I thought I would start a new thread to follow up on my initial question regarding the price I was going to pay for this unit. That previous thread is located at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=737583. Since I obviously purchased the unit I thought it made more sense to start a new thread about actual setup and testing of the unit. I'm also following along with pljack's thread at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=834891. Mine is not looking as good as his yet but I can see light at the end of the CRT...tunnel that is. :D I am going to post some pictures of what I'm seeing now and hopefully you experts can point me in the right direction.

Currently I am using a Windows based PC for DVD playback through a VGA to 5BNC breakout cable. I have a transcoder on the way that hopefully will show up by Friday. I wanted to wait for Kim's transcoder with gamma adjustment but I'm hearing 4 weeks until he gets cases. I may still go that route once I get the projector looking better.

Well, here are some shots of a test pattern from the DVE disc. I can't seem to get the blue to overlap with the other colors. Nothing I try works. Suggestions? Did I mention I don't have a screen yet? Check out the window and blinds in the middle of the wall.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03118.jpg


This was about the closest I came.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03112.jpg


Here is a shot from an HD Divx clip in 720P. Looks pretty good in person but I know I have a long way to go.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03109.jpg

With NEC's more so than any other projector, the VERY FIRST THING you need to do is make absolutely sure your projector is DEAD square, parallel and perpendicular to the surface you are projecting onto. Then make sure you have the lens rings set to the proper setting for your image size.
This projector placement must be exacting, if you fudge it by a few fractions of an inch you'll pay the price with a difficult and unsatisfactory setup.
When you say I can't seem to get the blue to overlap with the other colors. Nothing I try works. what exactly do you mean by that ?
Do you mean that when you attempt to adjust the horizontal linearity and amplitude to converge red and blue to green, nothing actually happens ? Or do you mean that you get a response to your attempts on screen, but you cannot achieve convergence even though the colors respond correctly to your attempts ?
If you get no response, or an unexpected response to your convergence attempts, I'd ask firstly, do you have the installation manual which shows the configuration of both the scan yoke plugs AND the convergence plugs ? Are the convergence plugs oriented correctly ?
The orientation of the convergence plugs is different between an NEC PG and a PG Plus, so if you are using an installation manual for a PG, you have your convergence plugs oriented incorrectly.
If you have the plugs correct, and still have no response to convergence attempts, then you likely have a burned out STK 392-040 chip on your C-drive and need to replace that.
If you meant that the convergence controls function properly BUT you cannot get the convergence done properly, revisit your physical placement. When you are sure that is correct, check that your "STATIC" convergence is at zero for all tubes, then check that your toe in is set to correctly overlay red and blue to green EXACTLY, but only worry about the very center of the crosshair test pattern.
Close your covers before you assume this is correct. With NEC's, lifting the main deflection board and opening the top cover often move static convergence. Set the toe in, close the covers, check it, and reset it as necessary.
When you have static convergence at zero for all three tubes, and the exact center is aligned properly, via toe in adjustment, THEN you can start doing convergence. Remember, for static convergence, you are ONLY concerned with the very center of the cross hair test pattern being converged, forget about the rest of the screen.

none74, thanks for the input. Just to clarify what I have going on here, I'm probably not totally squared up to the "screen" as I have the projector sitting on a small table which is just a bit smaller than the projector. The lenses are probably about 2-1/2' from the floor and the whole thing is about 14-15' back from the screen wall. As a matter of fact, I was a bit surprised that the projected image was not larger at that distance. I got a tape out last night and it measured in at about 100" wide by 58" high. I know that this is already too large for this projector but I'm satisfied with the light output I'm seeing even at this size and with brightness set to under 50 and contrast in the 60's. To answer your question regarding converging blue, I am able to see movement when I adjust the values but as I move horizontally with amplitude and linearity I either go to far in one direction or the other. It looks almost like the blue grid is larger than the red grid I'm trying to converge to. In other words, I can get one side lined up but will have too much grid left over on the other end. The controls work fine and I have plenty of range in all directions. I do have a user and install manual for the PG+ and that's what I'm using in addition to Curt's guide and the Tinman and Feathers document. I am picking up tidbits from all of these. I'm sure that physical placement as you said is my issue at this point. I know for a fact that my static convergence is not set at "0" for all tubes as you recommend so that will be my next goal.

Last night I "shimmed" under the rear of the projector to level the lenses to the screen and noticed an improvement in both brightness and focus at center. Per none74's suggestion I got all of my static convergence back to "0" and aligned the cross hairs using the raster centering tabs. I'm still struggling with getting blue to overlap on the course grid pattern. I go back and forth with linearity and amplitude and can't get it right. The good news is I'm not afraid to put my hands inside the projector anymore! One at a time of course. :D This is finally starting to get fun! I will post more pictures tonight. Spent a good part of last night troubleshooting a cable TV problem. I picked up an HD DVR for the room with the projector in it but could not get it working. I have an amp connected to the incoming coax in that room so I can't do anything until I move that to another location.

