What I have found with film grain is it can be a lot of different factors from obvously the film transfer (most likely) to source component to the projector....but as it relates to the projector the settings combined with the screen material used can "reveal" inherent film grain....another way to look at settings and screen choice can hide what is already there. I've owned two other projectors (Sanyo PLV-60 and Yamaha LPX-510) and would not say that the Panny reveals more film grain or video noise than the others I have owned. I find the opposite to be true in some instances, where the panny has a smoother picture, with less of a digital/harsh picture...in some cases less revealing of film grain or video noise.

Ron

so, could the graininess i'm seeing on the screen be due to having the projector too close to the screen? i'm using a carada 1.4 gain white screen and the projector is on a table about 8 feet away from the screen. i'm sitting about 5 feet behind the projector (i.e., about 13 feet from the screen).

i've looked at a couple of the online distance calculators but honestly can't tell exactly how to interpret them.

thanks,
tu

Hey Bubbawilly-

Yeah, I noticed that they all seemed to drop green contrast down a fair bit. I'm wondering though - since I tend to see the green tint more in dark scenes rather than light ones, should I be reducing green brightness instead? Also, without the special calibration equipment (all I have is Avia), any tips to help me decide how far to go (other than just eyeballing it)?

Thanks,
Sean

Just to close the loop on this question, I implemented MikeSRC's/CLK's settings for Cinema1/low lamp/HDMI from the first page of the thread. Seemed to help a bit, though still too green for me (was watching LOTR TT last night, instead of grey I got grey-green in a lot of scenes). So I dropped the green brightness down to -5 (Mike and CLK suggest 0) and that helped. It's not scientific, but it seems to look better to my eye.

Has anyone done similar calibrations over component? I'm using HDMI for my Oppo, and component for my HDTivo. Would love to have some baseline #'s for component, no filter, low lamp.

Thanks,
Sean

I have the 900 and made the changes to both the Cinema 1 and to Normal settings following the recommendations on this thread. (I'm not using a filter and have the Optoma Graywolf)

Both settings look better, but green seems to be overemphasized (grass looks too green) and there's still this very slight yellowish cast to some scenes on both modes, usually in darker scenes. (I'm using a Toshiba DVD player with HDMI out at 720P)

I agree also with some of the posters here that the quality of the picture is very DVD dependent. I've watched some really highly touted movies that looked not so good and some little known movies which looked awesome. (Phantom of the Opera looked awesome start to finish). My reference DVD is still "Charlotte Gray" since it is an awesome transfer with no enhancements or artifacts.

I'm not entirely convinced the Graywolf is the best match for this projector though. The picture seems to lose some smoothness and I think the 1.8 gain might be too much. and it is a relatively dark gray screen compared to a white wall. Could it be that the screen is forcing the picture to be too contrasty or something?

Thanks! Jimmy

I just checkeded my Flicker Settings and noticed that the green screen was flickering, so I turned it down till it stopped. The red and blue were both fine and I left them at default. Did I do this correctly? Is there anyway to correctly set these so that their optimized? Also is there anyway to correctly set the Panel Adjust? Any certain test patterns in Avia or DVE?

Hope you guys had fun at CES...I'm more than jealous

Just to close the loop on this question, I implemented MikeSRC's/CLK's settings for Cinema1/low lamp/HDMI from the first page of the thread. Seemed to help a bit, though still too green for me (was watching LOTR TT last night, instead of grey I got grey-green in a lot of scenes). So I dropped the green brightness down to -5 (Mike and CLK suggest 0) and that helped. It's not scientific, but it seems to look better to my eye.

Has anyone done similar calibrations over component? I'm using HDMI for my Oppo, and component for my HDTivo. Would love to have some baseline #'s for component, no filter, low lamp.

Thanks,
Sean

Sean,
I wonder if the green you are seeing is because the HDMI input on the 900 is expecting Rec .709 (HD) colourspace which has a different weighting for the primaries and tends to empasise green a little more.

Does the OPPO convert from SD to HD colourspace when upscaling? If not this might be a factor as rec 601 into colour decoder that is expecting 709 signals are likely to exhibit green emphasis.

This has been discussed on the DVD forums where a search through the upscaling DVD threads might be of benefit.

If you've a true HD source for your HDMI input you might give it a look see to determine whether this also is green emphasized.

ted

Sean,
I wonder if the green you are seeing is because the HDMI input on the 900 is expecting Rec .709 (HD) colourspace which has a different weighting for the primaries and tends to empasise green a little more.

Does the OPPO convert from SD to HD colourspace when upscaling? If not this might be a factor as rec 601 into colour decoder that is expecting 709 signals are likely to exhibit green emphasis.

This has been discussed on the DVD forums where a search through the upscaling DVD threads might be of benefit.

If you've a true HD source for your HDMI input you might give it a look see to determine whether this also is green emphasized.

ted

Interesting - thanks Ted. I remember reading something about that on one of these threads, but never put 2 and 2 together. My Panasonic LCD TV actually has a setting for SD or HD color space, and I never quite understood what it was for, but I'm guessing that's it. Unfortunately I don't really have another HDMI source handy (my HDTivo has HDMI out, but it's broken).

Problem is, even if that is the ultimate cause, I'm not really sure what to do about it other than try to calibrate it away. I'm stuck with the Oppo for better or worse (mostly for better I think), at least until I can justify a high-def DVD player. So far I have mitigated the green tint by backing off the green brightness/contrast somewhat. I'm hesitant to turn these down too far without some sort of calibration pattern for fear of messing with the otherwise great colors the Panny puts out in brighter scenes.

Regards,
Sean

So what is the best way to tweak the Flicker Adj? Should use moving images? or a 100 IRE test pattern on Avia?

And do you have to set the desk and ceiling? or just the one your using?

Finally, what are the base settings (grr didn't write them down and now I've screwed with it too much)

Thanks guys

Problem is, even if that is the ultimate cause, I'm not really sure what to do about it other than try to calibrate it away. I'm stuck with the Oppo for better or worse (mostly for better I think), at least until I can justify a high-def DVD player. So far I have mitigated the green tint by backing off the green brightness/contrast somewhat. I'm hesitant to turn these down too far without some sort of calibration pattern for fear of messing with the otherwise great colors the Panny puts out in brighter scenes.

Regards,
Sean

Assuming the OPPO is not doing the colourspace conversion when it upscales (this is likely so unless you can find some menu selection on the player), then I would set the PJ to SD on the HDMI input. (Don't forget you did that though. ;) )

At the very least it would be worth a try.

Glad to know that the 900 has the colourspace selection - I wish my 700 did.

ted

Assuming the OPPO is not doing the colourspace conversion when it upscales (this is likely so unless you can find some menu selection on the player), then I would set the PJ to SD on the HDMI input. (Don't forget you did that though. ;) )

At the very least it would be worth a try.

Glad to know that the 900 has the colourspace selection - I wish my 700 did.

ted

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply the 900 has the colorspace adjustment - I meant that my 32" Panny LCD flat panel has such an adjustment. With the PJ, all I can do is back off the green brightness/contrast.

There is no adjustment on the Oppo for this that I'm aware of.

-Sean

900 and Greywolf here also. Calibrated initially with DVE.

Calibrated at 15 foot throw on 106" screen - light controlled room. 8 hours on the lamp.

The color settings suggested for "cinema 1" with the green -2 (not -5) and the Red and Blue + 1 look excellent. Dramatic differences in facial coloration. The difference (and the reason I chose not to go Green -5) can be seen
in chapter 18 of iRobot - "you are having an accident".

It is all shot "underground" and presumably indoors. The Green -5 looks far to unnatural especially in the scene where his captain takes his badge.

Note that my projector is stand mounted about 4 feet up near dead center of screen with about a 10 degree right lens shift. Source is Denon 1920 via HDMI
set for 720p upconvert. Also adjusted brightness setting to -2 in the DVD player options. That really improved black levels with DVE calibration.

As for the other comments about the Source DVD making all the difference in the world: I could barely stand the image from Cindrella Man (poor transfer IMHO) but stand in awe of the visuals of Lilo in the Super Bit edition of The Fifth Element.

IQ seems to vary widely with source material as reported.

Big thanks to those who spent the time and posted the tweaks.

I just checkeded my Flicker Settings and noticed that the green screen was flickering, so I turned it down till it stopped. The red and blue were both fine and I left them at default.

I used a few neutral gray screens from DVE (20-60%) which I think provided the easiest way to adjust flicker. However, I don't think that it fully removed flicker, I just minimized it. I also had most trouble with green, but red and blue also benefited from minor tuning.

I think that the combination of flicker and panel adjustment for green have now decreased VB on my unit to a level where it is hardly perceivable in actual footage. Watched Metallica - Some kind of monster last nite and could not spot any VB, although the material may have been graceful.

Did you lax01 experience any VB on green?

I used a few neutral gray screens from DVE (20-60%) which I think provided the easiest way to adjust flicker. However, I don't think that it fully removed flicker, I just minimized it. I also had most trouble with green, but red and blue also benefited from minor tuning.

I think that the combination of flicker and panel adjustment for green have now decreased VB on my unit to a level where it is hardly perceivable in actual footage. Watched Metallica - Some kind of monster last nite and could not spot any VB, although the material may have been graceful.

Did you lax01 experience any VB on green?

not that I remember...I've seen it in a few scenes (when really looking hard) but after tweaking the flicker adj last night, I didn't notice anything in Desperate Housewives or Greys Anatomy...however, I'm still wondering why when I displayed a white image (100 IRE), the red didn't flash but when I looked at it with a moving picture, it did flicker and needed adjustment...the AE700 tweak thread only adds to the confusion as some say to do it to a white test pattern and others say its better to do it with moving images (as its easier to see)...I dunno, but do you have any idea what the original values were?

As for the other comments about the Source DVD making all the difference in the world: I could barely stand the image from Cindrella Man (poor transfer IMHO) but stand in awe of the visuals of Lilo in the Super Bit edition of The Fifth Element.


Wow, glad it wasn't just me then. I thought that Cinderella Man was almost unwatchable on my Panny.

-Sean

wow I thought the transfer of Cinderella Man was excellent...maybe a little grainy in scenes but other than that, very crisp and sharp

if you want to test a dark movie, try Batman Begins...absolutely reference or Sin City Extended Cut, also reference

Got some new settings, and the final ones for me, i started watching movies... at last!

With these settings, for the first time, everything seems right!

Instead of trying to get 6500k white balance with RGB levels i tryed with colour temp, and tint, and it worked perfect! As simple as that! Only one correction, in brightness blue, and done!

So, if anyone is interested, try these:



81 EF

Lamp Low
Picture Dynamic

Contrast +6
Brightness +1
Colour -15 to -10 depending on movie
Tint -2
Colour Temp -4
Dynamc Iris on
Noise Reduction on
Gamma High +2
Gamma Mid -1
Gamma Low +5
Contrast Red 0
Contrast Green 0
Contrast Blue 0
Bightness Red 0
Brightness Green 0
Brightness Blue -3

CostasEAR, what calibration equipment did you use? Thanks for the posting.

Wow, glad it wasn't just me then. I thought that Cinderella Man was almost unwatchable on my Panny.

-Sean

I found the indoor scenes washed out from the point at which Jim comes back into the apartment without the milk. I also found the indoor images grainy and murky. At times the colors were over saturated in some of the indoor fight scenes. Most outdoor scenes looked spot on with colors and dark blacks. I popped a couple of other movies in after watching it to make sure that my projector didn't need adjustment and it's definetly the CM transfer (IMO)

Ron

I found the indoor scenes washed out from the point at which Jim comes back into the apartment without the milk. I also found the indoor images grainy and murky. At times the colors were over saturated in some of the indoor fight scenes. Most outdoor scenes looked spot on with colors and dark blacks. I popped a couple of other movies in after watching it to make sure that my projector didn't need adjustment and it's definetly the CM transfer (IMO)

Ron

Same experience here. Outdoor scenes were fine, but the dark indoor shots seemed very murky, with some odd coloring.

Lax01 - FWIW, I've watched both Batman Begins and SinCity, and both seemed just fine.

-Sean

Same experience here. Outdoor scenes were fine, but the dark indoor shots seemed very murky, with some odd coloring.

Lax01 - FWIW, I've watched both Batman Begins and SinCity, and both seemed just fine.

-Sean

I dunno...I really wasn't watching CM for teh PQ, I thought it was a great movie so I really wasn't looking for faults in the transfer...

it definitely wasn't reference, thats for sure

So I finally ventured into the service menu tonight to adjust the flicker. It did seem to have a positive affect on the slight VB I had - after the tweak the VB is basically non-existant.

While there I played around with the panel adjustment. I really couldn't see any difference in the panel adjustment at all for red and green. For blue, I saw a *very* slight decrease in some vertical stripes between the max an min values (the allowable values ranged from 12-17 for all colors).

So, what exactly does the panel tweak do, or put another way, what's it for? How does one go about tweaking it? Is it only to be used with calibration equipment, or can it be adjusted by an amateur like myself?

Thanks,
Sean

I' ve opened a thread with this question but with no answers. :( I was wondering if there is any firmware update for the Panny 900. I've heard (and seen) about the digital iris blinking effect, and quite frankly i find it a bit disturbing while watching movies with subtitles. The iris is tricked by the increase of luminocity in the subtitle area and it produses this effect. Can anybody contact the guys at Panasonic( I mean the R&B guys and not some local service team) and tell them the problem and how this can be solved by new firmware (iris operation can be focus in diferend part of the screen instead the subtitle area maybe, or something else)? It would be very helpfull to us owners of the 900 i think. Sometimes the owners must make a difference... ;)

the AE700 tweak thread only adds to the confusion as some say to do it to a white test pattern and others say its better to do it with moving images (as its easier to see)...I dunno, but do you have any idea what the original values were?

I tried both, but I considered the 40-80% flat gray screens the best.

If I recall correctly, the default values in my PJ were around 65. The scale is considerable, if you go from one extreme to the other (from 20-120 or something) you can really see which settings are not useful, say the least.

For blue, I saw a *very* slight decrease in some vertical stripes between the max an min values (the allowable values ranged from 12-17 for all colors).

So, what exactly does the panel tweak do, or put another way, what's it for? How does one go about tweaking it?

As for the flicker issue, I'm only presenting my best guess about the matter (we can thank Panasonic for not bothering to give out any information about these issues), BUT

I have personally adjusted green panel and for my eye, adjustments make a small change to the frequency and magnitude of banding. They may affect also the polarity, but I think that they mainly change at which IRE values the VB "peaks" and how visible it is.

I tried both, but I considered the 40-80% flat gray screens the best.

If I recall correctly, the default values in my PJ were around 65. The scale is considerable, if you go from one extreme to the other (from 20-120 or something) you can really see which settings are not useful, say the least.

hmm ok, I guess moving images just help make the flicking more noticiable...

OK, so who has access to the Service Manual? :)

okay, so i'm making some slow progress with calibrating the projector. i moved it farther away from the screen and tried some hd content to confirm that the graininess i was seeing was due to source content, which it seems it was.

i now have it configured with an 81C filter, using CKL's settings, and using avia to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, tint, and sharpness.

things look pretty decent, but i'm seeing a very noticeable yellow-green tint in many scenes. i was watching million dollar baby and in both light scenes but especially in medium or darker scenes there was very noticeable green tint to everything. skin tones looked very strange.

armed with only the avia dvd, what's the best way to fix this? adjust the green level (if so how and where), adjust the red level, or both? also, i'm mainly noticing the green tint but i can't tell if it's just plain green or some combination of green and blue.

thanks,
tu

Mike, It was great to meet you at the CES show. Thanks again for all your great posts and advice. Looking forward to your post on the cc40r filter.

Rich. Westley

okay, so i'm making some slow progress with calibrating the projector. i moved it farther away from the screen and tried some hd content to confirm that the graininess i was seeing was due to source content, which it seems it was.

i now have it configured with an 81C filter, using CKL's settings, and using avia to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, tint, and sharpness.

things look pretty decent, but i'm seeing a very noticeable yellow-green tint in many scenes. i was watching million dollar baby and in both light scenes but especially in medium or darker scenes there was very noticeable green tint to everything. skin tones looked very strange.

armed with only the avia dvd, what's the best way to fix this? adjust the green level (if so how and where), adjust the red level, or both? also, i'm mainly noticing the green tint but i can't tell if it's just plain green or some combination of green and blue.

thanks,
tu

Skin tones shouldn't be green....but the film itself definetly has green tint to the image....I assume it artistic intent. One great movie to check proper colors and skin tones is Charlotte Gray starring Cate Blanchett. An ISF guru suggested that title for checking proper color.

