I will be in the Chicago area on Tuesday the 28th, for 2 jobs at this point - one a repair and one a cal - with one more still being decided upon. This leaves lots of time for other calibrations, repairs or optics cleaning gigs, before I would need to return. I plan to stay at least 2 days after the jobs are complete, just playing tourist.

One advantage to getting in on this tour is that the owner flying me out is using his sky miles, and only asks that the other participants pony up for their own shares of my travel expenses outside of the master plane flight between Oakland and Chicago, which he is taking care of totally. IOW, he's taken care of the plane flight both ways; anyone else participating does not have to worry about being part of that expense.

Contact me if you want in. There's still a week before the outbound flight.


Mr Bob

Come on by if you want to check out the stack. :^)

Cliff

Come on by if you want to check out the stack. :^)

Cliff

Let's talk!

:cool:

Mr Bob

Jesus Cliffy! You're like the 40 year old hottie that just got implants! You'll flash those guns to anyone within arms reach!!!!

:)

Doc

P.S. You lucky bastard! I've got the surgeon and I've got the implants. I just don't have the money for the operation yet!

Jesus Cliffy! You're like the 40 year old hottie that just got implants! You'll flash those guns to anyone within arms reach!!!!

:)

Doc

P.S. You lucky bastard! I've got the surgeon and I've got the implants. I just don't have the money for the operation yet!

For some reason Doc, when I get to this level of perfection, I feel the sudden need to show it to the world.









































































I Wonder Why?????? :D:D:D:D

Cliffy

BTW, feels good to have those implants doesn't it?????? :eek:

Yep, if I had those babies I'd be flashing too.:)

Let's talk!

:cool:

Mr Bob

Say the word Mr Bob. I have no plans in that time frame other than work and that is during the day.

Anybody else wanna come chill? :cool:

Cliff

I fondle mine every night and close my eyes to daydream about what they will look like once the "surgeon" gets done with them!

Doc

I fondle mine every night and close my eyes to daydream about what they will look like once the "surgeon" gets done with them!

Doc

This:

http://smxscreen.com/images/smx-screen-shot-15.jpg

Is one of the best examples of a G90 stack. It's not as good as an HT5000 because the blacks are just as black on that bad ass 3 chip. The kicker is ANSI. In scenes like this, ANSI literally erases any lack of black from the projector period.

Not only that, but it's blasting light and it is oh so pleasing to the eye. I love it.

Let me bust out the scene in Sky Captain though of my choice and well......

CRT wins.

Gotta love home theater.

Cliff

And ya gotta love dose lips!!!

Say the word Mr Bob. I have no plans in that time frame other than work and that is during the day.

Anybody else wanna come chill? :cool:

Cliff

So far I arrive Tuesday and do a conv repair on a Mit, go over to the other guy's house, stay the night and work on his Hitachi the next day. After that there's one guy who's still trying to fit a cal in, but it's not a very good time for him and he may have to have me back at another time. We'll see.

So I am free Thursday and/or Friday at present, want to be enjoying Chicago for at least 2 days while I am there.

Keep me reminded, as sometimes I get so deep into doing cals that I forget about the bigger picture - seeing great calibrations that have been done by others!

What's this stack you speak of? (Awesome screenshot there, also!)


Mr Bob

Bob,

You can read more about it at:http://www.curtpalme.com/SpecialReport_ChicagoG90Stack_page1.shtm

What night do you think you would like to come out? Will you have transportation.

To give you an idea where I live, you can mapquest 46373.

Talk to you soon.

Cliff

Bob,

You can read more about it at:http://www.curtpalme.com/SpecialReport_ChicagoG90Stack_page1.shtm

. . . .
Cliff

No you can't!!! :)

At least not yet - damn site is down AGAIN!!!!

Hopefully Curt is using the time to get repairs done!!!
:)

Bob,

You can read more about it at:http://www.curtpalme.com/SpecialReport_ChicagoG90Stack_page1.shtm

What night do you think you would like to come out? Will you have transportation.

To give you an idea where I live, you can mapquest 46373.

Talk to you soon.

Cliff



DK yet. Just had 2 more inquiries, if they come thru, I may be working thru the weekend.

I HAD seen this setup, at the Curt Palme site. I was wowed then, and I'm wowed again now! Gotta stop by and see it in action while I am there!

Send me an email at my regular email address with your phone number, and I'll get you my private cell number. My regular number is already out there.

Dynamite job by Ken! Those screenshots are unreal. Great screen, too, no hotspotting at all.


Mr Bob

Cliff -

Got your info, am looking forward to carving out some time while there to come over. Just had a near miss or two on additional guys joining up, looks like I am still free Thursday and Friday, just so I get to the airport - MDW - for a 5:40pm flight back to OAK.

I'll email my cell number back to you.


Mr Bob

I was finally able to settle back here today and write a spell, having gotten home yesterday late from Midway airport, and have been chomping at the bit to report on Cliff's G90 stack, in more detail.

This system really has to be experienced to be believed. Gotta say, the screenshots Cliff has been putting up here in this section are amazing, but nothing can prepare you for the ultimate event of being immersed in it, in action.

He uses a 1 gain cloth screen, which is not only totally devoid of hotspotting, but is also completely acoustically transparent. No holes in this one, it's CLOTH! Complete acoustic transparency, and with the power of his double-stacking setup, effortlessly puts out the gain and the footlamberts. He showed me one pj on all white on his massive screen rather than both, and there was the light level I would expect on such a size - what on a regular sized screen would look like 80IRE gray. But when he kicked the other pj back on and both were showing again, the white was immediately dazzlingly white again, with effortless punch.