Perhaps Linearity Balance is the key ? Do you have Point convergence disabled ? You could be fighting it, I can't remember where the option to disable point convergence is, but I'm sure you'll find it, just disable it and see if your blue is easier to converge as a result...

Perhaps Linearity Balance is the key ? Do you have Point convergence disabled ? You could be fighting it, I can't remember where the option to disable point convergence is, but I'm sure you'll find it, just disable it and see if your blue is easier to converge as a result...

I just gave up for the night and then logged on to see this post. This is exactly what I did. I played around with Linearity Balance then back to Linearity and Amplitude, back and forth. I see much improvement now. I think I do have Point enabled so that might be part of my problem as you say. I will disable it and see if that gets me even closer. I am really starting to get a hang of the controls now and things are coming together a bit better every day. Thanks none74, you have a knack for explaining these things in a way that I have not yet encountered and it's been a great help to me.

Well, I had a bit of a scare last night. I set up a new signal entry for the HD cable box I connected to the projector. All was well for a few days and then I noticed a brownish yellow horizontal line running the length of the screen. It was directly in the middle of the projected image and I could not make it go away. I thought it was some type of burn or something. I changed back to my PC signal entry that I had been using and the line was not there. I began to think it was something to do with the entry itself and not the projector so I created a new entry for the HD cable box and recreated all of the parameters from the original. The line was gone. If I tried to data copy the original to a new entry then the line transferred over. Anyone have an idea of what this might be?

I also have a question about Point. I have had it disabled while doing other alignments and convergence but enabled it last night just to try it. Other than making the cursor box move around the coarse grid pattern, I was not able to make it do anything. How does this control work and what do I look for on the remote?

Line in the middle is typical of overuse of Vertical Linearity balance - just back that control off.

Press CTRL + ARROW to move a point.

Thanks, I thought I had really screwed something up! Now if I could just get my blue the same size as the red and green I would be in pretty good shape. I will post some new pictures tonight to get some feedback on what needs to be done. Overall I am still not getting a rectangular shape on screen as I would expect for a 16:9 image. It's somewhat bowed in at the sides. I'm also seeing a colored line at the very top of the projected image. (you can just see it in my screenshot of the geometry pattern above) It's not really in the image but in the light overspill. Should I be seeing the light overspill around the image? It's pretty bright and with the shape of my raster I would not think it would be visible. Kind of like a 4:3 aspect of light and my 16:9 image within that.

If you run out of Pincushion adjustment, it means the C drive connections for floor/ceiling are incorrect.

Mark

Line in the middle is typical of overuse of Vertical Linearity balance - just back that control off.

Press CTRL + ARROW to move a point.

Thanks to Mark I was able to get rid of my line in the middle of the screen. Sure enough, backed off of vertical linearity balance and that did the trick! I actually have a proper screen now. I built a blackout cloth screen on a poplar frame over the weekend and placed it on the wall. It's 56" high x 100" wide, way too big for this projector but it looks pretty darn good to me. Convergence and alignment was much easier now that I have a smooth flat surface to work with. I played around with astig last night and got some pretty decent dots and overall focus, but especially center was much improved. I have not touched my white balance or color controls at all because they look pretty good to my untrained eyes. I will save that for last once I'm happy with the rest of the setup. I really had hoped to get some pictures up over the weekend but did not get around to it. Hopefully you guys can get me over the hump and help me with the fine tuning of convergence. I have not attempted any "point" yet but perhaps that will be next.

Use caution with color adjustments. Personally, I would recommend you do NOT adjust the white balance at anything but the user level. Once the "pots" on an NEC are touched, its often the end of it ever looking "right" again...
Also, keep in mind that it is virtually impossible to achieve proper grayscale setup without a colorimeter or at the very least, an optical comparitor. You can NOT set gray scale by eye.

Also, if your projector placement is VERY exacting, and your physical setup is careful, and you take care with your geometry, you should be able to have a perfectly converged image, assuming a standard installation, without using ANY point convergence adjustment....

Use caution with color adjustments. Personally, I would recommend you do NOT adjust the white balance at anything but the user level. Once the "pots" on an NEC are touched, its often the end of it ever looking "right" again...
Also, keep in mind that it is virtually impossible to achieve proper grayscale setup without a colorimeter or at the very least, an optical comparitor. You can NOT set gray scale by eye.

Also, if your projector placement is VERY exacting, and your physical setup is careful, and you take care with your geometry, you should be able to have a perfectly converged image, assuming a standard installation, without using ANY point convergence adjustment....

Yeah, I'm not going to mess with the pots at all because it actually looks pretty good right now. I did play with white balance in the menus but wrote down all of the current values before I tried it. Green and Blue are set at 50 for B and W. Red I think was in the low 30's and low 40's if I recall. I did notice something disturbing last night. While viewing some video from my DVR I saw an area that looked a little brownish yellow in color. It looks like burn but I can't tell. These tubes are in very good condition and I can't see anything other than the very slightest discoloration on green and that is if you really look closely. I'm not sure what it is but it got me concerned and I took off all the lenses last night and just stared at the phosphur for a few minutes. They really did not look any different from when I first started setting the unit up. I hope I have not done something wrong. I played with astig some more and also figured out how to use "point". I can see how it would be really tempting to cheat with point and get lines overlapping which is exactly what I did. There were areas where point was "over range" which tells me I'm using too much and need to get my alignment and placement better first.

