearly there (pixel fill factor may have been on the low side). The projector stood up to fairly high room light before giving up dark area detail.

The lens iris is manual by remote control, but the lamp iris "may" have been automatic...hard to tell. The lens itself was quite large, which has got to be good for brightness.

When playing Legally Blond 2, the image quality took a BIG step down. It didn't look like the same projector. Muddy, low color depth, pasty looking images. This only shows how important the source material is.

Based on the price at the retailer, I suspect this projector should squeak into the under $3,500 catetory, where it can be compared with the Sanyo PLV-Z4 et al.

my_pacman

12-16-05, 08:42 AM

(1)Pacman I own a htpc, so I would not rely on the hitachi for deinterlacing and scaling, would you say this will produce a good dvd image from the hitachi?

(2)Also is it possible to force that color space with a htpc?

(1) Yes, a htpc with the right software (good deinterlaceing performance etc) should give you a good dvd image.

(2) No, because I guess your htpc will only deliver RGB-signals. You can only force colorspace with component (YPbPr/YCbCr) input signals.

xboy360>> I have not measured the Epson but I doubt anyone can beat the Tx200 when it comes to lumens after D65 calibration. Also, the Epson lacks the variable iris that lets you set the light-output depending on taste, screensize, mood etc. A really nice feature that I think is somewhat overlooked.

Waxxiemann

12-16-05, 11:13 AM

Dudes, Dudets!

What's shaking!? CPC I'd like to say hello to you brother.

So I'd just like to drop a line and let you guys know that I am still thouroughly enjoying my 52. Everyone I show it to is blown away. I still have those 2 really dark dust blobs at the bottom of the screen (barely visible but annoying).

I want to get some re-air but it's going to be a pain (no credit card) so I am considering using just a regular bottle of air. bad idea?

Anyway, I am hoping to get an Xbox 360 soon and really see what this thing can do.

Das it 4 now.
Wax

beke

12-16-05, 02:02 PM

I use almost all the vertical lensshift, i have approx. 20cm left of adjustments when i shoot a 195cm wide picture.
I can see that the left down corner is slightly out of that crips focus you get on the rest of the screen, this is absolutely not much but it's possible to see when viewing programs on my HTPC with 1:1 pixel mapping. If dont use lens shift at all i can see that the picture is crystal sharp all over, so its caused by the lens shift thats for sure. This is not detectable when viewing a movie through the HDMI, and absolutely not detectable through any of the analog inputs.
I cant compare the lens shift with any other LCD proj since this is my first, only had DLP before(X1,H31), but i can say that i'l never go back to a proj without lens shift! But beware of using keystone... especially when using HDMI, this goes for all projectors i'll guess.

Imight have to take this statement back...
and for that im glad :)
i've just been adjusting the position of the proj again, and i cant say that i see any difference in sharpness anymore. Its really sharp with 720P from my htpc, the slightest difference in position of the proj makes a viewable difference on the screen, ( on the analog inputs this difference is not viewable) one thing thats certain is that the "depth of field" is small. so make sure the proj is placed straight (Horis/vert) in front of the screen, the sharpness is now same all over the screen but beware of keystone if using the hdmi input, however if the proj is placed correct that function is not needed.

Yogibear

12-16-05, 06:14 PM

Finally, we got review...
http://www.projectorcentral.com/hitachi_ultravision_hdpj52.htm

John Meno

12-16-05, 06:45 PM

It looks like the Epson is more than a worthy oppenent for the Hitachi. I just hope the Epson is bright enough.

There is one thing that I still don't understand about the lens shift. The review said that the Hitachi has a similar lens shift than the Epson. The epson has a 50% horizontal shift and it was stated that the Hitachi has a 25% horizontal shift on this thread. Can anyone clariy what level of lens shift is available on either projector? I need about a 20%-25% horizontal shift. Can both of these models do this for me? If the Hitachi only does a 25% shift, that wouldn't be good enough for me because if you use close to the max shift, the picture becomes distorted. Any help from anyone using either model would be greatly appreciated!

Souki

12-16-05, 10:38 PM

I read the Projector Central review of the HDPJ52, and I love this feature :

"The "lens mask" option adds horizontal black bars to the image, which are adjustable up and down independent of one another. We found this feature to be most useful while watching broadcast material, specifically broadcast HDTV, since these signals occasionally have extraneous lines of "noise" at the top or bottom of the image. Using the "lens mask" feature, you can simply mask off the top and bottom noise artifacts without using overscan to scale your image and losing the benefits of native 720p. This is an interesting and attractive feature, and one that we've not seen on competitively priced alternatives.

Wonder if you could use this feature to mask off the black bars on 2.35:1 ratio films? That would be wicket if it does that!

I currently own their 480p PJTX10, and when they released that unit, it was amongst the best 480p unit available for the price. And now it appears Hitachi has done it again, great preformance, great price, even in Canada!

REWJR

12-17-05, 09:26 AM

Wonder if you could use this feature to mask off the black bars on 2.35:1 ratio films? That would be wicket if it does that!

Typically the most you can blank off is 7% which is enough for artifacts and overscan but not 2.35 : 1 black bars as they are beyond that percentage.

This feature for me with a fixed Da-Lite HCCV 110" screen makes the Hitachi HDP J52 the only one for me and I will be flipping out of my TX100 mainly because of this plus the enhanced CR features.

cpc

12-17-05, 10:52 PM

Waxxiemann,

Have been away for quite a few days. Perhaps I can buy some more Re-Air and send you some.

:)

double6

12-18-05, 04:39 AM

does anyone saw the good powerstrip timings (on the VGA input) ?

Anim

12-18-05, 04:40 AM

I just ordered a TX200, hopefully have it by Tuesday. Should be a nice step up from my AE100.

Anim

double6

12-18-05, 05:00 AM

Same for me AE100 --> tx200

Citation4444

12-18-05, 09:37 AM

When I saw the in-store demo of the HDPJ52, I was not impressed due to the apparent lack of contrast compared to the Mits HC3000. Although I bought the HC3000 initially, I had to return it and get the HDPJ52 because my room couldn't handle its large screen offset. After calibrating my new HDPJ52, I now understand why it didn't impress me out of the box. Using the Sencore VP403 generator's HiLoTrk pattern to set contrast and brightness, I found the contrast had to be jacked up to +21. The brightness was ok at the factory default setting (0). This was not expected, as my Hitachi TV experience always showed the contrast cranked up to max 100% as delivered - but not this projector. The white tracking was also off (but not too bad), with the 6500K setting measuring around 7000K at high IRE levels and increasing gradually to 9500K at 10 IRE. Calibrating the white tracking was a piece of cake as it allows all colors to be adjusted in each of 3 bands. It also allows creation of custom gamma curves - allowing adjustment of hi lo and mid points of the gamma curve. My gamma curve was ok using the HDMI input, but required customization for the component input. We watched some recorded HDTV last night, and the picture was very very good. I don't know what an A/B with the HC3000 would be like now, but I expect it would be much closer in contrast. Sharpness is excellent on both, with the Hitachi slightly better, especially when viewing the windows desktop.

The HDPJ52 is a tweaker's delight as you can customize this thing out the gazoo. For me, this is great as it allows flexibility in calibrating.

By the way, I had to store my calibration settings in memory location 1 since I am still trying to find out how to enter the service menu. If anybody knows how to enter the SM please PM me. I'd love to know for the HDPJ52 as well as for the HC3000.

Anyway, my advice to anybody demo-ing a HDPJ52 is to crank up the contrast and see if it brings the spark into the image. I expect most shop people leave it at the factory setting or adjust it up a little bit and conclude the performance is not there.

If anybody else has calibrated one of these, I'd love to hear if your experience was similar to mine or if mine is an anomaly.

cpc

12-18-05, 10:03 AM

So are people doing with vertical banding? I seem to hear most people saying they have little or no vb. Is that the general consensus?

Citation4444

12-18-05, 10:12 AM

I haven't noticed any vertical banding in mine. I'll look a little closer, but it certainly isn't present in any viewing I've done. I'll look more closely and see if I can find any, but I doubt if I'll find any.So are people doing with vertical banding? I seem to hear most people saying they have little or no vb. Is that the general consensus?

aegisx

12-18-05, 11:47 AM

You all think the extra cost vs the ae900 is worth it?

REWJR

12-18-05, 01:32 PM

You all think the extra cost vs the ae900 is worth it?

Here in the Great white north the street price is same as the AE900 case closed...

Meridius

12-18-05, 04:02 PM

hi all do you think the infocus 4805 has better contrast and overall blacks than the hitachi
i was woundering if the infocus had better blacks ???? as i can get a infocus 4805 very cheap.

the hitachi is twice its price i`m not to bothered about res as i am wating for the hi res projectors next year but do you think the hitachi can blow the blacks away (auto 1 iris 5) to the infocus 4805 ????

thanks

Doctor Geek

12-18-05, 05:18 PM

I found the contrast had to be jacked up to +21. The brightness was ok at the factory default setting (0) <snip> The HDPJ52 is a tweaker's delight as you can customize this thing out the gazoo. For me, this is great as it allows flexibility in calibrating. <snip> If anybody else has calibrated one of these, I'd love to hear if your experience was similar to mine or if mine is an anomaly.

This is my first post to avsforums, but I've been a camper here for a long time.

I threw in my (ancient) AVIA disk and didn't have to touch the Brightness. I bumped up the contract by 3 points... you're running at +21? What mode did you have it in (Low Cinema, High Cinema, Normal, etc.) I'll double check, but I think I had it in Normal mode.

I'm still a project newbie, but you're right -- there seems to be a WHACK of options on this unit. I'm a little daunted by the Advanced menu, but seem to have everything under control. I was originally going to pick up the PJTX-100 after a few good demo sessions (and good reviews) but then came across the HDPJ-52.

Right now I'm watching movies in "Cinema Low" mode, Auto 1 Iris. I find "Cinema High" a little too dark at times (Lord of the Rings). I'm using a cheap Toshiba progress scan DVD player that skips... so I disabled the Progressive Scan option and was pleasantly surprised to see a better picture (cleaner and crisper)... go figure. Think an upconverting DVD player would show some good gains on this projector?

So far I'm very happy with the unit. Only having watched a few movies, my wife now thinks that my 9 month home-theater-building project was worth every penny.

Citation4444

12-18-05, 06:49 PM

This is my first post to avsforums, but I've been a camper here for a long time.

I threw in my (ancient) AVIA disk and didn't have to touch the Brightness. I bumped up the contract by 3 points... you're running at +21? What mode did you have it in (Low Cinema, High Cinema, Normal, etc.) I'll double check, but I think I had it in Normal mode.

I also had mine in the Normal mode for the HDMI cal. I've checked my settings with Avia and GetGray and they all give me roughly the same setting for contrast. By the way, I have the black setting off to measure this, but I set it to Auto1 when viewing material.
It looks like my unit is not representative of the HDPJ52's. Bothers me a little bit, but with it working as it is, I'm happy. :)

Doctor Geek

12-18-05, 07:31 PM

I also had mine in the Normal mode for the HDMI cal. <snip> I have the black setting off to measure this, but I set it to Auto1 when viewing material.

Ahhh -- ok. I guess this is where my newbie-ness shows through. I had the black setting set to Auto1 when calibrating. Should I have it set to OFF for calibration? I'm wondering if this whole auto-iris technology is too new for my Avia disk...

I'm component only right now, maybe Santa (next week) will get me an HDMI/Upconverting DVD player next week.

With component, I rechecked with Mode=Normal and Black=Off. At this setting, on my cheapy plain white screen, here's my new profile:
Contrast=+10
Brightness=-1
Color=+5
Tint=+1
Sharpness=7

Haven't watched a movie yet -- tonight, it's "The Island" and I'll see if those settings should stick.

