Viewsonic Pro8200 -- it exists. - Page 11

Here's a discussion on ND filters for the HD20.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...density+filter

I think the only reason you would go this route is if you have a totally light controlled room-- in which case this projector will be really, really bright, even in dark mode. Projector Reviews measured it at 839 lumens in dark mode. That's bright!

What is this about poor motion resolution? Does the image become choppy or jagged when panning?


http://www.techradar.com/reviews/aud...-925666/review

Everyone has a different sensitivity to motion, I don't see it and when I think I see it, I'm not sure and it doesn't matter to me. I think it was a processing glitch related to his settings most likely. I see worse motion on LCD's and LCOS to be honest. It's possible that it's there a little, but it's definitely not very common. I think the worst part of the review is that now people are going to get the placebo motion effect. I will test it more in the near future, a bit hard to test at the moment (too busy, but I will).

I played quite a bit of Skyrim on it, the motion was smoother in Skyrim than my JVC RS-45.

I don't have cable ATM (just netflix, vudu, amazon on demand, blurays, OTA HD, etc...)...

@ND Filters
Unless you are on a fairly big screen and have more light in the room then you probably should, this projector is REALLY REALLY REALLY bright. It has the brightest best mode of I think every projector under $5000 other than some crossover or business projectors, or some really cheapo 720p gaming only stuff.

You mentioned ND filters a number of times in this thread, and some asked you for advice on the right one for this model. Then you say, you don't have one. But you might get one. I think some of us are asking you, which one would you get if you were to get one that would fit on this pro 8200. Maybe link to product page or ebay site that is selling the exact one to get. I don't have the pro8200 yet, it's in the mail. So I need to know the type, size, brand to get. I take it that it should be made of glass, not sure the ND rating that would be good. Other threads are nice but for different models/brands. What would be the best fit for this pro8200.

Maybe someone else in this room has a ND filter they use for the pro8200, if so, please give us details , thread size, and how you attached that works for you.

Thanks, good thread.

Well the info gets really intense, give B&H a phone call or email, that is the only way to know. I am just relaying info I have picked up from being in the forums over the years.

I was going to buy one too, just never got around to it and I guess I got used to too bright of an image (even though the blacks suffer still to this day). I should buy one, but you will get more knowledgeable answers from a camera store or a b&h then you will from me. Sorry...

I did read some of the info on ND filters here:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/pete...ensity-filters

I think the main thing is to try to buy one that is truly neutral and made of glass, probably spend at least $40.

coderguy!
Fair enough. You are passing on info for us about what you learned over the years on this site and other site (excellent info), for people that are complaining about "blacks not being black enough".

Also, you have had your bulb burned in , so it's not as bright as when you first got it.

I few of us are just getting news ones because of sale a day or 2 ago. So our bulbs are "gonna be BRIGHT".

If any of you guys did do the research and found lens that worked on this model and are satisfied with how "great the blacks" look now, please save the rest of us from "re-inventing" the wheel.

I'm mostly gonna use my 8200 for taking to other people's homes to game or watch a movie or watch a movie or game at home. So portable use for me. Getting portable screen 80inch. Not sure if I need filter but 10-40 bucks is fine if it makes a difference.
Thanks

Try an animated film on the Viewsonic when you guys get it, maybe the Dragons one by Dreamworks or something.

I am not a big animated film fan, but man do the colors POP out of the universe on these bright DLP's in animated films.
It will look so 3Dish in these types of things.

I have watched several, including how to train your dragon, and I would have to recommend Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs if you're looking for the wow factor in animation.

Cool, thanks.

How you liking the Viewsonic overall, ever send it back to get a newer firmware or did you just live with the minor issues?

I used a poly filter on my Hitachi-- though it that case was to solve a lack of red, so it was a CC40R filter. I don't think the heat is going to melt any plastic filter, B&H sells a Cokin resin filter, but you'll have to figure out a way to mount it. In the case of the colored filter, I cut the top of a ketchup bottle that was just the size of the lens (the Hitachi had a very large lens) so it just slid over the lens, glued the filter to the lid and it worked slick.

I'm not sure Coderguy can tell you which ND filter to use because it depends on how much you want to cut the lumens. A ND filter is grey and cuts the amount of light-- in photography it's by f-stops. Each f-stop cuts the amount of light in half. Basically your just reducing the light output from it's lowest level of 839 lumens to 400 or 500 lumens, but that depends on so many factors-- the size of the screen, the distance the projector is from the screen, the amount of ambient light, etc.

If the projector puts out 840 lumens at the dark room setting, and you have a 100" screen, the light at the screen will be about 30 fl. It is recommended you have about 13-15 fl in a theater setting (compeletely light controlled) so you could cut the lumens in half and have about the right amount of light. I would think a ND filter that is rated to reduce the light by one f-stop might be enough.

