Viewsonic Pro8200 -- it exists. - Page 23

RaceRoc
Most likely it's the cables. A number of us from time to time get strange lines, wavy lines, rolling lines, pink haze, etc if the hdmi /vga is not up to snuff, not plugged in all the way or cheap hdmi cables/vga cables ( I have some vga cables that are not insulated that well as well as hdmi cables). I bought cheap 1-2 dollar hdmi cables and I guess you get what you pay for. And cheap vga cables. Have since bought better quality cables. When you list sources you tried ... I helps to NAME them, I hooked my pro8200 to xbox360, wii, , different computers, because that is what I mean when I said I tried different sources. Try component cables and vga cables, if you don't see them with all different equipment , but just some, then it's not the pro8200 that needs to be looked at but the cables or the device hooking up to the pro8200, I would think. Does your father have the hdmi cable that came with the pro8200? Try that. I don't know if he got refurb or new.

Now if the video quality of show is low quality you we see all types of crap, it's blowing up image 10x , I watched netflix on pro8200 and I thought it didn't look that good, then I put the exact same image on HDTV and I could see the same artifacts, it just didn't look that bad because it wasn't blown up 10x.

He has A Dish Network Hopper (FULL HD) connected with HDMI.
Also has a Dish DTV Pal DVR (FULL HD) connected with HDMI.
And a Blu Ray Player connected with HDMI.
In addition a DVD player/recorder connected with component.
Not using VGA

I have moved the BR player directly under the projector with a short HDMI wire and has the same pic.
We used the exact same sources with the Infocus IN72 on the same size screen with no issues.
The unit (pro8200) has already been exchanged for a different reason... Same picture issues.
The HD picture is very good just is not the best background. (digital looking and jagged). Not horrible just noticeable.
The foreground image is great.

My question is, would it benefit to connect a QDEO Video processor to it via an AV receiver like the Onkyo?
It is suppose to smooth out the jagged image, upconvert to 1080p and help with motion (among other things).

There is a cable length setting, I believe it is in the service menu and you might try setting it to Medium or Long. You should not see any artifacts or jaggies from a bluray source, check the output type on the Bluray player (ycbcr vs. RGB). The processor may or may not help, no-one can answer that unless they tested it, every video processor is different. Dish is going to be hit or miss. Also check your sharpness settings, setting sharpness to 0 may help a bit. There are also various calibration settings to do, try Standard Mode, Gamma 1, and get contrast and brightness correct. If you have adjusted the color too far off you may be seeing some posterization.

Your lines may also be due to ground interference on the power source or EMI on the cables. Different projectors will have different levels of sensitivity to interference. The only time I've seen the Viewsonic look slightly "weaker" than other projector is during very specific panning sequences it can cause a wavy like effect and a loss of resolution, but I don't recall ever seeing this on a bluray source, only on cable signals.

I have seen horizontal lines before, but only on a bad cable run, otherwise this projector should NEVER show horizontal lines. If you are seeing the type of horizontal lines that appear more visible against a plain black background, then that indicates ground or cabling interference in the projector. I would try a different outlet or get a UPS w/ AVR that may help clean the ground up.
Edited by coderguy - 8/6/12 at 7:04am

Already adjusted the cable length setting in the service menu. No change.

Just to make sure you are not using any receiver?

I'm confused you had it hooked up to infocus IN72 which was first sold in 2005, 7 years ago, it doesn't have hdmi , so how could you hook it up the same way, obviously hdmi is NEW from your PJ, right? And 800x400 is low def picture and if you have low def pic, in high def it might show alot of jaggies, you realize that , right?
Edited by rgtaa - 8/6/12 at 7:53am

The IN72 has DVI. it was connected using a HDMI to DVI adapter.
HE HAS HIGH DEF!!! HDMI is not new.
The HD source has been connected for years with HDMI to DVI.

Just to clarify. The BR pic is good, it just has the faint intermittent horiz lines that flash in the pic.
He does have an AV receiver, but we by passed it to test picture.

