Theres an italian in the house! - Page 8

What gets me (in a good way) is how much great ANSI contrast and lots of light can fool ones eyes into seeing a hell of a nice image , except in very low APL. If the dynamic black can offset this single deficiency that I see in my HT 5000 it will be a big step up from other devices IMO.

Art

Thanks to you guys doing these early measurements, I've decided to move up from a c3x1080p to a Lumis, and reviews. The split box configuration really works much better in my application, and I really want the higher CR.

Now to find someone to buy a brand new c3x 1080p (sealed in box with warrantee) from me. Anyone got suggestions for a good place to sell one? I don't see many items in the Classifieds here in our price range.

Ive had the first viewing session and will start again soon with some challenging material. I will report later, but here's the first thoughts.

I'll save the flowery language BS for later, but this is certainly a very special machine. Alan isn't prone to exaggeration, and he didnt here either.

The image is incredible. The contrast is outstanding. The ANSI looks to be through the roof. No washout or hazing BS. I cant believe a unit this size is pushing out so much light.

This units MC is similar to my old HT5000. Zero over most of the panel, very minor at edge. Minimal CA. Sharp as a razor.

None of the new stuff comes at the expense of the very obvious 3 chip advantages. The color density and image solidity is there in spades. Image depth is great.

Steve Bruzonsky:

Don't you want to get one of these and have me test it . I promise to make another comprehensive spreadsheet with all it's measurments just like your C3X1080.

I agree with noah here, DB can not peform black magic even if it is implemented by Sim2. If the dynamic range is expanded too many times the native contrast brightness compression will follow. The native contrast is interesting beacause it gives a little clue to how far the dynamic range can be pushed. This is not the same as the dynamics of the picture which will depend on many other factors such as light output and ANSI cr.

A Why is the DB done by Sim2 so good?
1 It is fast and perhaps the memory and algorithms allow for greater look ahead than previous implementations.
2 The light controlling mechanism is before the dmd so with will not harm good qualities such as
- ANSI contrast
- brightness uniformity
- greyscale, a closing lens iris will treat different wave lengths differently.

B A possible explanation of how white can stay the same and black go down.
I think Sim2 has left some head room in driving the lamp. Enabling DB will allow the projector to drive the lamp harder when necessary to preserve the white level.

Also I must ask
Does Sony use hard drive motors for their lens iris. Using hard drive motors was part of the Eclipse concept that first was shown many years ago.

coldmachine
We are eager to learn more, please report. The fact that DB works so well for the Lumis is a sign to me that DB should be implemented by DCI projectors!

If someone will reimburse me the $12K Maui family vacation, and buy my
C3X 1080 for near what I paid for it, I would consider it. HA!

Better yet, Scott, you should sell you HT5000 (didn't you recently buy a used one?) and get the Lumis. HA!

Scott, that was funny.

took a few shots of the C3X 1080here
screen is 400x171cm scope, microperforated, no gain.
the Lumis much higher brigthness would be welcome (for a client set up same screen size). the C3X 1080 is a bit less bright than the 720E.
note the digicam "peaks" the whites and flashies colors, the image is not as punchy.
i guess around 1000 lumens max / 68sq ft= 14.7FTL (max)
lamp in full 250 iris open. brigthness 50 contrast 67 color SMPTE D75. gamma user 2.2 sharpness 4 noise red 44. color 54.
one "needs" 1500-2000lumens with such a screen if you like punch
how could we live with 250lumens calibrated pj for so long ? or even 400 lumens?
SIM2 has a killer product with the LUMIS.

You need a better camera (IMHO).

But the last photo is passable.

It isn't just that those sorts of screen shots don't tell much since they tell almost as much about the camera and photographer perhaps more. I would like to see a close up of the panel alignment with clear pixels to give a reference.

Something like this of the lower right corner of my HT 5000...





Art

That photo is a killer for sure.

Yes that's what I was thinking too. I can't see how else they could eliminate BC.

A black level decrease of 3.5x without BC is a huge advancement and seems as though it would be equivalent to a 3.5x improvement in native on/off.

Thought you'd get a kick out of it . Nope, no HT5k for me, yet.

Oh I think I am seeing the symptoms of another wave of collective obsessional behavior in this forum.

Be warned CM that your posts herein could provoke a more dangerous epidemic than the Dancing Plague of 1518



Discipline 007...

i need to calibrate my pana digicam.
the last shot looks punchy contrasty but it's not like that in real life last night.
the 1080 is not bright enough. the 720 did better but the Lumis as per Alan's measures is twice as bright as the C3X 1080 (and i dont even mention contrast) and is the one to get if one has a giant screen.
big screens= lots more constraints and requirements (super black room, lumens!)
the RS10 yesterday on a 220cm wide screen with client was as punchy as the screenshots. (800 lumens/27sq f= 29ftl ?). it was in iris full open, full lamp. close (340cm distance).
we NEED lumens guys....
so a new Lumis on a giant screen 400cm scope is about 2000/68=29FTL.