If you're going to be moving the projector around to friend's houses, I don't think you're going to want to cut the light output below the lowest setting, since you're probably going to be in an environment that won't allow complete light control.

In my situation, I have a dedicated room, with the walls and ceiling painted near black, but I have one window, so during the day there is a small amount of light In this setting, I could use a ND filter and it would help the apparent black levels slightly.

I haven't got the projector yet and as Coderguy has said, you should run the projector for 100 hours or so before you get to involved calibrating it, since the light output will change during that time, at least that was my experience.

If you haven't, read the thread I posted at the top of this page. Some of the same questions have already been asked.

As soon as you get into a room that has ambient light, black levels go out the window. Then you get to wow people with how bright the projector is.

Yah, the amount of ND filter darkness you want depends on your screen size. I would not drop it down to 14 fL if you are on a new lamp, I would shoot for 18 fL to 20 fL, because as the lamp ages it will come down to under 16 fL on its own.

So far my lamp has worked very well, no real drop in lumens from 300 to 500 hours, almost too well
Most of the drop happens in the first 250 hours or so on my lamp anyhow.
That is a good idea, any type of plastic that can go over the lens would work, just be careful.
I have also heard that the ND filter should be tilted slightly, not sure why though, heard this from one person in the forums.

I don't see how anyone could be disappointed in the PQ this image projects in bright scenes, considering it slightly beats my JVC in bright scenes.

I could have bought 5 of these for the price of my JVC...

A very popular ND filter for cutting overall brightness in projector use is the Hoya Multicoated ND2 in a 67mm-77mm, depending on the projector. You'd need to measure the lens on the Pro8200 to get the size right.

They're available for less than $50 shipped here:

http://camerafilters.net/shopsite_sc...age37.html#519

(this web page lists them as the Hoya Neutral Density ND2)

I've ordered a JVC X30, and I'm strongly considering coderguy's setup with a Pro8200 for all viewing except cinemascope blu-ray video. Thanks Coderguy!

The main thing you will miss from the JVC is shadow detail and darker scene contrast, but other than that it hangs pretty well and sometimes even surpasses in bright content. Content with highly varying lighting I have to favor the JVC, for gaming I favor the Viewsonic. For animated movies with more than 75% bright scenes, I favor the Viewsonic slightly, otherwise I favor the JVC. It really just depends, but remember the JVC is a 3k projector. Sometimes it just depends on what kind of mood I'm in to which one I like. The JVC is a more relaxed experience, the Viewsonic is slightly punchier. In most movies I favor the JVC, but not all.

How is this projector for watching sports? My main use would be sports (football, basketball) and action movies. I have a light controlled basement, but wouldn't mind having some lights on when people come over for football. I am on a budget (up to maybe $1200) and not overly concerned with 3D. Hadn't really considered this projector until the recent sale at NewEgg. Would this be a good option?

Other info:
Room Size 14 x 18 x 7'4 (low ceiling)
shelf mounted
100' Doable screen

Great thread!

Low ceiling--- no, if you plan on ceiling mounting. This projector has considerable offset-- at 100" screen the lens needs to be about 14" above the top of the screen. Add a mount and the top of the screen would be about 2' below the ceiling-- that puts the bottom of the screen pretty close to the ground.

Remember these projectors have no lens shift. If you have a larger buget the Epson 8350 would be a great fit, since it is so flexible in mounting, plus it's bright, and the D7 c2Fine panels used in it are the same ones used in their high end projectors, which will give you longer life. From experience I will never own an LCD projector with organic panels (the D7 C2Fine or inorganic).

The main reason I'm leaning towards two projectors is to preserve the JVC's bulb life for critical widescreen viewing. I'd like to be able to sit down and watch TV without feeling guilty. I need every last ray of light I can get out of the JVC when I'm in widescreen mode -- I'm running a CIH setup with a 120" wide 1.0 gain Seymour AV Centerstage XD screen. The DLP will be very bright in the 1.78 screen size, even in ECO mode, and will be great for TV shows and sports. The theater was designed around watching blu-rays as the top priority, most of which are in cinemascope. Adding a second projector just makes sense to get the most out of the JVC over time, and allowing me to leave the "TV" on without having to worry about bulb life or ambient lighting.