Well, I feel like I'm having a conversation with myself here but oh well, it's the easiest way for me to document my progress with this thing. I got nervous about the discoloration I was seeing on screen so I did a complete setup all over again. Whatever it was is now gone. I get better each time and made a few changes this go around. Part of the problem appeared to be that my rasters were smaller than what I actually started with. At some point I had setup a new entry with the same source (HD DVR) but had not checked my raster size and placement. Also, my blue raster was not totally centered. I spent a good half hour just working on that and it made a big difference in my final convergence adjustments. I followed the Tinman and Feathers document from beginning to end (minus the astig adjustments) and really got my physical placement down this time. I had read somewhere that Mark W recommended 1.4x screen width for HD145 lenses which is what I have. My screen is just under 100" wide so I got the projector itself moved to just over 11' back from the screen. The picture filled the screen nicely and my only alignment problem now is a slight downward curve in the right horizontal line of my blue crosshair. I did use some static convergence and some point to clean up my lines on the course grid. I have another question about point. If I go back into the settings and "disable" it now, does that reverse all of the point adjustments I have done or does it simply disable further use of point? I tried changing my W/B color settings to values I found on the forum from a PG Xtra owner. That did not work out at all as I ended up with a terrible red cast to the picture. Perhaps the additional light output of the Xtra offsets what I was seeing with my slightly less bright PG+. Anyhow, I set those numbers back to 50/50 for green and blue and somewhere in the 34/43 range for red which is what it was set for when I got it. I'm almost at the point where I could live with the picture I'm seeing if I could just get a little more focused picture. There is silicon on the astig magnets and I don't want to screw up what I have but I'm guessing that I may have to in the near future.

I am a fairly new CRT user myself, and have finally got to the point where I can enjoy the set without tweaking constantly. I have a PG9Xtra, and have a thread going in Curt's site regarding white balance which is where you seem to be headed . http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5362 I needed to defocus the blue quite a bit, but it may not be necessary for you, and I wouldnt recommend doing that until you can verify its need with a colorimiter.

I think the Spyder2 colorimiter with free HCFR software is a nice cheap ~$70 option to get a decent result for white balance and luminance calibration. You can eyeball the white balance with decent result using this page of the guide on the same site.. http://www.curtpalme.com/NECPG_MechSetup8.shtm.

Dan

I am a fairly new CRT user myself, and have finally got to the point where I can enjoy the set without tweaking constantly. I have a PG9Xtra, and have a thread going in Curt's site regarding white balance which is where you seem to be headed . http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5362 I needed to defocus the blue quite a bit, but it may not be necessary for you, and I wouldnt recommend doing that until you can verify its need with a colorimiter.

I think the Spyder2 colorimiter with free HCFR software is a nice cheap ~$70 option to get a decent result for white balance and luminance calibration. You can eyeball the white balance with decent result using this page of the guide on the same site.. http://www.curtpalme.com/NECPG_MechSetup8.shtm.

Dan

Thanks Dan, I think I may have stumbled across that discussion over at Curt's site yesterday. I did not realize the Spyder was that affordable. I may have to give that a try. The color on my unit is the one thing I'm pretty happy with already but I don't know enough to know if it's actually accurate or not. You know us tweakers, can't leave well enough alone. :D

I hear you.. after spending more than a few hours in the dark alone with this thing I am wondering if its borderline OCD :D I think the picture improvements have really been gradual, but substantial since I began. The Spyder2 helped out a lot with getting consistently nice flesh tones. It's now time to chill out with tweaking and enjoy The PJ for a while... Finding a few worthy DVD's will be the fun part.
Enjoy.

Dan

I hear you.. after spending more than a few hours in the dark alone with this thing I am wondering if its borderline OCD :D I think the picture improvements have really been gradual, but substantial since I began. The Spyder2 helped out a lot with getting consistently nice flesh tones. It's now time to chill out with tweaking and enjoy The PJ for a while... Finding a few worthy DVD's will be the fun part.
Enjoy.

Dan

I have my HD DVR hooked up as my only source right now and I watched Over the Hedge last night. I'm finally starting to see what I was missing with my digital projector. CRT really is a more film-like image and flesh tones are just spot on as you say. I can't wait to get my Xbox 360 back from repair so I can run some HD DVD's on this thing.

Well, here are a few pictures of what I'm seeing as of last night. I have played around with pretty much every setting. Made some things better and some things worse. I need to work on my camera skills as well because these pictures did not come out as well as I had hoped. It does not help that this room has white walls, white ceiling and a light colored carpet. All of that will change if I ever get to a point that I'm happy with my picture. Any suggestions from looking at these? I know it's hard to tell anything from a screen shot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03150.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03149.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03146.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03145.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03143.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03141.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03139.jpg

Looks like you're almost there. Your main (green) pin cushion is out on the top. Use pin and pin balance to get the top and bottom lines straight.