Peter, YOU urging restraint and discipline.

The entire AVS universe is in danger of being swallowed by the vortex of hypocrisy. Are we all to be enveloped by the tsunami of sanctimony.

I will try to refrain from using such phrases as "The Barco Buster", "Video Viagra" or Art's multi level masterpiece... "Uber Kontrast".

Seriously, you make a very valid point.

This machine will, like any other, have flaws and compromises. Every machine does. The measure of most machines, and manufacturers, is how they address and manage those compromises. For example, I don't expect this machine, with a T series lens, to offer some of the clarity that will come from machines like the HT5k and the DCI unit I'll look at. Some people will see that it doesn't have a pro level zoom, so will loose light defendant on zoom position, but neither does anything near this price. Im sure. on critical viewing, I'll see some issues of my own. I imagine there will be some sort of compression somewhere.

I also wont be too swayed by the contrast numbers. We all know its important, but its certainly not the be all and end all. Im certainly not willing to indulge in the declaration of messianic qualities, that we see elsewhere, based on a CR number.

Recently I have had a very hard time trying to explain to some people that this single metric does not define the absolute quality of an image. I used the example of a Barco unit that provides on 2.5k. People declared that such a unit must be crap, the image could not be engaging, etc. On other occasions I've even saw people blatantly fabricate bogus results, and invent imaginary friends, to support their viewpoint. The impact of factors such as color fidelity, pixel noise, MTF, ANSI etc seem either misunderstood, ignored or willfully misrepresented.

I'll try to abstain from the infantile idolatry thats all too prevalent in some sections of AVS. Thankfully this forum is fairly free of that. The taste of Kool-aid makes me wretch.

Your point is well made.

I'm just excited that this forum has some projector action for a change. With that you do measurements, sit and look at it with varied softwarand from that you get performance. No need to be "trained" have double blind testing or have experience in Caribbean medicine to get it.

Art

You forgot to mention pictures.

Oh you mean like "Just shut-up and listen, I mean look, umm, ohh whatever!"

Having said that, this does not eliminate the potential for nefarious jitter from the HDMI audio entering into the HOST box, mixing with the video and corrupting the whole experience!

CM - Sometimes you remind me of a modern day Ignatius Reilly with writing like this. I can almost feel my valve slamming shut...

Would that make you one of the Confederacy of Dunces?

Surely it's a metric unit

Indeed. Alan's Lumis is clearly broken.

Was it a FatMax Xtreme? The sensitivity of lesser measurement devices can really skew the results...

Seriously though, these initial comments/impressions are extremely tempting. I may have to kick my 11s2 to the curb as well.

Alan, with your smaller screen size, are you using an ND or ND2 filter (sorry if this has been asked/answered-- didn't see it in the other 8 pages)? If so, which filter?; and as CM alluded to earlier, how much of a detriment has it been to the image?

It isn't clear to me what Greg is saying here. Using a lens DI to make it easier, dynamic gamma has to be applied before the iris or the gamma will have been changed after the iris, since the iris is reducing the light. For example, for a 20 IRE object, if the iris is shut down the only way to keep that object at the same level is to use a dynamic gamma somewhere in the projector to account for that (like 1/3 * 3 = 1). I suspect that Greg is talking about after the iris, meaning that the projector has a dynamic gamma that pretty much perfectly accounts for iris reduction to keep everything except video black and pixels that will be clipped at the same level. That does mean clipping instead of brightness compression, but clipping can be reduced by making sure the iris isn't too aggressive. Although that same approach can reduce brightness compression.

If they leave headroom with the lamp in order to allow the DI to close further and they get a native on/off CR improvement from that then I can understand that, but they are still limited to the native or static on/off CR of the current iris position.

To avoid BC and clipping they would have to have the iris open on things like some 90 IRE and some 100 IRE stuff on a black background, so wouldn't get as much intra-image CR in scenes like those as if they had a 3.5x improvement to native on/off CR, but it is possible they could get close as far as perception to people's eyes. I doubt it would be indistinguishable over an actual 3.5x improvement to native on/off CR (of course leaving all else equal), but it would be great if they have gotten it close.

--Darin

beuh ???

Darin,

I read Greg's article and he is saying no dynamic gamma at all. The only change is a simple multiplication of all levels to bring the highest level in the image to full white. The CR improvement is due entirely to the smaller aperture. What I don't understand is how this would increase the CR to 35,000:1. The other potential problem is uniformity. Anything that decreases stray light can cause a uniformity problem. Most, possibly all, of the illumination systems in these projectors rely on stray light to increase uniformity.

Alan,

Could you please let us know what size / type / brand of ND filters you are using? How do they situate at an angle? Are they actually placed in the lens housing just superficial to the lens itself?

Thanks!


Kevin