Citation4444

12-19-05, 08:15 AM

Ahhh -- ok. I guess this is where my newbie-ness shows through. I had the black setting set to Auto1 when calibrating. Should I have it set to OFF for calibration? I'm wondering if this whole auto-iris technology is too new for my Avia disk.

I'm not sure if it should be off or on, and there's a discussion of this in the calibration forum. It might be a case of how your light sensor and equipment react to the rapidly switching iris. In my case, I get a substantial difference in measured data between windowed gray patterns and full field patterns with the auto iris on. I get the same readings with auto iris off. To my eye, it doesn't appear that the color changes, indicating that the switching is confusing the Sencore measuring system, but I could be wrong. I chose to keep the auto iris off while measuring as I think the data is more indicative of what my eyes tell me. I calibrated last night again with the GetGray DVD and got virtually identical results. My settings are Contrast +20, Brightness -1, Color +5, Iris 7, Sharpness 4, all using the HDMI input. My results were substantially different for the component inputs, but I don't remember what they were offhand as I use the HDMI input.

I must point out that I'm a rookie in this calibration of projectors. Although I have a MSEE and used to repair TV's in my younger years in my father's TV shop, I'm still a newbie in this area. I have access to the calibrating equipment through my local dealer, who thinks my calibrations are good enough that I am doing his demo projectors for him. In the end, I'm just a retired executive with a home theater hobby.

By the way, I am a new contributor to the GetGray DVD project and this thing is great! The navigation is especially good, which is the one thing that drove me nuts with the Avia disk. It's an ongoing development, still in the beta testing stage, but it's already good enough that I'd buy it off the shelf in a heart beat.

crodrigues

12-19-05, 04:02 PM

Same for me AE100 --> tx200

Same here! Got my TH-AE100 back in 2002! Put almost 3000h on it, replaced its blue polarizer (ordered directly from the PASC website) and it is still going strong! Got the Hitachi and yes, it is a major step up. And my God, the lens shift helps a lot! When I remember the hassle I went through to put the AE100 on its prime location!
So far around 60 hours on the Hitachi. NO complains. I had a Pioneer DV-578A (480p) connected to it and decided to try an HDMI player. Got the Sony DVP-NS70H extremely cheap and tried. Huge improvement in picture. This projector really shines when using an HDMI DVD Player upscaling to 720p.
Just hope it will give me no issues for years and be as reliable as my old Panny was. :D

gerberma

12-19-05, 05:55 PM

After lurking for over a year and being indecisive for half of that, coupled with the fact that manufacturers are coming out with new PJ's practically before the older models get...well old...i finally decided to buy a TX200 out of JP. It came today and I am totally in awe. I owned a Z3 for about a week then sold it to buy the TX and am not sorry. I have not really watched a movie on it except for a few clips and I am thrilled with its out of box performance. It is somewhat neutral as opposed to the Z3 which was more colorful, im talking about overall picture quality. Now im going to stop coming to these boards because I want to enjoy the PJ, although some calibration help would be welcome. I am thankful to eveyone on this board for the insight. I know I will have to wean myself off the board as I am an addict... for now Im going to enjoy the PJ and stop looking at whats next.....peace.... :D

double6

12-19-05, 07:44 PM

Same here! Got my TH-AE100 back in 2002!
Just hope it will ... be as reliable as my old Panny was. :D

I'm using it with an HTPC ... reliable and much more ! Waiting for it (at the end of the week i hope)
I'm now looking for tx200 powerstrip advanced timings, if someone have good ones (before i have to spend hours on it).

widseth

12-19-05, 11:32 PM

It turns out the ballast on my Power Unit in my TX200 has gone. This unit is a Grey import and was meant for 110V compared to 240V here in Australia. The unit worked fine for about 20 hours.

Waingro

12-19-05, 11:52 PM

Widseth,

You're in Central Queensland right. I recall you saying that your JP TX200 stopped working and that it was going back for repair.
My understanding is that these latest batch of LCD projectors could all work either 110volt or 240 volt. I thought all you had to do was use an adaptor plug.
Am I barking up the wrong tree. ?
Do we in 24O volt land need to use a step down transformer to convert to 110volt. ?

What are you now doing with yours ??

Waingro

Stan1020

12-20-05, 01:15 AM

Hello all...

This is my first post here at AVS Forum!

I've been in the market for a projector for the past two months, wanting to upgrade my 47" rear projection Panasonic (2002 model). I was thinking maybe 61" DLP, but when I got to the store, the salesman was with another customer, showing off a demo model of the Panasonic PT-AE700...trying to get rid of old inventory before the new model AE900u came in. Anyway, I was hooked on the projector! I didn't even know they existed prior to going to the store! That's how new I was to it.

So I got home and started doing research on the various forums and Projector Central...and I was pretty much hooked on the PT-AE900u from Panasonic.

So I get to the store and the salesman shows it to me, and I'm hooked on it. BUT then he tells me about the new Hitachi HDPJ52, and it was just amazing. The had both projectors on a HD loop from Bell Express Vu, and I sat through the loop a couple of times, and the Hitachi was definitely more sharp and crisp as compared to the AE900u...so I bought the HDPJ52! Plus, here in Canada, we get a free NFL jacket!

I got home, and set it up. I'm using a Da-Lite Model B with CSR screen, matte white surface. The projector is mounted on a shelf attached to the ceiling. The screen is 92" diagonal, and the throw distance is approximately 11'9". I already had the HD box from my cable company, and I'm hooked up using component video cables.

Well....let me tell you...one word is AWESOME! It truly is amazing to get the big size screen with a sharp crisp picture. I was really amazed at the store, and even more so at home. Even my fiancee is happy, and the in-laws! Maybe the only problem is that they may come over more often!! ;) Kidding! I actually get along with them really well.

Right out of the box, all I did was adjust the zoom and focus, and the picture was fantastic. I played around with the Black (Off, Auto1, Auto2), and the Iris. I pretty much used all the normal and standard settings and found them to be great...so I can imagine how it will be when I tweak it some more.

I played some DVD's (Star Wars III, Twister) using an LG 7832 upconversion player to 1080i, and it was like I was at the theater. The blacks were great, the colors were great. It is just a great projector. What can I say? I set it on Auto1, although I did use Auto2 for a while...but there was no flickering like has been reported in previous posts by others. Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe my settings weren't the same as theirs.

I was watching Monday Night Football in HD last night and it was FANTASTIC. I used the 'Sports' mode, and it was very impressive. There was one time I did see the iris react slowly from a bright scene to a more dark scene, but it lasted less than a second. I switched back and forth from CSI Miami, and that was great too.

Now...the only slight problem that I can see is the SDE, or screen door effect. People say they sit 1.0 to 1.5 times the screen width. My screen width is 80 inches, so I'm supposed to sit 120 inches (or 10 feet) from the screen. At 10 feet, I still notice a bit of SDE, but probably more because I'm focusing in on it. My fiancee can't see any of it. So I moved the sofa back another 2 feet, so I'm about 12 feet away, and I don't see the SDE any more. Now...maybe I was more focused in on it and that's why I noticed it at 10 feet. Not sure. but 12 feet is a good viewing distance for me. That's one thing about the AE900u was that it had no SDE, but because of it, the picture was just not as sharp as the HDPJ52.

Other than that, no problems! Great out of the box. nice black projector, no vertical banding (no VB), picture is great (as long as you feed it HDTV signals...regular digital cable through S-Video is average), and DVD movies are amazing, just like you're at the theater.

I definitely give this projector a 4.8 star out of 5 (with the 0.2 going towards the SDE that I see at 10 feet). You will not be disappointed with this one.

Hope that helps anyone looking for more info on this projector. I got a great price on it (even less than the AE900u), so I'm really happy that I got this projector!

I'll keep you posted as time goes by if I still love it as much as I do now!
Thanks.
Stan
Montreal, Canada :cool:

cpc

12-20-05, 09:39 AM

As far as SDE goes, don't forget to try and defocus a bit to see if the Screen Door effect can be reduced. You can defocus without losing much sharpness. Give it a try. I personally do not like sitting too close anyways. closer than 1.5x is at first impressive, but not for me. I sit 1.75x away from a 92" diagonal screen and I like it (TX100).

jeffropaige

12-20-05, 01:53 PM

would anyone who has seen the vpl-hs51 say this would be an upgrade to it? thanks jeff

Stan1020

12-20-05, 02:05 PM

As far as SDE goes, don't forget to try and defocus a bit to see if the Screen Door effect can be reduced. You can defocus without losing much sharpness.

CPC - Thanks for the advice. I'll try that out, but I'm not sure if I'll like it. I like the picture to be as sharp as possible. Maybe because of my laser eye surgery, I can't stand to see out of focus images, even if it is a little bit off. I don't mind sitting at 12 feet back.

Can't wait to watch Batman Begins!!

By the way, does anyone know where I can buy a replacement bulb? I want to have one ready just in case anything happens!
Thanks.

xboy360

12-20-05, 03:41 PM

xboy360[/B]>> I have not measured the Epson but I doubt anyone can beat the Tx200 when it comes to lumens after D65 calibration. Also, the Epson lacks the variable iris that lets you set the light-output depending on taste, screensize, mood etc. A really nice feature that I think is somewhat overlooked.

How important is this iris really? Other than it allows you to tone the output of light canons :)

xboy360

12-20-05, 03:58 PM

Here in the Great white north the street price is same as the AE900 case closed...

AE900 and PJ52 are selling for the same prices in Canada, but the PJ52 has the nice feature of the manual iris.

However, reading the projectorcentralreview, it says the Epson 550 closely competes with the PJ52 and given that it's also a few hundred cheaper than the PJ52, making it very worthy?

Does anyone know how the color tracking of both the PJ52 and 550 relate? Is it dead on with the color triangle gamut? Reading CKL's review of the TW600 showed that it was lacking green. Is this a characteristic of the bulb or the D5 panels?

The hitachi has cheaper bulbs going for it; I don't know how much are Epson 550 bulbs.

I've seen the review comparing the PJ52 to PE7700 and 550, thanks! Now we just need an A/B comparision between the HC3000 to see where it really stands!

filmbuff2

12-20-05, 04:00 PM

Because of the MSRP in Canada I was looking for information on the >3500 thread but now I realise were the action is! I currently have a AE500 and although I think it might be a good idea to wait for the CES, it is getting difficult not to purchase this pj. I'm coming up to 2 years on the Panasonic and would rather sell it while the bulb is still good - always a deciding factor given their replacement cost. On that note, a bonus for the Hitachi is that the bulbs are cheaper from what I have read - even if they rate life at 2000 hrs. it is more realistic. Should I just go ahead or wait ? I don't see myself watching HD for some time - just dvds.

xboy360

12-20-05, 04:08 PM

filmbuff2,

In Vancouver, BC, the Epson is a few hundred less than the Hitachi, so definitely worth considering.

The Hitachi has manual iris and cheaper bulbs.

The Epson is a bit brighter and can be better used for multipurpose, is cheaper than the PJ52. But how much are bulbs?

Does anyone know if these projectors are using sealed optics or will dust affect it??

cpc

12-20-05, 04:58 PM

The Epson 550 is cheaper than the Hitachi J52? That is odd. The one benefit that the Epson 550 may have over the Hitachi is the built in faroudja. I myself prefer my iScan Ultra, but I am sure the faroudja is decent too.

As far as defocussing, try it using the menu. I myself have always focussed my TX100 as sharply as humanly possible as I do not see screen door from where I sit.

Do not buy an extra bulb unless you have spare money around. It may sit for years, and there is no garantee you will need to use it before you decide to upgrade once again. The money you invest in a bulb can be used elsewhere. When the bulb blows, buy a new one. In the meantime, research where you can obtain a bulb for the least cash and at the fastest.

xboy360

12-20-05, 05:21 PM

The Epson 550 is cheaper than the Hitachi J52? That is odd. The one benefit that the Epson 550 may have over the Hitachi is the built in faroudja. I myself prefer my iScan Ultra, but I am sure the faroudja is decent too.