The darks were another thing, where I learned some new stuff about contrast ratio. Had not thought of this before.

CRT goes all the way down to complete black, even blacker than movie film.

So when you double-stack a pj sys, of course the whites are all doubled in light level, but aren't the blacks as well? They are on fixed pixel. We still have to conform to the medium the contant was shot in, and most content is still shot on film and transfered to HD. So you can't actually really clamp to black completely when showing something shot on film. You have to conform to the blackness of the film's blacks, or the gamma won't register right.

With the special gamma instrument Cliff has in his signal path, his blacks register accurately right down to the floor. There was an all black scene for a few seconds, and he says, "See that? You can't touch that with fixed pixel." And he's right. Not even close.

What I realized in that moment, of seeing a black that was actually darker than movie film, is that 2 times virtual zero is still virtually zero! Sure, double stacking doubles the whites very obviously, but it does NOT double the blacks noticeably at all. There's an expansion that happens with double stacking CRT tech that is unapproachable in fixed pixel bulb driven. The whites double obviously, whereas the blacks, since they are so dark anyway and thus have almost no light in them at all, double also - but so what? What is virtual zero times 2???

As a result, the contrast ratio on his double stack is phenomenally more than it would be on a single stack of the same pj. The actual contrast ratio effectively gets doubled.


We did several demos, and I was impressed with his system, to say the least. But I still had reservations, for some reason. We put up a nice, tight crosshatch pattern, and I saw the reservation - there had been some drift, and it was impinging on the picture.

We both together set about to redo the image positioning and zone convergence, which is where it had primarily drifted. He is a master of how to do this now that Ken has put everything in place originally, and in short order we had things back to where I thought they had been out of the starting gate. Cliff had just had too many things on his plate before I arrived, to do this especially for me, and I found that quite understandable.

Afterwards, we settled down and looked at some more stuff - Casino Royale especially - then I saw what I had been looking for. We were sitting so close to the screen that it surrounded us, much like the old Cinerama screens did, but I was still able to study the grain of the film used to shoot the movie.

When you are that close and you can do that, you've DEFINITELY got it dialed in!

The precision of everything else we watched that had been currently filmed - the John Wayne stuff, while impressive for that age, just didn't have the high precision of today's stuff - was mesmerizing. I just sat there and stared. I have never seen a screen that big that I could sit THAT close to and still have everything stay razor sharp.


His audio was something else. He put in Matrix II and played the scene where they were being invaded by the bots coming in thru the ceiling, and the sound pressure level was so intense that my hair was chattering, around my face! But no peaks of high bass that can otherwise ruin a high decible sound track. Nope, none of that here. Clean and sizzlingly equalized, so that it could be turned up incredibly high, with no problems at all, just like the 500 watt sound system I used to have in my Mazda RX2. Most people don't know how incredibly high sound pressure levels can get with no hearing damage at all, when the sound is accurately equalized. I used to install high end car stereos, so I know what's possible. Cliff has it nailed, and I don't even know if there is an equalizer in the equipment stack.

Before he opened up the Matrix chapter, I asked him if he was going to install butt kickers. He said, "Reserve that question to after this clip, then ask me that again." After that, there was no need to ask!


This is definitely the best HD image I have ever seen. It's the closest thing to ideal one could possibly imagine, it's just freakin' palpable!

My compliments to Ken, and to Cliff for all the little things in between the source and the pj, that also had to be taken care of one by one over the weeks and months, to get to this final result.

And for his very generous hospitality while I was in the Chicago area.

Check it out if you get the chance, it's worth it!


Mr Bob

CRT goes all the way down to complete black, even blacker than movie film.

There was an all black scene for a few seconds, and he says, "See that? You can't touch that with fixed pixel." And he's right. Not even close.

This is definitely the best HD image I have ever seen. It's the closest thing to ideal one could possibly imagine, it's just freakin' palpable!


Mr Bob

There, I summarized the summary for you..:p:D

There, I summarized the summary for you..:p:D

:D:D:D:D

There, I summarized the summary for you..:p:D
Yup, you got it -


:cool:

Mr Bob

report on Cliff's G90 stack...

This system really has to be experienced to be believed. Gotta say, the screenshots Cliff has been putting up here in this section are amazing, but nothing can prepare you for the ultimate event of being immersed in it, in action.

There was an all black scene for a few seconds, and he says, "See that? You can't touch that with fixed pixel." And he's right. Not even close.

The whites double obviously, whereas the blacks, since they are so dark anyway and thus have almost no light in them at all, double also - but so what? What is virtual zero times 2???

As a result, the contrast ratio on his double stack is phenomenally more than it would be on a single stack of the same pj. The actual contrast ratio effectively gets doubled.

This is definitely the best HD image I have ever seen.

Mr Bob :cool:

Digger scene gets them everytime Cliff.:)

:)True.

Digger scene gets them everytime Cliff.:)

Got me!

Remember when Sensurround was the rage, on the movie Earthquake? They used 10' long throw subwoofer cabinets in each corner of the theater, each with a 15" driver pumping huge amounts of wattage, and my leg cuffs were fluttering!

SVS has taken the subwoofer technology to new heights, and the 2 he uses behind the screen have 1100 watts each, pumping via twin 12" drivers, each. In addition to the twin 12"ers in the right and left speakers, at normal L/R volumes. If you can call the digger scene, played properly, any kind of normal volume...


Suffice it to say that when Cliff wants to demo the digger scene at night, his wife has final say as to how late he is allowed to do so. I had to wait till morning -

:D

Mr Bob