Your blue convergence is out at the top by a bit. Check your linearity top and bottom and then pull your blue V height down a bit once you're overshooting the blue top and bottom.

I've found that the lin balance usually should be set at very close to 0 for almost all installations and setups.

The rest of the misconvergence can be tweaked with the point controls, everything else except for the blue seems pretty close to be tweaked by point alone.

You've found the thing with CRTs and NECs in particular. Each time you tweak it, you should see an end net improvement. Another 100 hours and you'll be there..:D

Thanks Curt! The problem I'm having with linearity (vertical in particular) is that if I do too much then I get a line in the middle of the screen. Mark W told me it was too much vertical linearity and sure enough, it was fixed when I backed it off. Another thing I noticed last night was a very faint blue dot in the upper left side, closer to the middle actually of the screen. Upon closer inspection I found that it was something on the actual face of the phosphur of the red tube. A tiny dot behind the glass on the white surface. Just great! What might that be and can I do anything about it?

Nothing. If it's a VDC rebuild, that's common, rarer but possible original tubes. Short of replacing the tube(s), there's nothing you can do about it.

Nothing. If it's a VDC rebuild, that's common, rarer but possible original tubes. Short of replacing the tube(s), there's nothing you can do about it.

I was afraid you were going to say that. I have a 6PG (not a plus model) that I might be able to trade out the red tube from. I think it should be interchangeable from a non plus model to a plus but not exactly sure. I am sure that I'm not ready for that kind of procedure so until then I will just live with it. It's not that noticeable really.

Yes, both tubes are E8508 in the PG and PG+

Thanks very much Curt. Your guide as well as others listed on your site have been a great help in getting me to where I am with this thing. I have printed out guides all over the house. My girlfriend asked me other night while cleaning, "what do you want to do with this Curt Palme thing? Can I throw it away? " I yelled back in the room, "NOOOO!!!!!, I need that!" :D

Okay, my latest issue is a bowed line kind of like an upside down arch dipping about 6 inches into my image from the top of the screen. It is primarily green but if I turn any of the tubes off I don't see it. Only all three tubes ON displays the line. When I look into the tubes I see the line on each raster. Any idea what it might be and how to get rid of it?

That's the AKB line, if you go into the "Options" menu(I think...) you can turn AKB off. It might be in the INFO screen...
Anyway, you need to turn the AKB on occasionally in order to maintain your color balance, but you can turn it off most of the time to get rid of that annoying line dropping into the picture.

That's the AKB line, if you go into the "Options" menu(I think...) you can turn AKB off. It might be in the INFO screen...
Anyway, you need to turn the AKB on occasionally in order to maintain your color balance, but you can turn it off most of the time to get rid of that annoying line dropping into the picture.

Great! I'm fairly certain I have AKB turned "ON" so I will turn it off and see what happens. Any suggestions on contrast and brightness calibration? The only thing I have done is change around the electronic values under Kelvin for each tube. The only thing that looks right is this: RED - B-34/W-48 , GREEN - B- 50/W-50 BLUE - B-50/W-50. These values were set when I got the unit. I keep coming back to these numbers because they look best so far. However, the past few nights the overall picture seems a bit washed out to me.

If it seems washed out, you likely have your brightness too high.
Just use a stepped gray scale pattern to set your brightness. When the last dark bar is the same as the background, your black level(brightness) is set.
The setting of gray scale is pretty much impossible to do *correctly* without a colorimeter to accurately MEASURE the color of white. To have an image which is the same as the film makers intended, you have to get D6500 color temp over the entire range of light output.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend you fudge with your gray scale controls UNTIL you have a method to accurately measure the color of white.
Your present settings are likely a reflection of an accurately set gray scale but a slightly worn green tube(which makes white appear pink...). Turning down your red settings, as they are presently, likely make your color temp fall back closer to where it should be, OR, like most people, you may prefer the look of a slightly higher color temp, as that is what would happen if you reduce red and leave green and blue the same.
At this point in time, if it looks good, and you don't have a way to actually MEASURE the color temperature, then don't bother screwing with it...
Contrast can be set best with a contrast pattern like is included in the newer THX patterns...

If it seems washed out, you likely have your brightness too high.
Just use a stepped gray scale pattern to set your brightness. When the last dark bar is the same as the background, your black level(brightness) is set.
The setting of gray scale is pretty much impossible to do *correctly* without a colorimeter to accurately MEASURE the color of white. To have an image which is the same as the film makers intended, you have to get D6500 color temp over the entire range of light output.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend you fudge with your gray scale controls UNTIL you have a method to accurately measure the color of white.
Your present settings are likely a reflection of an accurately set gray scale but a slightly worn green tube(which makes white appear pink...). Turning down your red settings, as they are presently, likely make your color temp fall back closer to where it should be, OR, like most people, you may prefer the look of a slightly higher color temp, as that is what would happen if you reduce red and leave green and blue the same.
At this point in time, if it looks good, and you don't have a way to actually MEASURE the color temperature, then don't bother screwing with it...
Contrast can be set best with a contrast pattern like is included in the newer THX patterns...

