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Official InFocus Sp8602 owners thread.

254K views 2K replies 160 participants last post by  graf-d 
#1 ·
Here are some screenshots I took earlier today. Please note that my camera is just a Sony DSC-H50. While a nice camera, it is not a DSLR, AND I have never really took pictures of my screen before so I am not very up to par on the proper technique to make the picture represent exactly what is being displayed on the screen. With that said, these are not 100% accurate and I will note the major flaws that the camera shows compared to the actual image on the screen.


My first impressions after having time to actually get the image set up properly (horizonatal and vertical lens shift took a while to fine tune) and to watch different scenes from different movies, I would have to say that I am very impressed with this projector. I have only ever viewed the IN83 and the old SP7205, and comparatively, the SP8602 is superior, mainly in the black levels. I think the dynamic iris really helped. I curently have it set to auto.


Also, all colors you are seeing in the images below are out of the box color. I have not touched any setting on the projector other than the horizontal and vertical lens shift. I did turn the motion capture (i think thats what it is called) to off because otherwise it looks like you are watching a soap opera all the time, not really a movie. I ordered the Spears and Munsil bluray calibration disc and will post more pics afterwards. I really wanted to get some skin tone images but my camera battery died, so that will have to wait till later tonight.


Any questions feel free to ask.











On this image here (taken from the Dark Knight) the lights on the building appear to be a bluish green color. They actually show up as white/flourescent in the image from the projector. I can adjust my shutter speed so much, and obviously its not enough. But the blacks are pretty true in this picture.





This pic of the projector itself was taken by an iphone
 
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#77 ·
Overscan enlarges the picture by some percentage, throwing the part overscaned on the black borders of the screen. Often one might see a white noise bar at the top or bottom of an image caused by the source. One might see this say when a 1.78 HD broadcast switches to 4.3 or something else for a comercial. The camera say being 720p and the commercial being say 1080i. By overscanning you will miss the overscanned part of the regular broadcast but you will hide the short lasting length of commercial noise bar. You can do the same thing as overscan by just zooming the image out to hide the noise bar.
 
#79 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by mark haflich /forum/post/18196973


Overscan enlarges the picture by some percentage, throwing the part overscaned on the black borders of the screen. Often one might see a white noise bar at the top or bottom of an image caused by the source. One might see this say when a 1.78 HD broadcast switches to 4.3 or something else for a comercial. The camera say being 720p and the commercial being say 1080i. By overscanning you will miss the overscanned part of the regular broadcast but you will hide the short lasting length of commercial noise bar. You can do the same thing as overscan by just zooming the image out to hide the noise bar.

I thought overscan was equivalent to a slight zoom and crop. What you're describing sounds like an actual zoom? Overscan shouldn't actually be projecting anything onto your black border, no?
 
#81 ·
I have several hours on my SP8602 now, and to anyone who also owns one, what do you think of the black levels and shadow detail? When watching a movie, like Pandorum for example... A very dark movie, the blacks are simply not very black compared to the letterbox top and bottom black bars. Maybe its just the movie, or the fact that my projector isnt offically calibrated.


Also, I have the Spears and Munsil BD and the test video on that is crystal clear and very crisp, but lately, most blurrays, with the exception of Gamer, are very grainy. Is this just the film with all of that noise or is it the projector? I mean, you can still mostly tell its in hi-def, but sometimes I find myself focusing more on the grain in the film, the the actual movie itself. Is this just the compression of the disc format. I mean, obviously the projector can produce an awsome image, which was proven with the calibration dvd, but is it the projector that causes some of this noise I am seeing?


thanks
 
#82 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by luelf21 /forum/post/18207022


I have several hours on my SP8602 now, and to anyone who also owns one, what do you think of the black levels and shadow detail? When watching a movie, like Pandorum for example... A very dark movie, the blacks are simply not very black compared to the letterbox top and bottom black bars. Maybe its just the movie, or the fact that my projector isnt offically calibrated.


Also, I have the Spears and Munsil BD and the test video on that is crystal clear and very crisp, but lately, most blurrays, with the exception of Gamer, are very grainy. Is this just the film with all of that noise or is it the projector? I mean, you can still mostly tell its in hi-def, but sometimes I find myself focusing more on the grain in the film, the the actual movie itself. Is this just the compression of the disc format. I mean, obviously the projector can produce an awsome image, which was proven with the calibration dvd, but is it the projector that causes some of this noise I am seeing?


thanks

The black bars you describe *aer* being *projected* by the unit. If black isn't as dark as those at least, then I'd say you have the brightnes set wrong.
 
#83 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by GetGray /forum/post/18207244


The black bars you describe *aer* being *projected* by the unit. If black isn't as dark as those at least, then I'd say you have the brightnes set wrong.