Skin tones shouldn't be green....but the film itself definetly has green tint to the image....I assume it artistic intent. One great movie to check proper colors and skin tones is Charlotte Gray starring Cate Blanchett. An ISF guru suggested that title for checking proper color.

but how do i best adjust the projector for the skin tones being green? again, i'm armed only with avia and my eyeballs. :) thanks.

Have you implemented either CKL or Mike's settings from page 1 of this thread?

I' ve opened a thread with this question but with no answers. :( I was wondering if there is any firmware update for the Panny 900. I've heard (and seen) about the digital iris blinking effect, and quite frankly i find it a bit disturbing while watching movies with subtitles. The iris is tricked by the increase of luminocity in the subtitle area and it produses this effect. Can anybody contact the guys at Panasonic( I mean the R&B guys and not some local service team) and tell them the problem and how this can be solved by new firmware (iris operation can be focus in diferend part of the screen instead the subtitle area maybe, or something else)? It would be very helpfull to us owners of the 900 i think. Sometimes the owners must make a difference... ;)
You may have to wait for a firmware update, I fear. But if you have the money, you can always get the Panasonic s97 dvd player. It will allow you to decrease the brightness of the subtitles, and that makes the auto iris calm down. (Not sure if that very nice feature is available on any other dvd players.)

Have you implemented either CKL or Mike's settings from page 1 of this thread?

yes, i'm currently using ckl's settings. but his were for a combination 81A + 81B filter and it seems the 81C might be slightly different. i haven't seen any other settings specifically for the 81C filter...would love to be pointed to some if they exist, though.

Hmmm... interesting that his settings didn't work for the 81C. I used his unfiltered settings, and they were just what the doctor ordered.

Send him a PM and maybe he can point you in the right direction.

Well I'm happy to report that I didn't notice ANY vertical banding AT ALL during tonight's new episode of Lost (great ep btw)...I tweaked the flicker adj a little bit and I guess that got rid of whatever VB that was there....

Getting my Power Conditioner tommorow in the mail so well see if that does anything....it was cheap enough that it doesn't really matter if I notice a difference or not...

For anyone that wants to calibrate their system using Smart III, I have my unit for sale. Details can be found here. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=629279) It is a great system and is the 2.0 version which allows you to use it with most projectors.

I just installed my projector and used the Avia disc to help calibrate the contrast, brightness, saturation and hue settings.

I noticed on the first page of this forum, listed are settings that people have calibrated without a filter. It only talks about the settings in the advanced menu, gamma, etc.. Does this assume that the contrast, etc. are kept at the initial factory settings for say "cinema 1"?

It seemed that I adjusted these quite a bit when beggining with the cinema 1 mode and using Avia.

this is my first projector and my first attempt at calibration. I am pretty damn happy with the picture so far.

Unansumadis, You calibrate the initial settings with Avia and than try the calibrated settings on page 1. After you put the settings in the advanced menu check the initial settings again with Avia.

Welcome to the fourm.

Unansumadis, You calibrate the initial settings with Avia and than try the calibrated settings on page 1. After you put the settings in the advanced menu check the initial settings again with Avia.

Welcome to the fourm.

What should I expect from making the suggested adjustments? What should I look for in the change of the picture. I am not too familiar with what the settings in the advanced settings are for.

Uwansumadis, The aim is always to get the best picture possible. These settings try to achieve better contrast ratio which will provide better blacks and a more accurate picture.

Write down your original settings before you start. I would also save the tweaks to
Memory two or three. You can always change them if you don't like the picture. I
have tried many settings with and without filters to try to get the best picture possible with the projector. Once you plug in one of the tweaks you can always go back to memory one which you might want to keep the original settings in. The best thing to do is to try a few settings and compare the picture. Try looking a a few good disks with a lot of black such as
the opening of Star Wars, The Fifth Element and Sin City to compare.

You may have to wait for a firmware update, I fear. But if you have the money, you can always get the Panasonic s97 dvd player. It will allow you to decrease the brightness of the subtitles, and that makes the auto iris calm down. (Not sure if that very nice feature is available on any other dvd players.)

Thank you my friend!!! It never crossed my mind! I'll try if the oppo have this feature. If not i'll try the panny. Thanks again!

I orginally posted this in the AE900 thread a few days ago, but did not get any answer on color uniformity tweaking. I guess this is a more appropriate forum:



Convergence vs. Color Uniformity vs. Grey Scale

1. Convergence:

This is when the RGB panels are out of alignment. The effect is best seen with a AVIA/DVE convergence pattern (basically a white grid/crosses on a black back ground). Every white line will have a blue "shadow" on one side and a red "shadow" on the other side. A quick check is to bring up the PJ menu text and look at the letters.

My AE900U has a misallignment of about 1-pixel. It can be seen only when my nose is right up to the screen. Completely invisible at my normal viewing distance (1.3x from the 92" screen). I believe Panasonic considers a 1 to 2 pixel misallignment within spec for this PJ.

I do not know of any user/advanced service menu technique to fix the problem.

2. Color Uniformity:

This can be seen when projecting the uniform grey-field test patterns (NOT the grey scale ramps). I.e, when the entire screen is supposed to be the same shade of grey. Chossing a light pattern makes this more evident.

My AE900U shows a pink shade on about 25-40% of the left half of the screen (mainly the left bottom corner) and a light green shade on the opposite side of the screen (again the shading goes away about 25-40% into the screen. This is not too noticable during actual movie viewing, but I can see it since I am looking for it! It can bee seen most clearly in scenes that have a lot of white content all over the screen - like an outdoor snow scene.

I belive there is a service menu fix for this color uniformity, but I am not aware of the exact details. I would appreciate it if anyone could post the fix for this.


3. Grey Scale:

This requires the DVE Grey scale test patterns/ramps. All the bars of grey should be just that - grey. If some bars are showing a different color (usually a pinkish hue on the lighter grey bars), then the grey-scale/gamma needs to be corrected. This requires calibration equipment to hit D65 uniformly, but the differences can be eyeballed out as a first pass using the advanced menu RGB contrast, RGB brightness, and High/Mid/Low Gamma corrections. A good place to start are the settings given in the AE900 tweak thread.

Hey guys...

Just recently got my AE900 and am running it off an Oppo player through a DVI to HDMI cable. The screen is Goo and the room is dark.

I hear so often in reviews and postings on this forum how great the black levels are on this projector, so I have to believe I'm doing something wrong. I threw in Revenge of the Sith and the black bars above and below the image still seem pretty grey, not that much more impressive than my old AE100. Space scenes don't look bad by any means; they're nice and sharp and colourful, but the black of space is still not even close to real black to my eye. I tried calibrating with DVE and the brightness level seems to be set properly.

I'm looking for any suggestions as to what I can tweak to get some better contrast out of this thing. I want to see these rich blacks everybody's talking about. One thought: I'm in Cinema 1 mode, and I read in some posts that other modes have better contrast. Is this true? Could that be the issue?

It may take a filter to get the black levels that some others are describing in this thread.

I found that a calibrated 900 (without filter) offers only slightly better black level than my calibrated AE300.

Have you tried either Mike or CKL's Advanced settings for Cinema 1 mode?

I don't think it is a filter issue. I have good blacks even without the filter. Did you try AVIA or DVE to check your settings. The filter can improve the CR so you will get better blacks but you should still get good blacks even without the filter. Try some of the tweaks including CKL's or Mike's settings on page one of the thread. If you don't have AVIA try the THX test on many DVD's for a quick setup. If you have the Oppo with 1022 firmware or older be sure the brightness setting on the Oppo is -3 or the picture may look washed out.

Hey guys...

Just recently got my AE900 and am running it off an Oppo player through a DVI to HDMI cable. The screen is Goo and the room is dark.

I hear so often in reviews and postings on this forum how great the black levels are on this projector, so I have to believe I'm doing something wrong. I threw in Revenge of the Sith and the black bars above and below the image still seem pretty grey, not that much more impressive than my old AE100. Space scenes don't look bad by any means; they're nice and sharp and colourful, but the black of space is still not even close to real black to my eye. I tried calibrating with DVE and the brightness level seems to be set properly.

I'm looking for any suggestions as to what I can tweak to get some better contrast out of this thing. I want to see these rich blacks everybody's talking about. One thought: I'm in Cinema 1 mode, and I read in some posts that other modes have better contrast. Is this true? Could that be the issue?


You didn't mention your room conditions. IE.. dark wall color, ceiling color ect.
That makes the bigeest difference in black level IMO.
If your room isn't "cave like" Those blacks you are reading about are not going to be obtainable.

Hey guys...
I'm looking for any suggestions as to what I can tweak to get some better contrast out of this thing. I want to see these rich blacks everybody's talking about.

I just upgraded from an old AE100 too, and the blacks also do not look that impressive in comparison. The problem is that the projector is also about 3 or more times brighter than the old one with 3000 hours on the bulb. The black level is reduced by maybe a half. (I did measure these, but only briefly) The result is that although the contrast looks fine, dark scenes still look a little grey.

A filter is on it's way ;-)
I might even look at a grey screen or ND filters in addition.

Liam

I'm assuming that Porkchop simply placed his new 900 where his AE100 used to be, in the same viewing environment, and on the same screen, much like I did when I replaced my 300 with the 900. That's about as much of an apples to apples comparison as you can get, and in my case and many others, the 900 is not a big difference.

Liam, a grey screen does help. I'm using a Da-Lite HCCV screen, and my black level is significantly better than a friend's Carada BW screen. I've been tempted to buy a negative gain gray screen, but the light gray HCCV fabric is a good compromise because it doesn't destroy whites like a darker gray fabric does. I'm interested in improving blacks and perceived contrast over my AE300, so I'd be very interested in hearing your impressions once you get your filters.

Well, I've finally had the chance to work with the CC40R filter. The best setting to use with it is Dynamic. Normal doesn't work anywhere near as well and is best with the 81EF. I've need to spend more time with it to decide which I like better (CC40R or 81EF), but I've got to say it looks pretty nice. For those who are interested, here are some settings for use with the CC40R filter, Low lamp and Dynamic:

Gamma

High= -2
Med= 1
Low= 4

Contrast

R= -1
G= 5
B= -3

Bright

R= -2
G=1
B= -2

I'm definitely interested in which one you think is the best...

please get us posted...how was CES you lucky dog?

I'm assuming that Porkchop simply placed his new 900 where his AE100 used to be, in the same viewing environment, and on the same screen, much like I did when I replaced my 300 with the 900. That's about as much of an apples to apples comparison as you can get, and in my case and many others, the 900 is not a big difference..

Actually that isen't a appples to apples comparison.
Several reveiwers and owners agreed that the previous Panasonic modles aren't much different in the blacks unless veiwed in a total black inviroment.
Whenever you get ambient or reflective light back on the screen. it kills the blacks and contrast.
I could take a Sony Ruby and use it in a room with all white walls and ceiling.
Then take a Panasonic 900 in a room with tolal black enviroment (walls, ceiling, floors ect.) and I'll bet you would say the Panasonic blacks were as good if not better.

Mike, Thanks for your calibration work. Which settings have the most proper gamma curve, the 81EF with normal or the CC40R with Dynamic? Also if brightness were an issue which settings are brighter? Thanks Again.

Moe

Mike thanks for you work with the cc40R. It was great to meet you at the CES show. I hope that the color is more acurate with the cc40R. The blacks and the CR seems good with the 81Ef but the color accuracy seems not right for me. I just received a cc40r filter and I will try it soon.

Actually that isn't a apples to apples comparison.
Several reviewers and owners agreed that the previous Panasonic models aren't much different in the blacks unless viewed in a total black enviroment.
Whenever you get ambient or reflective light back on the screen. it kills the blacks and contrast.
I could take a Sony Ruby and use it in a room with all white walls and ceiling.
Then take a Panasonic 900 in a room with tolal black enviroment (walls, ceiling, floors ect.) and I'll bet you would say the Panasonic blacks were as good if not better.

And if you placed these same 2 projectors in the same "white" enviroment, the black level would seem close to the same.

When did we establish that Porkchop went from a dark colored, light controlled room with his AE100, to a white room with his 900?

Like I said, I went from a 300 to a 900, while my room, screen and viewing conditions stayed exactly the same. I didn't get a wild hair to paint the room white in between. ;) The 900 offers a modest improvement in black level. Unless Porkchop changed his room or screen between his AE100 and 900, then it is an apples to apples comparison, or did I miss something?

Porkchop and Liam,
Did you guys paint your rooms bright white between your AE100's and the 900, or did you move and not tell me?

Nervermine.....
All I know is my room is a "Cave" dark all over, and the contrast and black level on my 900 is much improved over my AE500.

Porkchop and Liam,
Did you guys paint your rooms bright white between your AE100's and the 900, or did you move and not tell me?

Nope – the room unfortunately has light walls and ceiling and did have last month too :)

There is an impact from reflected light washing out the contrast a bit in bright scenes, but for very dark scenes this is less of a problem and the black level of the projector is the limiting factor.


Liam

Ive calibrated with avia and dve ( both with and without the 81ef filter )..and have used Mike and CKL's and the other folks numbers as a starting point.
Everybody above has the GAMMA LOW set to the positive side ( +5 seems to be the most common setting ) ..
At least to my eyes, having GAMMA LOW set to a much lower setting ( -2 ~ -3 ) gives me much better looking blacks ( with and without the filter, either way ). It also takes away that kinda washed out grey look that I cant stand.
Im guessing that technically this isnt the right setting ? but having the Gamma low set lower gives me what I percieve as a better all around picture.. (colors seems to have more pop because of the blacker blacks and picture seems to have more dimension)..

Can anybody explain what Im seeing and a good reason why I shouldnt do this ? ..is it messing up something else..Anybody else find that lowering the gamma low gives blacker blacks ?

dimension)..

Can anybody explain what Im seeing and a good reason why I shouldnt do this ? ..is it messing up something else..Anybody else find that lowering the gamma low gives blacker blacks ?

This is to be expected as you are changing the pj's luminance response curve. You are likely compressing grey scale at this end of the response curve unless your BRIGHTNESS (master black) setting is off.

ted

Nope – the room unfortunately has light walls and ceiling and did have last month too :)

There is an impact from reflected light washing out the contrast a bit in bright scenes, but for very dark scenes this is less of a problem and the black level of the projector is the limiting factor.


Liam

Perhaps, but you might consider that *any* stray light will impact on blacks much more that whites as it is a greater percentage of the screen black measure. In other words a light source of 1 FtL in a room can wash out your blacks where it would not have much of an impact on a white level. There is enough output from a receiver display in the room to affect perceived black level.

Are you using Auto Iris Btw and have you calibrated to clip Blacker than Black (levels below 16)?

ted

Perhaps, but you might consider that *any* stray light will impact on blacks much more that whites as it is a greater percentage of the screen black measure. In other words a light source of 1 FtL in a room can wash out your blacks where it would not have much of an impact on a white level. There is enough output from a receiver display in the room to affect perceived black level.

Are you using Auto Iris Btw and have you calibrated to clip Blacker than Black (levels below 16)?

ted
Ted,

What do you mean by calibrate to clip blacker than black?

I have DVE and though I understand what they are saying about blacker than black and how to adjust it, I'm wondering if I'm missing something with "clipping"

Rob

This is to be expected as you are changing the pj's luminance response curve. You are likely compressing grey scale at this end of the response curve unless your BRIGHTNESS (master black) setting is off

Ive calibrated the brightness after lowering the Gamma low setting..so it should be set correctly. However I think your right about it compressing the grey scale a bit. I do loose a little bit of shadow detail in the dark scenes but personally Ill take the trade-off. The blacks seem much more inky black rather then being more of a greysish black.

I like the look of inky blacks like on my 37 inch lcd panel that I have. By lowering the gamma low on the ae900, the blacks now seem more in line with the 37 inch lcd set.

Mike, Thanks for your calibration work. Which settings have the most proper gamma curve, the 81EF with normal or the CC40R with Dynamic?