Okay, it sounds like I better leave well enough alone then. I just ordered the DVE HD-DVD disc so I will give that a go and see what happens. I have been using my Xbox 360 with HD drive add on for my plasma tv but have not been able to try this source on the projector as my Xbox died a few weeks ago. It's scheduled to return from repair today I hope. Then I will have to set up a new input. I was hoping that the INHD tune up would come on again so I could record it on my HD DVR but no luck so far.

I've used the INHD tune up, it works just fine for brightness/contrast setup.
You can hook up your HD DVD drive to your computer, eh ? Use PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 to play the HD DVD's....If you've got an Nvidia card, its nice to be able to set the gamma to a slightly higher amount ...
There's an HD DVD test pattern ISO posted somewhere, maybe it will come up with a Google search...

There's an HD DVD test pattern ISO posted somewhere, maybe it will come up with a Google search...

http://www.w6rz.net/

Cheers :)

Russ

http://www.w6rz.net/

Cheers :)

Russ

Ah, thanks!
:D

Got rid of my bowed line at the top of the screen by turning off "AKB" in the menus. Thanks to none74 for that tidbit!

I tried setting up a new signal entry last night at 720p. Up until now I have been running only 1080i into the projector. Well, I was too tired to mess with getting it right but what I could see was very nice. It appeared to be sharper and the colors seemed more vivid for some reason. However, the right hand side of the picture was cut off which means I have to resize my raster again I think. I don't want to mess up what I have done so far. Will it be possible to use both 720p and 1080i without redoing everything? I copied my data over from the 1080i source to this new 720p entry and everything looks good except for the 20% of missing picture at the right hand side.

With a PC signal running Powerstrip you could adjust the horizontal porches to center the image in the raster.

dropzone7

Get rid of that blackout cloth and install a higher gain screen, you will find you can make a huge improvement with one.

Deron.

Dropzone7,
You wouldnt want to copy this entry normally. The 1080I is interlaced and the 720P is progressive.
The 1080I will be much wider then the 720P entry and the phase will be quite a bit different and most likely why your seeing it off to the side.

You might get away with just correcting the phase's but your amplitude copy wont be 'true' if your using the 1080I settings.

Might look this over and see. Usually you would want to do a signal entry from the temporary line and use its own 720P signal properties. Phase you correct for each signal entry, its not a 'global' setting. Doug

Dropzone7,
You wouldnt want to copy this entry normally. The 1080I is interlaced and the 720P is progressive.
The 1080I will be much wider then the 720P entry and the phase will be quite a bit different and most likely why your seeing it off to the side.

You might get away with just correcting the phase's but your amplitude copy wont be 'true' if your using the 1080I settings.

Might look this over and see. Usually you would want to do a signal entry from the temporary line and use its own 720P signal properties. Phase you correct for each signal entry, its not a 'global' setting. Doug

Thanks Doug, that makes sense. Just another reminder that there is no room for laziness with these projectors. I will delete that copied entry and start from scratch to do it the right way. I'm playing with my focus using the astig cross and astig corners but I'm just not liking my dots on red. I may have to turn the magnets but I don't want to make things worse as they still have silicone on them right now. Green dots like pretty good but red in the center are more like ovals. I'm going to check tonight to see if maybe my Red tube was a rebuild and astig was not done properly when changed out. That would explain another issue I'm seeing which I had explained earlier. A blueish dot on the face of the red tube phosphur. Curt told me this is common with VDC rebuilds.

dropzone7

Get rid of that blackout cloth and install a higher gain screen, you will find you can make a huge improvement with one.

Deron.

I agree that the blackout is not an optimal solution but I needed a screen cheap and quick and had made one of these before. Any suggestions on a higher gain screen that wont cost me an arm and a leg? I know a lot of people here spend more on a screen than on their projectors. The only other DIY solution I might consider is the Wilsonart Designer white laminate material that Clarence and a few others have tried.

Still working at it. Trying to decide if I want to attempt astig adjustment on the red CRT. I'm not very confident in my abilities to make it better and worried I might make it worse.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03190.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03186.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03181.jpg

So, nobody has any suggestions? I might just go ahead and see what I can do with the astig on red. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? I make it much worse than it is now and spend the next month trying to fix it... :confused:

Well, you have a PG Plus, which means you have electronic astig.

Go ahead and adjust the electronic astig. Remember, your goal is to make the MOST ROUND defocussed dots.

When you have the most round defocussed dots ALL across your screen, then go through and re-do your electronic focus, then you'll have to redo your convergence....

Check your optical focus before you start if you can't easily see the component parts of the lines of the test patterns(ie. you need to be SURE your optical focus is good to see when you have the best electronic focus...)redo your optical focus.

Personally, I would say err to the side of caution and ONLY do the electronic astig now, attempting physical astig adjustments is the area where you have a good chance of making it worse...the electronic adjustment is not going to kill your sharpness...