So on most projectors, a projected image that is all black, will actually appear darker thank the black letterbox bars?
 
#85 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by noah katz /forum/post/18207502


Turn the brightness down until the black bars don't get any darker; that's the lowest black level your pj is capable of.


If you never see blacks that dark, then your brightness, and maybe gamma, isn't set properly.

So if the black bars aren't actually being projected by the projector, then why would turning brightness down make them darker?


While watching pandorum, the image was nowhere near as dark as the bars...this really sucks. It still has out of the box settings with everything at 50/100. I really can't adjust the image using the projector because for sone reason my elite fd-23 bdp is overriding it with it's video settings, I I pretty much have to use the bluray player to adjust the picture.
 
#87 ·
Earlier post says you have Spears & Munsill - use that to set your levels (brightness, contast are your major ones). The "Black bars" will give you some idea of the absolute blackest that your projector can produce, not what it is adjusted to project. Many projectors have "black bars" that are just a dark shade of gray - and that tells you that the PJ does not have very deep blacks.


I'd just do the best I could using the setup disc, and see if that is going to be satisfactory. Any other changes probably needs a professional calibration and/or a different screen gain.
 
#88 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by John Schneider /forum/post/18207878


Earlier post says you have Spears & Munsill - use that to set your levels (brightness, contast are your major ones). The "Black bars" will give you some idea of the absolute blackest that your projector can produce, not what it is adjusted to project. Many projectors have "black bars" that are just a dark shade of gray - and that tells you that the PJ does not have very deep blacks.


I'd just do the best I could using the setup disc, and see if that is going to be satisfactory. Any other changes probably needs a professional calibration and/or a different screen gain.

Great you're familiar with the spears and munsil cal disc!?


This post will be very long and I apologize, but in a desperate attempt to solve my issue, here goes!


Please note that this is while using the s&m cal disc. Images of what I'm talking about can be found at http://spearsandmunsil.com/articles/...epatterns.html


Here is my problem with what you just recommended; it may sound crazy but I fully believe this whole issue lies in my bluray player, and here's why. It seems like my bluray player (elite 23fd)is completely overriding my projectors display settings. What I mean by this is that, I can change brightness and contrast on the infocus but it does very little. *I mean I can move them both up and down and you can see a distortion of the image, but it simply will not allow the image on the screen to do what it needs to do to look proper. *


My bluray player has several settings on it to choose from, being plasma, LCD, projector, pioneer projector, pioneer plasma, memory 1,2&3, and professional. *I HAVE to chose on of these. *Memory 1,2&3 are all adjustable, the rest are all presets. *


Now let's say I choose projector...By doing this, it defaults to the preset settings programmed picture settings in the bluray players video proccessor. *With the bluray set to "projector" and the infocus sp8602 set to default settings (all at 50...right on the middle) and I open up the low pluge, I see no left bars at all, only the right 2 and the checkerboard pattern. *It even has the static while looking up close in the gray squares with the other squares in the checkerboard being completely black. *BUT, no matter how high I turn brightness up, I cannot see all four black bars, just the two right ones.


So, on to contrast...with these same settings (bluray set to "projector", infocus set to factory default) there is major clipping. *Only 3 white boxes show on the bottom and the rest are blending with the white background. *Now when I try to turn up contrast via the infocus, just 1 notch (from 50 to 51) it completely clips the 3 boxes that you could see and is completely white. *So I try to lower the contrast via the infocus, and no matter how low I go, the image simply gets dimmer, and this 3 white boxes are still the only thing that can be seen on the bottom, even with contrast set all the way down to zero.(I can't remember the box numbers but they are the far left ones)


On to clipping. *With the same settings (bluray set to "projector" and infocus set to factory default settings) every single rectangle (W,b,r,g) are completly clipped and again, by using the infocus, turning down contrast does nothing at all but dim the image. *


It does this with all settings on the bluray player except memory 1,2&3.


Now with all of that said, I can leave the infocus at the factory default settings (50 on everything...right in the middle) and change the bluray to memory 1. *Memory 1 is not a preset and can be manually adjusted. *


Onto low pluge once again...by using the memory 1 and manually setting the black level through the bluray player, all 4 bars show up when I turn the black level up, but no checkerboard, so I adjusted it to where the second from the right bar dissapears and turn it one notch higher to where it's barely visible...the two left bars are also invisible at this point.


On to contrast. *By again using the bluray player and turning down the white level this time, all white boxes except the farthest to the right now show up. *The last one on the right clips. *This is correct I assume. and with these settings, even the black bars at the top of the contrast image that show brightness, I can see 18 and above...below 18 are blended into the background, which I assume this is also correct.