They're about the same.

Also if brightness were an issue which settings are brighter? Thanks Again.

Moe

It's brighter with the 81EF, but only about 5-10%.

Can anybody explain what Im seeing and a good reason why I shouldnt do this ? ..is it messing up something else..Anybody else find that lowering the gamma low gives blacker blacks ?

Yes. Increasing the gamma settings actually lowers measured gamma to attempt to get it into the 2.2-2.5 range. If you do not increase the low gamma settings, gamma runs high which screws up the luminance of the mid-tones as tvted referred to. Take a look at the gamma pictures here (http://www.milori.com/articles/image_quality_issues.asp) for a better idea of its effect.

Take a look at the gamma pictures here for a better idea of its effect

Mike, Thanks for that link ! ..thats very usefull visual examples.

One question, the one picture that shows the gamma to high is DARKER then the picture that shows the gamma to low. So why does lowering the gamma low from +5 to minus 2 make the picutre darker ..as the examples show just the opposite ?

Yes. Increasing the gamma settings actually lowers measured gamma to attempt to get it into the 2.2-2.5 range. If you do not increase the low gamma settings, gamma runs high which screws up the luminance of the mid-tones as tvted referred to. Take a look at the gamma pictures here (http://www.milori.com/articles/image_quality_issues.asp) for a better idea of its effect.


That is the single best example I have ever seen. Thank you very much now I know what to look for when my Ae900 gets here in 2-3 DAYS!!!!!

Ted,

What do you mean by calibrate to clip blacker than black?

I have DVE and though I understand what they are saying about blacker than black and how to adjust it, I'm wondering if I'm missing something with "clipping"

Rob

When you calibrate a display which is being driven by Studio (VIDEO) level as opposed to PC levels then any level below PC 16 should not be visible for correct black settings - (anything "clipped" would be considered outside the range)
- white is handled a little differently.

For an excellent overview of display calibration check Chris Wiggles' thread.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=494606

ted

One question, the one picture that shows the gamma to high is DARKER then the picture that shows the gamma to low. So why does lowering the gamma low from +5 to minus 2 make the picutre darker ..as the examples show just the opposite ?

Panasonic in its infinite wisdom has it's numbers inverted - downwards settings raises the *measured* gamma and vice versa I believe. Mike will correct me if I'm wrong.

As a side note if you ever reference the SELF CHECK in the extended service menu be aware that Panasonic's numbering system *lowers* as the temp is in fact *increasing*.

Intuitive, huh? :rolleyes:

;)
ted

Panasonic in its infinite wisdom has it's numbers inverted - downwards settings raises the *measured* gamma and vice versa I believe.

Ahh, lets see how we can confuse em today :) Thanks that explains it.

PS. Even looking at the examples in that linked thread, The higher gamma example is still appealing to me, albeit the example is a little to dark.. but having a higher gamma in moderation definately gives the picture a little more punch ( at the expense of compression I know ) but none the less, it looks good to my eye.

Been watching the AE900 on component for a few hours now (watching DVRed stuff on the DCT-6412 which doesn't allow HDMI and 5.1 to output at the same time...buggy bug)...and I must say how much better HDMI is...everything just looks cleaner...I can't wait to get the firmware and get back to full 100% HDMI

PS. Even looking at the examples in that linked thread, The higher gamma example is still appealing to me, albeit the example is a little to dark.. but having a higher gamma in moderation definately gives the picture a little more punch ( at the expense of compression I know ) but none the less, it looks good to my eye.

I'm certainly no stranger to tweaking gamma, however - I gotta ask - how dark is your room?

Also your settings will adversely affect low APL scenes. Gamma should not make your BIAS (BRIGHTNESS) settings change which *should* be your black setting. It *is* a matter of perception here so since you are crushing blacks, it *might* be your room, which is one of the prime factors in FP PQ.

ted

Also your settings will adversely affect low APL scenes. Gamma should not make your BIAS (BRIGHTNESS) settings change which *should* be your black setting. It *is* a matter of perception here so since you are crushing blacks, it *might* be your room, which is one of the prime factors in FP PQ.

When I changed the gamma it did indeed change the brightness settings, I had brightness calibrated at +4 via dve prior to changing my gamma low settings, and after I had to change brightness to +8 to get it correct via dve, but your saying gamma shouldnt change brightness ?
Also it is the dark scenes were I like the lower/darker settings...even though I lose some shadow detail, the blacks are more impressive. An example would be on a shot of outerspace ( like mission to mars etc.) ..The white stars/blue earth contrasting on the darker inky blacks of outerspace seems to add dimension or more of a 3d-ish feel to the picture..versues the correct settings that kinda look a little washed out or dullish if you prefer..Maybe my eyesight is wacked or something :)

My room is dark grey, I have grey commercial carpet on the walls and everything else is painted flat grey, No light or windows. Im using a 1.3 gain dalite cinema vision screen and my viewing distance is 11 ft with 110" screen

Panasonic in its infinite wisdom has it's numbers inverted - downwards settings raises the *measured* gamma and vice versa I believe. Mike will correct me if I'm wrong.


You're right. That's what I meant when I said in my post that "Increasing the gamma settings actually lowers measured gamma ".

The measured gamma at low IRE levels without adjusting gamma is right around 3.0-3.2 if I recall correctly, so it's not "too" high.

My room is dark grey, I have grey commercial carpet on the walls and everything else is painted flat grey, No light or windows. Im using a 1.3 gain dalite cinema vision screen and my viewing distance is 11 ft with 110" screen

When you set your BRIGHTNESS via DVE did you make sure that BtB was invisible using a low IRE window as +4 does seem high? Though, each device is different.

A light shade or dark shade of grey? If you wish to experiment you can purchase some inexpensive black cloth and cover the front 5 ft of your HT both ceiling and walls as well as the PJ wall which would be a prime source of secondary reflections. I stamp out any secondary light that rears its pointy head.

Any idea how many Ft. Lamberts are bouncing off that screen?

Perhaps you are a candidate for an ND or preferably a CC filter. I tend to like low lumens - hence my blacks are reasonably low - I'll bet measured lower than most. My theatre shows (to me) an acceptable picture at a CC filtered 6 Ft Lamberts (OK - everybody call me a bozo now - I know what SMPTE recommends :p) and my friends are only allowed to wear black (but they do anyway).

I'd just hate to lose those shades of grey which add shape and character to an object.

Ultimately of course it is your HT - I'd be dressed in black (I'm one of *those*) so I wouldn't contribute much secondary reflection if you invited me over. ;)

ted

You're right. That's what I meant when I said in my post that "Increasing the gamma settings actually lowers measured gamma ".

The measured gamma at low IRE levels without adjusting gamma is right around 3.0-3.2 if I recall correctly, so it's not "too" high.

Thanks Mike,

For you as a calibrator - how much interaction should you expect with the BRIGHTNESS setting from GAMMA - assuming BIAS is set at its optimum - whatever *that* is? ;)

ted

Nervermine.....
All I know is my room is a "Cave" dark all over, and the contrast and black level on my 900 is much improved over my AE500.

Sorry! I figured I missed something. I don't keep up with these threads everyday, and it can be embarrassing.

I know what your are saying about viewing environment. It plays a huge role in overall image quality. I just figured that these guys pulled out their AE100's, and plugged in their 900's, much like I did. In that case, it would be a fair comparison.

CC40R cuts around 40%-50% of luminance. I suggest to use Dynamic mode plus high lamp mode with CC40R. Of course it depends on the size of your screen as well.

I am using Mikes and CKL setting for my Pj both to watch DVD`s from my OPPO player and to watch HDTV... however I was wondering if anybody tried to use HDNet tunning signal to calibrate the Panny for HDTV sources. I assume that the settings should be different than those you get from a DVD player or is this a false assumption?

I orginally posted this in the AE900 thread a few days ago, but did not get any answer on color uniformity tweaking. I guess this is a more appropriate forum:



Convergence vs. Color Uniformity vs. Grey Scale

1. Convergence:

This is when the RGB panels are out of alignment. The effect is best seen with a AVIA/DVE convergence pattern (basically a white grid/crosses on a black back ground). Every white line will have a blue "shadow" on one side and a red "shadow" on the other side. A quick check is to bring up the PJ menu text and look at the letters.

My AE900U has a misallignment of about 1-pixel. It can be seen only when my nose is right up to the screen. Completely invisible at my normal viewing distance (1.3x from the 92" screen). I believe Panasonic considers a 1 to 2 pixel misallignment within spec for this PJ.

I do not know of any user/advanced service menu technique to fix the problem.

2. Color Uniformity:

This can be seen when projecting the uniform grey-field test patterns (NOT the grey scale ramps). I.e, when the entire screen is supposed to be the same shade of grey. Chossing a light pattern makes this more evident.

My AE900U shows a pink shade on about 25-40% of the left half of the screen (mainly the left bottom corner) and a light green shade on the opposite side of the screen (again the shading goes away about 25-40% into the screen. This is not too noticable during actual movie viewing, but I can see it since I am looking for it! It can bee seen most clearly in scenes that have a lot of white content all over the screen - like an outdoor snow scene.

I belive there is a service menu fix for this color uniformity, but I am not aware of the exact details. I would appreciate it if anyone could post the fix for this.


3. Grey Scale:

This requires the DVE Grey scale test patterns/ramps. All the bars of grey should be just that - grey. If some bars are showing a different color (usually a pinkish hue on the lighter grey bars), then the grey-scale/gamma needs to be corrected. This requires calibration equipment to hit D65 uniformly, but the differences can be eyeballed out as a first pass using the advanced menu RGB contrast, RGB brightness, and High/Mid/Low Gamma corrections. A good place to start are the settings given in the AE900 tweak thread.

Color Uniformity: Yep, my 900 shows the same thing and I have read others have it too. I'd bet it's common with this PJ. I asked the same question but described it as a magenta cast and got no replies. My dealer tech said it's common. It will show up on B&W material: A Hard Days Night. I read a review today on the Sony HSxx and this color shift was reported also. It really bugs me too. I spoke with a local Panasonic tech with the professional broadcast branch and he works on LCD PJ's, he said the problem probably lies in the 'analysis block', though he has not ever seen this problem before. I'll probably send it in for a look see.

I was told by a tech at Projectorpeople that the Oppo and the 900 don't always work well together. It went over my head pretty quickly and I was really focused on other issues so I didn't pursue it but it was something about their frequencies being incompatible. Anyways, although not common, he said there could be obvious color banding or color shift in some areas as a result or even a blue screen if the handshake between the two didn't hook up correctly. Take it for what its worth... I have no idea what he was talking about.

I have a question regarding my DVD setting for the AE900. Through the HDMI out of te player it gives me the option of setting RGB or YcPbr (or something like that). What would be the proper setting for this projector? OR does it matter? BTW, when choosing RGB it also gives an "enhancement" choice. Any thoughts would be great.

I have to disagree with the tech at Projectorpeople. I have been using the Oppo and the AE900 and they work great together. No Macroblocking or other problems.

As a side note if you ever reference the SELF CHECK in the extended service menu be aware that Panasonic's numbering system *lowers* as the temp is in fact *increasing*.


So the reading I see on the menu http://i.org.helsinki.fi/lassial/obj/img/06/060107-EXT_menu_items.jpg is not actually the temperature but some sort of derivative? Like temp = 255-x + y, where y is constant and temp is figure on kelvin/celsius scale ?

I have to disagree with the tech at Projectorpeople. I have been using the Oppo and the AE900 and they work great together. No Macroblocking or other problems.

I don't think it to be a common problem. That is why he said, and I wrote "the Oppo and the 900 don't always work well together" and "although not common" in my statement earlier. If someone is having problems though it might be good to know this and try another DVD player. Thats all I meant. I have had no problems with the Oppo either. Sorry for any confusion, just thought it interesting and that someone might know what he was talking about.

I have to disagree with the tech at Projectorpeople. I have been using the Oppo and the AE900 and they work great together. No Macroblocking or other problems.

Richard,
The tech *might* have been referring to the latest OPPO firmware which does have synch issues as it positions the output out of range. This of course is fixable as you know.

As to the issues Troy is having - definitely a tough one.

ted

So the reading I see on the menu http://i.org.helsinki.fi/lassial/obj/img/06/060107-EXT_menu_items.jpg is not actually the temperature but some sort of derivative? Like temp = 255-x + y, where y is constant and temp is figure on kelvin/celsius scale ?

Yes I believe, as to the function - I've no idea how Panasonic derives their numbers but they *do* decrease as temp increases, unless things have changed between the 700 and the 900 - which I doubt. This would be easily verified with a small heat source held to the PJ intake and watch the readings for the sensor at the intake - can't remember whether that is 1 or 2 offhand.

ted

I have a question regarding my DVD setting for the AE900. Through the HDMI out of te player it gives me the option of setting RGB or YcPbr (or something like that). What would be the proper setting for this projector? OR does it matter? BTW, when choosing RGB it also gives an "enhancement" choice. Any thoughts would be great.

Ultimately it will be converted to RGB at the PJ which is what it uses. Component would allow for greater bit depth to be delivered to the PJ as RGB is limited to 8 bits. This however would mean the PJ's scaler is now active, so it is a question of whether the player's scaler is better than the PJ's.

Some discussion can be found: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=556006&highlight=10bit

Play and see which works for you.

A bigger question - though I would be too lazy to sweat it (intoxicants help) is Rec. 709 vs Rec. 601. The 900 is expecting Rec.709 colour weighting which is an HD matrix vs an SD colour matrix. If you are going to upscale and your player allows, then select for 709. 601 into 709 results in greenish tinged pictures unless the colour space remapping is done. Sorry for the gobbledygook but the sentences can be parsed with Google or AVS search - DVD forums likely.

ted

all my calibrations refer to REC601.

Ted, you make a good point. Troy, you might want to check your firmware on the Oppo and if you have the lastest you might want to try to roll it back to the previous version.

CKL, good to hear from you again, I don't know if you have a cc40r filter but if you do it would be great if you could post your results with the high lamp mode. I would also love to see the results with an 81C filter and the AE900.

Color Uniformity: Yep, my 900 shows the same thing and I have read others have it too. I'd bet it's common with this PJ. I asked the same question but described it as a magenta cast and got no replies. My dealer tech said it's common. It will show up on B&W material: A Hard Days Night. I read a review today on the Sony HSxx and this color shift was reported also. It really bugs me too. I spoke with a local Panasonic tech with the professional broadcast branch and he works on LCD PJ's, he said the problem probably lies in the 'analysis block', though he has not ever seen this problem before. I'll probably send it in for a look see.

I was hoping that there might be some service menu tweak for this. But from the lack of replies to this issue, I guess not.

I was hoping that there might be some service menu tweak for this. But from the lack of replies to this issue, I guess not.

Sorry, I might have commented.

Would that it were. Poor uniformity is likely a result of the dichroic mirrors in the optical block not being aligned. These are used to split the light into its required wavelengths (RGB) whereupon it is passed to the individual panels. Since the manner in which the light hits the panel is a result of the angle at which it hits that panel, the mirrors need to be aligned correctly. There are adjustments in the optical block that do this. So. like convergence, it requires opening the unit and removed the mainboard, unfortunately.

ted

Perhaps, but you might consider that *any* stray light will impact on blacks much more that whites as it is a greater percentage of the screen black measure. In other words a light source of 1 FtL in a room can wash out your blacks where it would not have much of an impact on a white level. There is enough output from a receiver display in the room to affect perceived black level.

Are you using Auto Iris Btw and have you calibrated to clip Blacker than Black (levels below 16)?

ted

The projector black level is calibrated and because I am using PAL, I shouldn’t need to bother with the whole blacker than black issue.
I can tell quite easily where the light is coming from by simply holding up a hand between projector and screen, and on a full black frame there is still noticeable light from the projector, not a lot, but it is noticeable. As I mentioned previously, the problem is simply that it is just too bright at the moment, so some filtering, fine-tuning and probably even a gray screen would be a good idea.


Liam

Could someone please point me to the procedure for using the panel adjustments to reduce very mild VB? I can only find posts that say that they did it, but I can't find a post about how to adjust flicker or panel.

Thanks.

The projector black level is calibrated and because I am using PAL, I shouldn’t need to bother with the whole blacker than black issue.