Well, you have a PG Plus, which means you have electronic astig.

Go ahead and adjust the electronic astig. Remember, your goal is to make the MOST ROUND defocussed dots.

When you have the most round defocussed dots ALL across your screen, then go through and re-do your electronic focus, then you'll have to redo your convergence....

Check your optical focus before you start if you can't easily see the component parts of the lines of the test patterns(ie. you need to be SURE your optical focus is good to see when you have the best electronic focus...)redo your optical focus.

Personally, I would say err to the side of caution and ONLY do the electronic astig now, attempting physical astig adjustments is the area where you have a good chance of making it worse...the electronic adjustment is not going to kill your sharpness...

Okay, I guess I have reached a stopping point then because I have done electronic astig adjustments and the red is the one that I can't get looking right. The electronic adjustments cover pretty much everything but the very center of the screen which is where my dots are stretched and oval. I have used binoculars and gotten the perimeter of the red pretty round but these adjustments don't seem to affect the center. Again, green looks okay but red could use some work in the middle which is why I was thinking that physical astig adjustment was my only option to get it better.

I will take a picture tonight to try and show you what I mean.

On a side note, I hung up some black fabric on both sides of the screen last night and saw a dramatic improvement in the "perceived" contrast.

I still need to take a picture of my red dots so you can see what I mean about the center possibly needing manual astig adjustment. Last night I did more convergence tweaking and got the blue better than it was for sure. The entire room will be getting a few coats of dark paint this week as my girlfriend has offered to paint the room during her time off. I picked out a very dark gray color in a flat finish which I hope will improve my perceived contrast and cut down on reflections some. I picked up a NEC factory mount from Ebay and it even included the brackets and hardware. Perhaps I will get this thing on the ceiling before month end.

I think its a menu option whether you do "Center" or "Edge Separate" astig adjustment. You should(obviously, sorry if that is the case...) do your astig adjustments in the center first, then the edges, then the corners...

I think its a menu option whether you do "Center" or "Edge Separate" astig adjustment. You should(obviously, sorry if that is the case...) do your astig adjustments in the center first, then the edges, then the corners...

Yeah, I have seen those menus and while I am doing the "center" electronic astig adjustment it only seems to affect the border of the screen and not the dead center. My choices are "astig cross" and "astig corner". I am using "astig cross" while under the focus-center option.

I spent a lot of time with "point" last night and getting the blue converged on red. Things really look good now and I just had to enjoy a little movie time. I watched a good bit of Peter Jackson's King Kong which I recorded on my HD DVR from HBO. Looked very good and I'm starting to wonder if the last bit of adjustments are better left to a pro. I don't have the proper tools and equipment to do color and grayscale calibration so unless I can make a difference through the electronic adjustments there is no way I'm touching the pots. The thing that strikes me most about this projector is how accurate and true to life the colors look. Coming from an entry level digital I never saw anything like the flesh tones I'm seeing now. I have still yet to connect my Xbox 360 and HD drive to the projector but that will be next. I have been researching 3rd party components that would give me an HDMI connection like the HDFury or Moome's cards.

Here are a few new pictures as well as some shots of what my red astig looks like. I still think I'm going to have to do manual adjustment there. The screenshots show much more red than what I'm actually seeing on screen.

Green astig for comparison.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03279.jpg

The red with stretched dots in the center.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03278.jpg

Cross Course patten.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03277.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03267.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03268.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03269.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03270.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03271.jpg

A few more.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03272.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03273.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03274.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/dropzone7/CRTsetup/DSC03275.jpg

I've got an Xtra in the garage. I'll try and get out there tomorrow and see if there is some trick to doing the center astig that I'm not remembering .....

Did you have to move the raster A LOT with the centering tabs to get it good and centered on the tubeface ?

Your pictures look fairly sharp, but a bit dim and a bit red, are they brighter in person ??

Can you post a crossed gray scale step pattern just for curiosity sake ?

I've got an Xtra in the garage. I'll try and get out there tomorrow and see if there is some trick to doing the center astig that I'm not remembering .....

Did you have to move the raster A LOT with the centering tabs to get it good and centered on the tubeface ?

Your pictures look fairly sharp, but a bit dim and a bit red, are they brighter in person ??

Can you post a crossed gray scale step pattern just for curiosity sake ?

Hey, that would be great! Don't go to a lot of trouble but I would certainly appreciate any insight as to how I might improve that red astig without turning magnets. I will get the Xbox 360 hooked up tonight so I can put up some patterns from the DVE HD-DVD disc. I keep waiting for HDNET or INHD to play that tune up program but they must not do it anymore. I think it must be my camera skills or lack there of making the red cast in the pictures. It is a bit red but not as much as it appears here. I would like to have more brightness but it's workable as is. In the above pictures I have brightness set at 47 and contrast at 75. White balance setting are at 50/50 for green and blue and about 38/42 for red. I'm sure it does not help that I'm using such a large screen at 100" wide and the blackout material is more than likely only 1.0 or less gain. I'm thinking of trying one of the laminate materials to get a bit more pop. I really wish I could upgrade to an 8" machine but that's not going to be in the cards for a while.

