I owe an apology to Jeff (The Bland)  

A month or so ago I took issue with you. You're of the persuasion that increasing panel resolution should be the priority. And that's what primarily will give us the picture quality improvement we seek.
I, however, maintained that panel resolution was nearing a point that no further improvement is necessary. And that instead we would be better off if projector manufacturers were to concentrate on contrast and black level.

After living with an HT1000 for a while, I now realize that you were right and I was wrong. I now know that more and smaller pixels are the real road to improvement in DLP picture quality.
Why? Well of course it will permit the display to more finely resolve high resolution source material. But that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about here.

The fact is that DLP is burdened with a number of image artifacts. Some of which have not yet even been explored here.
And most all of these artifacts become less and less visible as pixels become smaller and smaller (or greater in number). It's just that simple.

Bob

Darin,

Regarding Jeff's position:

As I think about it, you may be right. I don't recall all of it very well anymore. But I think his position may be more accurately stated as wanting both more panel and source resolution. I think he's in the same camp as your and my mutual friend, Jerome.

But if that's the case then, as I mentioned, it's not actually what I'm talking about here. Let me try to explain.

I have no doubt that the HT1000 is making the most accurate DLP picture I have yet seen (or I should say the most accurate among all the DLP's I've yet owned).
Ironically, however, what I'm seeing is that this results in both good and bad. In some ways the picture is greatly improved. But in other ways it's not. Because I'm beginning to believe that this is also making some of the artifacts inherent to DLP more visible than what I've seen with less accurate displays.
It gets even more interesting. A lesser DLP (My X1 for example) actually does not make some of these flaws visible (or at least less visible). And because of this, the resulting picture in some ways is actually more pleasing to me (notice I said "some ways).
But, my limited viewing of a native 1280 DLP image, tells me I'm then starting to see a "smoothing out" of some of the things I'm seeing with my HT1000. And I'm now convinced that further increases in DMD resolution will make all this even less visible. While at the same time maintaining all the pleasing aspects of the DLP picture.

Again, what I'm observing with this has nothing to do with resolving source resolution. Fortunately, that will of course improve right along with this. But what I'm describing is just as relevant to viewing DVD.

Bob

Well if that's the case I'm remembering Jeff all wrong (it's been a while since those posts were made). And I should have left Jeff out of this. Sorry for that confusion.

What I am trying to do is get a handle on why I'm seeing some bad s**t with the HT1000 picture that I aint seeing with the X1 picture.
And why some of that bad s**t starts to go away with the HD2 picture. And I'm speculating that it will go away even more as the panel resolution increases beyond HD2. ;)

Well if a Radeon 7500 and Theater Tek (using either RGB or DVI) is s**t, then somebody tell me what I do to get out of the crapper. :D

Look. Let me say this and then I'll shut up. :)

I know Bob's eyeballs have to be wrong about this. Because Bob's eyeballs are just not seeing what every other person who owns an HT1000 is seeing. Their eyeballs are telling them something entirely different. That the picture is just all good. That there is no bad.

I had a long talk with Bob's eyeballs last night. I said "eyeballs, now you just listen to me. If I find out you're lying to me about this. If I find out you sons of bitches are just malcontent eyeballs that nitpick these subtle image qualities to death. Then I'm going to be pissed. And I may just think about getting me a new pair of eyeballs. Got that?"

Maybe that'll whip em into submission. We'll see (no pun intended). :)

Well said, Darin. Bob does plan on getting a D1 or a D2. He's trying to decide which now. :D

Lordy. It's all a sign of rather extreme neuroses. Aint it. :D

Well, this will begin to describe it...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...67#post2755567

This may have some relationship to what is now being called "temporal contouring" that's being talked about in that other thread. But I can't say I've noticed what's being described in that thread.

What I do see, though, are other anomalies which I think are related to the objects sometimes looking pasted in or superimposed. One way to describe all of it in simple terms is an overall artificial look to the picture. I'm now thinking back to the many times those accustomed to only a CRT image have described it as "harshness" or "digital looking". I'm seeing that really for the first time with the HT1000 picture because I've never seen what I would describe that way until this. And prior to this I've owned and used three D-ILA's and eight different DLP projectors.

It cannot be explained by HDTV vs DVD. What I'm seeing is equally evident with both. Nor can it be explained as being caused by the source devices. Because I used exactly the same source devices with the X1.

Believe me, Glenn, the last thing I want to happen is for other folks to start noticing something like this.

I remember several years ago when Li On got hold of a DLP and began to notice the effects seen due to dithering. He almost single handedly got all the rest of us to seeing something that was not widely recognized prior to that. And then even long before that I remember reading the forum when the effects of DLP "banding" were first noticed and how that got everyone to looking for that too. That one got forum members so riled that they were almost coming to blows with each other (ask Larry Davis).

Bob

That's an interesting coincidence, Mark. I sold my X1 to a local friend and he's using the same Sampo you're describing. He compared it to about a half dozen DVD players he had around the house and that Sampo without question gave him the best picture. He just ordered a Denon 1600 and should get it tomorrow. I'm going over tomorrow night and we're going to compare it to the Sampo both with his X1 and with my HT1k. Should be interesting.

p.s. I'm actually pulling for the Denon because he said if he likes it better he's gonna donate the Sampo to me. :)

I agree, Jeff. We do have enough pixel count now to display DVD with no compromises as long as we're viewing with picture sizes that do not reveal screendoor.
However, I now realize that this is true only with 3-panel display devices. And that it apparently does not hold true with DLP. I think it's almost to be expected that unwanted side effects will result from spinning a color wheel in front of a monochrome imaging chip. It's a Rube Goldbergish concept to start with.

I'm certainly not the first one to discover this. For example, we've been aware of dithering artifacts for some time now. And as you all know, Kuo recently emphasized that he feels this anomaly can be overcome by simply increasing the panel resolution. Even though the dithering will still be occurring, it will become less visible as pixels get smaller. And with a high enough pixel count it should be rendered invisible.

I'm speculating that what I'm seeing will probably be overcome with smaller pixels and greater densities as well.

Bob

In one of the many CRT vs digital debates we've been having over in the CRT forum, AVS member kaanage makes a good point.

With CRT we see what correlates to picture elements, except the edges are "dithered".
Our fixed pixel displays on the other hand are painting images which are composed of rectangular pixels. Pixels with sharply defined straight edges.
He's convinced that this is another reason that we need greatly increased pixel density. If we're going to be looking at images made with straight edged pixels, those pixels are going to need to be much smaller and much greater in quantity to be able to completely fool our vision. What we have now just may not be creating that illusion to a satisfactory degree.

Bob