I know PAL references black at 0 IRE but black is coded at PC 16 on NTSC DVDs - Is black coded at PC 0 for PAL DVD's?

I can tell quite easily where the light is coming from by simply holding up a hand between projector and screen, and on a full black frame there is still noticeable light from the projector, not a lot, but it is noticeable.

Liam

Not to argue with you - it is your setup, but you do seem to be minimizing room effects. A Pj with a 2k:1 On/Off with 12 FtL at the screen should have a black level of .006 Ft. L. Even ambient light of .018 FtL hitting your screen will quadruple (.006 + .018) your black level.

I'm not really a fan of grey screens as I would prefer to use either a CC filter to increase On/Off or an ND which lowers overall output. You can remove either once your bulb ages. I use an 81 EF with my 700.

ted

Could someone please point me to the procedure for using the panel adjustments to reduce very mild VB? I can only find posts that say that they did it, but I can't find a post about how to adjust flicker or panel.

Thanks.

For flicker I put up a test pattern (HDNet Color Bars) and just dial the adjustment for each color until flicker is minimized. Make sure the PJ is nice and warm before doing this. This did seem to help with the VB I had.

But for Panel, I have no idea. I really couldn't see any difference in the Panel screens when adjusting the settings, and there wasn't much of a range (mine only went from 12 to 17 I think). I'd love to know what I should be looking for with the Panel adjustement.

-Sean

Thanks a bunch, Sean. I'll try that tomorrow. I've got software for my laptop to display a pattern with all six colors, grays, and some crosshatched and dot patterns. There's nothing to be gained from using dot patterns, then?

Do we even have a definition of what the panel adjustment is?

Jeremy

Thanks a bunch, Sean. I'll try that tomorrow. I've got software for my laptop to display a pattern with all six colors, grays, and some crosshatched and dot patterns. There's nothing to be gained from using dot patterns, then?

Do we even have a definition of what the panel adjustment is?

Jeremy

None of which I'm aware. I've searched and asked, but so far haven't seen a post describing what it is, what it does, or how you're supposed to set it.

-Sean

I've also read posts from folks who claimed to have used the panel adjustment successfully, but no one has ever posted back when asked how they did it.

It's the biggest mystery about the AE900. It could be the end of VB and slight mis-convergence problems, but no one can explain how to use it. ;)

I have asked the very same question regarding the panel adjustment on this thread and no one responded back.

Lots of us have tried it, but no one can see a difference in the behavior of the PJ, and of course it's not in the manual since it is in the service menu.
So maybe we will never know.

Sorry, I might have commented.

Would that it were. Poor uniformity is likely a result of the dichroic mirrors in the optical block not being aligned. These are used to split the light into its required wavelengths (RGB) whereupon it is passed to the individual panels. Since the manner in which the light hits the panel is a result of the angle at which it hits that panel, the mirrors need to be aligned correctly. There are adjustments in the optical block that do this. So. like convergence, it requires opening the unit and removed the mainboard, unfortunately.

ted

Thanks for the info. I cann live with mine since the non-uniformity is not noticable during content viewing and is only obvious on test screens.

Lots of us have tried it, but no one can see a difference in the behavior of the PJ.

I'll describe my findings (again):
I have some VB that is also visible in the green panel adj. screen. If I make changes to to the setting in the green panel, I think can clearly see how the banding changes in two ways (or I'm just hallucinating.

a) The frequency of the bands seems to change (the distance from peak to peak)
b) The magnitude (visibility) of the bands is changed so that the banding is shifted from lower to higher luminance patches (and vice versa).

I will check these findings later on, but I'm quite confident as I've tried them several times.

As a result, I have some control over where I see VB most, but it can't be completely removed. I have a feeling that it interacts with flicker adjustments, so the complete picture maybe more complex. Once I got a hold of a new d-slr I might try some counterintuitive settings with my current "almost VB free" settings and see if I can capture the difference on camera. However, on real material, there is very little VB and it doesn't bother me.

And on the other hand, once I've began to think about it, I tend to perceive it (like several other anomalies) on almost every PJ and display around...

I know PAL references black at 0 IRE but black is coded at PC 16 on NTSC DVDs - Is black coded at PC 0 for PAL DVD's?

Not to argue with you - it is your setup, but you do seem to be minimizing room effects. A Pj with a 2k:1 On/Off with 12 FtL at the screen should have a black level of .006 Ft. L. Even ambient light of .018 FtL hitting your screen will quadruple (.006 + .018) your black level.
ted

Ted

I am no expert here, but my understanding was that everything is referenced to 0 for PAL. I will check further though.

I just picked up Spyder2 Pro kit for calibrating my monitors, and checked it out in “Colorimeter mode” just in front of the screen. No idea what anyone thinks of the absolute accuracy of this device is, but the readings were around 111 fL and 0.055 fL!! That’s on around a 90 inch diagonal, although the sensor was a little way in front of the screen facing the PJ, so maybe 80 inch would be more accurate. Anyway it is obviously a lot brighter than it should be, which is why the black is not so black.

Hopefully I will have a little time to play around over the next few weeks and can try out a few filter options to bring the black level down.

I like the idea of the grey screen because it not only reduces the brightness of the image, it also reduces the brightness of other light sources reflected on the screen too. It does however have the disadvantage of being permanent, but since I have a fair bit to play with I might even be able to do than and try a ND filter also!

Liam

hi new member here.

i have finally got a picture to match my audio in the ae900 however i have a couple of questions i am sure some of you may have a chuckle at their simplicity.

have had the 900 for 4 weeks and using lp morgan rondo matt white screen. got a heliopan kr-6 (81ef) yesterday as it is available here in new zealand.

now for the q's

when using the suggested settings (thanks mike) should all the contrast etc in the first menu be left as factory set? Have run DVE basic after and it still is not quite there.

does the fact NZ is on pal matter (all our dvd players are region free :cool: )

also image appears a little grainy (viewing distance 3.3-3.4 mtrs 92" 16:9 screen)

hoping someone may be able to shed some light on my first post, mike if you are still active on this thread please reply.

thanks
nick

Hi Kiwiguy, Welcome to the forum. I will try to answer you questions and I hope others will add their comments.

1. You should use the AVIA or DVE disk for the initial setup before you use the tweaks.
See page 1 of the thread. After you try the tweak settings you might want to check the settings again with AVIA or DVE.

2. Pal should be fine.

3. You don't say how your projector is hooked up or what DVD player you are using.
I would try HDMI if possible and you might want to try an upscailing player. If the source quality is good your picture should be great.

thanks rwestley

my dvd player is pioneer 676a which i think is a code only used here and perhaps the UK. it is 12 bit video, progressive scan, no hdmi.

at the moment i am using component (10 mtr length).

i have just been completely through the forum (hours and hours) and have found out some answers. It appears that the poor image i was getting tonight was due to Cinderella man having such a bad transfer. Makes sense as the night before the picture was supreme.

have completely replaced everything in the last year (thankfully i have a very understanding wife) apart from the dinosaur (vcr) and did not opt for high end dvd as yet as Blue Ray is just around the corner.

is upscaling the same as progressive scan? PJ looks good on progressive scan but the loewe tv(now solely for tv) wont take it.

no hdtv in NZ yet. think it is still 2 years away

Upscailing will scale your image to 720p or 1080i. You should be ok with the Pioneer at 480p. If you want a slightly better picture you might want to check out the DVD Non HD player thread. I have a Panasonic 97S and an Oppo player. They both upscale.

The transfer on Cinderella Man, as you point out is bad. The picture quality in the theatre was also not great. I think the director used filters to create a mood for the period.

hi new member here.

i have finally got a picture to match my audio in the ae900 however i have a couple of questions i am sure some of you may have a chuckle at their simplicity.

have had the 900 for 4 weeks and using lp morgan rondo matt white screen. got a heliopan kr-6 (81ef) yesterday as it is available here in new zealand.

now for the q's

when using the suggested settings (thanks mike) should all the contrast etc in the first menu be left as factory set? Have run DVE basic after and it still is not quite there.

does the fact NZ is on pal matter (all our dvd players are region free :cool: )

also image appears a little grainy (viewing distance 3.3-3.4 mtrs 92" 16:9 screen)

hoping someone may be able to shed some light on my first post, mike if you are still active on this thread please reply.

thanks
nick

The PJ does show grain and the amount depends on the quality of the original and the transfer to DVD. 'Gladiator' looks great, not much grain at all. 'Close Encounters' looks horrible. Spyderman I & II, not bad, somewhere in between. 720p & 1080i material for the most part looks awesome! The NFL play-off games in HD looked plasma like.

The PJ does show grain and the amount depends on the quality of the original and the transfer to DVD. 'Gladiator' looks great, not much grain at all. 'Close Encounters' looks horrible. Spyderman I & II, not bad, somewhere in between. 720p & 1080i material for the most part looks awesome! The NFL play-off games in HD looked plasma like.

the highest signal i am getting is 500 and something i think from memory it is 576. i am running component from dvd player. should i try a dvd with a higher quality transfer? ie star wars III or LOTR extended edition. or is it a cable or setting issue? I cannot recall seeing a hiher signal than 576

PJ is dedicated movies as we do not have any high def here yet.

it really is quite nice talking to like minded people, especially since you know more than me. This is my first projector-better option than plasma or lcd screens (which i was looking into) as lcd too noisy and i actually could see the rainbow effect on plasma-even pioneer

Upscailing will scale your image to 720p or 1080i. You should be ok with the Pioneer at 480p. If you want a slightly better picture you might want to check out the DVD Non HD player thread. I have a Panasonic 97S and an Oppo player. They both upscale.

The transfer on Cinderella Man, as you point out is bad. The picture quality in the theatre was also not great. I think the director used filters to create a mood for the period.


about 3/4 through the movie i was starting to think that, atleast that is what i told our friends that were over to check out my great projector.

I really wanted to fiddle with it to see if i could fix it-had my wife sternly whispering in my ear to leave it. which of course i obeyed.

any one know if there is any benefit to using something like vibrapods under the projector. They made a huge difference when i first put them under my dvd.

better keep on point, do you think vibrapods count as a 'tweak'

I had never heard of virbrapods. They might be of some value if you play your system so loud that it can cause vibrations. The vibrations might(I am not sure) make the bulb burn out faster. I just wonder if they are just snake oil.

Hi guys. I'm still here, though I've been busy with some family stuff lately so I haven't even watched the AE900 for almost a week.

Regarding isolation pads, I doubt they would do much for the AE900 as it should be unaffected by slight vibration. I've heard it can help with CD and DVD players though I've never evaluated it. I recently reviewed a modified Oppo DVD player that had JJAZ FOD isolation feet, which were to help reduce the effects mechanical vibrations have on the player. There were a bunch of power supply and other upgrades that made the player look even better than the stock player, but I don't know that the isolation feet had much to do with that.

I had never heard of virbrapods. They might be of some value if you play your system so loud that it can cause vibrations. The vibrations might(I am not sure) make the bulb burn out faster. I just wonder if they are just snake oil.

i had the same hesitation, so found what i could on them. It all seemed above board and reputable magazines etc were giving them a good rap.

so, still hesitant, but with a right of return option i thought i would give it a go.

and bugger me if they didnt work a treat- to the extent that my picture from my dvd to my crt sharpened up so much that if you got too close it became grainy. however when you sat back in the couch the picture was much sharper and clearer.

i think the premise is that all electrical components send out some form of hum, the pods isolate the component from all the rest.

Mike, good to hear from you again. Hope everything works out with the family. I have also been very busy. I just got my Harrison & Harrison cc40r filter but I have not even tried it yet. Hopefully I can try your settings over the weekend.

I have some VB that is visible in the green panel adj. screen. If I make changes to to the setting in the green panel, I think can clearly see how the banding changes in two ways

a) The frequency of the bands seems to change (the distance from peak to peak)
b) The magnitude (visibility) of the bands is changed so that the banding is shifted from lower to higher luminance patches (and vice versa).

I will check these findings later on

Did that last evening and I stick to my story. If the eleven patches would be called 0-10 (with bigger number being greater in luminance), I think that Panel adj. in my unit can shift the VB between patches 5 and 9, making it visible in other and invisible in the other extreme. But say again, this neither makes any difference for the panels not inflected with VB nor banishes VB totally.

Another thing, after setting up my PC w. Matrox G550 dual-head (VGA+DVI) to AE900 vga input, I must say that the behaviour of auto synch is no very good. I recommend using the program also mentioned by CKL,
Nokia Monitor test (http://www.construnet.hu/nokia/Monitors/TEST/monitor_test.html)
and use the test patterns to adjust synchronization settings. However, I still seem to lose couple pixels on the way on vertical axis. I'm blaming it on PJ as it worked in a similar fashion with my laptop (Intel MGA2 VGA output).

Hi guys. I'm still here, though I've been busy with some family stuff lately so I haven't even watched the AE900 for almost a week.

Regarding isolation pads, I doubt they would do much for the AE900 as it should be unaffected by slight vibration. I've heard it can help with CD and DVD players though I've never evaluated it. I recently reviewed a modified Oppo DVD player that had JJAZ FOD isolation feet, which were to help reduce the effects mechanical vibrations have on the player. There were a bunch of power supply and other upgrades that made the player look even better than the stock player, but I don't know that the isolation feet had much to do with that.


Mike I would love to hear about the other tweaks done to the OPPO. And links? or another existing thread?

Ron

I wanted to post some additional findings here about the AE900. I took a brief break from the AE900 to do some work and play around with a high end 720p DLP. After this and due mainly to "personal" financial reasons I am back to the AE900.

First of all, I went out and purchased a couple of filters for this PJ. I want to recommend that everyone use the Cokin "P" series. I know many are already using other filters but for those considering this option, the Cokin seems to be most flexible to me and the least expensive option. I purchased an adapter ring and a "P" series adapter. This adapter attaches to the ring and allows you to slide different filters in and out and combine multiple filters. Right now, I have calibrated my unit using the 81C. On my original unit, I tried the EF and found it to cut too much light for my tastes. That being said, after working with the C and learning a good bit more about this PJ, I will be trying the EF again this weekend. For calibration I am using the Progressive Labs system with an external signal generator. I am also using a Lumagen HDP Pro scaler which I consider to be one of the most important parts of the chain. I will explain this in detail later.

Right off the bat, I placed the 81C filter on the unit and took some readings. I tried Normal with Color Temp at -4, -3, -2, -1 and 0. I also tried Dynamic and a few color temps. Normal at -4 gave me the best results and the easiest set of parameters to work with. Dynamic just will not work for me using the C filter. I plan on trying Dynamic and the EF filter this weekend. The Normal setting gave me fairly good gamma at 2.03 and usable color balance. You can see this in the charts below. With the projectors controls alone, I was not able to get what I would consider great color balance. I could pull a fairly good gamma curve but color balance was the lesser of two evils. Basically what happened was green had to be pulled down a good bit in the higher IREs to allow for good adjustment of blue and red. From this point I could either choose too little red in the higher IREs with good balance in the mid IREs or too much red in the mid IREs with better red in the higher IREs. Even with too much red in the mid IREs, I still could not bring red to where it needed to be in the high IREs. This is where the Lumagen becomes priceless. With the scaler, you can go into the service mode and have 11 point grayscale and gamma adjustment. The best way for me to describe this is an analogy. Right now you are using RGB Contrast and RGB Bright to adjust color balance in the PJ. This is like having Bass and Treble controls on a stereo. These 2 controls for each color allow you to adjust color balance over 11 IRE levels from 0IRE to 100IRE. The controls are good but sometimes they are too course to get everything perfect. You have to make some compromises. The Lumagen grayscale and gamma adjustment is like a parametric EQ. It gives you RGB and Gamma adjustment at any assignable IRE you like. I just use the standard 11 points (0IRE-100IRE) but you can even assign custom IREs if you are having a particular problem between points. Okay, with the Lumagen, I was able to target the remaining problems and even out color and gamma. Color balance was spot on from 30-100IRE. I will probably go back and tweak the lowest IREs a bit more with the Lumagen. The gamma measured at 2.37 and has wonderful tracking through all but the lowest IREs. Understand you can never have perfect gamma at 0IRE with lamp based PJs so that will always skew gamma a bit. I have attached those charts in the next post for you as well. Now with these new adjustments, I was able to measure an On/Off contrast of 2430:1. I felt this was outstanding results for such true color balance and gamma. I also measured very good light output at around 450 lumens. After doing this, I put in a few DVDs and some HDTV and proceeded to evaluate. While it was very impressive something was just wrong. Contrast was very good, blacks look very black and light output was not a problem. Colors were the problem. What to do....