I really wish I could upgrade to an 8" machine but that's not going to be in the cards for a while.

You already HAVE an 8" machine....

Tube sizes are nominal, your tubes are within 5mm's of the size tubes that are in Marquee's and other "8" machines...

If you're not getting blooming, or crushed whites, go ahead and turn up the contrast a bit. Brightness can go up till all but the last block of the stepped gray scale pattern is lit... 100" is a big screen, but it has more impact that way too...
A dark room will GREATLY increase perceived contrast...

I have white tile floors and off white walls and wood ceiling in my crappy basement, and my contrast is nothing compared to my buddies basement which is a chocolate brown felt hole which sucks all reflected light into it. His screen appears to float in midair his room is so dark. Very dramatic.

You should notice an improvement in light output if you're going to a higher resolution too, as it uses more actual phosphor...

Looks like you will have to do your astig for red at least, I checked the Xtra in the garage and the center astig must not appear till the XG series...
Read this before you proceed: http://www.curtpalme.com/docs/MARQUEE%20MAGNETICS%20SETUP%20101%20by%20Bill%20Blue.pdf

It is specifically for the Marquee, but has a lot of good general information about astig/flare setup.

Looks like you will have to do your astig for red at least, I checked the Xtra in the garage and the center astig must not appear till the XG series...
Read this before you proceed: http://www.curtpalme.com/docs/MARQUEE%20MAGNETICS%20SETUP%20101%20by%20Bill%20Blue.pdf

It is specifically for the Marquee, but has a lot of good general information about astig/flare setup.

Yeah, I think you are right. Doug Baisey sent me a PM saying that I needed to do astig on red and then disable all of my point and converge with the regular controls or the convergence would drift a lot. I will have the room painted dark within the next few days so I'm hoping that will help things a bit.

You should normalize the point (normal then store, enter) for each color then use the functions to correct. Doug

Something else I have noticed and was curious about. During fade to black scenes in movies, the screen really does not look any darker than my digital projector did. In other words, it appears that the tubes are still emitting some light or glow which shows up on screen. Is there something I can change to improve this?

Just try lowering to brightness a bit. This depends on many things. If you do data copies to new signal entries then it wont be exact until you dial it in for your source. Doug

Just try lowering to brightness a bit. This depends on many things. If you do data copies to new signal entries then it wont be exact until you dial it in for your source. Doug

Doug, I adjusted my red astig last night and I think I made an improvement. I will post some new pictures of the red dots to get your opinion. As for "gray" screen I was worried about turning brightness down too much as I'm already hurting a little in that department. It's not too bothersome but I just expected to see no light coming from the tubes during completely dark scenes. This is one of those issues that is secondary to my getting a good setup and convergence first.

Well, per Doug's suggestion I normalized all of my point from my last convergence attempt and actually ended up doing my mechanical setup once again. I noticed an improvement in center focus almost right away and also managed to eliminate a problem I had been seeing for a while. I had what looked like a brownish band on the left side of my screen which is now gone. I still need more convergence work after this latest change but I'm trying to do it without point this time per Doug's direction.

Does anyone happen to have photos, a drawing or anything showing how the factory NEC mount attaches at the ceiling? The rectangular mount has three large holes in it but I have seen nothing about how that translates to supporting the unit by the ceiling. The manual only shows how the brackets mount to the projector and how those slide onto the mount.

I'm not sure if I will be posting to this thread much more because I just bought an XG110 and plan to use it in place of the 9PG+ if it works out. I will probably start a new thread at that point as I'm sure I will have a whole new set of questions now. However, I think a lot of the same information applies to the XG and I should be at least a few step ahead this time. Time will tell...

Hi DZ7 -

From reading your thread here, I have a lot to learn. I have not frickin idea what is up with my 6PG+. It powers, the image is upside down. Its not converged, and when I feed a dvd through one of the pre-set memories and I get my image as 6 postage stamps accross, scrolling up and like an old tv that doesn't have a good V-Hold. I understand why people find NEC's intimidating.

Looks like I'll be reading around for a few days. Before I can begin to follow in your footsteps.

It will be worth it though.