I'm not desperate and this is not a pressing issue... Just some things I would like to address when I upgrade at my house.
I did not want to spend the money on the Pro8200 if the image could be better just by spending a little more for the HC4000.
I do however like the idea of having the additional brightness of the Pro8200 to help with the light coming from the other rooms.
I plan to upgrade my AV receiver anyways (to one with HDMI switching) and was thinking that maybe the built in processor would help.

Thanks for the replies.
Edited by RaceRoc - 8/6/12 at 8:07am

Maybe you can buy some good quality hdmi cables as test.
I guess we are saying , we did get stuff like you are saying, but it was the cables. Good luck , maybe research the other projector, there are other posts in this part of forum. Are you rainbow effect sensitive? Things to check for are Brightness, warranty, bulb life, price, etc... the usual stuff.

That's why I was asking. Maybe someone has used one.
This could be the wrong place to ask this question.

Thanks anyways...

I remember when I first started using hdmi with my HDTV's. The same cable would work on my 32 inch hdtv, but on my 26 inch hdtv I would get no sound, or vertical lines, or rolling picture, and other crap. I bought a 5 pack of hdmi for maybe 5 bucks. So your dad might have bought 3 or 4 hdmi cables all the same, but cheap.

We have been in the satellite TV business since 1982 and have dabbled in and out of AV (we were even a ditsributor for a number of AV items including CRT projectors and high end sound). I know the difference in wires.

Coderguy, he may have an issue with the AC power causing the lines. You reminded me that several years ago we had a Ground loop issue.
Once again, I'm not that concerned with the faint intermittent lines.
I was wondering more about the slight issue with HD background and if there was a way to improve the SD images.

Thanks for your input.

FWIW, I've had good results w/ Monoprice HDMI cables.

Ditto. I can also recommend this AVS Forum sponsor.

New to this thread and seems like a great place to be.

My Pro8200 is about 1 yr old and has had a ton of updates (by VS direct).. some background to it...

Fed by a Sony S570, it projects onto 100" screen painted onto my wall in a dedicated AV room (incidentally, where the 7.1 is kept seperate from the 2.0)
The paint is an updated homebrew version of the well known "Black Widow" mix - but this one has been calibrated in the process, with lots of clever people making it even better (grey)
The screen has a zillion and one aluminium particles in it and with 7 coats is incredible.
The surround of the screen is 2" felt and this makes for a superb framing of the image (and permits a little error in alignment with no visible effect - top tip)
Semi-light controlled room, the 8200 is cieling mounted and perfectly aligned in all respects.
No keystone required - for the best possible pictures.

I have calibrated with basic settings from Projector Review (Art ?) and only found this thread yesterday evening. - It's brill.

Some recomendations.

By far and away, the biggest weakness I have discovered with my 8200 is stray light. Not just out of the vents, [cured with hanging filter media close to the outlets] but out of the lens itself. I spotted this very early on. Pick a dark scene and just notice how much light is thrown onto your wall outside the main image. It's significant. This can be cured by building a "shutter" like you see in old film lights.

I constructed mine from art materials and a picture frame - all painted matt black. The barn doors are adjustable and I was able to massively reduce the stray light from the projector so that what lands on the 16x9 screen is almost exactly the same size as the screen size. Result was a far improved viewing experience.

AV completed 007.jpg 38k .jpg file

AV completed 011.jpg 39k .jpg file

So.. some additional questions if I may ?

Up to now, I have not adjusted the more advanced colour settings on the PJ, but based on the work of coderguy and bse53, I'm tempted to do this. Could someone please explain in simple terms (although I am an engineer) what the hue, gain and sat actually does ? What is default ? What are the "real world" effects of adjusting each one ? If I adjust one, must I adjust another to "re-balance" the image ?

My lamp is ~300hrs old and I also bought a spare lamp for $50 from VS as a goodwill measure for all the troubles an earlier version of the PJ gave to me. Some bargain eh ?

Anyhow, thanks for all your help !"

Rgds

Hue affects the color mix itself (hence changing the hue of blue too much towards RED could make blue look purple). The idea of the three values is that you want it to be adjusted on each primary and secondary color so that the color matches the expected standard (Rec709 gamut). Red should appear as true red and blue should appear as true blue in relation to the standard.

Saturation affects the mixing of white of the color relative to itself (a bit confusing) but basically an under saturated RED would appear as a lighter red, eventually it would appear as only gray or white.