I can find the Epson 550 for $500 cheaper than the J52 here in BC. The Hitachi J52 does have a higher MSRP of $3999 CDN vs $2999 CDN though. Strange?

filmbuff2

12-20-05, 06:16 PM

I should clarify that in mentioning price it is based on an online outfit back East- the drawback, if any, is that they are from Japan and would have to ship there if any issues crop up under warranty. I bought the Panasonic from Japan and other than a bulb going early it has been trouble free. I have to admit to really liking the design of this pj.

yromj

12-21-05, 12:02 AM

Does anyone know the vertical offset of the HDPJ52?

Thanks,

John

Rice0209

12-21-05, 02:41 AM

I have had my j52 for a week or so now and i absolutely love it. I do have the same problem with noise in light colored areas and especially in reds and pinks as widseth did. Sportscenter is a good example as the flourescent colors in the background look as if they are moving. A big difference maker for me was getting out of component and switching to hdmi. My dish network 921 receiver prefers the dvi/digital output over the component/analog otput. I now use a monster dvi cable with a dvi-hdmi adapter. My 50 ft hmdi cable should be coming in shortly so i can hook this all through my onkyo receiver.

As a side note, i did unhook the component from the stereo receiver and run it directly into the back of the projector so that the a/v receiver was not involved. No difference, same amount of noise. Lowering your contrast makes a difference but who wants to do that. When I switched to hdmi, there was a lot less noise. I noticed that it was only certain shows that had a lot of noise. Discovery HD in my opinion generally has the clearest picture and shows the least amount of noise. Again though, I have found that it depends on the quality of the show or movie as some programs have no noise and others have a lot even on the same channel.

I will soon be building an entertainment center and getting all my cables in order that way they are not running power cables over speaker wires over video cables. That will pobably help also.

Bottom line, this projector is top notch and worth every penny. Auto Iris 1 is great for me. Iris 2 is very aggressive. I would suggest only running iris 2 in movies that are very dark like underworld, batman begins, etc. I occasionally notice auto iris 1's changes, but after about an hour of watching you actually get used to it and only in the worst of situations do you notice it. I am the pickiest person in the world, especially when it comes to these large investments, and it became a non-factor for me. Something that really reduced the changes from light to dark and the iris adjusting was switching to "cinema low" mode which i preferred over the other modes for hdtv viewing. This mode closes the iris more making the auto iris have to work less. I know people like my roommate have to have a very bright, and to me, washed out image. For him cinema low would not be a choice. He would be more of a "normal" guy which would make the iris changes less subtle. For me, I would have richer color and better blacks than to be able to see the outline of a bookshelf in what is supposed to be a dark corner of the room.

Also, this projector looks the best, in terms of style, and I definitely want to display it rather than hide it. Whisper quiet is just that. I actually built a projector mount/box that had an intake and exhaust port just so that it would lessen the noise of that freight train of a projector I used to own which was a dell 4100mp. With the J52, i have sat right next to it and still hear my noisy Dish Network 921 exhaust fan 10 feet away over the J52.

I just want to say that this projector, overall, is a high quality piece of equipment. Between this, the 900u, the epson 550, and the Z4, i would say you could not go wrong. I myself will take the J52 for its good looks and beautiful color/sharpness.

Also, I got the manual for the tx200 on the england website for hitachi. Not sure if the americas site has put it up yet.

Rice0209

12-21-05, 02:52 AM

Does anyone know the vertical offset of the HDPJ52?

Thanks,

John

The manual is extremely confusing at this point It says it has a 3/4 adjustment.

What i found is that you can vertically adjust the image about 25 percent of the height higher than the top of the original image.

In other words, if the TOP of the image was 4' above the floor, the BOTTOM of the maxxed out, vertically adjusted image would be around 5'. That a significant amount and works extremely well for ceiling and table mounts. I did not notice a huge picture quality difference when maxxed out. Of course the image was almost on my ceiling.

jstein

12-21-05, 03:35 AM

CKL's review is out and can be found here - http://www.avbuzz.com/audio-video/200512/HitachiTX200/index.htm

jeffropaige

12-21-05, 12:11 PM

how about some pretty screen shots guys? jeff

Citation4444

12-21-05, 02:42 PM

how about some pretty screen shots guys? jeff
I'm mounting my new 110" Firehawk today. I'll try to get some screen shots tonight, assuming the electric screen works like it's supposed to. :)

By the way, I checked the convergence on mine using the Nokia monitor focus screens that CKL used in his review. All 3 colors are perfect on the right third of the screen. On the center and left side, horizontal alignment is perfect (the vertical lines) while the vertical alignment of the red is above the other 2 by a very small amount, certainly less than a full pixel. In the very upper left corner, however, it is about a full pixel above the other two. You have to be very close to see this, and it's certainly not visible more than a foot or two away.
I don't know what to think about this, but from what I've been reading about the Ruby convergence some are reporting, I'm inclined to think mine is just fine. I don't want to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

cpc

12-21-05, 02:57 PM

Citation4444

12-21-05, 07:30 PM

Citation4444,

Did you do those tests at any specific lens shift setting? If you are inclined, it may be interesting to see how the projector performs with ZERO vertical and horizontal lens shift, and perhaps with some vertical and some horizontal. Also, you could compare convergence when zoomed wide, tele and in the middle. Just some suggestions to burn up time and further determine the overall quality of the J52 :) (or any PJ for that matter)They were done with no horizontal lens shift, but with about 1/2 screen height vertical shift. Zoom was about in the middle of its range. If I get time tonight after hanging my screen, I'll make these measurements again and let you know.

Alex512

12-21-05, 08:40 PM

Sent back my broken tx100, which happened to be my second one. Hitachi couldn't find a new light engine for it, so instead there sending me the new hdpj52. Have read this entire thread and have picked up some useful info. Thanku. Sooo looking forward to hooking this thing up tomorrow

xboy360

12-21-05, 08:55 PM

CKL's review is out and can be found here - http://www.avbuzz.com/audio-video/200512/HitachiTX200/index.htm

How come different reviews say different things?

http://www.projectorcentral.com/hitachi_ultravision_hdpj52.htm

This one is claiming that the Epson 550 is brighter than the PJ52? Perhaps it's a difference between North American version?

cpc

12-21-05, 09:35 PM

Alex512...that sounds odd. I guess there were no other TX100 stock available? Weird. They are still for sale. If you really are getting a J52, good for you.

braindew

12-21-05, 09:49 PM

I thought the same thing...but CKL is referring to proper D65 adjustment. After D65 the Epson comes in at 240 ANSI lumens while the Hitachi is closer to 300 ANSI lumens. But max brightness was documented as 500 lumens for the Hitachi and 950 lumens for the Epson.

Alex512

12-21-05, 10:34 PM

cpc,

I had way to many problems with both my 100's and made it perfectly clear that if they couldn't find me a new light engine, than I wanted an MRA and that giving me a third unit was completely out of the question. + I was having lots of problems with my dealer and his distributer making it a very unique situation for Hitachi. So they're sending me the new one via fed exp. over night for tomorrow.

I can't wait to play with the new one I'm gonna try CKL's 65 k adjustments. Very interesting. Learning some new stuff about calibrating and this forum is a huge help. I used 3no's settings on my 100 when it worked and it definitely made a great difference.

Alex512

12-21-05, 11:43 PM

The only one thing that I might find distracting is the auto iris taking into consideration that both my 100's seem to have bulb problem and it would flicker from bright to not so bright and back to bright again... pretty much on a constant basis. I personally think that the electric in my house had something to do with this problem in both. I now own a Monster line conditioner which I install with my last 100, but only after the electric had done its damage. On another note the electric only seemed to affect the 100's. I have a mitsubishi SL1U for over three years now and my electric never affected it. Bulb has over 4000 hrs on the Mit., very reliable projector.

Citation4444

12-22-05, 09:27 AM

OK, here are my first screen shots with the HDPJ52.
My system:

P4 3GHz cpu
ATI X800XT Platinum
TheaterTek (latest version) using Fddshow
110" Stewart Firehawk screen

Except for resizing, the pictures are untouched. So, any color shift you see is my camera. I could doctor the pics with Photoshop, but I don't think this would accomplish anything except invalidate the screen shots. This is in my living room and there is some moderate ambient light that I can't control. Light colored walls, white ceiling, shiney wood floor, ugh. But the Firehawk certainly helps. I hand-held my Nikon 990 and it is obvious I needed a tripod as these pics are not representative of the sharpness I actually see. I'll post some more after I hone my screen shot skills.

REWJR

12-22-05, 09:38 AM

However, reading the projectorcentralreview, it says the Epson 550 closely competes with the PJ52 and given that it's also a few hundred cheaper than the PJ52, making it very worthy?

IMHO the vertical blanking feature puts the hitachi HDP J52 in a class of it's own and worth the extra money ...In Canada it goes for the same street price as the AE900 and Bleeker's Stereo & TV ( nations capital ) throws in a free 90" screen what a bargoon ...

cpc

12-22-05, 03:07 PM

vertical blanking feature?

Citation4444

12-22-05, 03:45 PM

Rice0209

12-22-05, 04:01 PM

Citation4444,

You are correct, it does help with that, but it is also a big help when you are viewing over the air broadcast and certain other broadcasts that may have some overscanning issues. I know that on certain local channels I get through my antenna, there is a couple lines of distortion at the top and using the digital shutter, you can block this out so as not to have those annoying, pulsating lines showing.

jumpy27

12-22-05, 04:56 PM

I think he means the feature they call "digital shutter". It allows you to display black bars to mask the top and bottom of the screen, like a shutter. You can move the top bar independent from the bottom, and vice versa. I haven't tried it yet, but I can see where it might help in wide aspect movies to have black bars instead of the dark gray you'd probably have without this feature. Sort of the poor man's manual masking system.

Didn't someone in an earlier post say that the digital shutter only masks 7% of the screen, not suitable for replacing a manual masking system? The black bars in a 2.35:1 movie work out to roughly 30% of a 1.78:1 screen (HDTV).

Citation4444

12-22-05, 07:53 PM

Didn't someone in an earlier post say that the digital shutter only masks 7% of the screen, not suitable for replacing a manual masking system? The black bars in a 2.35:1 movie work out to roughly 30% of a 1.78:1 screen (HDTV).
I just finished blocking out all the space in Polar Express with the digital shutter with some to spare. Don't know what Polar Express is, but much wider aspect than 16:9. I think it's 2.35 or 2.4, not sure which, but in any case the digital shutter will do much more than 7%.

jumpy27

12-22-05, 09:47 PM

Typically the most you can blank off is 7% which is enough for artifacts and overscan but not 2.35 : 1 black bars as they are beyond that percentage.

I was just going by this earlier post by REWJR. I'm glad someone actually checked it out. That is a nice feature! Does it make a big difference to the viewing experience?

filmbuff2

12-22-05, 10:12 PM

Has anyone here tried to check out the Hitachi site in Japan? I tried translating some of the information I found but only managed to get an error report - Babelfish could not find the webpage. I did go from Hitachi's site to another Japanese webpage called Stereo Sound. Despite a translation it proved fairly useless, although it was touching on the 5 fold increase in contrast from the TX100's 1200:1 to the 7000:1 for the TX200 within the last year - actually it was quite funny seeing how it was translated to English. I would have liked to read more from Hitachi's own site as it looked fairly indepth regarding the TX200. Any ideas?

cpc

12-23-05, 02:50 AM

Does anyone know how much longer before a cine4home shootout?