When you say the image is upside down, you do have the unit ceiling mounted correct? If so, you need to reverse the scan by rotating the plugs on the board. It's one of the first pages in the setup manual and is easy to do (even with the projector on the ceiling). Make sure you have an active signal running before you turn the projector on (preferably a resolution you plan to use from this point on like 480p or 1080i). The scrolling image you describe sounds like perhaps you have a BNC connection out of place. I'm assuming that you have a VGA to 5BNC breakout cable connected to the projector? If so, check to make sure you have the black and white ones hooked up properly. This is where the H/V sync comes in and I can't exactly remember which is which at this moment but switch those two out and I bet you get a stable image. Don't even try to feed S-video into the PG as it will either look horrible or you wont get anything because the video board is not installed there. You might have a port for S-video but have no board (although I believe the Plus and Xtra models come with the S-video board). I always start with my high definition cable box set to output 1080i and go from there. You will find that 1080i is the sweet spot for the PG although some prefer 720p I think 1080i will give you the most stable, film-like image. I have my 9PG+ setting up against the wall at home so if there is anything you have a question about just let me know and I can get my hands in it pretty quickly most evenings. Oh yeah, those preset memories may be corrupt so most people here will probably suggest that you clear all of those and start with a fresh memory block and setup your own signal input. Once you get your scan plugs reversed and the video synced up properly, take a look at what you see on screen. If it's buggered beyond all hope then just go ahead and normalize everything which means going into each control and setting it to it's midpoint which is normally "0" but in some cases it will be "50" such as with Amplitude. Just DO NOT touch any of the white color balance pots (G2) or any of the controls inside the projector. Start off with the remote because anything you make worse with the remote you can fix fairly easily where as things you change inside the set can do much more harm than good and you don't want to mess up your grayscale if it's good. Also, DO NOT touch the astigmatism magnets yet! Those are the ones near the back of each tube. If they have silicon on them then chances are you won't need to mess with them anyway. If they don't have silicon on them then someone may have already been tinkering. That can come later but trust me that you don't want to touch astig until you have the set basically setup and converged. I have lots of guides if you need them.

Yeah I took the male approach of just turning it on and start pressing a few buttons. I then went upstairs and read the manuals plus a few other setup guides, which seemed more involved. I saw the procedure to reverse the scan and it looks reasonably straight forward (it is ceiling mounted). It was midnight then though.

Short term goal is to get the image right side up, and projecting an acceptable image before my daughter's birthday party in three weekends when the family will all be in and curious about what I have been up to.

Interesting about the H/V cables being reversed. Possible. I have a 25' VGA to BNC cable. I thought I saw on Curts that Black=V, but that's easy enough to switch. I was feeding it with a dvd player and a cheap transcoder. I have an ISS+Moome, but I was having trouble with it a while back so I figured I'd skip that for now. I am going to try to get that running this weekend. I have a ps3 with some 1080 and 720p material saved on it that would be good for feeding higher signals, and would be fun at the party.

Darn dropzone,
Your learning quite a bit, good to see you helping! Doug

If using the Moome the card needs to be active to make the handshake before turning on the source. Check the PS3 output settings

Darn dropzone,
Your learning quite a bit, good to see you helping! Doug

If using the Moome the card needs to be active to make the handshake before turning on the source. Check the PS3 output settings

That means a lot coming from you Doug! I wish I could spend an afternoon watching you and then I would really learn something. It does feel good to be the one answering a question for a change! That's the great thing about this forum. If not for people like you, Curt and the rest of the CRT gurus, this technology would probably fall by the wayside for good. I really appreciate those that share what they know here.

Well some progress this weekend.

1. The flipping of the image was pretty easy. So its now properly displaying the ceiling mounted data.
2. You called it DZ7, the H & V wires weren't in properly, no more scrolling image, fix those, and everything is okay (sort of).
3. My NEC 6010 had been wonky with a VGA monitor, but works fine the the 6PG+. Using the component output from my dvd player to the moome card, works fine.
4. Looks like the PJ has only 1k hours on it. Maybe 2k wasn't sure why there were 4 different sets of numbers on that screen.

The bad:
A. My HDMI cables are MIA (damn longer builds, all my stuff scatters to the wind), so I had to reorder them from Monoprice. At least they are reasonably priced.
B. The ceiling mount is clearly not centered compared to the room (kind of too late, may be able to work in some adjustability to the uni-strut later).
C. Convergence way out of whack, and I wasn't getting much improvement from the various electronic controls

My to do list:

-Need to figure out how to erase the old entries and create a new one (and save settings, kept saying no entry selected or something like that).
-Need to wait for my stupid cables to arrive.
-More reading . . .

We'll see if I can go from newb to an adequte (e.g. passably converged) image up before 9/29. Thanks for the pointers DZ, glad to see you getting your kudos.

Dave,
Do yourself a favor if you haven't already and delete all of the memories in the projector. Sometimes these can be corrupt and you will just be building on top of someones else's mistakes or half-hearted attempt. I made this mistake many times thinking the image looked "pretty good" and that I could just converge it the rest of the way. There is no substitute for a well aligned projector, centered and squared to the screen and then a "from scratch" setup and convergence. I did this on my XG Saturday night and it took me about 3-1/2 hours but I saw a big improvement over my efforts when the projector was sitting on the floor, shimmed and not really square to the screen. I got much better geometry out of the gate with the green and convergence was so much easier than before with the exception of the blue gun which is giving me some headaches. Remember to set all of the electronic controls at their midpoints, either "0" or "50" depending on the control. Also, go into the blanking menu and open all four sides up all the way so you are sure you are seeing the entire image. I tried a technique written by Guy Kuo where you center the rasters using a white field pattern instead of using the internal cross patterns. This was sooo much easier and resulted in an easier convergence. I can send you a link to that document if you are interested. Oh, what the heck, here it is anyway. http://www.moesrealm.com/hometheater/crt-focus-guide.html