Gain is the Luminance and Brightness which is basically the light output of the color itself. Decreasing a color's brightness might make a red appear slightly maroon (even though the tint didn't really change) or make green appear forest green, increasing the gain will make green look more lime green. The three settings are interactive to some degree.

Changing the colors will change the relative position of the expected primary and secondary colors to whatever standard you are going for (in most cases Rec709 gamut).



The Viewsonic has built-in test patterns for the primary and secondary colors. I would suggest rotating through the VIEWSONIC test patterns of each color (pattern button on the remote) and changing the three values yourself so you can see the differences. Obviously to calibrate a projector, you would need to have calibration equipment and not go by eye.

The Viewsonic's CMS is a bit hard to use because the three controls (Hue, Sat, Gain) affect each other more than they should, hence you change one and it affects the other. There are also some calibration bugs in the controls, but with some hard work it calibrates very accurately (actually the Viewsonic's gamut is more accurate than many projectors even without adjusting it). Calibrating this projector's gamut only produces a very slight improvement, whereas some projectors are just way off. Calibrating the gray scale yields a bit of improvement depending on the lamp.

STD Mode with Gamma set to 1 is the most accurate mode, but it does have too much RED until the lamp wears in.

...
Edited by coderguy - 9/17/12 at 2:51pm

Here is my attempted Layman Explanation

Hue
Hue is fairly easy to understand, it is changing the actual color itself (like making red become purple), so it is like mixing paint of different colors together from the primary and secondary colors. One way to think of it is that the goal in calibrating a video device's color gamut is to try to PURIFY each of the 6 paint colors (RGB primary + CMY secondary) to essentially make them unmixed and exactly representative of their own colors. If thinking in terms of paint, we are trying to unmix the colors and place them back into their respective containers as their original purified form.

Sat vs Gain (luminance)
The most confusing thing is by far the difference between saturation and gain (gain is also known as color brightness, lightness, or luminance), but it is most easily understood by thinking in terms of dull "Earth tones". If you were watching a blank screen containing all RED, and then you decreased saturation on the primary RED to a more earthly tone (like a more drab RED), then no matter how much GAIN (luminance) you added or removed it would always stay within that tone but it would just be a darker and lighter earth tone (so to speak). Whereas if you increased the saturation of RED to look like fire engine red and moved away from earth tones to more vivid colors, then lowering the gain control would make the color become a dark but STILL a very rich looking red (maroon almost) unless you lowered the gain so much as to make it look black.

Lowering to 0
If you lower the saturation of a color to 0, the color becomes white, because saturation is basically how much of the color is blended into pure white, and with no color added then it becomes pure white.
If you lower the gain of a color to 0, that particular color becomes pure black, because gain is the lightness of the color and no gain means no light which = black.

GrayScale
Gray-scale is the purity of white and black (the lack of color). When you calibrate gray scale you are not calibrating color, but you are actually trying to get whites and blacks to have no color in them and to become a pure shade of gray. When you are calibrating Hue, Saturation, and Gain (luminance), you are calibrating the colors themselves (the gamut). The Gray-scale and the gamut mix together because if your gray-scale has UNWANTED color in it, then the white or black mix of a color (and grays as well) will ALL be tinted with unwanted color, so both the GAMUT and the GRAY SCALE needs to be calibrated to achieve the most accurate color possible.
Edited by coderguy - 10/2/12 at 11:30am

Thanks for all this.. something to consider.

Right now, the colours on my screen look top notch... I'm (sort of) assuming that as the screen is what I'm watching, then any calibrations should be done "looking" at the screen not the projected image.... (i.e. not with the light shining on the sensor..) So, in this case, as my screen is no doubt different to yours - or anyone's for that matter, isn't the concept of copying calibration settings a tricky road ?

Also, could you perhaps remind me of the factory settings for the 6 colours ? I think they are all there now, but I've had a tweek and want to be sure they are back to std.

In any case, I suppose that what I'm really asking is that given my screen (neutral gray) do you expect need to make massive adjustments to any particular colour to have a chance of being accurate ?

Are the OOTB setting for the 8200 far away in any one area ?

