Greg Rogers Planar PD8150 WSR Review

Just renewed for 2 yrs!!!

Thanks Greg. Looking forward to it.

A nice unproductive way for me to close out my Friday afternoon work week here on the east coast.

I look forward to this review.

It's up, right on time!

Good Review, looks to be close to the Marantz VP-11S2 for a lot cheaper. I hope your focus issue was just that sample unit. Also what scenes do you use to test shadow detail? Would it be a large amount of work asking you to capture a screen shot of what you look for and point it out to us so we can compair it to what we see in our own environments?

Wow, I am suprised by the lack of interest or questions from our forum members. But Greg if you end up posting the shots, I thank you. I will try to get a pic of my all time favorite shadow detail scene from the Incredibles for you. I think only a very few select projectors can even display whats in the shot. I will PM you when I get a chance to save it. I am going to do a driect Frame Buffer capture, not a Digital Camera Shot.

Greg:

Have you been able to identify design choices that strongly influence ANSI contrast in otherwise similar units? For example, what would you point to account for the fact that, compared to the Planar, you measured 40% higher m-ANSI for the Marantz S2 and over 90% higher m-ANSI for the Sharp 20K? Lens? Iris design? Furthermore, I wonder what impact you think these differences might have on overall performance.

Greg

Any reason you did not publish non DI CR?

Were there any HD (Rec 709) source where you thought the SMPTE C was more "accurate"?

Visually, how does the "small feature clipping" differ from "brightness compression".

WOW, imagine if Marantz would have put a DI in their design. Would be close to and RS with the DI engaged I would guess.

They would have to be somewhat careful with how much they pushed the multiplier from native to dynamic on/off, but I can just image if Marantz put 2 DIs in their design. Marantz and Sharp get their high on/off from 2 irises and having them move together and be dynamic would have been great. But it would be a little costly to implement.

One nice thing about LEDs is they can do the dynamic part and the manufacturers could still provide multiple manual iris choices, like the Marantz and Sharp do.

--Darin

In those portions of your review in which you discuss how the projector performed with various scenes in movies, you write that you "preferred" watching in a certain color gamut (ie, REC 709 for Notting Hill) or even that one should choose a gamut based on how accurate the Ferraris look (Grand Prix). Does the accurate color reproduction of the PD8150 satisfy you or would you have preferred a choice of a wider color gamut?

Very informative review, as always. A couple of questions:

1. The noise level you reported seems to be almost identical to that of the RS1/2, which seems better than other dlp's. Is that correct?

2. You mentioned some softening of the pic (due to the Genum processor). So I take it to be that the 11S2 produces a somewhat sharper pic than the 8150; correct? Is the 8150 still sharper than the RS2, or are they about equal?

3. Following Lawguy's question about the colors: you mentioned in the RS2's review that some people (you?) actually prefer its oversaturated colors to the technically accurate ones. Here, though, it sounds like you do indeed find the 'accurate' ones to be more satisfying; do I read between the lines correctly?

My immediate reaction to the review (with regard to swapping out my RS1 for the 8150, or waiting for led dlp's!) is that I would really like the accurate colors of the 8150 (w/o the hassle of a vp) and also the PIP, I'm not sure the increment is yet enough to move me.


Edit: Oops; just checked back, and the noise level you reported for the 11S2 is identical to that here for the 8150.

I'm not sure if you have Manhattan, but if you are looking for any more scenes to show these differences I think the third one down shown here might be interesting:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2#post14261062

I checked it with a Panasonic AE1000 with the waveform monitor and there are some levels around 100 IRE on and around the girl and the lamp. With the AE1000 there was a slight loss of detail in that area when going between dynamic iris on and dynamic iris off, but I wouldn't call it a large amount. Kris Deering doesn't have the 8150 anymore or I might try that scene on there.

--Darin

If this ends up with less interest than normal it might be partially from the CEDIA lull where people are mostly looking for information on new stuff that will be coming out. I think this time of year people tend to get more excited about rumors and then in 2-3 months they tend to get more excited about reviews of the new stuff hitting the market.

--Darin

Overall, how does the 440:1 M-ANSI, 9,000:1 DI CR PD8150 compare to the 320:1 M-ANSI, 19,000:1 DI VW60 in bright scene image depth and dark scene CR ?

I'll provide the info now...

Sony VW70 65,000:1 with DI / 120Htz Motion Flow

JVC Outboard Proccessor with color managment

JVC RS3 60,000:1 Natvie - release date March 09, avail july 09 after the pre-order rush

Marantz VP15S2 15,000:1 (VP11S2 for $6000.00)


If I end up being right that would be a great guess.

Hearing how nice the color possibilities are on the 8150 makes one regret even more that JVC didn't do it this way.