CKL

12-23-05, 03:46 AM

[QUOTE=xboy360]
Does anyone know how the color tracking of both the PJ52 and 550 relate? Is it dead on with the color triangle gamut? Reading CKL's review of the TW600 showed that it was lacking green. Is this a characteristic of the bulb or the D5 panels?
[QUOTE]

Green shift is not a typical problem from D5 projectors. AE900 doesn't show the same character.

jstein

12-23-05, 04:58 AM

Citation4444

12-23-05, 08:12 AM

With a 2.35:1 movie, are the black bars using the digital shutter really blacker than the bars without using the digital shutter? I think Rice0209 has is correct about its usefulness for dealing with rough edges, so to speak. I don't think the way panels work would allow the black bars to be blacker with the digital shutter. Perhaps, I am wrong here.I'm pretty sure you're wrong as the shutter is in the lens system, not done electronicly, thereby physically blocking the light from the projector from hitting that part of the screen. At least that's how I think it works. I'll try to post some pics to show how this shutter works. I'll shutter off the top and not the bottom and turn up the brightness to project gray in bars. This way you should be able to see the difference. It will take me a while............

Citation4444

12-23-05, 09:03 AM

Here are some pics showing the "digital shutter" feature in action.

This first one answers jstein's question. I upped the brightness of the image to show the difference between the screen and what's masked off. I don't have control of light and it's daytime here, so you'll have to look closely. Both the top and bottom digital shutters are partially closed. I think you can see that the shutters block the projector's light from hitting the screen, just like shutting the blinds on a window. Sorry about the pic, but if you look closely you can see the different shades of gray.
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/508/partialshutters.JPG

The second pic shows both shutters closed to the max.
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/508/bothshutters.JPG
The original had 16:9 aspect ratio. This one shuttered off has an aspect ratio of at least 2.7 showing the digital shutter can easily do the wide screen 2.4 stuff.

Incidentally, the top and bottom shutters are not totally independent. That is, if you use the top shutter to the fullest, the bottom shutter won't close at all. Also, vice versa. If you partially use the top, you can partially use the bottom. It's still very flexible, but not at much as I initially thought. I don't think it's limiting in any way the way it is.

cpc

12-23-05, 10:01 AM

REWJR

12-23-05, 10:12 AM

I just finished blocking out all the space in Polar Express with the digital shutter with some to spare. Don't know what Polar Express is, but much wider aspect than 16:9. I think it's 2.35 or 2.4, not sure which, but in any case the digital shutter will do much more than 7%.

I sit corrected this is fantastic news only makes this PJ ( TX200 / HDP J52 ) a clear winner in the 720P sweepsteaks :)

I can't flip my TX100 fast enough :)

Citation4444

12-23-05, 10:15 AM

Thanx for the pics with the examples.

How about a shot of a 2.35:1 movie with and without the shutters? Full on and full off, as opposed to the partial? Looks like it would be useful for us folks without a panamorph. I wonder how that would look zoomed out using a constant height setup?I'll have to wait til dark to do that. I don't think you'll see any difference in my setup unless I turn up the brightness to the max. That's what I had to do in my prior post pics. Otherwise, there is little discernible difference. I'll see what I can come up with.

With this feature, and assuming you've placed the projector so enough of the zoom remains to handle the 2.35 zoom to full height, this would be great for a constant height setup using the zoom of the projector instead of an anamorphic lens. I've done this on my basement wall and it works great. My Stewart screen is 16:9, however, so this doesn't doesn't work for that screen.
The Hitachi has a zoom of 1.6, not as much as the 2.0 of the Panny 900 or Z4, but enough if the projector is placed with this in mind.

REWJR

12-23-05, 10:33 AM

With this feature, and assuming you've placed the projector so enough of the zoom remains to handle the 2.35 zoom to full height, this would be great for a constant height setup using the zoom of the projector instead of an anamorphic lens

Yes will have to flip my 16 X 9 screen for a 2.35 model and try the zoom out constant height feature although when going back to HDTV would we not have bars on the sides to contend with ? and can the TX200 blank those out ? If not mabey the next 1080P version will :)

cpc

12-23-05, 11:32 AM

Bars on the sides could be easily dealt with using some nice elegant sliding curtains with a sharp distinct inside masking edge. Be creative, you will come up with something. You could zoom in and out using the zoom, or make a track for the projector mount, and or zoomable/moving wall-mount or table top tray. For me, it just means making another screen out of fabricland blackout material that is about the same height, but wider for 2.35:1.

Anyhow, sounds like another decent feature of the J52. I suppose other pj's have that feature, but I am not familiar with which ones do. I was unsure about the J52/TX200, but I still think I may upgrade to the J52 if I can sell my TX100. I was going to forgo, but with all there is going for it, it is so tempting and I just got a vacation pay cheque and other backpay. Upgrade-itis has me. Next year I will probably flip to C2 fine.... :)

REWJR

12-23-05, 12:35 PM

Bars on the sides could be easily dealt with using some nice elegant sliding curtains with a sharp distinct inside masking edge

I think that is the easiest approach and the cheapest to will definetly rig some black felt flip panels for this .

jstein

12-23-05, 01:42 PM

Citation4444, thanks for proving me wrong.

Murray1080

12-25-05, 09:37 PM

I'll have to wait til dark to do that. I don't think you'll see any difference in my setup unless I turn up the brightness to the max. That's what I had to do in my prior post pics. Otherwise, there is little discernible difference. I'll see what I can come up with.

With this feature, and assuming you've placed the projector so enough of the zoom remains to handle the 2.35 zoom to full height, this would be great for a constant height setup using the zoom of the projector instead of an anamorphic lens. I've done this on my basement wall and it works great. My Stewart screen is 16:9, however, so this doesn't doesn't work for that screen.
The Hitachi has a zoom of 1.6, not as much as the 2.0 of the Panny 900 or Z4, but enough if the projector is placed with this in mind.

Without using any zoom on the projector, will the blanking bars completely mask top and bottom of a 2.35 image?
And does it look better than the usual back/dark grey bars one sees?

Citation4444

12-26-05, 08:21 AM

Without using any zoom on the projector, will the blanking bars completely mask top and bottom of a 2.35 image?
And does it look better than the usual back/dark grey bars one sees?Yes, and Yes. :)

I have also found it useful when watching recorded HDTV. On a couple of my CBS shows there's a thin line of flashing info at the very top. Just tweak the shutter down a little bit and the irritating line is gone. This line is only visible when overscan is set to 0, where I keep it.

This digital shutter is a very neat feature that I didn't even know it had when I bought it. Now, I think it is one cool feature. :)

cpc

12-26-05, 10:50 AM

....a collective thanx for potentially pushing me over the upgraditis edge :p

Murray1080

12-26-05, 01:10 PM

:confused: Yes, and Yes. :)

This line is only visible when overscan is set to 0, where I keep it.

This digital shutter is a very neat feature that I didn't even know it had when I bought it. Now, I think it is one cool feature. :)

This sounds a great feature to have on a projector I just might buy this machine!
Last question Im interested in asking, since I see you have mentioned keeping the Overscan set at "0"
Can you tell me if you are using HDMI can the OVERSCAN be used to INCREASE the size of the image slightly at all? Most projectors allow one to DECREASE the image on Overscan but not INCREASE it. Im aftera projector with this function without using a scaler!

Citation4444

12-26-05, 03:04 PM

:confused:

This sounds a great feature to have on a projector I just might buy this machine!
Last question Im interested in asking, since I see you have mentioned keeping the Overscan set at "0"
Can you tell me if you are using HDMI can the OVERSCAN be used to INCREASE the size of the image slightly at all? Most projectors allow one to DECREASE the image on Overscan but not INCREASE it. Im aftera projector with this function without using a scaler!
I'm not sure I understand what you are after. I'll just tell you what the Hitachi does to the image and maybe you can figure it out.

Let's say you have your resolution set to 1280x720. When the OVERSCAN setting is at 0 you cannot see the edges of the windows desktop, i.e. the image is too big for the projected image. As you inch up the OVERSCAN setting, more of the desktop becomes visible, until at 10 the complete desktop is visible, just like on a computer screen. 10 is the setting for no overscan, not 0. The adjustment is not great. I'd guess around 0-10%.

Yes, this does work on the HDMI input. As far as I know, there is only one thing that is not functional with HDMI and that is the ability to move the vertical or horizontal position of the picture relative to the projected image. (Note, this is not vert or horiz shifting as these controls are mechanical on the exterior of the pj and work for all inputs of course.). Using the other inputs, you could for example move a 2.35 picture towards the top or bottom of the screen to make more room for subscripts or captions. Can't do this with HDMI though.

I use the HDMI input.

Hope this answers your question.

Murray1080

12-28-05, 02:06 PM

Do you know where i can buy a Black tx 200?

And will they ship overseas?

If i buy one from the usa will it work ok without a transformer in australia?

We are on 230/240v.

cpc

12-28-05, 03:04 PM

Murray1080 [ i or p :p ]

Are there non-black TX200's? I have not been following that. Both the domestic HDP-J52 and imported Japanese PJ TX200 are black as far as Canadian owners are concerned. I believe the Japan TX200 is universal voltage.

...

Is there anyone using the VGA input of their TX200? Using an iScan Ultra perhaps? Curious how its working for you. TX100 via VGA with iScan Ultra is great with my old panny cv 51.

Terkalas

12-28-05, 03:56 PM

Does anyone know if a TX-100 mount would bolt up to the HDPJ52/TX-200?

Thanks,

Dave

Rice0209

12-28-05, 03:59 PM

jumpy27

12-28-05, 05:01 PM

I have seen it mentioned in this thread before, but my question is on noise in the picture. I am currently using an HDMI input, and before this, i was using the component input. I have noticed that, especially in lighter areas of a picture, a lot of graininess or what i would think would be video noise.

My J52 is connected to a Dish network High Def receiver and is currently NOT connected through my A/V receiver. Before, when I had it on component, it was ran through my a/v receiver. Whether it was direct from the satellite receiver or channeld through the A/V receiver, the noise was the same leading me to think its either the sat receiver or the projector. I do not remember having this problem on my old Dell DLP projector, but i could be mistaken.

Anyone having problems with video noise and have any suggestions?

Others have mentioned that possibly the new D5 panels are noisier than last years' D4 panels. This could be due to higher contrast and more details in the shadows showing up. Sometimes the best picture is not the sharpest or the brightest picture--the best picture is one that is still sharp and bright but does not show the faults of the source as much.

Rice0209

12-28-05, 06:46 PM

I think you are right jumpy. I played around with some settings and got things to look better, not perfect. My problem was not as much a problem with shadows, but with lighter areas. For example, if part of the scene has the sky in the background on a bright day, there are a lot of darker dots flicking in and out of the sky.

Is the thought here that the source material is imperfect and these new panels show imperfections with the sources such as my dish network HD satellite receiver or that the lcd panels are the cause of the noise and the source material is not the issue? I have noticed before that certain things recorded in HD are better looking than others, almost as if the equipment they used to record and process was of higher quality.

If it is the source, and I am outputing from the satellite receiver at 720p to the hitachi, is there any benefit in getting some sort of video processor? Would it lessen the noise and give me any quality boost? If so, what would everyone recommend? Overall I am happy with the quality of the picture, its just that graininess the noise brings.

My best and most annoying example is watching SportsCenter in high def. The background of their studio has lots of neon pinks and other tones of red. Red seems to glow and really seems to cause the most noise. The glass panels that make up the pink and red in their studio do not look smooth they look grainy. My old dell did not have a problem with this but the hitachi seems to exploit that more. I also noticed it today when the sportscasters had a pot of red flowers in front of them and the flowers looked so pixelated.

Citation4444

12-28-05, 07:16 PM

? If so, what would everyone recommend? Overall I am happy with the quality of the picture, its just that graininess the noise brings.