I'd go over here and try out different projectors. With your low ceiling you will find it hard to ceiling mount (or shelf mount, since almost all DLP projectors have fixed offsets.


http://www.projectorcentral.com/View...ulator-pro.htm

I was going to wait for Epson 8350 to go on sale again, but this deal came along and I really wanted to spend as little as possible since I probably won't use it all that much.
But everything is a trade off-- the Epson is big and heavy and I will probably be moving this between the living room and the theater room so I won't even bother to ceiling mount it-- just put it on the coffee table. The pro8200 has speakers so you can take it to a friends or outside and get by without needing a portable sound system.

I think if you only could have one projector and wanted the home theater experience the pro8200 probably wouldn't be the best choice. But if you want to move it around, and put it in a room that isn't light controlled, I think it's going to be a great projector. If not, you'll see a pro8200 in the classified section.

Someone can try my settings if they wish, but keep in mind I have 500 hours on the lamp:

Pictures to follow...

Here is another hint, to get rid of the red tint in dark scenes, you can also change the RED HUE in the CMS from 0 to around 10-20. The below aren't very good screenshots, but it was easy to show the RED tint on them, so bare with me. My settings are not perfect by any means, but they are better than the reviewers settings.

Here are my settings:

Color Mode: Standard
Saturation: 48
Sharpness: 10
Tint: 50

Color Temp:High (you can change this if you wish)
Red:50
Green:50
Blue:50

User Color:
HUE, Saturation, Gain

Red: 15,65,60 <------ Most important values (adjust as needed for your setup)
Yellow: 0,52,50 <------ Most important values (adjust as needed for your setup)

Green: 0, 80,75
Blue, 0,75,70
Magenta: 0,65,60
Cyan: 0,60,60

The key settings above are by FAR the RED and YELLOW to reduce the red and yellow tint to skin tones. Low color temp has severe yellow push, medium has red+yellow push overall, high temp has blue push + red push in dark scenes. This corrects it for the most part, but again I cannot say if my settings will work for you. I will find much better settings after I get a new meter running.


My Settings - CMS COLOR CORRECTED RED OUT OF DARK SCENES


Settings close to ProjectorReviews.com AND PJC - Medium Color Uncorrected

You can see the RED's are still punchy (look at the red on her shirt) and other skin tones still look pretty close:

My camera washed out the images a bit, it's so hard to take pics of skin tones. In reality, the white part of her face is a bit more tonal and natural in the real image on the screen, image also looks far more pixelated than how it will appear on the projector. The left side of her face doesn't look that white on the screen.

My Settings

A couple more:

My Settings:



Settings close to ProjectorReviews.com and Projector Central
(Yellow + Red Tint = Orange Tint at Times)

the main issue is with hdmi and it's not really minor. I basically can't watch tv on the projector if I use hdmi (I have an htpc and a similar setup to you such as ota and netflix). it doesn't bother me too much since I only use it for bluray viewing, but it's ridiculous that playing tv over media center makes it constantly drop the signal. and if I use hdmi port 1 it won't keep the connection for anything (desktop, movies, doesn't matter it always cuts out). fortunately hdmi 2 doesn't usually mess up too bad. as far as forgetting settings, it's a slight pain, but it's more the principle of the thing. how can you have a $1,000 product that has such ridiculous faults. and I know that the new firmware has addressed some hdmi issues, as well as settings and other problems, and I can't upgrade it myself? anyway, I've beat that horse to death earlier in the thread, but it just really irks me, to the point I either won't buy a viewsonic next time, or I'll wait for a firmware update to come out to prove you can do user upgrades.

I just don't get it. You obviously have something that is not working on the pro8200 that needs to be fixed and also if you send it in , you would get upgraded firmware. You have 3 year warranty. 1st year has super service or something like that. Why would you belly ache on forum and not send it in to be fixed. And then if they don't fix it, TELL US ABOUT IT! Loud and clear in this room.

Maybe you have a valid reason for not wanting to have it repaired and firmware updated, so , I'm way out of line. But I just sent a HP touchpad back to HP because it has 1 white line about 1/2 inch on it. HP sent a box to me, I put it in box and in 7 days I'll get it back.

Anyway, if you don't send it back for yourself, do it for us, TEST the 3 year warrenty! Happy New year!

as I'm not the original owner, I don't have the 3 year warranty. even if I did, it would cost quite a bit to ship it back to them in california, not to mention the down time without a projector. (turns out I have a projector because I need one, not because I can go for 2-3 months without one). here are the negatives told to me by the viewsonic rep: shipping costs, 2-3 months to fix, will not necessarily get the latest firmware depending on what they find. also, if this kind of stuff is not what you want to read, I would recommend never reading any internet forum.

Sorry! Bro! I didn't mean to offend you. I really didn't know why you wouldn't take advantage of the 3 year warranty. Also, I did say , if you read my entire post, you might have valid reason for not doing it.