Thanks

PS - what did you think to the shutters ??

I like those shutters, really looks professional. Glad you found us. Care to list the problems you had with your pro8200 and how Viewsonic handled the matter. I would like to know how viewsonic treated you. What problems were fixed for you with firmware updates?

@ClubSport
Technically, you cannot really ENTIRELY copy anyone's calibration settings due to screen variances, lamp variances, and MFR tolerances. However, copying calibration settings if a PJ is WAY OFF the mark can have some benefit and there are some settings that are more universal. You could try someone elses calibration settings just to see if you think their settings are producing a better picture by eye over time. If copying someone's calibration settings, then you need a lamp that has near the same number of hours on it as well as a similar screen. There are a few things that you can do and that will remain somewhat consistent (discussed below).

One thing you do need to make sure is that your contrast and brightness are set correctly in coordination with your black level. Hence, for enhanced or standard settings in your bluray, cable box, gaming machine, etc... There are test patterns for this for free by downloading the AVS Rec 709 disk (google it and you will find the forum post with the free download). You can burn the disk for free with a regular DVD burner on a regular DVD, and it will still work on a bluray player.

For most viewing, the OOTB mode of the Viewsonic Pro8200 is pretty close. One thing I would do is lower the MASTER saturation control under the VIDEO menu to maybe 38-45 to get more natural looking skin tones. I believe the default is 50 and that is too high unless you calibrate around it by changing other things (too complex for someone that is not used to calibrating). The Viewsonic's default color settings are a bit strong and over the top, but reducing this SATURATION setting helps. Another thing is sharpness should either be set to 0 or alternatively from 5-10, but don't set it between 1-4 because it will degrade the image. At a sharpness of 5-10 there is a tiny bit of ringing, at 0 there is none but the image will be less sharp. Ironically, the setting of 0 is actually sharper than the setting of 1-4, so the setting of 1-4 is a wasted setting (at least on my unit). I would recommend 5-8 on this setting for most people, but it is more of a personal preference.

The OOTB settings in STD mode with Gamma set to 1 have a pretty accurate color gamut (HSL - hue,sat,lum) and this is fairly close to REC 709. However, a couple colors are off a bit and in the beginning RED is overpowering. If you see a RED tint to people's faces, lowering the RED gain or SAT might help a bit or lowering the plain gray-scale Red setting under RGB, but overall it should correct itself for the most part because as lamp's age they lose RED naturally. The gray scale accuracy is decent, but not perfect, it is running too cool. Some shows might also look better by watching them under a GAMMA setting of 2 (even though it is not technically correct), but this will be darker and sometimes add more POP.

That said, overall compared to the different projectors I've seen OOTB, the Viewsonic has very accurate looking color to the eye even without calibration after you just make that minor adjustment to the master saturation control.
Edited by coderguy - 8/10/12 at 9:28pm

Well, the first problems I had were with the fans - very noisy.. they swapped them out no problem. Then, the next problem, was the one where the PJ "forgets" all it's settings once you power off.

Another one was a bunch of small, dashed lines @ the bottom of the image

The PJ went back to VS 3 times in total (as luck would have it, I was in the process of commissioning the HT room so the upset wasn't so bad).

I've got some great mails from VS tech depts in Taiwan which helped me set the unit up and also, seem to have gained respect - they always answer my mails and are courteous.

They also gave me insight into the whole issues of why DLP's produce a "ghost" image outside of the projected area (hence my improv shutters !)

Bottom line
The 8200 was purchased after a ton of research and I begain to wonder if I'd done the right thing. However, in use, it views well and apart from the noise, it's a great piece of kit. I hate it's stray light, but the "hobby store shutters" did the job for me.

I think however, it's my screen I'm most proud of... after all, this is what I'm actually watching. Thanks (coderguy) for all the info about CMS etc.. dead useful.

PS - here in the UK, I paid £950 for this PJ... @$1.55 / £1, it's expensive by your stds methinks.