I have not noticed any graininess on my HDPJ52, and I have watched tons of HDTV and DVD's. Do you see this graininess when watching DVD's? It could be your pj, but I'd be very suspicious of your source material.

jumpy27

12-28-05, 08:23 PM

My best and most annoying example is watching SportsCenter in high def. The background of their studio has lots of neon pinks and other tones of red. Red seems to glow and really seems to cause the most noise. The glass panels that make up the pink and red in their studio do not look smooth they look grainy. My old dell did not have a problem with this but the hitachi seems to exploit that more. I also noticed it today when the sportscasters had a pot of red flowers in front of them and the flowers looked so pixelated.

Red is the hardest color to transmit and reproduce on even normal TV's. I think that if you compared your Dell side by side with the 200 you would see the red is not perfect on the Dell either, but is more noticeable on the 200 because of higher sharpness and detail capability of the Hitachi projector.

cpc

12-28-05, 08:38 PM

If you are talking about broadcasts, that is one thing.

Is anyone having any problem with noise from dvd's?

raminolta

12-29-05, 02:24 AM

It was frustrating not being able to use TX200 while having it for a couple days, as neither my Oppo DVD player, nor my network digital media player were with me yet, and not even my screen was still ready.
I can now confirm that this combination of Oppo and TX200 is amazing! Color, sharpness and contrast are all amazing. I know it will make me quit the habit of going to a movie theater!! If it is like that with a DVD, i wonder how it will look like with an HD signal!
TX200 blows away the Optoma H76 in picture quality! However, i have to say that my H76 is faulty and it has to go back to Optoma to be repaired. Its image goes black after a couple of minutes use! It might be a defective unit on image quality too, for i can't believe this big difference between the two!! As a comparison i watched a few minutes of Dogville (from a DVD source) using both. I have seen a big deal of noise with H76, while i am not able to observe any noise in the image coming from TX200!!
Color of the image from TX200 is also superior. When connecting to a PC, i don't have a problem reading texts in white backgrounds with TX200 while H76 gives me rather a hard time!

SDE: distance/screen width ratio is 1.0 for me! That was my main reason for going for TX200 reading the review (comparing to Sanyo 4) as my room is small. In 2metres far from the screen, i can zoom as wide as 2metres and i do not notice SDE! I would not recommend the 1.0 ratio though unless you can move your heads frequently without getting to feel dizzy after a couple of minutes!!!
Do you guys think i need to change my glasses! My new glasses will be ready in two weeks! I will let you know how SDE is, when watching using my new glasses!! ;)

My questions:
1- Is the native resolution of TX200, 720p or 1080i? And what are the VGA equivalent of these resolutions?
2- The picture is not perfectly rectangular! It is a bit trapezoidal wider on the left side! Can this be related to my set up or what else? How can i adjust this?

Rice0209

12-29-05, 03:21 AM

Citation,

It is all on my Dish network receiver. I have not watched a dvd on it yet. I did make some adjustments and its better but not perfect.

Raminolta,

1. Native resolution is 1280 x 720p.

2. The image is perfect, you just dont have your projector lens parallel with the screen. If the image is bigger on the left side, that means the left side of your lens is farther away from the screen than the right side. Bring the left side a little closer and keep adjusting the projector until it is perfect. Use the lens shift wheels on top of the projector if you need to aim the image up, down, left, or right. This will keep the image from distorting its shape.

Rice0209

12-29-05, 03:22 AM

Citation,

What are your video settings for watching hd material?

Citation4444

12-29-05, 08:15 AM

Citation,

What are your video settings for watching hd material?
Funny that you should ask. I have been playing back my recorded HDTV with TheaterTek. I find it is a little too dark and I have to turn up the brightness a little to make it pleasing to me. I fiddle with brightness and contrast to a lesser extent depending on source material. My settings are usually B=-2, C=+20, but with HD I usually use B=+1, C=+20. All other settings I keep the same.

REWJR

12-29-05, 10:02 AM

SDE: distance/screen width ratio is 1.0 for me! That was my main reason for going for TX200 reading the review (comparing to Sanyo 4) as my room is small. In 2metres far from the screen, i can zoom as wide as 2metres and i do not notice SDE! I would not recommend the 1.0 ratio though unless you can move your heads frequently without getting to feel dizzy after a couple of minutes!!!
Do you guys think i need to change my glasses! My new glasses will be ready in two weeks! I will let you know how SDE is, when watching using my new glasses!!

Try that in rainbow land and you would have shares in Tylenol from the eye strain and headaches :)

cpc

12-29-05, 12:08 PM

Too big a screen and too much of the movie is only in your peripheral vision. That is why you must dart around. Using a screen size that is large enough to appear pleasant, but does not require you to move your head, is usually the best. That is why I always sit farther back in the theatre. To each their own. For me, I think 1.5x to 2.0x screen width away is cool, any closer, and you are not really "seeing" the whole movie. There is a fine balance between big impressive, and big not watchable.

Anyhow, I don't imagine anybody is using a DVI display source (DVD player or DVDI iScan) connection to the HDMI of the TX200? Actually, isn't the OPPO DVI output?

- - -

For my TX200 projector:

I have an iScan Ultra with a DVI-D connector and I will be connecting to a TX200 with an HDMI connector. I have a DVI-I dual-link cable. Should I try something like this first?

http://www.pacificcable.com/Picture_Page.asp?DataName=HDMIMDVIF

Make sense or should I scrap the DVI cable and get an HDMI to DVI cable?

raminolta

12-29-05, 04:03 PM

Hi CPC,
I totally agree with you on screen size. I just did that for the purpose of examining the image: the larger the image, the more precisely evaluating its quality.
Oppo is DVI outout and i am using the DVI to HDMI cable came with it to connect it to TX200. This cable doesn't look that great though and i am awaiting a better cable i have purchaed to arrive at my door. I haven't started using the projector yet since i don't have any speakers yet Just received the receiver today!).
Regarding your concern on noise issue with DVDs, i am not seeing any noise with DVD (movie: Dogville and Europa which are not even of supperior quality! I will test with better movies later.)

raminolta

12-29-05, 04:08 PM

To CPC,
You will find good such HDMI-DVI adapters at lower prices on Ebay. Monoprice sells some descent such cables and dadapters on Ebay.

Regards, Ramin

raminolta

12-29-05, 06:04 PM

What do you guys use to protect your projector against theft? Locking it to the shelf?
What sort of lock do you use?

Thanks, Ramin

Citation4444

12-29-05, 06:52 PM

What do you guys use to protect your projector against theft? Locking it to the shelf?
What sort of lock do you use?

Thanks, Ramin
Nothing.

billtsag

12-30-05, 01:17 AM

Rice0209

12-30-05, 01:38 AM

I am using the DVI output on my dish network receiver. I have the dvi cable running to the back of the projector with an HDMI/dvi adapter all from monster cable. My final setup will be running dvi to hdmi into the back of my onkyo receiver, and then hdmi all the way to the projector. I am waiting on the 50ft hdmi cable to come in.

Rice0209

12-30-05, 01:39 AM

Raminolta,

I don't use anything but the projectors are equipped with the standard case lock hole. You can pick up a heavy duty laptop security cable with lock from most major electronics retailers and that will work best.

CKL

12-30-05, 09:18 AM

After comparing the black levels of orignal black bars at 2.35:1 movies to the blanking shutters, the shutters has no effect to lower the black level.

CKL

12-30-05, 09:20 AM

Hi there!

I just bought my Hitachi PJ TX 200. It was working fine on HDMI, connected with my DENON 3910 via a 7m QED HDMI cable.

Suddenly, when I fire it up the following message appears: OUT OF SYNC ON HDMI, FH... FV...

All other inputs work fine...

Any help?

I live in Athens, Greece...

Turn on the projector before the DVD player.
Try to change input source to other and then come back to HDMI.
Set 3910 to output 480P digital at the first.

Citation4444

12-30-05, 09:38 AM

After comparing the black levels of orignal black bars at 2.35:1 movies to the blanking shutters, the shutters has no effect to lower the black level.This is certainly not what I found. I showed a pic in an earlier post that showed how it lowered the black level in the black bars. Here is the screen shot showing the difference. You have to look close, but it's definitely there. http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/508/partialshutters.JPG

REWJR

12-30-05, 10:54 AM

Make sense or should I scrap the DVI cable and get an HDMI to DVI cable?

Yes I use a HDMI > DVI-D ( Monster adapter for converting HDMI to DVI-D ) as the HDMI cable can do long runs ( 10 meteres in my setup ) .

REWJR

12-30-05, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by CKL
After comparing the black levels of orignal black bars at 2.35:1 movies to the blanking shutters, the shutters has no effect to lower the black level.

That would only be close if you had a blacked out room and were using a Sony's black screen tech.

billtsag

12-30-05, 12:34 PM

Thanks for the reply CKL,

I did all that to no effect. I also tried the soft and hard reset, same result...

HDMI is not working in all modes...

Murray1080

12-30-05, 07:28 PM

Ive just bought the tx200 from japan and waiting for it to arrive.
I need to read every post in here yet to find the best settings.
Anyone know what are the best settings to use for sharpness, colour, contrast and brightness on HDMI, without too much iris movement?
thanks in advance.

CKL

12-30-05, 09:49 PM

Well, the original black bar below and above 2.35:1 may have different levels among different movies. To be more accuracy, we need to use a meter to compare the black level before and after applying the shutter.

Citation4444

12-31-05, 08:27 AM

cpc

12-31-05, 01:34 PM

I need help ASAP. How do I get into the service/factory menu in the OSD for the TX200?? I tried the method for the TX100 (go to reset in easy menu and press RESET on remote or projector itself, and that did nothing!)

Please advise how I may get into the service/factory menu in the OSD on the TX200. Does anybody know? I would like to check the panels etc.

thank-you in advance

:)

P.S. I tried Easy Rider 2.35:1 via composite (not home yet) and I adjusted the digital shutter and I noticed that the bars are darker when the digital shutter is on. Hey, its a new feature and it makes it look nicer.

cpc

12-31-05, 02:16 PM

Citation4444

12-31-05, 03:59 PM

ANYBODY?

How do you get into the factory service menu of the TX200 ??

P.S. Why does the TX200 only have an air filter on the inside? There is no outer. The TX100 had an outside pleated paper-ish sort of filter and a foam inner filter. The TX200 has no outer filter, its as if the pleated paper-ish filter is now inside and there is no foam filter at all. Looks disturbing. Looks like there is a filter missing on this projector. What is the deal?

BTW...vertical banding on this projector is the least I have seen, but it is still there. I have not gotten into the service menu to do the flicker tweak though. My first TX100 was terrible, and the TX100 I just sold was minimal. This one I would classify as very slight. So far so good. Colour uniformity looks ok too, but I have not done extensive testing. Only watched via composite cable thus far!
I'll PM the instructions on how to get to the service menu. I got it to work, but quickly got out of there as it's not user friendly and I need a service manual before I'm going to change anything in there.
For the vb you don't need to go to the service menu. It's right in the advanced menu. I think it's called striping or stripes or something like that. I've not seen any so I've not messed around in that area.
My HDPJ52 came with an external filter that I haven't connected yet. Does this mean the HDPJ52 and TX200 are not the same? I suspect there might be some differences, but don't know.

jumpy27

12-31-05, 04:09 PM

There is a HIDDEN MENU and FACTORY MENU. Which is the one you need?

cpc

12-31-05, 06:34 PM

Well, I guess I want both. The one I want first is the same one that is analagous to the TX100 menu which had the V.COM and C.UNIF etc etc. I realized the menu of the TX200 now has a special menu with GHOST and STRIPE etc...but I am looking for the service menu I guess. I would want to know how to access all menu's if possible.
, but the one with V.COM, C.UNIF etc etc. The one with the "flicker" type setting.

