My ruby on my 140inch wide is really nice to watch in my batcave. I've pumped up the brightness via allans tweak and everything is honky dory except i'm making the mistake of reading this forum and wondering if the time has come to replace the ruby, with? Are there any 10000$ or under units that will produce a VERY NOTICEABLE improvement in the picture? Not 10% but maybe 25% better would do it. thanks

I do not think there is anything else in the Lcos/SXRD camp that would make a big impact in PQ difference. I think the most noticeable in picture quality increase for your screen size would come from a 3 chip DLP but you will spend more then 10k. Are you open to other technology or do you prefer Lcos.
The VW200 is a nice projector. I think of it as a refined VW100 with some nice features and an increase in PQ but the VW100 still holds its own. The RS1 & 2 also put out a great picture but I do not think there is any clear winner in PQ between them all worth the upgrade. We are still waiting for Sonys Qualia replacement ( rumors it will be 4k ) and Laser and LED driven FPs. Where are they:) Id sit tight a little longer. If you can bump your budget a little you may want to visit 3 chip DLP.

I dont even know what 25% improvement would be. Is that possible?

my take on revolutionary improvements is 2-3%

thanks alan for the perspective from one who sees lots of gear. I will sit tight....for now
and tryg you're right..25% would be a hologram upgrade

How does one measure "improvement" in a FP, so if there were a 10% improvement, one could tell the difference between that and, say 3%.

I think we are moving thorugh the obvious changes like 720 vs. 1080, or 1 chip DLP vs. 3 chip DLP, and will soon need metrics, like benchmarks on computer graphics cards. One obvious one is the contrast measurements, and even there we lack a good benchmark suite, once we give ANSI and ultimate contrast numbers. But that's only one metric, and we need a complete measure.

Consumer reports has it. Its called a 0 to 100 scale, You take a bunch of people off the street, have them view the projector on a 6 gain screen in a bright room and then rate the machine to a ref plazma, something like a $2K Visio calibrated to 9000 degrees kelvin, and rated a 100 for reference purposes. Any machine rated higher than 96 and costing less than a grand, gets an automatic best buy rating.

how much better is it? 1%-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
5%-huh, who woke me up
10%-why, helloooo there
25%-yes yes take that off too!
50%-don't stop don't stop don't stop
100%-my god you're just made of pixels!

Hey. You don't want her if she is using mirrors to modulate her pixels.

Of course if you add features in and increased flexibility that could also get you to 10%... ;)