Onto*clipping...the*white*and*green*rectangles*are*working*j ust*fine...no clipping in those at all. *The blue and red rectangles however show just a bar down the middle. *So they aren't completely clipped but mostly clipped. *I can turn contrast down to unclip them, but when I do this and go to the contrast screen, every single white bar on the bottom is visible now, and I thought all except the farthest right were supposed to be visible.


Back to the clipping image. *If I leave contrast alone and turn down gamma just 2 notches, nothing is clipped anymore, and by doing this doesn't change anything on the other screens as far as I can tell. *


So it seems that my bluray player is overriding my projector somehow. **


I'm going to go look at the cropping image to check gamma right now. Hopefully it's on par and my gamma adjusent didn't effect anything.
 
#93 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by danieledmunds /forum/post/18112202


The DLP chip is the 0.65" DMD not the 0.95" as used in the IN83. According to Mark Peterson, the 0.95" is sharper although that might be to do with the optics of the Optoma used in the article. Better optics may offset the size difference of the chip, if not, then it might be considered a downgrade to some. However, I am sure the black levels are better on the sp8602

Hi there. I'm not sure the comparison would be that straightforward because the sp8602 uses a newer version of DarkChip than the IN83 as far as I'm aware. Let me know if that's wrong, but I think so.
 
#94 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by luelf21 /forum/post/18207022

"Luelf21" The blacks are simply not very black compared to the letterbox top and bottom black bars. Maybe its just the movie, or the fact that my projector isnt offically calibrated.

In the menu there is a "Set Black Level" option which is described as Analyzes the current input image and calculates an offset

value which is then added to the analog to digital converter black level

value. This ensures optimum black level for each analog source.



When I try this setting what it seems to do is take the black borders on top and bottom which may appear as a dark grey and adjust the projectors settings to make it a true black. Works great at getting true blacks in a hurry, but it affects the brights too...
 
#95 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by luelf21 /forum/post/18209532


Pandorum especially, with alot of others showing, I guess you would call it typical grain. But yeah pandorum was pretty grainy.

Can you confirm if it looks like film grain you're seeing or digital noise?


Film grain wouldn't be uncommon, especially if you're viewing it particularly big, for instance the Hurt Locker is very grainy. Surprised with a sci-fi movie.


When you say the films you've viewed lately are grainy, have you tried re-viewing the ones you'd viewed before? If they still look OK it's obviously the films.
 
#96 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Poagman /forum/post/18210103


In the menu there is a "Set Black Level" option which is described as Analyzes the current input image and calculates an offset

value which is then added to the analog to digital converter black level

value. This ensures optimum black level for each analog source.



When I try this setting what it seems to do is take the black borders on top and bottom which may appear as a dark grey and adjust the projectors settings to make it a true black. Works great at getting true blacks in a hurry, but it affects the brights too...

for some reason that option on my projector menu is disabled. how do I enable it to where I can adjust it. Also, what do you have your iris set at? Mine is at auto.
 
#97 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Poagman /forum/post/18210103


In the menu there is a "Set Black Level" option which is described as Analyzes the current input image and calculates an offset

value which is then added to the analog to digital converter black level

value. This ensures optimum black level for each analog source.

Hi Poagman. I take it from your comment you're a new owner too. Quite a few people on here are looking for reviews of the new machine – can you give us your early thoughts?


I own an IN83 but am thinking of swapping it. Would appreciate any advice you can offer and comparison with anything you've used before.


In fact anyone who's got one! You have a captive audience!


I'm a bit concerned that Infocus shipped these without prioritising early delivery to online reviewers.


Seems a bit odd, because it has been a bit of a soft launch, especially after such a long wait.


Haven't seen anyone say they've been stunned by the quality yet either or that it is a step up from previous units, which is what I'd generally expect of something from Infocus.

 
#98 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by luelf21 /forum/post/18210216


for some reason that option on my projector menu is disabled. how do I enable it to where I can adjust it. Also, what do you have your iris set at? Mine is at auto.

I set the Iris to manual so accomodate different lighting conditions. Perhaps the auto settings needs to be disabled? It would make sense that you use the "Set Black Level" setting to take a snapshot of signal to make the adjustment and having the Iris on auto would cause it to move from the optimal black level settings. I am not home and can't try now unfortunately.
 
#99 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by SaintJD /forum/post/18210261


Quite a few people on here are looking for reviews of the new machine - can you give us your early thoughts?


Haven't seen anyone say they've been stunned by the quality yet either or that it is a step up from previous units, which is what I'd generally expect of something from Infocus.

I actually posted my opinion earlier today on here at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post18210279


I am not a professional installer, calibrater, just a long-time PJ user. I just wanted to point out pots of interest and major differences I saw between the IN83 and SP8602.
 
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