I will try the "east menu...reset" again.

thank-you,

:)

cpc

01-01-06, 12:20 AM

Happy New Year!

I am able to get into the factory service menu.

Now I would like to figure out where the "convergence" adjustments are. What are they called?

cpc

01-01-06, 11:47 AM

Kelvin up here mentioned the adjustments are CONV. Doh! I guess I wasn't looking hard enough and missed that.

BTW ... what is the best thing to use to check lcd panel convergence? I am just curious from the looks of my OSD. I see a bit of green and a bit of red on either side of each pixel in the OSD. I cannot remember if the TX100 looked like this. The screendoor is just a little less on the TX200, so using the OSD to focus is even harder now. Maybe that is all that is the matter, but I would like to know for sure.

I was going to connect my PC and try the nokia test pattern, but it is 4:3 native, right? I also have DVE. I will look in there for something.

I will take a picture. Maybe it is just slight chromatic aberation, or maybe my lcd panels are mis-aligned. Just need to check it out.

thanx for any feedback,

:)

P.S. Connecting the DVI output to the HDMI of the Hitachi, which HDMI setting in the TX200 is best? (dvd player set black = darker)

AUTO - Automatically selects an optimum mode.
Normal - Suitable for DVD signals (16-235).
Enhanced - Suitable for VGA signals (0-255).

?

:)

Citation4444

01-01-06, 03:15 PM

P.S. Connecting the DVI output to the HDMI of the Hitachi, which HDMI setting in the TX200 is best? (dvd player set black = darker)

AUTO - Automatically selects an optimum mode.
Normal - Suitable for DVD signals (16-235).
Enhanced - Suitable for VGA signals (0-255).

?

:)
I use mine set at Normal. Enhanced gives a really screwy pic for me. Normal is much better.

cpc

01-01-06, 06:03 PM

Cannot find the adjustments for convergence. I am almost positive this unit has poor convergence. I took some pics, and will take more, but the desktop text is the give away.

Is there a special setting for PC to the Hitachi? I used 1280 x 720p at 60 hz to the Hitachi via VGA cable and the text looked alot less than sharp. Pretty sure it is less sharp than the TX100 I had. May be swapping this puppy already.

Is there another menu other than the factory service menu with the DACP, CUNIF, etc etc?

RE: HDMI settings. I tried Enhanced vs Normal and the Normal setting "looked" darker and more contrasty, but I suspect it may be because it is being clipped. Any more thoughts regarding which to use?

cpc

01-02-06, 12:47 AM

I suspect the convergence is off with this TX200. I cannot find any adjustment in the factory service menu nor the hidden menu.

These pictures are using a Canon S1 IS on a tripod. Not the best focus, and they are from the left side of the screen, however, the centre is only marginally better, and the right side, although even better still, is still bad in my books. I focussed the projector as best as I could. It is as perpendicular to the screen as I can get it, and I am using the tiniest amount of lens shift (close to zero). I believe I am in the middle of the zoom range.

I guess I send it back to the puppy mill?

I can understand the area near the edges of the image will often look similar to these pics, as convergence near the edge is often less than perfect, but this seems extreme. What do you think?

filmbuff2

01-02-06, 02:06 AM

This will be old news soon, so if you are not aware of it, the Cine4Home site is making some reviews and information available in English. At the moment there are two reviews up - one on the Sanyo Z4 and the other on the Mitsubishi HC3000. Hopefully more are coming soon.

Citation4444

01-02-06, 08:11 AM

I guess I send it back to the puppy mill?

I can understand the area near the edges of the image will often look similar to these pics, as convergence near the edge is often less than perfect, but this seems extreme. What do you think?
I would definitely return it. It will be interesting to see if your dealer or Hitachi will replace it. Good luck.

cpc

01-02-06, 10:19 AM

So do those pics look really bad? How do others look?

I returned my first TX100 and got a better one in return last time. It is a bummer because otherwise the Hitachi projectors are very sharp, at least the TX100 was.

. . .

I need some assistance here.

1) If anybody knows how to adjust convergence on the TX200, please advise. There should be a function in the OSD like there is in the TX100, but I cannot find it for the TX200. It should be called cnv .. but it is not available in the TX200 where it is in the TX100. I would really like to find it before having to resort to swapping. I have until Sunday. thanx :)

2) Also, if there are other TX200 owners not far from me in Ajax, please let me know if I can view yours in action. I have an iScan Ultra I could offer to show you working too if that is of interest.

thanx in advance for any help,

:)

..oh yeah, HDMI setting = NORMAL works fine.

phaselocd

01-02-06, 06:47 PM

Finally after almost two years of surfing the AVS forums and sitting on the fence I'm expecting my HDP-PJ52 in the next few days along with a new reciever and new speakers. :D I bought this unit site unseen, purely based on member comments and other units I have demoed so far at my local retailers. I just built a 9ft screen from blackout cloth in anticipation of it's arrival. Funny how this evening when I returned home with a few DVD's my wife asked why don't we wait until I have the projector setup before we watch them. She thought the 36" TV was too Big !, amazing how things change when they start seeing some of the gear being installed.

I'm looking for advice from fellow AVS'rs on things I should be checking for since I have 10 days where I can return it for any reason. things like CPC's last post about the convergence issue would be great !.

Thanks all !.

cpc

01-02-06, 09:33 PM

Congrats. Another Canuck Hitachi owner. You should enjoy it. I emailed you, I would love to see it in action vs mine.

filmbuff2

01-02-06, 11:45 PM

I was notified that the TX200 I ordered might show up tomorrow. Like all of you posting here trying to get as much info on this pj as possible - short of starting another thread on tweaking - which settings should I start at ? I have a fair idea but for those of you who have been posting results here and there perhaps, for the benefit of those who are or will be buying one, you could post some? We would all be grateful! I've been going over a downloaded owner's manual trying to familiarize myself and from what I have learned the onscreen menu is a bit of a challenge to learn.

Citation4444

01-03-06, 10:00 AM

I suspect the convergence is off with this TX200. I cannot find any adjustment in the factory service menu nor the hidden menu.

I can understand the area near the edges of the image will often look similar to these pics, as convergence near the edge is often less than perfect, but this seems extreme. What do you think?
cpc, I don't know if you've read this thread, but maybe the one pixel misalignment is not so bad. Pixel alignment (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6821071&&#post6821071)
However, I would still try to swap it out.

cpc

01-03-06, 10:41 AM

jumpy27

01-03-06, 04:23 PM

I may check out that thread, but to me, one pixel misalignment of red and green either way is poor. It is like two or three pixel misalignment. The red and green are actually two or more pixels away from one another. Either way, it doesn't look good. I will be trying to swap it out before the end of the week. I am just going through the motions of comparing with others, and then trying to see if I can do an adjustment. I have not been able to do either as of yet. If anyone can take a pic of their OSD in the centre of the screen, and perhaps on the left or right of the screen and post it here, I would much appreciate it. Just move your OSD around the screen and perhaps take a picture where it looks best and where it looks the worst. It would give me a basis for comparison.

As far what one person says is tolerable, it depends by how much. Of course from seating position, you cannot see the actual "pixel mis-alignment" itself because you cannot see individual pixels very well. Instead, you see a softness and a blurryness. I realized this when trying to focus, and it is evident in text. PC application and desktop text never looked like this before.

:)

To me less than 1 pixel out is acceptable. One pixel or greater is not. I realize that one LCD panel being out a VERY small amount will cause convergence issues, but the manufacturers should be able to align all of them properly at the factory. Or if they can't do that, then add the appropriate circuitry to allow adjustment after they are built. It would only have to be simple convergence adjustments like what is available for the customer with some of the older CRT rear projection TV's.

Are most convergence issues with LCD projectors the same all over the screen? If so then simple convergence adjustments would work fine.

cpc

01-03-06, 04:31 PM

CKL

01-04-06, 12:08 AM

Do you guys find tearing from the horizontal panning scenes? I saw tearings when I used Crytalio (external scale) feeding 50Hz PAL DVD. I know the timing of Crystalio may be different from DVD player feeding 50Hz. I wonder if Crystalio's timing is not fitting TX200. There is no such problem when Crystalio feeding 50Hz PAL to other projectors.

cpc

01-04-06, 11:02 AM

Using the iScan Ultra 60 hz output NTSC results in no tearing, at least none that I have seen thus far. Oddly, I noticed a horizontal line across one of the OSD green screens. It was right across the centre of the screen. I found that very weird.

CKL

01-04-06, 11:36 AM

Hyp3r

01-04-06, 02:34 PM

here's a pic of my menu with tx 200. it seems to have an half pixel right on the red panel from this pic, but it's not bad at all with picture sharpness and quality and i could see this half pixel only in the photo.. at actual view i did not notice it :rolleyes:

cpc

01-04-06, 05:10 PM

Thanx Hyp3r. I take it that was with the focus sharp? My shots were taken with the focus as sharp as I could get it. Incidentally, changing the "sharpness" setting from 1 to 7 did not change much, except it changed noise visability and edge enhancement.

thanx again.... without any adjustment available... it goes back to the puppy mill.

Blauw

01-05-06, 05:22 AM

Hey everybody; I've bought my tx200 last week and registered here since this forum has helped me with my buying decision. Here's my first contribution:

"Cine4home point de" has the first two parts of the review online (in german).

cpc

01-05-06, 11:25 AM

Congratulations on your purchase, and thanx for the heads up.

Here is my contribution:

http://www.online-translator.com/srvurl.asp?lang=en

For the moment, this one works better and more consistently for me than babblefish and others. Also, I think this one doesn't translate in portions, making you have to translate the next "portion" one at a time.

Rice0209

01-06-06, 12:39 AM

billtsag

01-06-06, 07:23 AM

With reference to the case of billtsag whose TX200 can't show picture via HDMI input, and it shows out of range when I change the refresh rate at Crystalio some times, it seems that TX200 is sensitive to the signal frequency. It needs exact timings to show the picture.

Thanks for the reply CKL!

Actually there was a problem with the HDMI port of my TX 200 and it was replaced by Hitachi Greece with a brand new one!

Excellent service, kudos to Hitachi Greece.

PS. Has anybody tried to connect the TX 200 with an HTPC via the HDMI port?

What settings did you use?

Thanks

Citation4444

01-06-06, 08:16 AM

PS. Has anybody tried to connect the TX 200 with an HTPC via the HDMI port?

What settings did you use?

Thanks
Yes, I do it every day. I use both nVidia 6600GT and ATI X850XT and use their standard HDTV formats at 1280x720 60Hz. Never had a problem with HDMI. In fact, my HDPJ52 performs substantially better in my setup using HDMI than with component.

Blauw

01-06-06, 10:33 AM

I've used a dvi to hdmi cable (5 meters) with my htpc, ati x850pro, works like a charm. Set at 1280x720 60hz also.

Hyp3r

01-06-06, 11:03 AM

Hyp3R,

I am no expert at the fine details of alignment, but to me, that did not look like an out of line pixel, but rather the slight amount of glow attributed to each of the pixels in the lcd panels. You would begin to see the color of the lcd panel that was out of line, and all i could see was the glow of the color that was created.

Just my opinion and maybe i am not seeing what you are. I remember several alignment issues with a 50' toshiba crt I had.

I'm not expert at all either, that's why i did say that with my eyes i did not see
any problem , only in the photo the red seems to be a little bit off , but you are probably right about glow. :-)
anyway i find it a little less sharp than my old infocus x1, ( both with component cable). i have not tried yet hdmi

mwan

01-06-06, 01:06 PM

All TX-200/ 52 owners I have a friend who is running this pj and a Samsung 950 over a 30' HDMI cable, he was running in auto mode. The pj seems to lose sync every 10 minutes or so and then resyncs (very annoying during a movie :( ) I advised him to put it into normal mode thinking perhaps it is a handshaking thing that auto does to check... any ideas...

thanks

Miles

Rice0209

01-06-06, 11:22 PM

what kind of HDMI cable is he using?