This is where I began to really appreciate the AE900 and its tweakablilty. The next thing I did was set saturation and hue. I did not do this in the normal way though. I used a Blue Field and my measurement tools to set blue on its exact coordinates. Once this was done, I took a measurement of each Primary and Secondary color. This is where I found the problems. The AE900 has colors that are way oversaturated. Green is the highest, followed by Yellow then Red. I then used the Color Management and a green field. I pulled green in line, then yellow then red. Magenta was another problem. I could not get it on its coordinates even maxing out the controls of the AE900. This is solely due to the filter. I was able to get everything perfect in Cinema 1 without the filter (but that's another calibration story). Anyway, I have attached the CIE chart in the nest thread as well. Anyone not using the color management system needs to work with this. You will probably be very limited without the proper instruments but when colors are pulled back in line, it makes a huge difference.

Now back to my evaluation. This time everything looked so right. Colors where not out of whack and everything was so pleasing to the eyes. I am just very happy with what I have been able to achieve with this PJ. I was blown away with CSI last night. I mean it just really popped. Testing a few of my reference DVDs proved this as well.

I know many of you would want me to post my calibration numbers. I will be happy to do this but please bear in mind, they will only get you so far as I used the Lumagen to really dial things in. As for the Lumagen...the Lumagen is an important part of my system. Now I must admit the scaler I have costs as much as the PJ but the little Vision DVI from them will do the same thing as the Pro when in relation to the AE900. The ability to fine tune Gamma and Grayscale after getting it as close to perfect with the PJ is priceless. When you consider the new pricing for the DVI, I mus recommend that anyone looking for a new DVD player or switcher look into this unit. You will be very happy you did. I do not want this to seem as a commercial for the scaler because it is not so please do not flame me for this.

Finally, I will say I will probably tweak the lower IREs a little bit more this weekend and then start to work on the 81EF filter and Dynamic mode. I hope to achieve better contrast with it and still have good usable light output. I had a lot of trouble with my first AE900 and this filter. I was able to get decent color balance but it just never looked right. I think it boils down to the color management software. Ultimately, if I am able to increase light output with Dynamic and the 81EF and also increase contrast into the true 3000:1 range, this little PJ will be hard to beat. Even adding in the cost of the scaler to do things right, there is not anything I can recommend at the same dollars.

The Post Cal Graphs.

Thanks Eric for your great post. I do hope you can also post your calibration numbers for the AE900 with and without the different filters. I do realize that this will only get us so far since you did use the Lumagen. I must say that your settings without the filter gives me the best picture so far. I would love to get your settings to experiment with the 81c filter.

Thanks Eric for your great post. I do hope you can also post your calibration numbers for the AE900 with and without the different filters. I do realize that this will only get us so far since you did use the Lumagen. I must say that your settings without the filter gives me the best picture so far. I would love to get your settings to experiment with the 81c filter.

Okay, here are my settings but please understand they are not perfect without the Lumagen. Also I use a screen offset function for my Da-Lite HCCV which calculates that into the equation.

81C Filter
Normal Mode
Color Temp -4
Contrast +20
Brightness 0

Gamma
High +1
Mid 0
Low -3

Contrast
R -8
G -10
B +4

Bright
R -9
G -4
B -7

With my set up, this give me fairly close to 6500K in the 40,50,60,70 IRE range. Above that at 80,90 and 100 you should have too much green and way too little red. Moving green lower though will throw you off a bunch in the mid IREs as well as adding red will kill your mid IREs. The low end will be fairly close with a large red spike at 30 and too much blue at 20 and 10. Green should be pretty close but any movement of red or blue either way throws thing much further out of balance.

You can try it and see what you think. I will be interested in any comments.

Thanks Eric for posting your settings. If you give me permission I would love to post your original settings without a filter. I like them the best of any settings not using a filter.

I will try your new settings this weekend realizing that i will not be using a Lumagen and I will report back.

Richard

Thanks Eric for posting your settings. If you give me permission I would love to post your original settings without a filter. I like them the best of any settings not using a filter.

I will try your new settings this weekend realizing that i will not be using a Lumagen and I will report back.

Richard

Richard,
That is fine with me. I have some new settings for Cinema 1 I have calibrated without a filter. They may be even better. I will post them when I get time.

Hi Eric.........

Did you come up with a lumen output number for your adjustments at Cinema 1 without the filter?

I will have to head over the Lumagen web site to see what they have to offer... do they have a unit that does HDMI switching now like the iScan VP30?

Hi Eric.........

Did you come up with a lumen output number for your adjustments at Cinema 1 without the filter?

I will have to head over the Lumagen web site to see what they have to offer... do they have a unit that does HDMI switching now like the iScan VP30?

Steve,
Believe it or not, the lumen output on Cinema 1 without a filter is lower. I don't remember exactly but it came in around the 400 lumen mark and maybe a bit lower.

As for the scaler, Lumagen has a new scaler coming that will do HDMI switching but will not be until spring. I would not be too concerned about this though. The DVI outputs of the Lumagen offer full 10bit resolution and colorspace conversion. You can choose between HDMI 4:4:4 or HDMI 4:2:2 or HDMI RGB so basically it will do everything a scaler with HDMI output offers. The other thing is the overall quality and scaling. I feel the Lumagen is a better product. Their mid priced scaler will output full 1080p resolution and this is not the "Bob and Weave" technique used by DVDO. It actually offers 3:2 1080i deinterlacing and pulldown. So you have a product that performs better, no bugs, has frequent software updates you can download, and then offers the additional flexibility of the grayscale and gamma tweaking. It has many other options that are neat as well.

Here are the settings for Cinema 1 without a filter. These are using a Da-Lite HCCV screen offset in the Progressive Labs software so they may not work for everyone.

Cinema1 Mode
Color Temp 0
Contrast +6
Brightness -6

Gamma
High +1
Mid -3
Low -5

Contrast
R 0
G 0
B +4

Bright
R -2
G 0
B +1

I also might mention, I did not use the Lumagen scaler to add additional tweaks. This was close enough with the projector I did not feel I needed it.


These are low lamp settings and resulted in a Lumen output of 343. On/Off Contrast was only 1583:1.

Pre Cal

Eric, I just tried your settings with the 81C filter. I set my brightness, & Contrast with AVIA before I applied your settings. I like them better than with any other filter I tried. I still realize that the Lumagen would really improve the grey scale. I will compare your diffrerent settings with and without a filter over the weekend.

Thanks for your permission to post your settings without a filter. Can't wait for your new
settings.

Original settings from Eric Awtry with no filter. I will wait untill you post your latest settings before I place them on page one of the thread.

Normal Color Temp -4
Gamma
H0
M0
L+1

Contrast
R-4
G-4
B3

Bright
R0
G-2
B-1

Post Cal

Eric, I just tried your settings with the 81C filter. I set my brightness, & Contrast with AVIA before I applied your settings. I like them better than with any other filter I tried. I still realize that the Lumagen would really improve the grey scale. I will compare your diffrerent settings with and without a filter over the weekend.

Thanks for your permission to post your settings without a filter. Can't wait for your new
settings.

Settings from Eric Awtry with no filter. I will wait untill you post your latest settings before I place them on page one of the thread.

Normal Color Temp -4
Gamma
H0
M0
L+1

Contrast
R-4
G-4
B3

Bright
R0
G-2
B-1

Richard,
I just posted some new settings. Please be aware the new settings are for a completely different projector. I have now calibrated 3 of these and each one has been different. I know we all enjoy trying these settings but just know they are not going to be correct in most situations. Maybe someone will get lucky and have a PJ that is close to mine.

Thanks for posting your results Eric. As you've seen, without the Lumagen, there are definitely some trade-offs that must be made. Have you noticed a bump in R% at 70 IRE? I've seen that happen with every mode I've tried.

Also, could you post your adjustments in the CCM? I've tried to reduce the overly saturated greens, yellows and red with that and while I get good readings via OpticOne, the colors don't "look" right.

Mike I would love to hear about the other tweaks done to the OPPO. And links? or another existing thread?

Ron

I'll be posting a reveiw on the Home Theater Spot soon, but here are the tweaks, as told to me by the person who did the modifications:

The power cable was removed and replaced with an ACME Audio Silver
Plated IEC connector.

The capacitors in the main switching power supply section were upgraded. By using higher quality, very low ESR caps, the DC power to the various parts of the
Oppo are improved. The same thing is done to the DVI board. By giving
the chips the best and cleanest power possible, the picture is improved.

There were some audio upgrades as well, but I have to say I didn't notice that much benefit in them.

Thanks for posting your results Eric. As you've seen, without the Lumagen, there are definitely some trade-offs that must be made. Have you noticed a bump in R% at 70 IRE? I've seen that happen with every mode I've tried.

Also, could you post your adjustments in the CCM? I've tried to reduce the overly saturated greens, yellows and red with that and while I get good readings via OpticOne, the colors don't "look" right.

Mike,
I will try to post those this weekend. All adjustments are basically cuts to saturation. Each color is almost dead on axis so the hues are fine. One thing to remember is I am using the SMPTE-C gamut. Greg Rogers states this is most important as that is the one used by most matering studios. Even when I switch to the HD-709 gamut Green is still real close. I think I cut Green by 28 to get it inside its borders. Yellow is 20 and Red is 15. Magenta has to be boosted when using the filter. These numbers may seem drastic but I trust my meter. It has just been calibrated. I also just worked with another PJ that had controls like this and found the same issue. Just remember Panasonic is probably not going to give you these controls in the user menu and give a huge range of adjustment. They made it where you can't screw things up too bad. The great thing is you can put a Full Color Field up from Avia and work this by eye. Like I stated before, do not mess with Hue if you are using HDMI. I will say this, once you get used to overly saturated colors, they will look "wrong" once you go back to correct colors. Luckily I had another PJ on hand to compare and when you do this you will see that it does look correct once adjusted.

Mike,
I will try to post those this weekend. All adjustments are basically cuts to saturation. Each color is almost dead on axis so the hues are fine. One thing to remember is I am using the SMPTE-C gamut. Greg Rogers states this is most important as that is the one used by most matering studios. Even when I switch to the HD-709 gamut Green is still real close. I think I cut Green by 28 to get it inside its borders. Yellow is 20 and Red is 15. Magenta has to be boosted when using the filter.

Thanks. That sounds similar to what I was experiencing. I didn't mess with hue either.

I will say this, once you get used to overly saturated colors, they will look "wrong" once you go back to correct colors. Luckily I had another PJ on hand to compare and when you do this you will see that it does look correct once adjusted.

That's the thing. I wasn't used to overly saturated colors as I had been using and calibrating a number of DLPs that were undersaturated if anything. I'll give it another try this weekend. FWIW, I'm using OpticOne with the CA-6X probe and Avia Pro.

Eric,

When you try the 81EF I'd love to know the settings you use in the AE900 *and* in the Lumagen gray scale calibration settings as I have one too.

" It actually offers 3:2 1080i deinterlacing and pulldown."

Not yet it doesn't. Inverse telecine has long be promised but isn't here yet. They did however add motion adapter per-pixel for 1080i which was an unexpected feature.

Shawn

No idea what anyone thinks of the absolute accuracy of this device is, but the readings were around 111 fL and 0.055 fL!! That’s on around a 90 inch diagonal, although the sensor was a little way in front of the screen facing the PJ, so maybe 80 inch would be more accurate. Anyway it is obviously a lot brighter than it should be, which is why the black is not so black.

Liam

Liam,

Been busy with my tiny little life so I've not been keeping up, but One Hundred and Eleven Foot lamberts? That's 7 times the recommended *max* per SMPTE. Some like it hot but Holy crap you must be blinding yourself. There must be something wrong there - missing decimal? Foot Lamberts is a measure of the light reflected *from* the screen and involves screen area and screen gain. I doubt the 900 is capable of such lumens output.

Have you seen the threads regarding the Spyder in the Calibration forum?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=618182
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=45623
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=597170
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=587485

ted

Eric, is the upcoming Lumagen you mentioned the one that is supposed to have HQV processing? It seems to me that when I made a brief stop by the HQV booth at CES that they mentioned there product was in a Lumagen scaler.....

sorry for the slight tilt off topic....

Eric,

When you try the 81EF I'd love to know the settings you use in the AE900 *and* in the Lumagen gray scale calibration settings as I have one too.

" It actually offers 3:2 1080i deinterlacing and pulldown."

Not yet it doesn't. Inverse telecine has long be promised but isn't here yet. They did however add motion adapter per-pixel for 1080i which was an unexpected feature.

Shawn

Shawn,
You are correct. I should have stated the 3:2 is on the way. By the way, they have the code completed and it should be available next week.

Eric, is the upcoming Lumagen you mentioned the one that is supposed to have HQV processing? It seems to me that when I made a brief stop by the HQV booth at CES that they mentioned there product was in a Lumagen scaler.....

sorry for the slight tilt off topic....

Yes the new Lumagen does have HQV. The initial release is going to quite expensive though. There will be other "little brothers" in the Radiance lineup but we will have to wait on those.

[QUOTE=awtryau89]Yes the new Lumagen does have HQV. The initial release is going to quite expensive though. /QUOTE]

WAH! :eek:

Richard,
I just posted some new settings. Please be aware the new settings are for a completely different projector. I have now calibrated 3 of these and each one has been different. I know we all enjoy trying these settings but just know they are not going to be correct in most situations. Maybe someone will get lucky and have a PJ that is close to mine.

So this brings up something I've always suspected - that every PJ is different enough out of the box that none of these measurements/settings can really be applied to another PJ, even those taken at the lens. So what's the verdict? I think most agree that brightness/contrast settings need to be individually calibrated for each environment, to take into account screen gain, room lighting, etc. But what of the gamma and individual color brightness/contrast settings in the Advanced menu? Can these really be universally applied? I suspect no, unless you happen to have a PJ that is very similar to the one that was calibrated.

-Sean

Ok here goes:

AE-900 with GreyWolf 106" projecting 15' throw at about a 10-15% max offset
(horizontal) from the screen and stand mounted. 100% light controlled room but still with white walls and ceilings (carpet is light moss/jade color) - screen is wall mounted about 16" off floor and 40" from ceiling.

Source is a Denon 1920 via HDMI
Settings:
Auto 1
YCbCr
HDMI Picture NORMAL
Brightness setting to -2) and
Brightness enhancement set to OFF


PJ has settings of:
24 hours on the lamp.

Calibrated with a bit of the help above and DVE.
Lamp LOW
Fan NORMAL
Cinema 1
Color -2
Sharp -4
Dynamic Iris ON
NR OFF
Gamma Low +1
Contrast G -5


I just watched Wedding Crashers last night and everyone seems almost wan with yellow/blue tinges.

Anyone with a similar experience with this disc?

Okay guys, here are the settings I came up with using the 81EF. I had to end up using Normal Mode and -2 Color Temp. Dynamic color balnce can be gotten close but the Gamma is just not controllable. I am finding the Gamma settings more critical to my eye. These settings I am posting are without the use of my Lumagen scaler. I am keeping that out of the loop because I know most do not have one. I was able to achieve fairly flat grayscale and nearly perfect gamma traking. Try these and see what you think.

81EF Filter
Normal Mode
Color Temp -2
Contrast +12
Brightness -2

Gamma
High 0
Mid -6
Low -4

Contrast
R +2
G -4
B +12

Bright
R -4
G 0
B -2

On/Off contrast came in a little lower than with the C filter. The low end came in a bit darker than the C filter but the high end was a bit dimmer. I personally think the C Filter is a better match. So, for the lowest and darkest blacks, the EF may be better. I certainly know the EF would be the best if I could get Dynamic tamed a bit better.

BTW, I may be selling this PJ soon. Anyone interested?

***

Does anyone know where I can get the serial control codes for the AE900?
tia,
Ron

Update:

After re-applying all recommended Cinema 1 settings above and running DVE
it seems that Green Push is the key issue. NO matter what I do with the User Menus
I cannot get the Green Color patters to neutralize?