The throw angle offset of the Pro8200 seems to make it not such a good fit for a low ceiling basement. My basement ceiling height is only 7 feet. My understanding, if I were to want a 100" diagonal screen size, if mounted on the ceiling the Pro8200 would drop the image down 16 inches from the lens to the top of the screen. So figure at minimum, if the projector is mounted directly against the ceiling, the top of the screen image would be maybe down 18" from the ceiling. Considering the height of the projected image, that would place it a bit closer to the floor than I would like.

So I am wondering, is there any work-around with this projector in a low ceiling room? Any trick I am missing - perhaps using vertical keystone correction? Or a joist could be cut out to allow higher placement, lol.

Every projector has strengths and weaknesses in certain types of content or movies. The Viewsonic is very awesome in Animated content and very good at doing natural skin tones. Most projectors do best with a Bluray instead of Cable TV or Streaming, so keep that in mind. Try Kung Fu Panda 2, How to Train your dragon, these do well. Tree of life is a boring movie that has some incredible reference level scenes in it for projectors. Some people have said the Viewsonic lack's sharpness due to the 1:1 mapping error, but it is REALLY very MINOR in most viewing as I have A/B'd the issue with another sharper projector (really only visible in HTPC focus, and even then not too bad). One thing I failed to mention is that it is VERY important to get the FOCUS right on this projector (and the focus ring is tough). It takes a while to get it set right, you need to focus on something that is 1/3rd out from the left-side of the screen to get the most uniform focus. It is easiest if using binoculars.

Well there are a few things, as you mentioned keystone correction. I don't think using Keystone correction a tiny bit is a big deal, although some people disagree, but considering there is already a slight loss of 1:1 pixel mapping on this projector even without keystone enabled, the difference is probably even less. Keystone might mess up your gaming.

Other than keystone, you can fudge an installation a little bit and let the black border absorb geometric errors, but it isn't as pleasing as maybe the other solutions.

You can as a final resort tilt a screen to avoid using keystone, basically you probably need a FIXED FRAME screen to do this with.
Edited by coderguy - 8/10/12 at 11:55pm

@ indio 22

Ref:- "that would place it a bit closer to the floor than I would like"

This is interesting. When planning my HT room, this was one of the toughest issues. How big should the screen be ? How close to the cieling ? etc..

I messed around fror days (of course, before I painted the screen) and ended up with a 100" and quite a bit lower than I first thought (see images). I'm sure there is a wesite somewhere that describes optimum settings for screen size based on viewing distance. As the PJ has no lens shift then how big you project denotes where the image lands on the wall (other factors notwithstanding)

I'm totally happy. For me, image quality was everything and so I wanted no keystone correction (the VS engineers mentioned just how much some of the quality drops through the floor with even minot KS correction).

Anyhow, for me, as high as I can get it, angled slightly up, projecting upside down. No keystone. I'm well satisfied !

AV completed 018.jpg 64k .jpg file

Footnote... the higher up, the more chance you have of reflections.

@coderguy


I find the pop up menu the best thing to use to set focus - and as a bonus, you can shift where it appears on the screen to check the for the "best" spot ....It's pin sharp and stays there for a min or so. And agree.. focus is critical.

Clubsports, is there any chance you could make a print of your shutters to control the lighting issue? I would love to make a set myself as I'm sure some others would as well. I apologize if that's asking a bit much. I'm an avid DIY type guy so, a project like that definitely has me interested.

thanks

Darth

@ Darth Martell

Easy.

1) Craft Shop to get hold of a small, square picture frame
2) A door stop (this screws to the cieling)
3) A wooden spoon - This was used to poke inside the door stop and also, screwed to the picture frame - cut so that the outside of the picture fram doesn't get in the way of the projected image but is centrally aligned to the lens (put it sufficiently forward to allow removal of PJ without removing light shutters)
4) Craft Shop - some paper card with foam insert. Very lightweight...matt black
5) Drill 8 holes in the picture frame along the edge that points to your screen (these holes are VERY small)
6) Insert some unfurled paper clips and glue with wood glue
7) Trim the paper clips so that ~ 2" sticks out
8) Cut your card like I've done so that you can make the shutters
9) Push the card / foam edge onto the paper clips - they can be bent to shape - the foam holds the card on to the clips
10) Make all four paddles

Now...