I just bought a 50ft monster HDMI 400 cable and it works like a charm. I did a little research and found that 50ft is a very long run for most compenents to be able to transfer and a low impedance, well shielded cable is needed to transmit a singal such a long distance. 30 ft is also considered long if using a cheap cable.

If he is using a very low quality cable, maybe he could find a retailer who sells the length he needs in a high quality cable, acoustic research, monster, etc, use it and if it does not help, return it.

He should also try another hdmi source if he can, like another dvd player, satellite receiver, etc and rule out the hdmi on the samsung 950.

cpc

01-06-06, 11:56 PM

No problems running DVI to HDMI with my TX200. I second the suggestion to try another hdmi dvd player and/or cable. Also try to experiment with the dvd player and projector settings. Trouble shooting is required.

HumanMedia

01-09-06, 05:21 PM

On my TX200 convergence varies across the screen, going from slightly bad on the right to very bad on the left. In my pics, you can see the green and red pixels are physically 2 or more pixels away from one another since they are on either side of the centre pixel. On top of that there is some vertical pixel mis-alignment too. I hope to compare with another PJ (even a TX100 would be useful) and try to correct it or it goes back.

I have almost the same problem with my TX100.

Its perfectly sharp on the left and by the far right red is a pixel shifted to the left and green shifted 2 pixels to the right. Ive had it into Hitachi service and they claim its "within spec". Other TX100's I have seen dont have this problem.

Interestingly the new Sony HS-60 is also plagued with this problem with no way for the user to adjust. Pity, as I was considering either the TX200 or the HS60 as upgrades to my TX100.

cpc

01-10-06, 12:53 AM

Here is a mini-review of my second TX200. It seems like the second time is the charm I guess (or at least I hope it is, anyhow) :) Like the TX100 before, my first unit was not so good, but the second unit is much better.

The replacement unit I received is much better than the first TX200 I had. The first unit I had was "off" and had poor convergence and slightly more noticable vertical banding. So far I have watched a set of typical dvd scenes that I am familiar with, for a total of about 2 and a half hours from hour zero. No calibration calibration per se. I simply connected the projector and set the brightness around 10 and contrast near 0, perhaps as low as -3. Iris at 3. BLACK = AUTO1 for most of the testing. 7500K. 16:9. HDMI = Normal - (DVI to HDMI from iScan Ultra). Whisper mode and fan on low. Sharpness = 3. A tiny amount of vertical lens shift. The lens is as dead centre to the screen as I could manage with a tape measure and macgyvered plumb.

The convergence on this unit is better. I do see the pixels start to bleed a bit once you get away from the centre of the screen, but not an entire pixel one way or the other, just the red bleeding out one side or green bleeding out the other side of the white OSD pixels, very subtle compared to the entire pixel or two of misconvergence of the first TX200 I had. I am now able to focus the image to look very sharp. Colour uniformity seems reasonabley good so far. I am sure there is the ever so slight corner tinting, but its hard to tell. Whatever the case may be, a little time with the C.UNIF menu will surely fix it. Vertical banding is less on this 200 than the first one. During this viewing, vertical banding is like a ghost I look for but cannot quite see (looking hard for vb has become a bad habit). Screen door may be more noticable now that the projector is sharper than the first unit I had, but its not objectionable from the seating position (1.75x away from an 80" wide 92" diagonal 16:9 screen.

AUTO2 is the devil. Do not under any circumstances use AUTO2 or you will be very disappointed. I mistakenly used AUTO2 when I first got the TX200 going tonight because I forgot that users on AVS have found that AUTO1 was the one to use. It didn't take long to realize that AUTO2 is very distracting when it is working, and it can also tend to be audibley noisey. No ground breaking news, but I wonder what the heck AUTO2 is for if it is so sloppy compared to AUTO1 (perhaps it is how they get the best reportable contrast specification). AUTO1 is much better and is the proper setting to use. It doesn't make an LCD projector turn into a magical DLP killer in terms of contrast and blacks, but it makes the picture look smoother, with less grey looking dark scenes. Compared to the TX100, the picture looks a bit punchier. If you play certain scenes with and without AUTO1 on, you can really see a difference in the darker scenes. With AUTO1 they look dark and yet the detail is still there. Without AUTO1 the scene simply looks grey and more washed out. The detail is still there, but the darkest areas look grey instead of black. I think there is a learning curve for the iris. I used AUTO2 at first and the projector would chirp around and you could see the affect of the iris opening and closing as a scene change would be followed by a brightness change (most often visible when going from brighter to darker). In AUTO2, the split second after a scene changes to a darker shot, you can see the picture dim and it looks distracting. If you pause and go back and forth to compare, you can sometimes catch the iris working (see the brightness change) even in AUTO1 mode, but not very often. Overall AUTO1 mode is not distracting. I almost never saw the iris action dimming and brightening, and yet every time I checked it out to compare it to no auto iris by first pausing and changing from AUTO1 to OFF and back again, sure enough, it was making a noticable difference to the picture in a positive and pleasing way. I was curious if the AUTO1 iris variations were causing detail to become lost in the darkness. Without calibration, it was clear that the dimmest detail still seemed to be retained when the AUTO1 iris was acting. No flickering so far but I can hear the iris working. At first I thought it may be annoying, but it is a very low sound, and rarely audible. In movie scenes where there is silence and the iris is working, you can hear it a little bit, but its not that bad. My head is less than two feet from the projector and there is a wall directly behind me (and behind the projector too of course, which is shelf mounted) which helps reflect the noise towards me. The iris noise may end up being a little annoying, but only time will tell. I may be changing the shelf setup etc, and when I move this theatre, the distance to the seating area will change too. The fan on low in whisper is very quiet for now. I think there is a "medium" fan setting I can use in whisper lamp mode but I did not try it yet. High Fan was too loud, and the manual advises against it anyhow.

Overall, it looks very promising so far. If the performance continues like this, I would say the AUTO1 iris feature makes the upgrade from TX100 to TX200 worth while. Another feature I am really starting to appreciate is the Digital Shutter. Again, it doesn't make a huge difference, but in darker scenes, the bars look a darker grey, a little closer to black. In combination with AUTO1, the digital shutter makes 2.35:1 movies look crisper and makes the bars less distracting. I am not 100% sure, but it looks like each movie may have different bars too, some greyer and some blacker than others. The shutter makes all masking bars in each movie look the same. If there was ever a function of a projector that cried out for a button of its own, its the digitial shutter. If you watch a few things and they are different aspect, you have to reach for the remote to turn the digital shutter on and off as per dvd.

This picture looks really good with the Hitachi scaling the iScan Ultra 480p signal over DVI to HDMI. VGA looks nice too, but ultimately I think HDMI looks nicer. 720p may look better, but my experience with 720p vs 480p via DVI from an iScan HD with the TX100 was that it was really hard to tell the difference. Whatever the case may be, I think it is safe to say that the Hitachi TX100/200 units scale well.

As far as the reports of the newer D5 lcd panels being "noisier", I do not see any evidence of that claim. The only place I may be seeing a little "noise" is in some uniformly coloured backgrounds on some dvd's. I am only just now looking for it, as I never noticed it before, and what I am seeing now is not horrible. I think it has always been there on each of the dvd's I looked at. It is effectively no different than film grain and is usually visible in out of focus backgrounds anyhow. The iScan Ultra does have Digital Noise Reduction and it is non-defeatable so whatever it is doing is probably adequate. Most scenes look clean, particularly the sharp focussed close-ups which look very detailed and crisp. (EDIT good dvds look great. I did notice a bit of noise with a couple of dvd's I was looking at yesterday, but I don't know if it is only because I am looking for it. I have no TX100 to A/B compare. Movies I noticed noise in were The Wedding Singer, Tron and Proof. Movies like Pulp Fiction and The Bourne Identity (original DTS version) seemed cleaner.

The only other concern I may have with the TX200, aside from a potentially noisey sounding iris mechanism, is a potenially weird Chroma issue. I could swear that certain things look sort of like the Chroma Upsampling Error or the Interlaced Chroma Problem. The only examples I can give are the red colours in (a rather un-exciting dvd) called Mad Hot Ballroom. It is a documentary about NY school kids learning ballroom dancing. Also, the title and credits for the movie City of Industry looks like it has a weird chroma thing going on. In each case it looks like a vertical streaking that bleeds solid areas of red beyond where they should be. I cannot recall seeing this before with other pj's. Chroma problems usually concern de-interlacing or mpeg decoding, something the dvd player and iScan Ultra are doing, but I cannot recall seeing this before and my dvd player and de-interlacer are the same now as they have been for a couple of years. I admit the Mad Hot Ballroom "movie" is almost certainly a "video", so who knows what horrors of mastering to dvd were involved there. I checked, and my "progressive" setting for the projector is OFF. I tried FILM, TV and OFF and there was no difference, nor was there any difference when I engaged the CUE filter in the iScan Ultra. My dvd player is a Panny CV51 (essentially a 5 disc carousel version of the RV31) and has a reasonabley good MPEG decoder and no chroma bug. I asked about this in the video processor forum and the response was that it is likely the fault of the dvd. I will check out some CGI movies and see what I come up with. Its probably a minimal issue, but I guess I'll find out later if its anything serious or not. (EDIT - I keep seeing it and it is bothering me. I am concerned that it could be a flaw like what was in the original Epson TW100. In R2 D2's red light, or other solid red areas, I see a distinct streaking/smearing like a chroma bug or problem. Does anyone else see this? ... oddly, I think I am seeing it on my PC monitor too. The effect is vertical streaking lines, so it is not the chroma bug, but may be the interlaced chroma problem. Since I see it (to a lesser degree) on my PC monitor, I suppose it may not be the fault of my projector, unless co-incidentally both setups suffer the same problem somewhere)

Has anybody else seen this weird chroma type issue with their TX200?

. . .

What do TX200 owners use for Frame Lock? ON or OFF? (my signal is HDMI from the iScan Ultra)

Is anyone using the S-Aspect ON and does it work?

Are people using Low lamp "whisper"?

Which fan setting? Medium or low?

. . .

Human Media,

You must have a fairly bad unit like I did. When I look at the OSD I have with this TX200 and the shots I took of the OSD from my original TX200 it is obvious the first one had very poor convergence. I imagine the only thing you can do, is if you are in warranty, just send it in again and demand satisfaction if you are not happy. Have you tried the adjustment for convergence that is in the TX100 factory service menu? On the TX100, in the factory service menu, there was an adjustment under OPTION. Below Iris-A and Iris-M there was CNV-V and CNV-H. I looked high and low for it in the TX200 and could not find it.

TaCtIkZ

01-12-06, 09:15 AM

Well, I finally splurged and picked up one of these j52 PJ's. I'm in love. :) I've got a Denon 5900 Feeding it via a DVI to HDMI Cable. Everything else is being fed to it through component via a Denon 3805 reciever. I'm sad to say that I find I have the same convergence issue, but the local authorized Hitachi retailer here said that they would service the unit and converge it properly, and if they couldn't, then they would happily replace it until I'm satisfied, so I'm not worried at all. On to my question...

