Hi guys. I should have my Marquee 8000 shortly. I've been using a Sony 1031q for about 3 years now and I've loved it but I'm moving up. It's no G90 but enough of an upgrade to make me and the family happy.

Any of you past/present Marquee sages have any tips/pointers/secrets for this set? Sweet spot w/ regard to it's favorite res? Optimum throw distance for between a 100 and 120 inch screen? I've calced about between 120-140 inches from the screen according to the room I've got to work with. It's my basement with a very low ceiling and though I got away with a ceiling mount on the Sony, this beast takes up a bit more real estate and I don't think I'll ever be able to get the Marquee ceiling mounted. Some people have already bumped heads on the Sony. Not me... I'm only 4'11" but I guess I have to consider those taller than me.

I've got alot of good advice form Curt and from reading but I just wanted to know what everyone else's experience has shown them. I've got another identical set I acquired for $50 bucks with burned tubes so I'll have plenty of replacement parts for a while...

Input will be HD cable service and at this point an upscaling DVD player until I can get a HD player.

Thanks in advance!

Lori

Hello

First, keep the screen within 80" width. Experiment with 720p and 1080i from your cable box, which is RGB out I hope. Learn more about Marquees here: http://www.etechvideo.com/techtips.htm and in Tech Articles. If your 8000 has the hinged rear heat sink then it is a later version and that is good. If it has a newer control board of v3.3 firmware or higher, then better still.

Screen within 80"? Hmm....... even my Sony does well at the 110 inch I'm currently using.... I've got the input issues covered. Got some equipment to buy to get from the component and HDMI to RGB, but I'm already working on that.

I am familiar with the link you provide. I read that a few months ago when I knew I was going to be getting this pj. I've kept it bookmarked.

Thanks!

I ran my Marquee 8000 on a 96" wide screen, I'm sure you could go bigger but you will sacrifice tube life and image quality.

However if you had your 1031 doing 110" I'm sure you could go pretty big and not notice anything wrong with the picture

However if you had your 1031 doing 110" I'm sure you could go pretty big and not notice anything wrong with the picture


Ouch.... very tactfully said. ;) I understand my 1031q would perform better at a smaller screen size, but it didn't suffer too terribly at that size. Maybe we should clarify... you are speaking in terms of diagonal or horizontal width?

If you are speaking in terms of horizontal width, I'm running smaller than 110. I'm measuring on the diagonal.

Sheesh..... guess this goes to show you how easily I'm impressed..... I've got this little DVR/DVD player that scales up to 1080i. I'll get around to buying a HD player once get everything else in order, but I always kept it upstairs on the HD tv since I never ran HD through the Sony. It always had just plain jane DVD player attached to it.

So..... I go down tonight and start rearranging components and taking inventory to get ready for the marquee and take the little DVR downstairs. I just ran the S-vid to the line doubler I use with the sony since I'm not set up downstairs yet to feed component or HDMI and lo and behold the picture filled the screen. I'd got so used to living with the bars on the top and bottom from the old DVD player which apparently formatted itself for display on a 4:3 tv or something..... I should have moved this little DVR downstairs a long time ago.... HAPPY DANCE.....

Sorry I didn't mean it that way.

I would run it at whatever size you want, the picture will always look punchier and brighter if it is smaller but the size is a tradeoff. Personally I won't go smaller than 96" wide with a 1.78:1 screen. I think this is about 110" diagional.

I tried my Marquee at 70" wide and I was blown away by the brightness and punch in the picture. However I never could have lived with a screen that small so I bumped it back up to the 96"

I would have gotton a high gain screen and run my 8000 12' wide if I had the space ;)

Erik

I ran my Mardquee 8000 on a 52x92 screen and you'll be fine. I would make sure to get the anamorphic mod done so that you can do 16:9.

Thanks everyone. I can't wait to get this thing and start playing.

To put it in perspective, I had a Sony 1020 (predecessor to the 1031 by a few models) on a 10' X 14' (yes, FOOT!) screen for Wrestlemania 1 in 1986. 400 lumens on a 14' wide screen rear projected no less, you can imagine the dimness of the image.

Still, 2200 people paid $25 for this pay per view, long before pay per views were popular.

So yeah, 1200 lumens on a 110" screen, while pretty big for an 8" set can be done..:)

LUV YA, Curt :D

Ok, I need to revisit this topic. I've put myself into information overload and I need some guidance. This is going to be long and maybe somewhat convoluted so bear with me and forgive my HD ignorance.....the sony was easy. Into line doubler, out to Sony....

Ok, all of my inputs are component. I'll be using a component switcher into a transcoder with scaling options and then to the Marquee. Here's where things get fuzzy since the transcoder has scaling and other adjustments onboard.

Some of the features on the transcoder/scaler -

Input Setup: Clock/Phase

Output Setp: Resolution and Refresh Rate

Picture Adjustments: Contrast/Brightness/Color/Red/Green/Blue

HV Adjust: H Position/V Position

Supported Modes PC Res: 640 x 480 up to 1280 x 1024 ranging from 60 Hz to 85 Hz input/output. * I don't intend to plug in a HTPC so I'm not real concerned about those, but there it is.

Supported Modes HDTV Res:

Res Vert Rate In (Hz) Vert Rate Out (Hz) Scan Type
480p 720 x 480 60 60 Progressive
480i 720 x 480 60 60 Progressive
576p 720 x 756 50 60 Progressive
576i 720 x 756 50 50 Progressive
720p 1280 x 720 60 60 Progressive
1080i 1920 x 1080 60 60 Progressive

So.... input is already going to be 1080i from the cable box. The dvd player at this point is an upscaling player. It only plays regular DVDs, and can output several different res up to 1080i. I will eventually be getting a BR or HD-DVD player, but not just yet.....

So.... adjustments to the sources through the transcoder/scaler? Needed/Required?

As this relates to the input memories of the Marquee? Say, HD channels/4:3 content/Movies - let the transcoder do the settings and set one memory for the Marquee? Or I will still need to set up several memories in the Marquee for each active source? My head hurts at this point. As I understand it, once I have sources set on the Marquee, I can set channel memories for those settings for easy access?

Is there an all inclusive setup disk that will thow patterns/grids for all the most common ratios? I'm sure I'll get a better handle on it once I have the projector here and can play with it. I spent very little time with the other Marquee upon seeing the burn in, but I did go through setup and convergence to get myself familiar with it, only to find I apparently didn't save the settings correctly because they were gone on next power up so I didn't play with it any more and decided to wait until the new one got here.

Any help/insight would be greatly appreciated.

Edit - Oh, Curt confirmed Anamorphic mod already done on my pj

Lori