Get yourself into a darkened room
On with the PJ and project a blank / black image
you will now notice the massive stray light well outside the image area
Fiddle.. adjust.. trim.. re-cut... etc until you have all 4 paddles screening out all the light EXCEPT that which you want to land on the screen.

Get plenty of card from the craft shop

Oh.... and don;t forget to spray the picture frame and wooden spoon shaft matt black

Can someone tell me how to get into service menu to change cable length? I can't find that setting anywhere!

Originally Posted by reebok

Open the Main menu and move the color bar to “Information” item, and then move down the color bar to “Equivalent Lamp Hours” item, press the direction key following the actions below:
Right once, left twice, right once; then you will enter the Engineering Mode.

Have a quick question - I'm pretty new to both projectors and Blu-Ray. Within the last two months I've picked up The Pro8200 and a Panasonic BDT 110 (the latter just last week). I understand that the Viewsonic has the ability to accept a 24p signal from a Blu Ray player which can help to ease some video pulldown problems.

My question is this: do I have to make changes on both the Blu-Ray player AND the projector in order to enable this functionality? I ask because when I was setting up the Panasonic player, I attempted to select 24p as an output option, and it refused to take, saying something like "please connect a compatible monitor or display to enable 24p mode." Any ideas on what to try next? It's entirely possible that I'm doing something wrong - I am not accustomed to the Panny interface yet, and it's not the most intuitive thing in the world.

One other bit of info - the actual BR movie I attempted this on was Incendies

Thanks in advance.

I don't recall there being any setting in the Viewsonic menu which affects pulldown or motion translation. For me anyhow, I just set it in the Bluray player and the Viewsonic picks it up automatically as 24p.

I just wanted to add to this thread as I just purchased the 8200 via eBay (at a great price!). I was going to go with the Mitsubishi HC4000, but the show model I ordered had sold and I missed out on it. Researched other projectors in its price range and discovered this. It was a toss-up between the HD20 and the 8200 and the negative reviews at the start of this thread were turning me away - yet the good reviews swayed me and I placed the order for the 8200 figuring I'd have to deal with the funkiness of an early model.

Lo and behold it arrives and it has a build date of September 2011 - and I couldn't be happier with it for what I paid. There was the noisy fan/color wheel in the first 45 minutes I had it running - but now it's quiet as a mouse (in eco mode). The settings all hold between shut-downs and it sure is bright as f*ck! Thanks to previous posters regarding color settings - those helped me to nail it to my liking (give or take a +/- here and there). I've got it sitting upside-down on the top of a bookcase - almost the best height - I'd put it on the next shelf down but that's a little enclosed and the 8200 puts out a lot of heat.

I'm using the old CAVX Model II anamorphic box (the Prism model) and the anamorphic II mode works great and the image is nice on my 9' wide screen (aka wall). Though, for the anamorphic to work right on my Roku and Blu-ray player I have to set the 8200 to 4x3. Kinda weird as I didn't have that issue with my H78.

Unfortunately the place I'm in now is a rental and the ceiiing & walls are white!white!white! so I'm missing contrast and black levels. Mind you I'm coming from an Optoma H78DC3 (the color card (?) fried for the third time and enough is enough). I absolutely loved the picture the H78 produced (those "inky blacks") in my previous ht. Oh and I was worried about light spillage as previous posters have mentioned but I don't think I'm getting that - maybe due to the anamorphic box sitting in front.

I haven't checked the firmware version as I haven't had any issues but I'm guessing it's pretty recent based on the build date. Also glad I won't be shelling out a couple hundred bucks every 400-600 hours like I did for the H78!

If any issues come up I'm sure to be back again - Thanks to everyone who've contributed to this thread!

Added: I'm only seeing the vaguest hint of rainbows just when the image is still or paused and I move my eyes fast from one side to the other - no worse than the H78 and this has a slower color wheel so I was worried about that.

Also not having problems with HDMI cables either. In fact 2 of them going to the tuner are p.o.s. cheapos with busted ends that barely stay in the sockets! However, I am having a bit of an issue with my laptop connected via a 12' hdmi and the image not panning smoothly. This could be a laptop issue however (2007 Macbook) and I've not worked on figuring it out yet.
Edited by MatintheHat - 8/25/12 at 11:02am