There are more settings in this thing than I know what to do with, and this being my first projector, I'd like to ask if someone could take the time to help me tune this thing. I'm still quite new to the setups of these things. I have the DVE disk, and on my 34" Toshi it was very cut and dry. The Hitachi not so much. Does someone have a "tweak guide" such as they do for the AE900U Panasonic? I've been browsing and surfing the forums for the past week since I got the PJ to get more ideas, but it just doesn't seem to me that the Hitachi is very popular. I can't say that everyone is ignorant, as I didn't even know it existed until I showed up to compare the Z4 and the AE900U. Then I saw the picture on the Hitachi. For over two hours I tried everything to get the sharpness on the AE900 to the level of the hitachi... no joy. *shrug*

One more q... What is D65? from what I gather, it's some sort of reference calibration/setting for colour/picture? And does anyone know in the Ottawa/Kanata area of someone who has the equipment/knowledge of how to tune this PJ to it's fullest potential?

cheers,

Mike

Murray1080

01-12-06, 01:03 PM

cpc

01-12-06, 01:34 PM

I am pretty sure now that the Hitachi TX200 and HDP-J52 projectors suffer from the "vertical streaking reds" or "vertical chroma" problem which is analogous to what the original Epson TW100 suffered from. The subsequent revision model from Epson, the TW100H did not suffer from this problem.

Please view scenes with bright saturated reds and look for vertical streaking. It looks pretty much exactly like the horizontal Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE) turned 90 degrees to the vertical.

A former Epson TW100 and TW100H owner says that the following scene shows the problem the most readily:

"Try the scene from Chicago when Roxy does her dance number. That is by far the best test since the letters ROXY are very large and red on a pitch black background."

I guess I will go grab or rent this dvd and see how bad it is.

This sucks. I will try other inputs like component and VGA and vary my settings some more to see what the deal is. I hope there is a firmware fix for this. I am going to contact Hitachi asap.

filmbuff2

01-12-06, 01:44 PM

CPC - I received my TX200 yesterday - and since you reported that the iris does produce some sound when moving, as I have noticed that in Auto 1 it made what sounded like a light "rattling" sound which was quite noticeable during quieter scenes. I saw some flickering at first -obviously it was working, but after 5 hrs. of viewing time it looks like the shutters are not moving - just the ratttling persists - Auto 2 does nothing so it is apparent something is wrong. Otherwise it looks great! I sure hate to send it back - maybe the HDMI connection is not quite right? I wonder if I should take the cover off and carefully look it over...

cpc

01-12-06, 01:59 PM

If your unit is under warranty and you have problems, just send it back to the puppy mill. My unit works pretty well as far as that is concerned. I only have 6 or 7 hours on my unit now though. Flickering can depend on your settings, but if the iris makes noise but is no longer working, it sounds like it could be broken.

Do you notice the vertical streaking red chroma anywhere?

This is what I am talking about in so far as the older Epson TW100 goes:

http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=348316&highlight=Epson+TW100

(P.S. Ignore the talk of vertical banding. It is not vertical banding. VB appears as light alternating vertical lines across the entire projector screen. The vertical red chroma streaking is just that, streaks of red bleeding out of their space into bordering shapes, with an alternating pattern of jagged vertical lines that look like a comb).

Apparantly it may not be visible on VGA but VGA doesn't look as good on the TX200 regarding the auto iris.

filmbuff2

01-12-06, 02:32 PM

CPC - Never noticed anything like that so far - I am outputting 720P from a Bravo D1 through the HDMI input and the image is quite nice - had to buy a DVI/HDMI adapter at the pj and think I may have to buy a DVI/HDMI cable as the current setup is putting alot of strain at the connection ( I have it table mounted at the moment ) with the added length of the adapter. I actually prefer the DVI design allowing one to solidly attach connectors.

Murray1080

01-12-06, 02:58 PM

This projector is wowowowowowow :D
Since I have done the calibration with Avia is now even better :p
Ive owned the 900 and the Z4 but the 200 leaves them way behind, I now have an image thats so close to 35mm film :eek:
I will post my settings for you on here today

Here they are.
Im using HDMI from my Denon 3910 yet set to Y Cb Cr rather than RGB.
Using Matt White screen 2.6 mt wide.

Mode Normal
Brightness -1
Contrast +0
Gamma Standard
Colour Temp 7500k
Colour +2
Tint +2
Sharpness 6
Iris 7
Black Auto 1

The picture is clear, smooth and wonderful to view.
Closest Ive ever seen to 35 mm :eek:

cheers,

Mike[/QUOTE]

cpc

01-12-06, 03:28 PM

I admit the problem I see has not appeared to be overly glaring. It is visible though, and I have not even looked at the most prone scenes yet. I do not think people should panic, but I am concerned that this is a serious issue. Look for it people :)

TaCtIkZ

01-12-06, 03:57 PM

Murray1080

01-12-06, 04:07 PM

Hey Mike thanks!

I'll try that tonight. Did you mess with the Custom Gamma settings at all or does standard pretty much turn your crank the right way ?

:)

Now to figure out how to set the type of HDMI output. I don't know if I'm pushing RGB or Y Cb Cr, I just set BLK LVL to Enhanced, and output 720P out the DVI of the 5900. I guess I should venture into the menu's a little more :P

Know of anyone with actual calibration equipment that could do a full tune?

Name is Murray.
Standard I feel is best.
You dont set the Blk Level to Enhanced you leave that on "Normal" (there has been MUCH talk about all that on here)
Y Cb Cr is best but many players dont have that.
I find 1080i out is even smoother looking than 720p.

I dont think with this projector I would waste money with someone with full callibration equipment.
I just used my Avia.
I have DVE as well but prefer Avia.

cpc

01-12-06, 04:23 PM

If I can choose between YUV/YPbPr and RGB, which is better? This is apparantly only for analog VGA of course....

TaCtIkZ

01-12-06, 05:15 PM

Murray1080

01-12-06, 05:54 PM

Sorry Murray, I saw your previous post was signed Mike, but I guess that was mine... I'm at work, and I'm exhausted... LOL.

The Black Level on the PJ is set to normal as I did read that on the posts, but I have a separate setting on the DVD Player to enhance Blacks on the DVI output, and it makes a considerable difference in the PQ. The blacks got blacker, and I didn't seem to lose any details. I can send you some screen shots if you'd like of the difference. Not sure what negative impact it has... I'm still new to most of this.

:)

thanks,

Mike

No No No Mike I knew what you meant!
The DVD player should be set on NORMAL not ENHANCED as it does remove detail, there are heaps of posts on here about that!
If you use ENHANCED, you need to recalibrate the projector with DVE or AVIA which will then change ENHANCED back exactly to the same setting as NORMAL. All just easier to stay away from it. If you have everything correctly calibrated you have heaps of BLACKNESS, believe me ;)
Remember if you want a projector to look as close as possible to film, STAY AWAY FROM ALL THE TRICK SETTINGS :cool: Most projectors and players have plenty of them and they all add some form of artifact :mad:
Keep it simple and your image will be great!

Trouble with much of these GIMMICK settings is the untrained eye thinks its seeing something better for a moment but after a while you find a new problem thats been introduced to the image.
Keep all the TRICK type settings turned OFF

cpc

01-13-06, 12:10 AM

Well, I took some photo's. Its easy to see on the photo's, and you can definitely see it when you look at the projected image yourself, although its not glaringly bad.

Again, for simplification, I will repeat my setup.
Panasonic CV51 (interlaced dvd)>component cables>iScan Ultra>DVI>HDMI>Hitachi TX200 and alternately, replace the DVI>HDMI with VGA. The iScan Ultra has both, so it is easy to toggle back and forth.

Here is the Chicago ROXY sign via HDMI input:

http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/9774/hitachitx200roxyhdmi6wl.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Notice the unpleasant streaking in the HDMI!
. . .
Here is the Chicago ROXY sign via VGA input:

http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/6409/hitachitx200roxyvga2uo.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Photos courtesy of:
http://imageshack.us/

I realize the HDMI shot is not focussed as well, and no the vertical lines are not a result of the CCD resolution of my digital camera and your monitor mismatching and causing that weird combing look. (You know those weird vertical lines you see when you re-size a digital cam photo on your monitor?). What you see in these photos is very much what you see in person.

So, anybody else see anything like this?

. . .

Bottom line is that in my setup, with the inputs matched for sharpness (3) brightness (10), contrast (3), iris (3) and black = auto1, the HDMI (receiving DVI from the iScan Ultra) has a vertical streaking red chroma problem. The VGA input does not. So far I cannot see any problem with VGA, if anything, it may look smoother and less noisy. I will post pics of the vertical streaking on HDMI and VGA without streaking. One thing for sure, if you feel like your image is looking noisy, do try to set the sharpness to 3. Anything higher and you will see noise.

Does anybody notice any difference in either the speed of the iris action when using the VGA input vs HDMI or are there any audio/video sync issues? Just curious as I figure perhaps there may be a difference in the iris action.

I guess I will keep watching via VGA and see how it goes :)

Murray1080

01-13-06, 12:33 AM

These are my other settings done with Avia......
This is through HDMI again.......
Both this and the other one i have saved and like using depending on the DVD.

Brightness -1
Contrast +1
Gamma HIGH
Color Temp +2
Tint +2
Sharpness 6
Iris 7
Black Auto 1

This looks pretty darn good when the room is dark! :cool:

cpc

01-13-06, 12:38 AM

Weird. Sharpness 6 and Iris 7? Try lowering the sharpness to 3 or 4 and lowering the iris. I compared shots with the sharpness, and anything above 3 adds grainy noise to backgrounds. Iris 3 or 4 allows the AUTO1 black iris tracking to feel natural....but alas, to each their own.

Murray1080

01-13-06, 12:59 AM

Rice0209

01-13-06, 02:47 AM

I think i have the problem with reds. My example is sportscenter on espn hd. The background is made up of many different red-based colors (pinks, reds, etc) and it just appears as if the red colors are shifting pixels. Almost as if the red is jumping around the screen and back to its spot.

As far as noise goes, it think we have hit a point where the image is so sharp that it reproduces the quality or lack of in certain broadcasts. I have watched certain programs that are as smooth as glass and others that begin to look artificial because of the extreme amount of noise. I have also heard that this generation of lcd panels from epson are noisier than previous ones. Again, it could just be because of how sharp they are.

I have messed with my sharpness setting and have come to the conclusion that the gamma makes a bigger difference along with the color setting for the problem with the reds.

I am using the hdmi connection along with a dish network hd receiver. I am considering getting a video processor. Do you guys think this would help lessen the noise problem in light colored scenes?

Citation4444

01-13-06, 09:49 AM

I don't have the red streaking problem, don't have the noise problem, don't have the convergence problem, don't have any problems except that I'm putting too many hrs too fast on this projector. Never watched so many movies in my life.

I've got a couple of concerns relating to these issues.

First, I believe everybody who has reported these problems have TX200's, not HDPJ52's. I know most think these units are identical, but I'm not convinced. They have a couple of glaring physical differences: the PJ52's are black and they have different (better) leveling feet. They are also a later design, so I would expect they've had ample chances to address problems. Only a couple of us have PJ52's and I don't think either of us have problems. Hitachi very well could have addressed some problems with the later PJ52's. Also could be a firmware issue, with the later devices shipped with better firmware. Could there be a correlation here with either model or firmware?

Second, it might not even be the projector at fault. Many DVD players and other source devices have had problems outputting HDMI signals properly. Many, if not most DVD players, for example, can't output component and HDMI simultaneously. In the Denon line, only the top of the line DVD-5910 can output HDMI and component simultaneously at full quality for both outputs. It seems the different outputs use common circuitry, and only one can use it at a time and the other output suffers. Many other pieces of equipment, not just Denon with DVD players, but others have problems with HDMI outputs. HDMI is so new, and I think we're going through growing paine with manufacturers not following the full specs. To eliminate this particular problem, make sure you've only got one type of cable plugged into the output of your output device. Also, if possible, try using a different source device.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - sometimes these things are not so simple.

In my case, I drive my HDPJ52 either from a HTPC using the DVI output from an nVidia 7800GT with a DVI to HDMI cable, or from a Sencore VP403 signal generator using the same cable.

I will be calibrating at least one new HDPJ52 over the weekend for my local dealer. I'll take particular interest to see if they exhibit any of these issues, and I'll report back next week on what I find.