Is this a function of the projector color decoder or just my unit?
Anyone with DVE or other analyzers see similar issues?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

" Does anyone know where I can get the serial control codes for the AE900?"

The owners manual.

Shawn

Eric, I wonder if the 81C would look ok without the Lumagen, One can get a much brighter picture with it. and as you say you "feel it is a better match." I have played with you settings without the filter and using the 81C that you posted. I have also tried the 81EF but I don't like the results as much even though the blacks are better. are very close in picture quality but the blacks and CR are a little better with the 81C. I hope when you get a chance you could post your results for the 81C not using the Lumagen since most of us do not own one.

I am still learning how to use the Smart III and I will post some results when I feel that I am satisfied.

Thanks for your great posts.

" Does anyone know where I can get the serial control codes for the AE900?"

The owners manual.

Shawn
Thanks, I wanted to make sure they were available before I purchase one.
ron

Eric, I wonder if the 81C would look ok without the Lumagen, One can get a much brighter picture with it. and as you say you "feel it is a better match." I have played with you settings without the filter and using the 81C that you posted. I have also tried the 81EF but I don't like the results as much even though the blacks are better. are very close in picture quality but the blacks and CR are a little better with the 81C. I hope when you get a chance you could post your results for the 81C not using the Lumagen since most of us do not own one.

I am still learning how to use the Smart III and I will post some results when I feel that I am satisfied.

Thanks for your great posts.

Richard,
The numbers I posted are the best I can get without the Lumagen. I just use the Lumagen to dial things in even better. Jim at Lumagen recommends you get things as close as possible with the PJ then use the scaler to do the final tweaking. Its adjustments are not nearly as course. So if you have applied the settings with the C Filter, that is as good as I could manage with the PJ alone. The charts I posted show the color balance and gamma after the Lumagen. That is what I meant in my 81EF post. I was showing everyone what I got with the PJ only.

Thanks, Eric, I must have misunderstood. I do like your settings with the 81c better than the 81EF. The colors seem more accurate. I do realize that the projector will look even better with the Lumagen. I may want to get one in the future. The blacks & CR seem better with the 81EF but something just looks wrong. I have used AVIA first before applying your settings and have saved each in the different memories. For the average user, I feel, your setting without the filter are very good.. They provides good CR and decent blacks with very good color accuracy at least on my projector. The 81C also looks very good with slightly better CR. I have to decide which one I like better. Now if you could only get goof results using Dynamic and the 81EF filter. (I wonder if this is an impossible task?)

I have also tried many other suggested settings, thanks to Mike and others, and these two are the ones I like the best so far. I realize that each projector is different so the results will not be the same for all of us but they are fun to try and one may get lucky if their projector is close to yours.

Thanks again for your time and effort to do the calibrations and share your results.

Richard.

Liam,

Been busy with my tiny little life so I've not been keeping up, but One Hundred and Eleven Foot lamberts? That's 7 times the recommended *max* per SMPTE. Some like it hot but Holy crap you must be blinding yourself. There must be something wrong there - missing decimal? Foot Lamberts is a measure of the light reflected *from* the screen and involves screen area and screen gain. I doubt the 900 is capable of such lumens output.

ted

Thank's for the links.

http://www.thx.com/mod/techlib/contrast.html?print=1
According to this link 35 Foot-Lamberts seems to be suggested, other links suggests 16 FtL as a MINIMUM and yet other give 16+-2 FtL, so there seems to be a loot of room to manoeuvre ;-)

I set the Spyder up facing the projector under the assumption that since the screen is nominally gain 1.0, that it would not make any different which way it is pointing, apart from it being slightly closer to the PJ than the screen. Obviously that is not the case!

Liam

hi everyone! :)
great forum, great thread,
as correct gamma adjustment is quiete difficult above all in dynamic modus, isnt it possible to pre-adjust gamma with a video equalizer (i.e. denon 2910) so that the outcome is acceptable, has anyone tried?

Well, since the 81C's the only filter I haven't tried yet, I might just have to get one. :D

I'm not thrilled with the color rendition of the 81EF or the 81A and B combo. The CC40R provides the best balance of color and gamma, but the reduction in light output is just too great.

Eric, thanks for your 81EF settings, but based on my previous results I don't think they will work well with my AE900. As you noted, there is a difference between units. Certainly more than I've been used to with InFocus DLPs. Just for fun I'll try the settings tonight and post the charts for the two settings (yours and mine) to show the differences.

The AE900 still continues to impress me. Just wish they had the big rebate when I bought it. That's a better deal than dealer cost. :D

Thank's for the links.

http://www.thx.com/mod/techlib/contrast.html?print=1
According to this link 35 Foot-Lamberts seems to be suggested, other links suggests 16 FtL as a MINIMUM and yet other give 16+-2 FtL, so there seems to be a loot of room to manoeuvre ;-)

Liam

Those settings are for a direct view CRT which assumes ambient light in a typical viewing enviroment.

From the
Epson America (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/HomeEntertainment/homeTheatreGuide.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes) site The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (www.SMPTE.org) recommends 16 ft. lamberts screen brightness
The standard is in fact + or - 4 ft lamberts.
From http://www.dcimovies.com/DCI_Digital_Cinema_System_Spec_v1.pdf
8.3.4.3. Peak White Luminance
Using the white field test pattern (X’=3794, Y’=3960, Z’=3890), adjust the peak white luminance, as measured at screen center, to 48 cd/m2 (14 ft-L), with the measurement made at the reference viewing position.

Some studies have found that many commercial theatres actually project much lower. The accepted standard around AVS seems to have settled on 12 to 16 ft lamberts.

This of course doesn't mean you have to go this low (though you will likely require a high gain screen to maintain this level throughout the life of your bulb), there are many on AVS who prefer much brighter images. My basement bijou is a cave and I provide everyone with black robes to wear ;) so for me this would be too bright. The standards merely provide a reference since its your eyes.

If interested here are some brief threads discussing the low lumens approach.
Screen Brightness? (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=499957)
4ft lamberts bright enough? (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=530765)

Regarding directing the meter to the light source. Is there conversion going on? I've no idea how the Spyder software works. Measuring the light falling on a surface illuminance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminance) is measusured in units of Lux or Ft Candles and need to be converted when determining the light reflected by that surface which is luminance (http://www.schorsch.com/kbase/glossary/luminance.html) and is expressed in ft lamberts for HT purposes.

I apologize if I seem didactic, its fun for me as its my way of learning.
ted

Well, since the 81C's the only filter I haven't tried yet, I might just have to get one. :D Looking forward to your results. Can't wait. :)

Mike, I think you might like the 81C. So far I like it the best. The CR and blacks may not be as good as with the 81EF but the picture does look better to my eye. I do agree that each projector is different it seems that Eric's is closer to mine. Hoping you get a 81C and try
it.

Rich.

Well, I took some measurements with Eric's settings and my AE900 with the 81EF filter. As I expected in advance from comparing his settings with mine, there is obviously a great disparity between the individual units. Blue and gamma was pushed so high as to be obvious without any measuring. Below are the gamma graphs (RGB in the next post), with my settings and Eric's. Since Eric got excellent results with his AE900, this indicates that using any of our proposed settings with the AE900 is a total crapshoot. :(

and the RGB graphs:

Well, I took some measurements with Eric's settings and my AE900 with the 81EF filter. As I expected in advance from comparing his settings with mine, there is obviously a great disparity between the individual units. Blue and gamma was pushed so high as to be obvious without any measuring. Below are the gamma graphs (RGB in the next post), with my settings and Eric's. Since Eric got excellent results with his AE900, this indicates that using any of our proposed settings with the AE900 is a total crapshoot. :(

Mike,
No worries. I knew this going in. When I got the first AE900 I immediately plugged in all the different settings. None of them looked good to my eye. Everything I tried was way to red with the settings. I couldn't understand what everyone was seeing. After I got the second, it again was different. Then the third is still different again. I had this same issue with the Sony HS-51s I was calibrating last year. I had one of my own and then tried to use my calibrated settings for other customers as a starting piont. It always looked terrible. I think what you have is a firmware spec decided on by the manufacturer that is loaded into these projectors. The test unit is probably okay but manufacturing tolerances are so poor, no two are the same. Kinda like snowflakes....

But hey, that's what keeps guys like me in business. I actually have the equipment and know how to make all these projectors look good anyway.

[QUOTE=awtryau89]Okay guys, here are the settings I came up with using the 81EF. I had to end up using Normal Mode and -2 Color Temp. Dynamic color balnce can be gotten close but the Gamma is just not controllable. I am finding the Gamma settings more critical to my eye. These settings I am posting are without the use of my Lumagen scaler. I am keeping that out of the loop because I know most do not have one. I was able to achieve fairly flat grayscale and nearly perfect gamma traking. Try these and see what you think.

all i can say eric is wow

these settings are great so far. have only tested on afew snippets after dialling them in (it is daylight savings here and doesnt get dark till 9ish). It would appear to me that your PJ and mine must be close, as alot of other settings i tried with the 81ef seemed a little washed out.

wow the blacks are amazing, and the colours are great on my 900.

thank you very much for posting them without your scaler.

hats off

does anyone know if cables can produce VB as i have noticed some in my PJ and i am taking it back to the shop tomorrow as they want to check it is not from faulty cables.

i am running component.

thanks

Howdy,

I've just bought my first projector (AE900) and am currently screenless in my light-controlled room. I'm considering which screen material to purchase, and to that end I've found myself reading this tweak thread about filtering the projector to obtain better performance.

The two topics seem to be closely related. Can one not consider the screen to be a very large filter placed at the point of reflection, as opposed to the smaller ones applied at the point of origin?

I've looked at Grayhawk RS and Studiotek 130 screen material samples side-by-side at length, and see that the Grayhawk definitely does better black, but noticeably mutes the brighter colors. The Studiotek, however, appears much more neutral.

I see in this thread that some have recommended the Grayhawk RS as the perfect screen for this PJ. Yet, if I am going to filter the projector's output, does it make sense to use another dramatic "filter" AS the screen? :confused:

So, intuitively, I think that if you use the Studiotek, and filter-tweak the PJ, this would net both better colors AND better blacks. Am I intuiting correctly?

So, is the optimal tweak therfore to:

Use the Grayhawk RS and no filter on the PJ?
Use the Studiotek 130, and add a filter (81C, or other) to tweak the PJ output?
Grayhawk AND filter?!? :eek:

Cheers,

Mike,
No worries. I knew this going in. When I got the first AE900 I immediately plugged in all the different settings. None of them looked good to my eye. Everything I tried was way to red with the settings. I couldn't understand what everyone was seeing. After I got the second, it again was different. Then the third is still different again.

Thanks Eric. I don't know if it's an LCD or a Panasonic thing, but I'm not used to this drastic difference from years of working with DLPs, primarily Optoma and InFocus. They are much more consistant from one unit to the next. Take a look at my uncalibrated RGB%s on page 2 of this thread and see how that compares to yours.

FWIW, my AE900 was from the very first batch to hit the U.S., so that may have something to do with it.

does anyone know if cables can produce VB as i have noticed some in my PJ and i am taking it back to the shop tomorrow as they want to check it is not from faulty cables.

i am running component.

thanks

Not if what you are seeing *is* VB.

VB is panel and its drive electronics) related. Higher CR for example will make it more apparent or a better transport might, simply because there are fewer artifacts in the signal chain.

ted

Just curious, any idea how this unit compares to the infocus 4805 for noise levels? (fan noise)
I own a 4805 and fan noise is one of the two concerns I have with this unit. I am leaning towards a 900 or z4...

You should ask this on the main AE900 thread, but having used both, there is no comparison. Even in "High" fan mode, the AE900 is much quieter than the 4805. In "Normal" mode, there's very little noise at all.

OK, now that I've weeded my way through this thread :eek: I have a few questions to ask.

My HT is not a cave but it's VERY close. Chocolate walls, brick red front wall, brown carpet and furniture. You get the idea.

My screen is a BOC special and I really like the neutral colors it gives.

1) If you had to choose *1* filter, what would it be and why?

I'm not the kind of person that wants a few lying around to tweak with. I've done all of the basic calibrations with DVE and I do like the image I'm getting, but if I can get better colors and contrast I'm willing to give it a shot.

2) It seems everyone is using the "normal" mode with the filter. Why?

I thought that Cinema 1 had the closest gray scale tracking and that's the one I'm using. Is it just too dark to use with a filter?

3) I don't want to ever have to use high lamp mode but I noticed that several of the tweaks are using it. Is it neccesary?

Thanks
Rob

OK, now that I've weeded my way through this thread :eek: I have a few questions to ask.

My HT is not a cave but it's VERY close. Chocolate walls, brick red front wall, brown carpet and furniture. You get the idea.

My screen is a BOC special and I really like the neutral colors it gives.

1) If you had to choose *1* filter, what would it be and why?

I'm not the kind of person that wants a few lying around to tweak with. I've done all of the basic calibrations with DVE and I do like the image I'm getting, but if I can get better colors and contrast I'm willing to give it a shot.

2) It seems everyone is using the "normal" mode with the filter. Why?

I thought that Cinema 1 had the closest gray scale tracking and that's the one I'm using. Is it just too dark to use with a filter?

3) I don't want to ever have to use high lamp mode but I noticed that several of the tweaks are using it. Is it neccesary?

Thanks
Rob

Seeing that I only have one filter and am only able to do basic calibration, I'll leave the first two questions for the more qualified people. As to your third question, I'm using the 81ef with Mike's settings for normal, and I have absolutely no desire to fiddle with it or try either of the two other filters people have been having success with. I'm projecting a 125" diagonal image from ~13' in Low lamp mode, and I have all the brightness I need in my completely light controlled room. I'm also able to turn on the ambient lighting in the seating side of my room without noticeably washing out the colors.

It sounds like the EF will give the best black levels, while the tweakers feel the C gives the best picture.

thanks ted

looked at my panny next to the ones in the shop this morning and yes it is more apparent on my PJ with the tweaked settings. Seemed a little better through their hdmi cable though.

the big thing is that my picture with the tweaks and 81ef was so much better, i left the shop very happy. all i need now is for hd dvd to be released.

once again thanks to all for all your settings and advice

Update:

After re-applying all recommended Cinema 1 settings above and running DVE
it seems that Green Push is the key issue. NO matter what I do with the User Menus
I cannot get the Green Color patters to neutralize?

Is this a function of the projector color decoder or just my unit?
Anyone with DVE or other analyzers see similar issues?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

I'm in the same boat - I spent more than a few hours when I first got my PJ trying to get the greens to look right with Avia test patterns, to no avail. My problem is green push in darker scenes. Everything has a very noticeable green tint to it. I managed to mitigate the problem by cutting back on the green contrast and green brightness in the Advance menu. It's not perfect, but it makes the problem a lot less noticeable. I can basically completely elimate the green push if I want, but only at the expense of lost contrast in dark scenes, so I split the difference: decent contrast and a little green push.

-Sean

I have calibrated my projector using Avia and am pretty happy with the picture. i am not using a filter. I haven;t gotten to try some of the other settings recommended on the first page of this thread, but have a question before I do.

I have looked at the settings from Eric Awtry, MikeSRC and CKL in cinema mode. I notice that Mike and CKLs setting are the same, but awtry's s completely different. I guess I could try both and save them separately and compare them. I just am wondering what would cause such a difference? I am new to this stuff. I fugure I just need to save my initial settings so I can have something to fall back to if I don't like it.

Those settings are for a direct view CRT which assumes ambient light in a typical viewing enviroment.
...
Regarding directing the meter to the light source. Is there conversion going on? I've no idea how the Spyder software works. Measuring the light falling on a surface illuminance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminance) is measusured in units of Lux or Ft Candles and need to be converted when determining the light reflected by that surface which is luminance (http://www.schorsch.com/kbase/glossary/luminance.html) and is expressed in ft lamberts for HT purposes.