I didn't know you were not the original owner, I just assumed you were. Did you lose the 3 year warranty? So the rep told you it was take 2-3 months to fix! Is that correct? I didn't know that.

I guess you are stuck with it then. Thanks for explaining the situation , because I didn't understand why someone wouldn't take advantage of the 3 year warranty. That is one of the reasons some of us bought it.

And I can take, alternate ways of looking at stuff, so I'm internet forum worthy!

Thanks for the settings, Coderguy.

I bit the bullet and purchased an xRite Display2 color meter from bhphoto, at a good price. And I found this guide: Greyscale and Color Calibration for Dummies here:

http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10457

using HCFR Color Software.

I think you can get pretty close using a calibration guide like AVIA and a good grayscale card (you need a reference). But I'm a tinkerer.

So for a little over $100 I can try my hand at calibration. Plus I do some photo editing and being able to finally calibrate my monitor is a plus.

@BSE53
I primarily posted those settings to show people how far off the reviewer settings were at least on my units, and to show people how they can tune the error out a bit even if calibrating by eye. I will post a full calibration one day probably, but I need a new meter. Those cheaper meters are not always accurate, I was going to get a better one this time.

The reason I am able to calibrate without a working meter (I own an eye-one LT) is because I have an expensive monitor at D65 and other projectors here I can reference that are already calibrated and start pretty close anyhow.


There are very few projectors that let you upgrade the firmware yourself, Optoma has a back way door to do it, but other than that, AFIK, Sony, JVC, etc... Can't do it.

There were almost as many issues on the Benq w1100/w1200 the first few months as the Viewsonic. I can understand your frustration about it being broken, but I would never buy a sub $1000 projector without a warranty, I've owned 11 different projectors, and I've had to use the warranties more than I'd like to. The Benq's were locking up at times.

Even if the original owner is no longer available, you should tell Viewsonic the projector was a gift or something. Or alternatively, you can have the original owner call them to get the RMA issued. For a projector in this price range, I wouldn't expect a fast warranty, next time though go with a Mitsubishi or Epson as they both have better customer service and an easier to deal with warranty department.

thanks for the info. this is definitely a live and learn, as it is my first projector, and seemed like the best deal for what I wanted. I based my firmware upgrade assumption on other viewsonic projectors (including the previous pro8100) that have user firmware upgrades available, the firmware upgrade usb port that the user manual points out, and the fact that it seems like everything including microwaves and fridges have upgradable firmware these days. but nonetheless, it does what I want it to do 98% of the time and I can't not have the thing for weeks on end, plus I've already spent enough money on it. I wouldn't buy another one, but I'll definitely stick with it for a while.

I still think the color tables are different in the production ones all of us got than the ones Art and PJC got, because they say that Medium was too cool, but on my unit Medium was way too warm.

I'll know for sure after I get my meter and measure it all, because it could be something else.

Interesting point, I guess when a new projector comes out, they send the pre-production model to the reviewers to review. And I guess sometimes the alpha release, the first batch is sorta like the beta testers, the 2nd batch probably has things corrected or fixed. Not sure if the models they send to reviewers are "better quality", don't know.

But I know if I was making these "projectors", I would want the "reviewers" to get the cream of the crop, "best ones", since people buy in mass based on "pro reviews". And if the "reviewers" trash a model, it's a hard road to recover from. The pro8200 seemed to have problems with first batch, but has recovered by late in the year "reviews".
So, it would be cool to get one of those "review" projectors and compare them with "retail-late in year model".

I have a really early version, and yah some Manufacturers do send reviewers cherry picked units, but that is mostly for LCD's, most reviewers end up getting worse units when it comes to pre-production.

What about you guys, when you set it to Low or Medium in Standard Mode, do you see way too strong Reds and Yellows?
(which is why I altered the gamut in my above post for High Color, because there was no way to get the apparent gray scale errors to look neutral using the RGB settings in Medium, at least not without a meter). Although I should note that it could be color gamut errors I'm seeing and not just grayscale. I cannot tell the true color temperature until my meter gets here.

I have a semi-professional certified color meter on the way, but they are back-ordered, hopefully it will be here in 2-4 weeks. I may be able to get a temporary meter before that, I am dying to find out how the real measurements come out on this projector at 500 hours.

I would voluntarily calibrate a couple units for free after I get it, if someone wants to ship it to me first then have me ship it to them. Can't do it until I get my meter. If I could measure 2 newer OOTB units, then we would know with some certainty if the units were shipping with the same general color accuracies. Just PM me if anyone wants me to do it, I am decent at calibrating even though I am not an all-out PRO, but I can make it as good as it could possibly look (and I have high-end projectors here to split screen like the JVC RS-45 in addition to the certified spectro-meter).