Evolution is $22K? Come On! - Page 3  

Hi James

Thanks for the report.
A couple of things come to mind right away from your report.
There have been a few people booted from the *** forum for posting questions regarding the pans. They were told its no longer an issue.
It was never posted you need the upcoming rock thats not out yet. They dont tell you that. This clears up the mystery. Its still there.

Hopefully the new scaler will be included in the price of the projector if thats whats needed to fix this. It would be hard to sell a defective projector and then say you need this box to fix it at an additional cost.
If its included in the price and indeed its fixes the problem then they will have a nice bundle.

I dont think people are picking on Taws products. The projector is sharp looking. They are picking on what some feel is miss information and false marketing hype.

Yes *** deserves credit for what they are doing. I would love to see someone bring a digital projector to market that equals crt.
Half the people on this forum will be in line to buy it.
*** may have the last laugh.

alan,

keep in mind , i'm pretty sure this was a pre-production unit. they may have fixed it. I do know this is one they are showing to their dealers. I don't know if the rock pro will be a no cost option for the evo. deniz just said that it would fix the problem. supposedly phil has a pro to play with. i'm sorry to say, in it's current config, like all digitals, it can't touch a much less expensive crt. but, if you're considering a digital in this price range, i think you'd have to take a hard look at this after the rock pro comes out. It's only a couple of weeks to ces.

Thanks for reminding us!

You can't buy the Evolution without buying the Rock+/DVI as well. So I imagine that when the Rock Pro comes out, they will pair those two together instead. I don't know if that will change the price but I imagine so.

As to whether the Pro will fix the judder issue, I will believe it when I see it. Maybe we'll all get to see this at CES. I personally remain skeptical. After all, I think we are all aware that the problem is caused by the design of Hitachi's electronics, which the Evolution uses. So if their scaler can somehow fix the problem, so should a properly configured HTPC... and there's only so much you can do with a DVI input. You would think that current Hitachi owners (or for that matter, Hitachi engineers) would have hit upon the right combination of DVI settings by now, if any such settings existed. But who knows, maybe they've hit on something new. Like I said I'll believe it when I see it.

I still have the beta unit and as such am still not going to give a full review of the unit. In fact, since I may not get my beta unit upgraded with the latest fixes until well after CES, I may base my future comments more on what I see at the show. However since the judder is not one of those fixes, I will share my experience. The judder is there, though I find it to be minimal at 48Hz refresh and am not bothered by it. In fact I wonder if perhaps my unit is somehow better than what James saw.

Anyway, if you think you might be bothered by it, wait to see if the Rock Pro fixes it, or just go with something else. I guess in that respect it's kind of like the DLP rainbow problem. I think its a bit too dogmatic to assert that no projector at this price should have this problem. It's a value judgement like any other. Now I admit that at the Evolution's stated price it might be hard to justify, but Runco's aren't perfect either and they still sell.

If you want four CRT projectors in your family room go for it. But CRTs are simply not going to do it for me, or for a lot of people. Once I realized how much I floor space I was going to have to give up, or how much reinforcement I was going to have to add to the ceiling, I decided that I could live with digital projector blacks.

It's already out; go see it for yourself. It might take time for this dealer or that to get a demo model, but it's available for consumers.

And I don't think anyone's disputing that it's a hefty price. I've said on this very thread that I personally wouldn't pay $20K for this or any other projector. But it is not without precedent (Runco anyone? Faroudja's D-ILA combos?), and if they can make a buck at those altitudes, go for it I say.

i'm pretty sur the one i saw was at 72hz

This forum does not make that assumption. It sets a minimum price and that's it. Just because someone has loads of dough to spend on a home theater doesn't mean they can tear down walls to do it. There are other issues besides money, you know.

I did evaluate the CRTs, by the way, from the G90 on down, and I'm telling you that it's not going to happen in my room. Period. And a very fair point it is!

michael

have you tried it with DVHS befor i got booted off the *** forum phil says you can feed it direct, but it seems you need the rock pro to get rid of the judder problems

No, I haven't fed it HD yet. I just ordered a Samsung SIRT165 though, so I will do so at some point. I don't anticipate that the judder issue will be any different (i.e., the Pro will be "needed")

Tom,

The Hitachi has problems with tearing and severe judder/stutter on DVI and RGBHV. From what I understand it is unfixable externally.

The only thing that they may be able to do is find some sweet spot refresh frequency where this artifact does not exist (This may be why the rock is mandatory for use with the evolution).

As far as I know, Hitachi have not addressed this issue as yet (it seems like a terrible flaw to their design) and no-one, so far, has been able to find such a sweet spot frequency.

Is this the problem you were referring to?

Yep, this is the problem.

I wonder if they really did find the sweet spot or if the Rock Pro is simply compensating for the judder/tearing somehow.

It would seem strange that they would have fixed a problem that Hitachi themselves are unable to cope with. I guess it can be done. If they have bypassed the problem with Rock Pro, kudos to them!

Well, we'll see for ourselves at CES I guess!

Michael, maybe we can go to their booth together?

Is that because you're not sure if they'll let you in!? :) Just kidding. Sure, why not. It would be good to get multiple points of view with the exact same setup and demo. I remember hearing some of the varied feedback from CEDIA (which I did not attend) and thinking, "did these people go to the same demo?"

Michael,

I hope that phil doesn't punch me in the eye...

I agree 1000%, the CEDIA reports, particularly for scalers were either too sketchy to be useful or were so completely different from one another (one guy saying it was a perfect image, another saying the tearing was so awful, he had to wear sunshades). I guess we can meet up at the AVS party and take coordinate our efforts. I'm basically going to CES to look at scalers and plasmas. The budget is all ready, but I'm still on the fence.

Does anyone know if aSimilator will be shown at CES? I haven't seen Immersive on the CESWEB.ORG site (could they be showing at a booth from another partner?).

Come on Ofer, you know Phil wouldn't do that. He is NOT that kind of person. I think "HE" is the one who needs to look out for someone punching him in the eye:eek:!!!

FYI...We did not have a problem with "tearing" at CEDIA, just a slight "judder" problem which since has been discovered and rectified. It was just something very minor that wasn't set correctly.

Can't wait to finally meet you guys at CES:)!!! Make sure you say "Hi" and identify yourselves, OK?

Dave,

I'm just kidding about the black eye stuff (after all the stuff I said about ***, maybe I deserve one...), I hope you know that. I hope we can meet up at CES (I see no reason not to).

About the judder and tearing. You're correct, sorry about that. In any case, some people said it was the best picture and some said the judder got in their way of enjoying the movie + the demo software (lost in space) had judder in the transfer to begin with.

Some reported that the HITACHI engine suffered from both tearing and judder on the DVI input. Some claim it's the same engine in the Evolution, so it is prone to have the same problem. As I said, it's a very serious issue with the Hitachi, if !!! was able to find a fix for it, that alone deserves an award.

Anyway, Rock PRO is one of about 10 products on my priority list to view while I'm at CES. Wouldn't miss it for the world.

See you there Ofer!!!

To answer another question you asked earlier, I think Immersive isn't going to be at CES if I remember correctly. If they are, maybe they'll be partnered in another booth, but I don't think they're having their own:confused:

Go to the Processor forum and ask whether they will be there.

Dave,

I already did + some questions. I was really looking forward to comparing all 3 new scalers. :(