I apologize if I seem didactic, its fun for me as its my way of learning.
ted

“direct view CRT” – the clears it up a little. I expected something like that but I didn’t have the time to look up all the details :-)

Illuminance vs Luminance
Well the math is pretty complicated, but I always assumed that since we are talking about perfect white screen, you could cut out a lot of the details – at least for casual use. In terms of which way round the sensor goes – well, when it’s facing the projector it is measuring maybe a square centimetre of light falling directly on it from the projector. Make it face the screen and it will measure the light falling on it from a cone covering maybe half a square meter of screen. Twenty years ago I would have been able to trot out the calculations for the differences between those two measurements, making some assumptions about the screen, but today my math is not up to it ;-)


Liam

I have looked at the settings from Eric Awtry, MikeSRC and CKL in cinema mode. I notice that Mike and CKLs setting are the same, but awtry's s completely different. I guess I could try both and save them separately and compare them. I just am wondering what would cause such a difference? I am new to this stuff. I fugure I just need to save my initial settings so I can have something to fall back to if I don't like it.

There is a huge difference between units, particularly the early ones (like mine and CKLs) vs. the current ones. Check out Eric's and my posts on the previous page. If I were buying one right now, I'd be inclined to try Eric's settings first.

There is a huge difference between units, particularly the early ones (like mine and CKLs) vs. the current ones. Check out Eric's and my posts on the previous page. If I were buying one right now, I'd be inclined to try Eric's settings first.


My AE900E was produced in November05. Having tried both Eric's and Mike's (thank you both) settings without a filter (lo lamp, gray DIY screen g<1.0) I like Mike's settings better, they produced more neutral CR in general (although not having any other equipment but my eyes and test signal). But I must say that neither really hit the sweet spot. I adjusted Mike's settings by reducing blue contrast and I think I found a quite good balance.

Experiments with the settings kindly provided here again confirm what Mike and Eric have measured, no unit is the same. I also use the 81C filter, with that I applied Eric's and CKL's settings. Quite expectedly, Eric's settings provided a good starting point, but not extremely good CR. However, I used them to get a tuning that is a bit better than my current preference calibrated with DVE (less red tint).

I've also found it impractical to use CKL's settings because the strong green tint in blacks and the increased overall brightness compromises the black level.

Mr. L

Mike or Eric,

Have either one of you been able to defeat the EE on the 900?

Thanks

Mike and Eric could you list your manufacturing dates on the fourm. I know Mike you have a very early version as you stated. I wonder when Eric's was manufactured?

Mike and Eric could you list your manufacturing dates on the fourm. I know Mike you have a very early version as you stated. I wonder when Eric's was manufactured?

December 2005

Mike or Eric,

Have either one of you been able to defeat the EE on the 900?

Thanks

I don't have an EE problem with mine. An excellent DVD with no EE like the new Corpse Bride DVD looks terrific, even with sharpness at "0'. For DVDs that are not so great, I turn the sharpness on the AE900 down to "-4".

Mike and Eric could you list your manufacturing dates on the fourm.

As I recall, the manufacturing date on mine was September, 2005.

Thanks for the Information. My projector was made in Oct. 2005

OK I know this is slightly off topic but I just got my OPPO and is it normal for my tweaks from my old DVD player to the OPPO to be completely different?

Brightness and Contrast are completely different numbers not even close.

Rob

That's not unusual, depending on your previous DVD player's settings for brightness and contrast. The current firmware version of the Oppo (1111b) sets the default brightness at the proper level for studio black, so it in particular can be different from other players.

What exactly does the color temp setting do?

Does it adjust the whole "spectrum" up or down from D6500?

Thanks,
Rob

With just about any setting other than Cinema 1, the color temp is 'way too high. Using the (-) settings of the Color temp control will bring it down closer to 6500, but in the case of Dynamic or Normal, even that's not enough.

hey mike, just wondering what's the latest on your filter preference - the CC40R or 81EF?

I dont get what the difference is in when your projector was manufactured? sept dec whats the diff? MIKEsrc you said there was a difference but what exactly is the difference? is the newer one better for some reason? i dont get it thanks in advance jeff

hey mike, just wondering what's the latest on your filter preference - the CC40R or 81EF?

Right now, the 81EF. The CC40R does a great job, but it takes away too much brightness, reducing the output to less than 200 lumens. I just got an 81C that I'll be trying out next week as I'll be out of town this weekend.

I dont get what the difference is in when your projector was manufactured? sept dec whats the diff? MIKEsrc you said there was a difference but what exactly is the difference? is the newer one better for some reason? i dont get it thanks in advance jeff

We're just speculating that the manufactured date may have something to do with the vast discrepancy between the calibrated settings for my AE900 (one of the first off the boat from Japan) vs. Eric's more recent model. This indicates a possible firmware change somewhere along the line. While CKL (another early model) and my settings are relatively close, Eric's are vastly different. There usually isn't that much difference from one unit to the next. Neither one is better, per se, but it seems like they may have tamed the extreme settings of Dynamic and Normal a little bit in the newer models.

This indicates a possible firmware change somewhere along the line.

Is there no longer a way to determine which firmware a unit possesses? This was easily determined in the 700's "hidden" menu.

ted

Good point Ted. It should be in the "Self Check" display. I'll take a look at it later.

I just tried the special menu/Self Check display there is no information on the firmware.

I guess they took off the information since many of us who owned the 700 sent it in to be updated. I wonder if it is hidden someplace else. Has anyone found the service manual for the AE900?

I am seeking advise on a problem. The bottom left side of my screen "bleeds" as I call it onto the border. The rest of the screen matches perfectly. It starts to descend down about 3/4 of the way across the bottom border. I am not using keystone. Anyone have any ideas out there?

Thanks

I wonder if it is hidden someplace else. Has anyone found the service manual for the AE900?

Howdy Richard,

Several patterns that are useful for alignment and setup disappeared as well, correct? Unless they've decided to require service centres to provide external pattern generators then my theory is that this info has been moved to a deeper menu accessible only to those with that manual.

ted

Hi Ted,

I agree, I tried to see if I could find any other hidden menu but so far I have been unsuccessful. They may have some internal option or as you said they might require signal generators. I hope someone leaks the service manual.

Has anyone else used the 81C filter. If you have could you post your results.

I used the 81C with MikeSRC's settings for NORMAL and am very pleased. Tweak it now and then.
I get the impression that there is a flat spot in the gamma curve of this projector. Ocean scenes where the tones are midrange, seem very flat. Finding Nemo, the difference between the ocean and tank scenes is almost too different. Doesnt seem that way watching it from a crt display. Harry Potter Prisoner of Azbaban, the blacks seem very crushed but other movies do not... hopefully it was just the transfer.

The s_perbowl looked great, albeit a little drab on CBS HD. The fluorescent lights of the stadium really give everyone that pale look.

Very happy overall.

Thanks, Dennis, The reason for my post was that I used the settings that Eric posted with the filter and I had too much red. Turned down the color temp and it reduced the red but using AVIA there seems to be a problem as you state in the midrange. You can see it clearly on Grey's new calibration disk. Since we had a big snow storm in NY I had time to play yesterday. I am waiting to see what Mike comes up with since he just got the 81C filter. As has been stated before each projector is different. Eric did point out that it is
nearly impossible to get it perfect without the Lumegen. It may be we will have to make compromises with each filter. Having said this I must say that I am enjoying this projector. I watched two good films this weekend (Crush &
Elizabethtown) and some of the olympics in HD.

Cool. I'm glad others are working hard to make this proj be all it can be.. :) Ocean scenes like life aquatic and nemo are really flat as are fog scenes..

Yes the lumagen looks even better with its multi point color and gamma corrections. Was looking at the DVDO but that will probably change. Hopefully the lumagen can also tame the color push that makes saturated colors look fluorescent.

I use the panamorph 572 with my panny and its vertical zoom capability. It does chop a few pixels off the top of the frame on the scope movies, but to be able to watch Star Wars VI in 2:35 with no letterbox is awesome(others too).

With the lumagen, I'll be able to leave the lens in place and let the scaler pillarbox the other aspect ratios to create a pseudo Constant Height setup. I would imagine that I will lose some horizontal resolution, but I dont think it will be noticeable on the panny.

here's a snap of the panny with its lens in place.

http://www.hendohome.com/ht_construction/projector1.jpg

Hello,
When starting to work with Avia, when it displayed a white screen, I noticed a greenish cast in the upper left hand corner. It covers quite a large area until it finally fades. Now I notice it in regular scenes (especially the Olympics). Can this be tweaked out? Does the projector need to be sent to the service center? Am I just SOL? Thanks for your input.

Very nice setup Dennis, I see you are using component. I am using HDMI and I wonder if that would produce a difference? I will be out of the country from the end of this week until the end of March. When I get back I am thinking of getting a Lumagen.

Regarding the green cast in previous post. I would call you dealer and see what they suggest. It might have to be sent in since it started in only one part of the picture. Did you have any luck using AVIA to correct it usng the advanced and hidden menu on the Panasonic.

I will be out of the country from the end of this week until the end of March.

I should have some 81C settings for you by Wednesday morning. Have fun on your trip. You'll probably be chomping at the bit to watch the AE900 again when you get back. I have a hard time watching hotel TVs for more than a few days. :)

Thanks again, Mike. It will be a busy time for me in the next few months. I leave for Spain & Portugal on Friday and when I return I immediately go to China a few weeks home and I go to Paris & Provence followed by Germany & Switzerland. Running a travel club is as much fun as playing with projectors and DVD players. I will miss the AE900, watching TV on small screen does not cut it anymore. I am spoiled by HD and the AE900. The Superbown & Grammys looked great in HD.

I hope to take a laptop with me but who knows when I can get a high speed connection.

Very nice setup Dennis, I see you are using component. I am using HDMI and I wonder if that would produce a difference? I will be out of the country from the end of this week until the end of March. When I get back I am thinking of getting a Lumagen..

Thanks. I also did a DYI screen thats acoustically transparent. For what is cost < $150, it does a fine jorb. Probably next year I'll spring for a better quality micro-perf one. The screen is 40*94, a perfect match for 2.35 viewing.

I have both component and hdmi(adapted from DVI). Also have a token svideo cable for anything that may not be able to be converted.

DVI has both a better picture and a slightly different color balance for some reason. I run the OPPO dvd player dvi into the panny. I am very pleased with it.

I'll have to send MikeSRC some compensation for him taking the time to put out numbers for us folks with only eyeballs and Internet connections. :)

Dennis,

Small note - some of us use AVS, White as our defaults - Yellow on White crosses our eyes. Not that you should change your creativity, and highlighting will make it legible, I just thought you might wish to know.

DVI has a different colour than what, S- Video? This would make sense as each input has to becalibrated seperately. If you mean DVI vs. HDMI - this is possible if its two seperate sources.

ted ;)

Dennis,

Small note - some of us use AVS, White as our defaults - Yellow on White crosses our eyes. Not that you should change your creativity, and highlighting will make it legible, I just thought you might wish to know.

DVI has a different colour than what, S- Video? This would make sense as each input has to becalibrated seperately. If you mean DVI vs. HDMI - this is possible if its two seperate sources.

ted ;)

Sorry, I didnt realize that. Ok Here is a standard reply.. I always tried to make it like others did... quoted text in white and posts in yellow.. Must be the newbie default. I bet you guys set it up that way on purpose :) :)

All my previews look white and white and I ASSumed that a preview looks just like the real thing... Thanks for setting me straight.

So here an unadulterated reply.

Yes I was talking about DVI vs component vs svideo etc, sorry. I get all excited when I post... :)

I am learning that indeed black on normal tv seems to be higher than zero IRE(7.5?) since directv over svideo blacks are not black compared to black on a dvd or OTA HD channel.

Yep.. was totally working too hard.. on this...

rwestley,
I will take your advice about contacting the dealer regarding the green cast. I have not mastered Avia yet but will continue trying. I used to be an engineer but I learn things really fast or really slow. Home theater seems to be in the latter category. I am wondering if anyone else has noticed this??? (The green cast that is!)

All my previews look white and white and I ASSumed that a preview looks just like the real thing... Thanks for setting me straight.

AVS Theatre - used it for a long time, the AVS white became a screen choice - bottom of the page left side if you are not quite sure what I am referring to.

I am learning that indeed black on normal tv seems to be higher than zero IRE(7.5?) since directv over svideo blacks are not black compared to black on a dvd or OTA HD channel.


In this case these are different sources - so you would need to calibrate both inputs. It is possible that one is crushed or the other is too high. Setup (black pedestal) is not part of the digital world as its coded as bits where level 16 is black Black signals leaving the transmitter are referenced to 7.5 as black for analog transmitters and receivers. Its mandatory in the signal chain. The problem would be test signals from the broadcaster. DVD for sure is black at level 16 and white at 235 (digital codes) and this translates to 7.5 IRE and 100 IRE analog for NTSC. With ATSC black (code 16) is transmitted at 0 IRE so this might be where you are seeing differences. This simply means that somthing calibrated for black at 0 IRE will show a source with blacks set at 7.5 differently - this happens with displays set for PC levels displaying video source of 7.5. This doesn't mean that there are two different black levels (black *is* black) simply that calibration has to take source into consideration and set the display accordingly.

See this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=494606) for an excellent guide for calibrating displays.

As an aside - banish S-Video to the museums where possible.

Excitement is good in my opinion, welcome aboard. btw I see you use an anamorphic lens - good show.

ted

Sailor Bill, the reason why I suggested checking with your dealer was that the green cast is not on the entire screen. I am not sure if you have a panel misalignment problem.

Hello All. Sorry for the cross-post. I just got an AE900U (From VA- great deal!) as a temporary replacement for our school's ailing XG85/IPS4000. It is installed in a screening room where students show their miniDV tapes and DVDRs. My plan was to have the AV Receiver switch between S-Video (for miniDV and DVDR) and composite (VHS and Umatic) souces. I also was going to run component directly from the DVD player for commercially produced DVDs and a VGA cable for computer presentations. While testing things out this weekened, I noticed that if I the s-video was plugged in while viewing component, the video image would picked up a greenish hue. It would "redden" back up if I unplugged the s-video cable. I haven't tried hooking up more sources at the same time yet, but the VGA and composite looked fine when hooked up alone. This color shift happened with 2 different DVD players. Is there a problem with having multiple inputs used at once with this PJ? Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan Porvin

This projector works much better using HDMI or component. You might want to consider using a inexpensive component switch box for component. I would not bother with S video.

Using the DVI to HDMI from your computer be sure you set the remote on the AE900 to PC.

The problem could also be in the receiver's switching. I would check a direct source. You must also realize that each source output is different and you should have a seperate calibration for each source. You can use the 3 memory settings after calibration.

This projector works much better using HDMI or component. You might want to consider using a inexpensive component switch box for component. I would not bother with S video.

Using the DVI to HDMI from your computer be sure you set the remote on the AE900 to PC.

The problem could also be in the receiver's switching. I would check a direct source. You must also realize that each source output is different and you should have a seperate calibration for each source. You can use the 3 memory settings after calibration.

I have all that covered. I'm just stating the obvious, which is hard to do with this crowd... :)

My pre-pro, the outlaw 990 actually converts svideo to component, but my subjective opinion is that the svideo actually looks smoother(meaning smooth crap as opposed to more noisy, less smooth crap) when watching directv SD. I blew all my cash on a basement remodel and a projector, so i cant upgrade everything at once....

Its all in due course.. as soon as D* upgrades get rolling in KC, we'll be devoid of anything non-hdmi in the stack.

tvted, I do like the theater white color better and appreciate your gentle nudge.

I'll get some pics posted of the rest of my stuff as soon as its 100%, we're still in various stages of "done"..

Dennis, I am sorry that I misunderstood. You put it very well (smooth crap as opposed to more noisy, less smooth crap) when watching directtvSD. The thing is that once you get the "D" upgrade it will be hard to watch anything else on this projector. I do understand that you can't upgrade everything at once. That is one of the reasons for the under $3,500 thread. Follow Ted's suggestions and get the best picture you can unitl you can go the HDMI route. You might want to also consider an Oppo upscailing player. It works great for me with the Ae900. Have fun and enjoy tweaking you projector. Hope to see you pictures soon.

You might want to also consider an Oppo upscailing player. It works great for me with the Ae900. Have fun and enjoy tweaking you projector. Hope to see you pictures soon.[/QUOTE]



curious to know whether you are using the updated firmware or the old firmware as i am thinking about the oppo but it has to travel a long way (to new zealand) so i want to make sure all is right before it leaves oppo.

also how long is your dvi-hdmi cable as i heard long runs can be detrimental to PQ, i am thinking of running a 10mtr optical cable and having player close to PJ.

any thoughts?

thanks

curious to know whether you are using the updated firmware or the old firmware as i am thinking about the oppo but it has to travel a long way (to new zealand) so i want to make sure all is right before it leaves oppo.

The current Oppo firmware version (1111) causes an image shift to the right on 720p with the AE900. However, Oppo will send you the older firmware version (1022) on a CD if you ask them. The only difference between the two firmware versions is that you will have to set your Brightness (on the player) to -3.

also how long is your dvi-hdmi cable as i heard long runs can be detrimental to PQ, i am thinking of running a 10mtr optical cable and having player close to PJ.

any thoughts?

thanks

I'm using a 4m cable right now, but previously I had a 6m DVI cable with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. No problems with either one. I think rwestley is using an even longer one, but he can tell you about that. :)

Mike,
How are the 81C settings coming along?

OK,

So this might be a stupid question since I've read completely through this tweak thread.

I just purchased a High Definition receiver and just about have everything hooked up for it. (I need to be able to watch the Daytona 500 on sunday you know :D). I will have the HD receiver hook up via component and need to calibrate the settings for it.

Now for the stupid question. I can't very well calibrate with the HD receiver since it doesn't have any test patterns so do I need to hook up the OPPO via component and calibrate and then hook the receiver back up? :confused: :o

Thanks,
Rob

Now for the stupid question. I can't very well calibrate with the HD receiver since it doesn't have any test patterns so do I need to hook up the OPPO via component and calibrate and then hook the receiver back up? :confused: :o

Thanks,
Rob

That would be your best bet for setting black and white level, as well as color and tint with a test DVD. It wouldn't be perfect, but it's better than nothing. There are also test patterns displayed on HDNet (at like 5 AM) if you want to check out an HD test pattern.

Mike,
How are the 81C settings coming along?

Sorry, I've been sidetracked with some other projects, so I wasn't able to get to it as planned. Hopefully, I'll have time this weekend.

Hello,

Just wanted to contribute to the wealth of info here.

I'm still waiting on my Da-lite HP, so last night after mounting the PJ, I just had to fire it up and use my make shift screen (drop cloth). I've been worried with some of the negative findings on this thread, but I'm happy to report that so far, my results are on the positive!

Even though I do not have a Lumagen, I ended up plugging in Eric's settings with 81C filter and Lumagen scaler, 1/28/06. It was the first settings I ran into on the 81C.

I did not try out any filterless settings just because I immediately saw the benefit of the 81C filter with little penalty (darker blacks, and removes bluish tint on blacks). What can I say, just WOW! Plenty bright (even in low lamp mode), and blacks are more than acceptable considering that I have white walls/ceiling. I mean yeah, if you concentrate on the letterbox bars, you can see that there is definitely room for better blacks. But everything inside the bars, and once your immersed in the movie, it looked inky black to me. And to think that I was getting a great image already on just a portable DVD player using S-video connections with a makeshift screen.

Can't wait to get my Oppo and HP. I hope these settings work out just as good if not better with the Oppo and HP.

Thanks to everyone for putting in the time and effort for testing/tweaking, and then sharing their results/information. All this data just makes this PJ a great deal, into a steal! Cheers.

Gerald

Can't wait to get my Oppo and HP. I hope these settings work out just as good if not better with the Oppo and HP.

Shouldn't be a problem. Keep in mind that you will likely have to reflash the Oppo firmware (currently 1111) to the previous firmware (1022) to avoid an image shift at 720p with the AE900.

Haven't they fixed that yet.........?

I briefly ran across some folks talking about a brand new update to the Oppo...... doesn't help with this image shift problem though... eh?

There is a new firmware in beta that addresses the problem, as well as improving PAL support, 1080i performance and a slider control for the audio delay. It should be available from Oppo in a few weeks.

There is a new firmware in beta that addresses the problem, as well as improving PAL support, 0180i performance and a slider control for the audio delay. It should be available from Oppo in a few weeks.

Sure wish they would add aspect ratio (vertical stretch) for the 720 mode.
Too much to ask, I know.

ted

Shouldn't be a problem. Keep in mind that you will likely have to reflash the Oppo firmware (currently 1111) to the previous firmware (1022) to avoid an image shift at 720p with the AE900.


Thanks for the info Mike!

Okay, finally got some time to try the 81C filter. I think it may be the best compromise. Blacks may not look quite as depp as with the 81EF, but the CR is actually inproved and gamma looks slightly more stable as well. Here are some settings for the 81C filter, Normal mode, Low lamp. Try them and put up a grey ramp. If it looks too red on your AE900, dial back the Red Contrast a few notches. Note that these settings are close to the 81EF, but Blue and Green Contrast have to be dialed back a little more.

Gamma
High: 3
Med: 4
Low: 6

Contrast
R: 0
G: -12
B: -7

Bright
R: -3
G: 0
B: -3

Thanks for these new settings and all the past ones you've posted Mike. I'm competely happy with the 81ef and your settings, but it's good to know there are still people working to get the most out of this projector. Keep up the good work.

ok...ready to pull the trigger on a filter. 2 Questions: First--Does the filter come precut (I'm assuming the 81EF 77mm filter fits with just threading) to fit the 900's lense, or do I need to buy other stuff? Second--does buying a filter mean that whichever settings I go with I have to stick with for all input sources? For Example, I have no problem using the same settings for my 2 hdmi inputs (HD cable and OPPO), but use a VGA cable for the Xbox 360, which is of course a much different input, especially in terms of brightness. Thanks!

Okay, finally got some time to try the 81C filter. I think it may be the best compromise.
---
If it looks too red on your AE900, dial back the Red Contrast a few notches. Note that these settings are close to the 81EF, but Blue and Green Contrast have to be dialed back a little more.

I must also thank thee, as I previously compared no filter settings provided by MikeSRC and Eric, I found Mike's to work better with my PJ. Well, this time Mike also nicely predicted my outcome, which was definitely too red. I had to drop the red contrast down to -5 to get the gray scale more neutral. Adjustments to gamma also required a recalibration of black level using DVE, had to drop brightness about 4 untis. Unfortunately, these settings together left with a slight green cast in the shadows.

However, I think Mike's settings still work the best of all the three presented here earlier and I must admit that I do prefer C81 over the non-filtered image.

Does anyone have a particular Oppo setting that works well with say the 81C filter?

Hey, all. I've got my AE900 up and running on a Graywolf, and it looks great. I don't have Avia or any tweaking gear (and I'm too terrified to crack open the service menu and void my extended warranty), although I hear you can do quite a bit of good tweaking with the 900's accessible settings (color contrast, gamma, brightness, etc).

Does anybody have any rough ideas for setting up an image on a gray screen with some gain? I've been looking over the thread, but it seems each individual projector actually can look a little different, so using 'bulk' notes may be useless.

Is that the case?

I've also heard that Avia isn't made for modern-day sets (built for CRT's from the last 90s), and that it's also highly complex (like the other one ... Video Essentials or something).

Anyway, comments/suggestions?

PS: I tend to prefer 'Normal' setting; although Cinema 1 seems to have the sharpest, nicest finish to it, it's also a bit dark, even with a 1.8 gain screen. I like lush, bright colors.

I guess I need Avia lol ;)

ok...ready to pull the trigger on a filter. 2 Questions: First--Does the filter come precut (I'm assuming the 81EF 77mm filter fits with just threading) to fit the 900's lense, or do I need to buy other stuff? Second--does buying a filter mean that whichever settings I go with I have to stick with for all input sources? For Example, I have no problem using the same settings for my 2 hdmi inputs (HD cable and OPPO), but use a VGA cable for the Xbox 360, which is of course a much different input, especially in terms of brightness. Thanks!

A 77 mm filter will screw right on to the AE900. No need for anything else. Each input should be calibrated separately. While the posted settings for the HDMI input won't be the same as for a component or S-video input, they should provide a good starting point.

Okay, finally got some time to try the 81C filter. I think it may be the best compromise. Blacks may not look quite as depp as with the 81EF, but the CR is actually inproved and gamma looks slightly more stable as well. Here are some settings for the 81C filter, Normal mode, Low lamp. Try them and put up a grey ramp. If it looks too red on your AE900, dial back the Red Contrast a few notches. Note that these settings are close to the 81EF, but Blue and Green Contrast have to be dialed back a little more.

Gamma
High: 3
Med: 4
Low: 6

Contrast
R: 0
G: -12
B: -7

Bright
R: -3
G: 0
B: -3

Thanks Mike for all the settings. I just wanted to ask you if the color temperature should be set to 0 or -4 for this filter. Thanks

Color temp is at "0" in all my settings unless noted otherwise.

Each input should be calibrated separately. While the posted settings for the HDMI input won't be the same as for a component or S-video input, they should provide a good starting point.

Mind If I'm making a stupid question, but what sort of differences can you expect, say between HDMI and Component?

Consider a system where we have a DVD player ouputting both HDMI and component signals.

I've been thinking that you can use global brightness and contrast controls to calibrate both inputs, so you'll have the approximately same projector output for Video black and white (fixing the output range). After this procedure, the same advanced settings should work for both input options, or is there some sort of "interaction" between the global C/B adjustments and per channel C/B settings?

(I haven't actually seen anywhere what do per channel C/B settings actually do, maybe I have just skipped a page in the manual...)

Mr. L

Hi Mike,

Thanx for all your hard work. I plugged in your setings yesterday and tried them out with my 81C filter. Unfortunately I still prefer CKL's settings using the dynamic mode. The blacks actually looked blacker in dynamic...must be the added contrast that makes them appear darker. I was thinking of trying a ND filter on top of the 81C to darken the blacks a bit more...anyone tried this?

Well...I pulled the trigger on the 81EF...and let me say using Mike's settings as a starting point--I feel that I am almost 100 percent satisfied with the image I am now getting from my OPPO at least. I still have some tweaking to do with Comcast HD, which for some reason looks a lot different over hdmi than does the OPPO with the same settings. Other than that, wow thanks a million to Mike and others who did the hard work and recommended references for filters and starting points with regards to settings. This projector is becoming by far the closest thing I've ever owned to replicating the theater experience at home!

Mike, thanks for posting you new settings. I am in the airport in Madrid waiting for a flight. I will try you 81C settings as soon as I get home.

Hi,

I'm looking for recomandedad calibration settings for this configuration (oppo +81C + AE900).
Thanks

http://www.oppodigital.com/opdv971h_firmware_0220_download.html

Above is the link for the new Oppo firmware that fixes the image shift when using the oppo 971h player with the panny AE900 projector.
The whole picture appears better.
It also fixes any audio sync problems with the 0 delay point at +5.

Anyone unsure about how easy it is to download Oppo firmware here is what I did and I didn't have a clue at first! In fact I had visions of screwing up my computer and dvd player!

Went to Best buy and bought Roxio easycd & dvd creator for $29.00. and a stack of memorex rewritable cd-rw for around $7.00.
Installed the firmware and its so easy its embarrassing.
Download any firmware in about 20 seconds!

Hi Mike,

Thanx for all your hard work. I plugged in your setings yesterday and tried them out with my 81C filter. Unfortunately I still prefer CKL's settings using the dynamic mode. The blacks actually looked blacker in dynamic...must be the added contrast that makes them appear darker. I was thinking of trying a ND filter on top of the 81C to darken the blacks a bit more...anyone tried this?

ND filter will cut a lot of luminance without improving the contrast. I suggest you to add CC20R on 81C so as to lower the black level and improve the CR at the same time.

CKL, how much more would the light be reduced with the use of the CC20R added to the 81C? Do you think this would be a better alterntive than the 81EF or 81A+B combo?

Hi Mike,

Thanx for all your hard work. I plugged in your setings yesterday and tried them out with my 81C filter. Unfortunately I still prefer CKL's settings using the dynamic mode. The blacks actually looked blacker in dynamic...must be the added contrast that makes them appear darker. I was thinking of trying a ND filter on top of the 81C to darken the blacks a bit more...anyone tried this?

What type of DVD are you using?
How seginificant is the change caused by the use of the 81C filter, is it worth the effort?

Mike you had CC20R filter, have you tried it with 81C?

What type of DVD are you using?
How seginificant is the change caused by the use of the 81C filter, is it worth the effort?

DVD as in player? I use an HTPC if that is the right question.

I think the changes with the 81C filter is quite significant. I believe CKL measured close to 5000:1 contrast using dynamic mode and 81a+81b...while Cinema 1 was around 1300 (if I remember correct) non filtered.

Everything just looks better...more punch, more dynamic looking, better blacks. Well worth the extra $40.

I just tried Mike's settings for the 81C. I am using the Oppo with the new firmware.
I also used the Get Grey Disk for the Grey Ramps and AVIA. Using Mike's settings I had to turn down the Red Contrast to -4 on my AE900. I think this filter gives the best compromise. Good CR and a bright picture. You can get slightly better CR and blacks with the 81EF but the loss of brightness is too much for my tastes. After doing the calibration I put in Sin City. The details are there and the picture is very bright. Until something better comes along I will stay with these settings. Thanks again Mike.

Wow. I bought the AE900 3 weeks ago in large part because of what everyone online was saying about bang for the buck. I thought I was a DLP guy and was waiting for 1080P to come down to my price point, but with the rebate I got the AE900 for about a steal IMHO, including an extended warranty! No more waiting for DLP, I'm now a LCD guy and maybe for a long time if the 1080P resolution LCD chips make it into reasonably priced front projectors (Panasonic AE1000?). Anyway I've been following this (excellent) thread for a month and just waiting for Mike's review and setting with the 81C to decide if I wanted to use this or the EF.

I got the B&W 81C multicoated filter (it was an extra $10 over the uncoated one so I splurged) last week. Blade Trinity is a nice dark movie to experiment with the filter, but just passing the filter over the lens I saw a huge improvement in black level and contrast. Out of the box the picture is already very good and watchable, then using the filter and Mike's setting the picture is excellent. I have a light controlled room and neutral grey 150" cinemascope aspect ratio screen (it’s only about 120” in 16x9 aspect ratio) and so I was concerned about cutting the brightness too much with EF based on what folks were saying, but with the 81C I have plenty of brightness and only use the low lamp mode even projected out to full 150”.

After applying Mikes settings to Normal mode, I used AVIA to set the contrast, brightness, color saturation, sharpness. The color was dead on according to the color decoder test, but still seemed a little red to me, so I cut the red contrast back a couple notches and I’m very pleased overall. I’ve not had a chance to play with my other favorite modes (Cinema 3 and Dynamic), but will when I have a chance. Thank you all for the great info on this thread.

Randomcreek, welcome to the fourm. The AE900 is great buy as you discovered. If you can please edit your post to remove the actual price you paid since listing price is against the rules. Enjoy you projector and continue to post your results.

I just tried Mike's settings for the 81C. I am using the Oppo with the new firmware.
I also used the Get Grey Disk for the Grey Ramps and AVIA. Using Mike's settings I had to turn down the Red Contrast to -4 on my AE900. I think this filter gives the best compromise. Good CR and a bright picture. You can get slightly better CR and blacks with the 81EF but the loss of brightness is too much for my tastes. After doing the calibration I put in Sin City. The details are there and the picture is very bright. Until something better comes along I will stay with these settings. Thanks again Mike.

rwestley and mike, how would the brightness compare with a) 81ef, mike's settings but at high lamp mode, and 2) 81c, mike's settings, low lamp mode? tks

I was wondering if a filter will do me any good if I have my PJ ISF calibrated?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if my grayscale tracking is more or less dead on and I have the ISF calibrator also use their calibration discs, won't that be as good, if not better than using a filter?

Hopefully someone with ISF experience and filter experience can explain this to me with some good layman detail.

Thanks,
Rob

Edit:
I guess what I'm trying to ascertain is after a calibration can a filter STILL get better CR and retain the same acurate colors AND brightness of the calibration without "muddying up" the colors? I don't like the gray screen "look".

The use of the filter will improve the CR. I would try the 81C be sure to save your original settings in one of the memories. Since your unit has been calibrated you can try the filter and try the suggested settings to see how you like them. The calibration disks should be used for settings with or without the filter.

Regarding brightness. I like to use the low lamp mode and the 81EF was a little too dark even using the high lamp mode.

I like the results using the 81C on low lamp mode.